Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

One incident in your life could change everything.

I was in kindergarten, and there was

this noise outside the window.

And the teacher says, wow, there are fire trucks outside.

And I remember I just lit up, because I felt like they

were real-life superheroes.

I couldn't see outside the window,

and all the kids started grabbing their chairs.

And I grabbed my chair, I was so excited.

And I bring it over to the window sill.

And there's this big, iron grate radiator dividing the window.

I remember when I finally got to see my heroes, my face lit up.

And about a split second after that, one of the other children

grabbed my chair, and I went face-first, head-first, right

into the radiator.

I was bleeding, and I was rushed to the hospital.

My mother said I was never the same after that.

I had these learning difficulties, very challenged

focus.

My concentration was really compromised.

I had a very poor memory.

I couldn't retain information.

I wouldn't be able to read like the other kids.

And then I didn't know what was wrong with me.

It actually took me an extra three to four years just

to learn how to read, and I actually

taught myself how to read by reading comic books late

at night.

And my favorite superheroes growing up actually

were the X-Men, because they didn't fit in.

They were the mutants.

They were the outcasts.

And I felt, growing up with these learning challenges,

that I didn't fit in.

And I felt like I was one of those people

without the superpowers.

I found out the X-Men School for the Gifted run

by Professor X, Charles Xavier, actually resided

right there in Westchester, New York, and that's where I lived.

And so I remember, every weekend,

when I was about eight or nine years old,

I would ride my bicycle around my neighborhood,

and I wanted to find that school,

because I wanted to run away.

I wanted to run away to find my school, to find my superpowers,

to find my super friends.

And really, I remember a defining moment

when I was 9 years old.

I remember that a teacher was talking to another adult,

thinking I wasn't paying attention,

or maybe thinking that I wasn't smart enough to understand

what she was saying.

And she pointed right at me and said,

that is the boy with the broken brain.

And I remember how hard that hit me.

Children understand more than you think that they understand,

and I remember always referring back to that moment

all through school.

Whenever I didn't do well I was like,

oh, it's because I know I'm broken.

It's because I'm different.

It's because my mind doesn't work

like everybody else's does.

So all of high school was this-- was my struggles.

I would work so much harder than everybody else,

and I always thought it was unfair,

because my grades didn't reflect that.

But I was lucky enough to get into a university.

And I remember freshman year I took all these classes,

ready to achieve, and I actually did worse,

and things got even more difficult for me.

And I was ready to quit school, because I didn't have the money

as it was to go to college, and I didn't want

to waste that and waste time.

And so when I told that to my friend, my friend was like,

Jim, before you quit school, tell your parents

that you're leaving.

Why don't you come with me this weekend?

I'm going to visit my family this weekend.

Just get some time away.

Get some perspective.

So I agree to go there.

And I remember, right before dinner,

his father was walking me around his property.

And they're pretty well-to-do.

And he asked me this very innocent question,

which is the worst question that you could ask me at this time.

He says, Jim, how's school?

And I just-- it just hits me.

I start crying and bawling right in front

of this complete stranger.

And I tell him the whole story-- how I had a brain injury,

and I don't learn like everybody else,

and I'm the boy with the broken brain,

and school is just not for me.

And then he says, Jim, stop for a minute.

And he looked me right in the eyes

and asked me this question.

Says, Jim, why are you in school?

Why are you in school?

What do you want to be?

What do you want to do?

What do you want to have?

What do you want to share?

And honestly, I never thought about that before.

I start to answer him, he says, stop.

And he pulls out, from his back pocket, a diary--

like, a journal-- and he tears out a few sheets.

And he hands them to me, and he makes

me write down my answers--

my answers of who I want to be, what do I want to do?

What do I want to have?

What do I want to share with the world?

And I don't know how much time went by, but when I was done,

I start folding up the sheets of paper to put in my pocket.

And he grabs them right out of my hand.

And I'm freaking out, because I wasn't expecting anyone

to see my dreams and my fantasies, my goals.

And he starts reading them to himself.

When he's done-- I don't know how much time went by.

But he looks at me, says, Jim you

are this close to every single thing on that list.

