#119: Change Your Mind to Change Your Life: The Power of Positive Self-Talk

Can changing how you talk to yourself change your life?

Discover the hidden power of transformative self-talk, essential for high-performers stuck in a cycle of self-criticism. Learn actionable strategies to reframe negative thoughts and supercharge your performance. By the end of this episode, you'll have two SUPER tools you can practice immediately to transform your inner dialogue and change your life.

ACTION STEP FROM THE EPISODE:
1. Record/write your inner dialogue first this in the morning and then listen/read it. Coach yourself  as you would a client, friend,  or child.
2. Apply the three questions whenever you find yourself in a cycle of negative self-talk.
- Is it true?
- Is it helpful?
- Is it kind?
If it's not all three, it's a negative soundtrack and needs to be flipped or replaced immediately.

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Read Sheldon's post that inspired this episode to dive deeper on this topic.
• Check out the Magic Monday Newsletter for more on high-leverage tools and other awesome tools. Subscribe to get first dibs on all future tools.
• A Reference and Quick guide are coming soon for this topic. For more free action tools to help you design & live your best life, Go HERE

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Transcript

Jeff Corrigan: 0:00

Welcome back to Habit Masters. I'm Jeff. I'm Sheldon. And this is the best. Podcast for bridging the gap between where you've been and where you want to go. And today we have a super special topic Sheldon's gonna tell you about we do it.

Sheldon Mills: 0:13

Yes So in today's episode we're going to talk about the transformative power of self talk and how our inner dialogue is shaping our reality more than we realize and Unfortunately, it's holding us back, from reaching our potential, but most importantly, we're going to give you some actionable things you can do today to dramatically rewire that inner dialogue, that self talk that will have a profound impact on your life. I know that's a big promise. But we're gonna try to fulfill it.

Jeff Corrigan: 0:45

This episode is all about changing your mindset to change your life. And we're gonna give you the tools like Sheldon said. So stick around, every episode we try to give you action steps that you can apply immediately to implement. The tools that we're talking about on this show. So Sheldon, kick it off for us.

Sheldon Mills: 1:00

Okay. It all started with this little blurb of a story that I read that got me thinking about this and reminding me of all these connections in previous episodes we've done. And I just want to share this quick story. So it's from author Michael Lewis. He's the author of money ball and the blind side, the big short. So huge author. And he says this. As I've gotten older, I could not help but notice the effect on people of the stories they told about themselves. If you listen to people, if you just sit around and listen, you'll find there are patterns in the way they talk about themselves. There's the kind of person who's always the victim. They're always unlucky, always on the receiving end of some injustice. There are lots of versions of this, and you've got to be very careful about how you tell these stories because it starts to become you. You are, in the way you craft your narrative, crafting your life. And the underlying truth behind this is the way you shape your thoughts and the conversations you have with yourself about yourself. They shape your destiny and when you talk to yourself equals the way that you view the world and the way you view the world. Determines your response, right? And your response determines what you get out of life. And so if you can change that, like your view, your perception, your expectations, like we always say this all the time, change the way you look at things, the things you look at change,. Jeff Corrigan: Change the You look at things. Yeah. At yourself. And your life will change. Yeah. Gosh, I think the most dramatic, we talked about this last episode, didn't we, Jeff , about how in my relationships, if I just looked at it differently, all of a sudden it was different. And I had way more power and control over everything. If I just chose to figure it out, how I can't say like, sometimes it doesn't feel like a choice if I'm honest, but I think it is that's the real secret at the end of the day is it really is a choice. We just got to figure out how.

Jeff Corrigan: 2:55

Yeah, absolutely. Because , what you believe about yourself and how you talk to yourself does become your reality. And. So you gotta look at your life and think, if things aren't going well, how am I seeing myself, right? What am I saying to myself on a regular basis? There was actually, I feel like you should read the example from the book, was it the dog training one? Oh yes.. Yeah. One of those you just read to me.. Okay.

Sheldon Mills: 3:19

So there's this book, we had a dog a while back fairly short-lived'cause we also had our sixth child shortly before that . And it was too much. We had to admit that it was just too much.

. Jeff Corrigan: 3:29

Having a good life is about knowing when to say yes and when to say no.

Sheldon Mills: 3:34

So I got this dog or this dog, I got this book called don't shoot the dog, the new wave teaching and training. And in all honesty, I got more out of this book about how to interact with myself and others than I did about training dogs, because it's based off of these sound principles of behavioral change. And she actually talks about this in here. So this is the story I think you're talking about, Jeff. It's all about positive reinforcement, and how positive reinforcement no matter how sporadically the act or behavior is happening, like positive reinforcement will intensify that positive, behavior, and it is absolutely the best way to change behavior. And to improve more quickly. So here's the party's talking about switching to positive reinforcement is often all that is necessary. And she gives examples about, it's the most effective way to help a child who's a bedwetter, like a private praise and a hug for dry sheets in the morning. Like that has a profound effect like mentally. And that actually works on yourself. So here's the story. At a Shakespeare group I once belonged to, I met a Wall Street lawyer in his late 40s who was an avid squash player. The man had overheard me chatting about training on his way out the door after he remarked that he thought he would try positive reinforcement on his squash game. Instead of cursing his errors as was his habit, he would try praising his good shots. Okay, think about this. Like we all curse ourselves when we mess up, right? So instead of doing that, he decides, okay, I'm gonna praise myself for when I do something right. Yes. Two weeks later, I ran into him. How's the squash game? A look of wonder and joy crossed his face, an expression not frequently seen on Wall Street lawyers. Then he says this. At first, I felt like a dang fool, he told me, saying, Way to go, P D! Attaboy! For every good shot. Heck, when I was practicing alone, I even patted myself on the back. And then my game started to get better. I'm four rungs higher on the club ladder than I've ever been. I'm whipping people I could hardly take a point from before. And I'm having more fun. Since I'm not yelling at myself all the time, I don't finish a game feeling angry and disappointed. If I made a bad shot, never mind. Good ones will come along. And I find I really enjoy it when the other guy makes a mistake, gets mad, throws his racket. I know it won't help his game, and I just smile. What a fiendish opponent, and just from switching to positive reinforcement. Two of my kids are in soccer at the moment and their coaches are great, but one of them tends to, I don't know how to explain it. I think it means, well, he's a wonderful person, but. Focuses too much on like what they're doing wrong, you know what I mean? And so when you tell a child that out there practicing or in the game and you quit yelling out like quit stabbing don't stab at the ball. What are they thinking about not stabbing the ball? Do you know what I mean stabbing the ball? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so it's like It's funny because I think it's human nature to focus on the gap, right? But if we've talked about this a thousand times You'll make far quicker progress if you focus on the gain even if the behavior is sporadic even if you know, let's say you're a coach and Four out of five times they get it wrong for the one time they get it, right Praise the heck out of that one and tell them why that was right and how they did a good job on that and their Actions and their behavior will improve much faster than pointing out the four times. They didn't quite get it,

Jeff Corrigan: 7:12

right? Well, and there's a time right corrections a great thing, but you should do it Basically the reverse method. It's like, if they are doing it the wrong way or a way that's not going to be effective, you don't say, Hey, stop doing that ineffective way. Like, stop stabbing the ball. You said like, Hey, let's remember you want to do this, right? Remind them of the good thing they should be doing. And then like you just said, want them to do right. And then when they do that, reinforce that and be like, praise that specific action, right? Anybody who's done any amount of coaching effectively kind of knows these details, but I've jumped on with. On the mountain biking team and become a somewhat of a support coach on that as well with my son and a similar situation where with mountain biking, right? That's one of the core components if he's doing something good, I'll praise him and I'll be specific about the praise. And then if he's doing something that's not effective. I'll actually remind him like, Hey, remember, you want to lean into the turns, so it's reminder of the good and then a reinforcement and a praise for good actions. And like you said, no matter how infrequent it is, right. If you go back to some of our older episodes, when we talked about tiny habits and BJ fog, and we're sharing some of his insights. There's , some great examples in there of positive reinforcement, how impactful that can be on even the smallest amount of positive action, right? It's like, Oh, it just, even the slightest thing that you did, right? Like if I praise that, it goes way further than reminding them of all the things they're doing wrong. So I think this though, it's great with coaching others. But like you said, Sheldon, it's great for coaching ourselves.