And I'm just thinking-- he spreads his fingers

about a foot apart.

And I'm thinking, there's no way.

Give me 10 lifetimes, I'm not going to crack that list.

And he takes his fingers, and he puts them

to the side of my head--

my temple, right here--

meaning that between my ears is the key.

It's my mind.

It's my brain.

And he walks me to a room of his home,

and it's wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor

covered in books.

And I started looking at the title of these books,

and there are these biographies of incredible men and women

throughout history, .

And some very early personal growth books--

Norman Vincent Peale, "The Power of Positive Thinking,"

"The Magic of Thinking Big," "Psycho-Cybernetics,"

"Think and Grow Rich--" all these books on mindset,

the power of the mind.

And he says, Jim, I want you to read one of these books a week.

And I'm thinking, have you not heard anything I've said?

I have all of these learning difficulties and all

these learning problems.

I have so much schoolwork to do.

We have midterms.

And he says, stop.

He's like, Jim, don't let school get

in the way of your education.

But I said, that's really good insight,

but I really can't do it.

I don't want to promise this and break my promise.

And a very smart man--

what he does is he reaches into his pocket

and he pulls out my goals, my dreams, my bucket

list, if you will.

And this time, he starts reading every single one of my goals,

all my dreams, out loud.

And something about hearing your dreams

coming from a stranger's voice incanted out

into the universe--

it shook my heart.

It shook my spirit, my soul something fierce.

So I commit to reading one book a week with that leverage

and motivation.

And fast forward-- now I'm at school,

and I have a pile of books that I have to read for school,

and a pile of books that I want to read that I

promised to read for my life.

I can't even keep up with one of those piles.

And then I saw the mug of tea, and on it

had an incredible genius named Albert Einstein,

and it had a quote there that said,

"The same level of thinking that's created the problem

won't solve the problem."

And it made me ask a new question.

It made me ask this question--

what's my problem?

And I came up with this answer saying, well,

I'm a real slow learner.

I learn very slowly.

I have a very slow brain.

Well, how do I think differently about it?

Well, maybe I can learn how to learn faster,

learn how to learn.

And another part of me woke up, thinking,

there has to be a better way.

People have seen the movie "The Matrix," and they say, oh,

that's a science fiction movie.

And I go, no, the matrix is a documentary.

We've all been programmed.

For 400 years, the Jesuits have said, give me a child

until it's seven, and I will show you the man.

What people didn't understand they were saying is,

if I get the program the first seven years,

I will determine the outcome of that individual's life.

Very simple understanding-- if you go to an Apple store

and you buy an iPod and you take it out of the store

and you push Play on the iPod, nothing plays.

And then you're now upset about the fact you just

spent all this money, and your iPod doesn't work,

and then some little seven-year-old kid next to you

looks up and goes, hey, hey mister,

unless you download something first, it will not work.

The idea is exactly the same.

The mind has a conscious creative mind,

but a subconscious programmed mind.

The conscious mind does not go into full operation

until after age seven.

The first seven years, the mind is in a lower vibrational

state called theta.

The relevance of theta is that it

represents imagination, which is what kids under seven live in.

Half the world is imagination.

The mother says, give me the broom.

The child says, I don't know what you're talking about.

This is a horse.

So to the child, the broom, in the imagination state of theta,

actually is the horse.

So theta is imagination.

More important, theta is hypnosis.

The relevance about that is if you

think of all the rules an individual must learn

to become a functional member of a family

and a community, thousands of rules.

I say, well, how do you teach an infant thousands of rules?

And the idea is, well, you can't give them a book,

and you can't teach them in a school.

So basically, what we have to understand is this--

nature created the first seven years of download hypnosis

to observe other people-- the parents, the siblings,

and the community--

observe their behavior and directly download

their behavior as the foundational download

of behavior.

When we're babies, we believe,

in our autonomic nervous system--

the part that we can't govern with our thoughts,

the part we can't instruct--

we believe, deeply in that autonomic nervous system,

that love is essential for our survival,

because as small human babies, it is.

Someone has to care enough about us

to give us food and clothing and shelter.

We can't get those things on our own.