Sheldon Mills: 8:48

There's this part of me, okay, I this hits a little close to home because I recognize how bad I am at this, right? And how often, your attention you're giving your kids is only when they're doing something you don't want them to do. Do you know what I mean? It's like, but I recognize, yeah, but I recognize. That it's not like, Oh, this is how I act with my kids. No, this is my, this is the way I think, right? I get after myself. I live in, that's why I loved the gap in the game. It's because I recognize how much of my thought pattern is in the gap. And not the gain, I can almost feel it, even the way I'm talking about it right now, it's almost like trying to figure out how to think in the gain and not in the gap, you know what I mean? So I recognize that if I can change this thought pattern and just how I think and how I talk to myself, it will de facto bleed into every relationship, every communication at work and at home church everywhere. So I think it's true, Jeff, it starts with ourselves.

Jeff Corrigan: 9:50

Yeah, and interestingly enough, I think we treat others oftentimes better than we treat ourselves and when we start treating ourselves better, that will inevitably turn itself outward and we'll start treating others even better than we already do,? Because there's just like a social treat, you have to treat people at a certain level of decency, right? And we know that social contract does get broken occasionally with some people, but as a general rule I think most people kind of Especially adults, , they've been trained to say, I will treat everybody with this level of courtesy, no matter what. Yeah. But we don't do that with ourselves and we should have a contract with ourselves to say, I will only treat myself with this level of courtesy or better, right? Like this level of love or better and hold to it and be really conscious of the. Internal dialogue that's keeping you stuck, keeping you back and that lack of belief or self doubt that's keeping you from taking the next steps and achieving your big goals and even trying to achieve your , your big goals, because so much of. Accomplishing anything in life starts with a belief, and we talked about this a minute ago, but it all starts with a belief without a belief. There is no path, right? We're not going to try anything. We don't honestly believe we have a chance at it's like, or at least we have some, you know, like, Hey, I can tackle the big problems, right? So it's like, yeah, I heard a quote the other day, nothing was ever accomplished that didn't start with a belief, and I probably just misquoted it, but there you go. And I don't remember who said it. So don't ask me that. But yeah, I think that really stuck out to me though, as like, Oh that's a profound truth. It's like nothing can happen without first believing. And that's why mindset always comes before action. We've talked about this on the show. A lot is first, you must have the mindset of belief and then comes. The action, the implementation.

Sheldon Mills: 11:42

Yeah. It's so well connected. Okay. This is in conjunction with a blog post that I wrote a week ago. The title of the blog post, you can find it on our website. Expectations determine outcome. But In there, I gave a few things to dive into more to help us change our thoughts. One is a talk by Russell M. Nelson. He's the president of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And he talks about labels and how powerful labels can be. It is a profound just a wonderful discourse. Another one I talked about is two previous episodes that podcasts that we had, our 22nd episode. So that's like two years ago. It's

Jeff Corrigan: 12:25

a long time, almost four years ago, actually. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Sheldon Mills: 12:28

With Dr. John Hatch, he's a what's, what are you trying to remember exact title, but. He's a doctor. Yeah.

Jeff Corrigan: 12:35

Yeah. He's a brain specialist. Yeah. Essentially. He helps people kind of realign. He doesn't like a surgeon or anything, but he does. He helps people kind of realign their brain chemistry so that they can overcome traumas and things like that.

Sheldon Mills: 12:49

Pretty cool. Yeah. He goes into a ton of stuff in that episode, but as the part that relates to this stuff is he has this saying, and he's not the one who coined this, but that things that fire together, wire together and things that fire apart. Wire apart. And we train our brain to make these connections and just how powerful the mind is. He gives the story about running and I'm not going to do it justice here. Go back and listen to it. But basically and twenty second recap is this is like training for this thing. And trying to run way more than he's ever been used to running. And he's like, I hated it and I was hurt, painful, hurt. And finally he told himself, , no, I'm going to think differently about this. And he talks about this process of literally repeating over and over his mind while he's doing it, like, I love running. I love this. And at first it feels fake, but any behavior repeated long enough, there's like this cognitive dissonance, either you have to stop the behavior or you have to change your beliefs to fit your actions. And he talks about how literally as he started to repeat it and started to believe it, all of a sudden , I wasn't getting hurt anymore. My body would heal faster. I could do these things. And sure, there's a certain amount of like, yeah, you can't go out and run a hundred miler as a newbie and not expect to not be able to walk to be pain. Yeah. Lots of pain. But honestly, I mean, placebos are like the core of this, right? We all know that placebo is in some instances have just as much success rate as the actual procedure or the actual medicine, right? Like the power of the mind is that. crazy, powerful. And that's in a positive way. But I'm here to say it's like, if we're not careful in a negative way as well, like we at first story, we all know people. With that mindset, how could life be anything but terrible, you know?

Jeff Corrigan: 14:46

Exactly. That negative reinforcement is just as powerful, if not more so. And they have shown that to be true as far as negative. Inputs are often more powerful than positive inputs, right? You need what double or even quadruple the positive inputs to counteract the negative inputs. So just think about that. The next time you're telling yourself, you're an idiot or I didn't do this or why am I blind or talking to your kids about that?

Sheldon Mills: 15:13

Like, I mean, hopefully you stop right away. Now's the time to stop. So the episode 44. We talk about the Pygmalion effect and that's a psychological phenomenon where on high expectations lead to improved performance and like the expectations we have on others and we're also saying ourselves have a huge influence on the outcome, the actions, the behaviors, Reasons there

Jeff Corrigan: 15:41

to, go ahead. I want to share with this. It was in a, just in a post by someone that I've followed lately. His name's Billy Oppenheimer. If you haven't checked out his stuff, I've loved his stuff. But he talks about a baseball player Trea Turner, right? Yeah, and this is just last December. So last December, Trea Turner signed an 11 year, 300 million dollar contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. Just a little. Clearly a good player, like, and if you follow baseball, you know who Trea Turner is. But he says he proceeded to the season batting second and incrementally dropped to the bottom of the lineup as his performance plummeted. The Phillies fan base support of him did too ? I was at a game on July 24th against the Orioles. And every time Turner came up to bat, he got booed. Eight games later, Turner went 0, and five dropped his batting average to a career low. And in the bottom of the 12th inning, he made a fielding error that cost the Phillies the game. Two days later, this is where it transitions, right? Two days later, a fan known as the Philly captain posted a video. And he said, let's not boo Trea Turner. He said, let's give him a standing ovation every time he comes to bat. Our boy is in his head and he needs some love. The next night, every time Turner went to bat, the Phillies fans gave him a standing ovation. With a boost from layer three, this is part of the post, sorry. In his third at bat, Turner hit an RBI single. The next night, he hit a game winning home run. Since the ovations, Turner has played some of the best baseball of his career. Since the ovations, he has led the MLB. In on base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs, and RBIs. Turner bought billboards around the city that said, Thank you, Philly. So, this is just the perfect example of what we're talking about. And he, when he talks about with the layers, in this article that he wrote about there's three layers of expectation. There's your internal expectation, and then there's two layers of external expectation, like your family, essentially those closest to you, and then there's the general population expectation. And in this guy's case, since he's a famous baseball player, right? The third layer is rather large and impactful, but just them turning it around and saying, we're going to give you a standing ovation every time you come to bat, completely changed his mindset and his belief in himself and changed his playing. And this is what you can do for yourself, ? Or you can have the opposite effect where if you're booing yourself, every time you make a mistake. That's essentially what we're doing. I've got tears in my eyes because I know how true this is not only in my own life, but in the life of my kids and life of all the kids that I've ever met. I have an accountability group and like a mastermind group and a coaching mentor session with a couple of people. And recently they just told me how impactful it was that I believed in them, that I thought that their idea was great. Out of all the conversations we've had, that was the thing they mentioned the most was how impactful it was that I believed in their idea and their ability to accomplish that idea because they were struggling with the belief in themselves to be able to do it, right? It's like, all of us have imposter syndrome when we take on new goals because new goals are outside of our comfort zone. It's outside

Sheldon Mills: 18:39

our experience. It's outside anything we've done. So of course it feels like we're imposters. Yeah.