Other Animal species can do it from day one by themselves,

but we can't.

So it is there, in our DNA, from the day

we are born that love is essential for our survival.

But we know, as adults, that a life with love in it

is delicious and soul-nourishing,

but we can actually live without it,

because we can obtain our own food and clothing and shelter.

But for most people, they live their whole life

believing that love is still essential for survival,

and it drives their behavior hugely.

And here's the best way I've come to be

able to explain that so far--

when we are little, from an emotional maturation

perspective, we are what's called egocentric.

So you believe that the way that people

are in your environment-- you believe

they are the way they are because of you.

So when they're happy, you link it, in your mind, immediately--

not consciously; it's wired in your nervous system

immediately--

that's because I just told a joke.

That's because I just did a beautiful finger painting.

And so parts of your personality are born from that.

The observations you make on people's faces

that light them up-- you link it to your own behavior.

However, sadly, the same thing also

happens when the people in your environment

are dissatisfied or unhappy.

You link it to you.

So before the age of seven, every single human

has created a belief in their own deficiency.

And we do it to make sense of our environment.

Let's say normally when your dad comes home

from work the first thing he does is picks you up

and plays with you.

You love it.

You look forward to it.

And then one day, he doesn't do that,

and you're sent to your room.

And you can hear he and your mother

having an intense conversation in the kitchen.

There's raised voices.

There's fist-banging on the table.

And you don't understand it, other than that it feels yucky

in your nervous system.

Your brain, in that moment, is looking for an explanation

for this scenario, because it's brand new,

and it's uncomfortable for you.

And we can't look into their world

and see that dad's behaving with such intensity

because he was just made redundant,

and now he doesn't know how on Earth he's

going to pay for your education.

So the expression with intensity is actually

out of deep love and care for you.

You can't see that when your egocentric.

All you know is that it feels uncomfortable.

And the only way your brain can make sense of what's going on

is to begin to believe that there's

something wrong with you.

When we're children, we have this thing in our head that I

call the meaning-making machine.

And a meaning-making machine tries

to grant meaning to everything that happens in our lives.

Our mom or our dad yell at us or send us to a corner,

and we may not necessarily get the meaning that they

are trying to install on us.

They may simply be trying to make us more disciplined.

We may take on our own meanings.

Mom wants me in a corner because I'm not important to her.

Dad asks me to be quiet because he doesn't

want to hear what I have to say, because what I say

isn't important.

Mom doesn't want to talk to me today

because she doesn't love me.

See, kids don't have adult brains.

They are children.

But this meaning-making machine creates these meanings

that stick with them, infuse into them,

and stay with them into adulthood.

Some of the most common meanings, according

to psychologists and therapists like Marissa Pierre or Shelly

Lefkoe are the ideas that I am not good enough.

I am not important.

I am not loved.

What I have to say is not important.

And these things hold us back in life.

But the trick is is that we're not taught to see

our brain as a meaning-maker.

We're not taught to see that nothing in the world

has meaning unless we give it meaning.

So because we don't understand that

and we're not aware that we've just created a belief, what

then happens is you go looking for evidence of your beliefs

everywhere.

There's a part of our brain called the reticular activating

system that hunts those things down.

So if you think that people can't be trusted,

you will look for evidence of how that is true everywhere,

and you'll miss all the examples of how it's not true.

If you believe that there aren't enough hours in the day,

that will be your experience.

You'll live your life with such intensity,

there aren't enough hours in the day, whereas the person who

sits at the desk beside you--

they might have 50 more things on their to-do list each day,

but they cruise through the day, and they get more done,

and that's because they believe that the important things

always get done.

So your beliefs create your experience.

The hardest part about the programming is it occurs before

your mind actually enters into consciousness.

So the question becomes, very seriously,

what are my programs?

And why it becomes a question is you

were not even conscious when the programs are downloaded.

So you say, well, I don't know what my programs are.

I don't know what I learned when I was one-year-old.

So the exciting part about it is that science

has recognized that 95% of our life

comes from subconscious programs.

So a simple truth is this--

you look at your life, and it is a printout of your programs.

So it's simple.

You don't have to know who said what, who did what.