Jeff Corrigan: 18:45

Like, so if we're feeling like imposters are overwhelmed, that's probably a good sign that we're on the right path. But we need to tell, talk to ourselves better, give ourselves more props and have more positive dialogue internally.

Sheldon Mills: 19:00

This brings me to sometimes we talk about this a false belief. This is, bear with me for a sec. I swear this will make sense.. The, I think the societally there's this belief that as I get older, I'm gonna decline in my health and ability and fitness. I read an article the other day in The Guardian and it talks about the science, about 13 ways. We peak later than our forties, and it's all these things from mental things to physical things, like the ultra marathoners, like the hundred miles plus, like it's like forties and 50 year olds who are at the best of the best. And if you think about it, I've seen some even like memes on, on Instagram, and it's like a 54 year old in the 1970s. And it's like the golden girls, right? And a 54 year old now. And it's like this fit woman at the beach, like, I mean, And it's literally the cultural perception, . With Dr. Hatch, the story about running and how he hated it, but when he could change his internal dialogue, he got to the point where he loved it. Like it, it literally changed how he felt about it. Yeah. David Goggins book, never finished., , I've read his first book and I'm reading this other one and the biggest thing that's happened for me is my expectation. My belief in what's possible has just grown. My wife, we did this run where we did a Spartan race and it worked out. We were going to do the shorter one, but that happened to be on the Sunday. And we wanted to do it on a Saturday. So we could, you know, not on Sunday. Anyway, we ended up doing the half marathon, the 13 miler. I had like a 5, 000 foot elevation gain and descent. And I think it was like 50 obstacles or something like that. It was like way outside my wife's comfort zone. Way outside of it. But she prepared again, like we never prepare as much as we think we can, or we will but we did it loaded up on the caffeine and she did it and she finished the whole thing, 13 miles with obstacles, I think it was closer to 6, 000 feet of elevation gain up a mountain and down. And that was so far outside her comfort zone that. Like pushed her mind into what is possible I mean, now it's like, Oh yeah. Eight mile with obstacles. Easy, right? Half marathon. I've done a half marathon with obstacles in this and up and down a mountain. Sometimes I think. We always talk about this. It's not our body. It's like, it's our mind that limits us. So if you want to dramatically change that quickly, do something that's like, well, outside of what you think is possible. I'm a big fan of survivor, the game show. And you get these people on there and they're always like, this is, I never thought this was possible. I never thought I could do these hard things. It's like changed my life. And it's because they've done something so far outside what they thought they could do. Yeah. Like, you know, once the mind is stretched, it can't go back.

Jeff Corrigan: 21:58

Yeah. It's like, Oh, wow. We're all far more capable than we believe we are. Yeah. And so giving yourself goals or expectations that are higher than what you currently even believe, and creating belief around that obviously is key. It's like you just said the other day, it's like the thinker and the prover, right? First comes the thinker, then comes the prover and the prover oftentimes, once you prove it, now you're thinking becomes even greater than you imagined because wow, if that was possible, what else is possible? It's like, this is insane.? Sheldon Mills: I just wanted If people aren't familiar with that how to explain to me like this, the human mind behaves as if it's, we're divided into like two parts, there's the thinker and there's the prover and the thinker can think about. Anything right. And then the prover has to on command, prove whatever the thinker thinks to be true. So the prover has no choice. If you think this, that's why we can rationalize and justify just about anything, right? Yeah. We will find obscure things to prove it true and then behave in such a way to, to be a self fulfilling prophecy. I find this most happens in relationships, relationships politics, politics,

Sheldon Mills: 23:12

like Yeah. Yeah. And so that, that's what we're talking about there, right?, we'll probably elaborate more on that in future episodes. Yeah, I think so. Magic

Jeff Corrigan: 23:19

Monday. To finish off this episode, we promise you tools. There's two things we wanna give to you. One is from David Goggins, who, if you don't know who that is, he's not only an author, but he's also a former Navy Seal.

Sheldon Mills: 23:31

Yeah. Ultra endurance athlete. Like one of the biggest speakers. You know, I would call him motivation. Well, he is actually, yeah, he is a

Jeff Corrigan: 23:39

motivational speaker, so motivational speaker, author former Navy SEAL just like an extreme athlete, right? This guy's done any hard thing you can imagine. He's pretty much

Sheldon Mills: 23:50

the worst circumstances and overcome like crazy stuff in his life. That's probably why his stories are so. Amazing. Anyway,

Jeff Corrigan: 23:58

keep going. But yes, so if you know who he is, sorry for introducing him again, but one of the tools we're going to give you is from him. And the second tool we're going to give you is from John Acuff, one of our other favorite authors who apparently stole this idea, which all ideas essentially are stolen, right? We build on the shoulders of giants at all times. We tweak them, we change them, we adapt them. Yeah, exactly. We adapt them, so from David Goggins and John Acuff, I want to give you two tools to help you start. Mastering this idea of how do I change my inner dialogue so I can change my life, get more positive results. So go for it. You want to share

Sheldon Mills: 24:29

the David? Yeah, I'll do the David Goggins ones. You can do Johnny cuff. So I'm just gonna read this. It's from his book, never finished. One day, a couple of years ago, not long after Rampage got my training from 10 miles of running per day to 20, 20 miles a day. That's a lot of running. I felt drained and sore, too tired to run and kept telling myself that I needed a day off. As I relaxed on the couch, I tuned into my self talk. Then I grabbed my recorder and whined in the microphone. I wanted to hear how it sounded out loud. I was real with myself. I cataloged my recent runs and nagging injuries and described how I thought a day off might help me. I made a solid case for a much needed rest day, but when I played it back, the jury of one was unconvinced because my inner He swears here. My inner B was suddenly the emperor with no clothes. Buck naked in the light of day, he was impossible to ignore and even harder to stomach. I was off the couch and out on the road in a matter of seconds. Many people wake up with dread or doubt day after day. They dread their workouts or class load in their job. Maybe they have a test or presentation that makes them nervous, or they know that the day's workout will hurt. While they linger in bed, they tune into their soft, self forgiving talk, which doesn't make it any easier to get up and moving. Most people rise up eventually, but they remain in a daze for hours because they aren't fully engaged with their lives. Their self talk has made them numb to the moment, and they sleepwalk through their day. So here's the crux here. The way we speak to ourselves in moments of doubt is crucial. Whether or not the stakes are high, because our words become actions and our actions build habits that can coat our minds and bodies with a plaque of ambivalence, hesitancy, and passivity that separate us from our own lives. If any of this sounds familiar, grab your phone and record your inner dialogue as soon as you wake up. Don't hold back, spill all the dread, laziness, stress into the mic. Now listen to it, nine times out of ten you won't like what you hear. It will make you cringe. You won't want your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your boss, or your kids to hear your unfiltered weakness, but you should, because then you can repurpose it. You can use it to remind yourself that changes must be made. Listening might inspire you to commit to your life in a deeper way, to be your best at work, at school, or in the gym. It can challenge you to rewrite the narrative so that when you bed down, you won't feel like you wasted another valuable day. Do it again the next morning. But this time, once you get through listening to your whining about all the crap you don't want to do, sit up in bed and lay down a second tape. Pretend you're motivating a friend or a loved one who's going through challenges. Be respectful of the issues they face, but positive, forceful, and realistic too. This is a skill that demands repetition, and if you do it regularly, you'll find it won't take long for your self talk to flip from doubt and dread to optimism and empowerment. The conditions of your life might not change a whole lot at first, but your words will make sure your approach does change. And that, We'll eventually enable you to shift everything, but you must speak the truth and be willing to listen. Don't be afraid of your weakness or doubt. Don't be embarrassed to pretend it doesn't exist. It surfaced for a reason, so use it to flip the dynamic of your life. So,

Jeff Corrigan: 27:31

in a nutshell, the action step for today is to write or record your inner dialogue when you first wake up tomorrow. Like the

Sheldon Mills: 27:40

unfiltered, like how you really feel about what you know, like the task at hand.