That's blaming the messenger over the message.

The message is, what did you learn-- program?

And I say, yeah, but the program is what

you're playing 95% of the time.

So therefore, look at your life, and it comes down simple.

It goes like this.

The things that you like that come into your life

come in because you have programs to accept those.

The other part, though, is anything

that you work hard at, struggle over, sweat over, what

you put a lot of effort into--

question-- why are you working so hard

to make these things manifest?

The answer, inevitably, is your programs in your subconscious

do not support that end.

So the simple point is you want to know your programming?

Look at your life.

So when it comes to understanding whether or not we

have limiting beliefs, one clue is to see

if there's a recurring pattern in your life,

if there's something that you say that you want,

but it's not a reality for you and it's been true for years

and years and years, or even months and months and months

and you've been working on it.

That's probably a clue that there

could be a limiting belief under there that you

need to investigate, and then consciously work on changing.

So I think, when it comes to limiting beliefs,

if there's any area in your life that consistently creates

a lot of pain, a lot of stress, a lot of struggle or anxiety,

a good place to peek around is say,

what do I believe about this?

Do I believe that it's possible to resolve?

Do I believe I'm worthy of having this resolved?

I think investigating it on that level from a place of curiosity

is step 1, because if you're not aware of the belief,

it's hard to change it.

For me, where it really showed up was my learning.

I had these learning difficulties.

So I think, how am I going to learn how to learn?

Well, maybe schools.

I pick up a course bulletin, looking at all the classes

for next semester.

And I look at all these hundreds of classes, and all of them

are classes on what's learned--

math, history, and science, and Spanish.

But there were zero classes on how

to learn, how to think for yourself, how to be creative,

how to solve problems, how to actively listen,

how to concentrate and focus, how to read faster,

how to remember things.

Socrates says, "There is no learning without remembering."

So I put my studies aside, and I make studying my studies.

I wanted to really solve this riddle

about how does my brain work?

So I could work my brain.

How does my memory work?

So I could work my memory.

And I just started studying positive psychology and adult

learning theory and multiple intelligences--

anything I can get my hands on on how to unlock this gift.

And an amazing thing happened-- about two months

in this process, a light switch flipped on,

and I started to understand things in a different way.

I started to have better focus, better concentration.

I started to read faster.

I started to be able to think more clearly.

I had this new life inside of my mind, and my grades improved.

But not only that, but my life started to elevate and improve.

And at that moment, I realized something.

I realized that if knowledge is power,

learning is your superpower.

I talk about superheroes-- going back to the comic books

and my reading disability-- but really,

modern-day superheroes--

I'm not talking about super powers that

allow you to leap tall buildings and shoot lasers out

of your eyes.

I mean modern-day superpowers like your ability

to think clearly, your ability to have a proper mindset,

and your ability to engineer your habits,

your ability to manage your own attitude, your ability

to learn faster, to focus, to concentrate.

Those are the things that I really get excited about--

that when people step into a better version of themselves,

the version that they know to be inside of them--

I want to decode that.

So when people want to make a change,

or they want to create a transformation in their life,

most people look at this level of behavior--

the behavior.

They want to be able to stop smoking,

or they want to be able to meditate,

or they want to be able to journal, and make it a habit.

And not self-sabotage, or not put it off, or not

procrastinate.

Usually, though, they try to force it

on the behavioral level, but there are other levels also.

It's this level of beliefs and values.

And what is that?

That basically says that if you want

to do this behavior of, let's say,

remembering people's names-- because a lot of people

have trouble remembering names.

Yes, maybe you have the capabilities,

but if you don't have the belief that you could do it--

maybe you have a belief like you're too old.

Maybe you have a belief like, oh, I'm not smart enough,

or a belief that I'm just not good at remembering names.

That would keep you from doing the behavior.

The other part of it is-- besides belief, my values.

These are the values.

These are the things that you hold most important.

And if you don't think that it's important to remember people's

names, the value will keep you from doing the actual behavior.

Now, above beliefs and values is another level.

This is the level of identity.

And the level of identity is the level of I am.

They say these are the most powerful two words

in the language, because anything that comes after that

becomes your destiny.