Jeff Corrigan: 27:45

Don't hold back people. This is, you know, all progress starts by telling the truth, right? So tell the truth. What are you feeling? You know, what's holding you back? Put down your inner dialogue, whatever it actually is. then listen or read it out loud

. Sheldon Mills: 27:56

You see what your self dialogue really is. Do you know what you analyze if it's positive reinforcement or is it just this list of like all the things you're falling short on and this would be very insightful.

Jeff Corrigan: 28:07

Yes, exactly. And you're going to filter it. I know you're gonna, right? Because we're just trained to filter. So don't. Do your best to not filter, right? Unfiltered. And then, like we said, read or listen to it out loud like David Goggin suggested. Then the next day, do it again, and with love and compassion, coach yourself through it. But not just love and compassion, but with encouragement, like, Hey, this, I get it. I get where you're at. These are struggles. These are real. However, there's where they're holding you back, right? That's keeping you from what you really want in life. The negative self talk, the victim hood. Anything that's going on that's keeping you from your goals, right? You could do this. And learn from the master, David Goggins. He's definitely a guy that knows how to take on a challenge, ? For a while he was doing a thousand pull ups a day. Like, that's ludicrous numbers. And then the second thing, okay, here's the second thing, and this is a way to flip your soundtracks from negative to positive throughout the day. From John Acuff, I love this tool, it's one of my favorite tools, it's just three questions you need to ask yourself about the inner dialogue you're having. First, is it true? And we can tell truth, right? We know truth. Even if we've tried to justify it, is it true? And even if it is true, there's a second question to filter, right? Is it helpful? So is it true? Is it helpful? Those are the first two questions. If it's true, great, but if it's not helpful, get rid of it, right? And then the third one is it kind? Yeah. With those three questions, you can pretty much filter out all the negative dialogue, ? You can call it for what it is and say, oh, well, it might be true. And may be in some way I've justified it as helpful, right? Like, Oh, I've always had coaches who told me that , you're an idiot and you need to do better., but then the third one that really is the kicker is it kind? So is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? And if it's not all three, it's a negative soundtrack and it's time to flip it, do something better with it. Change the way you're talking to yourself.

Sheldon Mills: 30:06

Love it. Okay. We're going to wrap this up. So in my post, I shared one more section all about expectations and identity as it relates to children, because we're both fathers, family is the number one priority for us. And I obviously not going to go into it much here, but I have a link in there and I, and these bullet points of this profound teachings when it comes to how to motivate and praise children. And how you need to focus on the character more than the behavior.. Blog post titled expectations determine outcome. So you can read it there if you want.

Jeff Corrigan: 30:42

You guys., thank you so much for joining us today. And we appreciate. You listening you being a part of this and letting us be a part of your journey. And what that led me to Sheldon is that if you haven't gotten on our magic Monday newsletter yet, you should do it. It's, we've now kind of incorporated everything with the newsletter and then the podcast and then these tools we're going to give you on a regular basis are all going to build around the same principle. Complimentary, yeah. Yeah, they're all complimentary, and it's all designed to help you implement and practice this in your life and help you transform, we're talking about bridging the gap from where you've been to where you want to go. And these tools are going to help you get there. We're practicing them in our own lives. And we want to share as much of that with you guys as possible. So thank you so much for listening. You're amazing. Sheldon. Anything you want to say?

Sheldon Mills: 31:30

Ah, I don't know. I said too much.

Jeff Corrigan: 31:35

We believe in you. Now start believing in yourself, it all starts with positive self talk, guys, time to start living your best life.