And here's the thing-- someone could create a behavior

and say, I want to stop smoking.

I want to stop smoking.

But if their identity is that of a smoker,

they won't make that change.

Somebody here could say, oh, I want

to be able to remember things better.

That's the behavior.

But their identity is, I'm a forgetful person.

That will keep them from making that transformation.

I always tell people this--

is that if you fight for your limitations,

you get to keep them.

I remember one day our office gets a call from 20th Century

Fox, and they wanted me to be this very

special training for the chairman of Fox

and the executive team.

And I remember going there, and I was so excited,

because when I was going through the hallway to the boardroom,

all these movie posters were there--

like "Star Wars" and "Avatar," and all the classics.

And it made me feel like I was a child again--

that nine-year-old boy.

And I gave one of my very best trainings

for their executive team, and then when I was done,

the chairman of Fox said, "Jim, thank you so much,"

and he gave me this wonderful tour of the Fox lot.

And I remember going on this tour,

and out of the corner of my eyes,

I see this "Wolverine" poster.

And I am such a big Hugh Jackman "Wolverine" fan, and I said,

I can't wait for that movie to come out!

And the chairman picked up his phone,

and then five minutes later, I'm in The Fox Theater watching

Wolverine fight all these super ninjas.

It was the best Friday afternoon ever.

And when he comes to get me afterwards,

he says, how is the movie?

And because I'm still in that childlike mode,

I just say, oh, you don't know this?

I tell him my whole story.

He's like, Jim, I didn't know you like superheroes.

How would you like to go on set?

I was like, what do you mean?

He's like, we have another 30 days

of filming the new X-Men movie in Montreal.

How would you like to go?

And I had never been on a film set before,

and I'm still acting like I'm 9 years old and think, yeah,

I want to--

yes, I want to go.

Please take me.

And I was like, what can I do for you?

And he says, Jim, do the same thing you did for us.

Share with them your superpowers.

Teach them how to speed-read scripts,

how to memorize their lines, how to be focused on set.

And I said I could absolutely do that.

So the next morning, we're on what they call the X-Jet,

waiting on the plane as the entire cast of "X-Men--"

I mean, I just flip out.

I mean, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart.

And I don't even see Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart.

I see Wolverine and Professor X. And I'm

sitting in between Jennifer Lawrence and Halle Berry,

and I'm sharing them my brain tips

for learning faster and achieving more.

And when we get on set, it's incredible coincidence

that the scene that they were filming

takes place in the X-Men School for the Gifted.

And I'm there, as a nine-year-old boy,

seeing my superheroes come to life right in front of me.

When I go home, there's a package waiting for me,

and it's the size of a television set.

And I open it up, and it's this photograph of me

and the entire cast of the X-Men.

But even better than that is the note from the chairman.

It says this.

"Jim, thank you so much for sharing your superpowers

with all of us.

I know you've been looking for superhero school

since you were a child.

Here's your class photo."

You know, as I look at my life from where it began--

from immigrant parents, to having my head injury,

to being made fun of, to go through all the bullying,

to feel like I'm not enough, to not knowing how to read,

to searching for my superhero school as a child,

to being labeled the boy with the broken brain--

when we take responsibility for our lot in life,

we have great power to change our lives and the lives

of everyone around us.

Change our brain, we change our life.

Change our brain, we could change the world.

Biology's been telling us for 100 years about the power

of the mind.

It's called the placebo effect.

It's fascinating that you can give someone a sugar pill,

a saline injection, or perform some false surgery

or treatment, and a certain percentage of those people will

accept, believe, and surrender to the thought--

without any analysis-- that they're

getting the real substance or treatment,

and they begin to program their autonomic nervous system

to make the exact pharmacy of chemicals

equal to the substance or treatment

they think they're getting.

So the fundamental question is, is it the inert substance--

the placebo--

that's doing the healing, or is it the body's innate capacity

to heal by thought alone?

Blue pills work better than red pills.

If you name a drug something that a person can't pronounce,

they'll give their power away to the drug,

and it'll work even better.

They'll be intimidated by it.

If you charge more for a medication,

it will work better.

And if the doctor's enthusiastic about it,

it'll work even better.

There's some amazing studies that have come out about

the power of belief.

And they've come out from the oddest place,

and that is from pharmaceutical companies

using placebos and trying to beat the placebo for whatever

drug they had.

And what they're finding is not how powerful their drug is,

but how powerful beliefs are.

For example, there have been studies

where they're testing the effectiveness

of an antidepressant.

Now, the antidepressant is supposed

to raise dopamine levels.

So they have one group where they're

given the antidepressant, and another group

where that's not--

it's a placebo.

It means that they're just given a sugar pill.

Not only are those people no longer depressed,

their dopamine levels raise.

In other words, they actually thought--

just from the power of belief, they

thought a specific neurotransmitter would

get elevated, and they were able to elevate

a specific neurotransmitter simply

by the power of their belief.

There was another study with chemotherapy.

They were trying to test the effectiveness of chemotherapy,

and one group had the chemotherapy,

another group thought they were getting chemotherapy,

but weren't.

The group that thought they were getting chemotherapy--

30% of them lost their hair.

They lost their hair because they thought

they were getting chemotherapy.

With the power of our beliefs, we

have the power to lose hair simply

because we think that we're supposed to.

We have the power to raise dopamine levels,

to heal surgery.

All of these different things, we

can do with the power of our mind.

So the belief, I'm going to get cured, led to the cure.

Now, people understand that, and they go, yes, I

understand placebo effect.

That's positive thinking.

And I go, well, that's actually what it is-- positive result.

What I need people understand, more importantly, is this--

we don't talk about what is the concept of negative thinking?

Negative thinking is equally powerful in controlling

your biology as positive thinking,

but it works in the opposite direction.

While a positive-thinking placebo effect

can cure you of disease, a negative belief,

called the nocebo effect, can cause disease.

So the fact is we are very powerful.

It's only our belief that is undermining our biology.

I think, for some of us to wake up,

we need a wake up call.

And in 1986, I got the call.

I was in a triathlon in Palm Springs, California.

And I was on the biking portion of the race,

and I was making a turn, and there was

a police officer on the corner.

And he was pointing to me to make the turn,

but he had his back to the oncoming traffic.

So I was passing two cyclists on the corner,

and when I made the turn, a four-wheel drive vehicle

going pretty fast catapulted me out of my bike.

When I landed, I broke six vertebrae in my spine,

and the arch that the spinal cord passed through

had broken like a pretzel.

So I had multiple compression fractures.

I had bone fragments on the spinal cord,

and I was in a little bit of trouble.

And I had four opinions from four leading surgeons

in Southern California.

They told me that I'd probably never walk again.

They told me that I would have to live

in a body cast for a year, and that I'd

be handicapped in some way.

Typical surgery for that type of injury

is called the Harrington rod surgery.

In my case, it was from the base of my neck

to the base of my spine.

They were going to fuse my entire spine.

I wasn't so quick to make that decision,

because I thought that I would be spending

the rest of my life in pain, or at least on medications,

or partially handicapped.

I decided against the surgery.

And of course, when you go against convention like that,

you're always considered foolhardy and insane.

But I was willing to weigh what I knew

and see if I could heal myself without having

any surgical intervention.

Of course, they thought I had post-traumatic stress disorder,

I hit my head, and that I was not making any sense,

or I wasn't being reasonable.

But I just had this thought--

I'm not going anywhere.

I'm not doing anything.

I'm laying face down.

And I just thought, the power that

made the body heals the body.

Maybe I could give it a plan, give it a template,

give it a design.

And when I was happy with that design,

I knew that I couldn't do the healing,

so I would surrender my creation to a greater mind

and just see what the autonomic nervous system could do.

So it sounds really easy, but I think

that when we're in crisis or trauma,

we tend to focus on what we don't want to have happen

instead of what we do want to have happen.

So I made a deal with myself that I

was going to reconstruct my entire spine,

and I wasn't going to let any thought slip by my awareness

that I didn't want to experience.

And so I went through about six or seven weeks of total hell,

because I couldn't get my mind to do what I wanted it to do.

I'd start off reconstructing the vertebrae in my spine,

and then the next thing you know,

I'd be thinking about living the rest of my life

in a wheelchair.

And I become conscious that I was focusing

on what I didn't want to have happen

instead of what I did want to have happen.

Then I'd start from the very beginning again,

and I'd reconstruct my spine, and then I'd be thinking about,

should I sell my home?

Should I sell my practice?

And all the people in my life were

telling me to sell everything.

But if I accepted the belief on some level

that I would be able to walk again,

I should never sell my home, and shouldn't

sell my practice, and so--

What we're thinking about when we're trapped in fear is

this statement-- what if, followed by a negative

statement, right?

What if I lose respect?

What if people make fun of me?

What if I fail?

What if it's not as good as I promise?

So it's always what if, followed by a negative statement.

And you have to teach people--

well, first, pursue that.

Ask the question, and really consider it.

What happens if those things?

What's the worst-case scenario?

But then we have to teach them to flip it

and say, well, what if, followed by a positive statement.

What if you don't lose anything, but you gain the things

you really want in your life?

What if the process doesn't terrorize you and make

you awful?

What if you could enjoy the process?

What if that process could make you stronger and better

and capable?

What if, instead of, oh, it's going

to turn out terrible, what if it turns out great

and I finally get what I've always wanted?

Most anxiety, if it's not a physiological problem

or torment--

it's really coming from the mind.

What if, followed by a negative statement.

But if we start asking what if these amazing things could

happen?

Then we start to find hope.

We start to find willpower.

We start to find motivation.

We start to find a morning that's brighter than yesterday.

And that's why people need to get over the idea

that fear is keeping them down.

Your mind is keeping you down.

Fear is just usually poor management of our mind.

And that was the switch for me,

because from that moment on, my body started to respond

to my mind very quickly.

And I was back on my feet in a little less than 10 weeks.

I was back training at 12 weeks.

And to this day, I really have no pain in my spine,

and I just made a deal with myself in those lonely nights.

I thought, if I'm ever able to walk again,

I promise myself that I'll spend the rest of my life studying

the mind-body connection and mind over matter,

and that's what I've been doing since 1986.

The whole idea that belief is controlling us is the most

important fact of science that we're beginning to recognize

for this simple reason--

a belief is connected to chemistry.

The chemistry of the brain is a translation of a belief.

And so the relevance is if you have a negative belief,

then the chemistry that comes from that brain

is not going to be positive and support your health.

It's actually going to put you in a protection mode which,

in fact, walls you off from health.

Once you start to recognize that,

you start to see how powerful belief is--

it overrides the system--

and how specific the belief is.

We have to let people know how powerful they are,

because your thoughts are going to take

whatever that belief is and manifest it

to become a reality.

If you believe you're going to have cancer,

you can create cancer.

In fact, less than 10% of cancer is based on heredity.

90% of cancer is based on lifestyle and belief.

I think most people don't realize that thoughts are

things, that they have powerful impact on our biology

and our lives.

And that how you direct your attention and your mind

determines the course of your health

and the course of your life.

We all have fear-based limiting belief systems that

have been ingrained in us since childhood--

belief systems of I'm not good enough,

or belief systems of who am I to be great,

or who am I to earn money, or how could I possibly do that

thing I've been dreaming of?

And these belief systems are stifling us

and keeping us small, and blocking us

from really living in our highest

potential, in our highest service,

and in our highest joy, truly.

So the first step to really healing those belief systems

is to witness them--

to witness them without any judgment, witness our judgment

of ourselves without judgment, and to be

really conscious of what are these belief systems?

How are they making us feel?

We can ask ourselves those questions.

What is my limiting belief?

How is it making me feel?

And then going so far to say, what experience from my past

is causing me to believe this now?

Because all of it comes from a root cause condition.

It comes from a moment in time when we separated from love.

And then we have that experience of separation,

and then we continue to build up a world that is a false belief

system of fear, a false belief system of inadequacy,

and feelings of not being good enough.

I think one of the other most powerful ways that we can

change limiting beliefs is through finding evidence

to the contrary--

so actively looking for what else might be true.

In the example of limiting money beliefs, well,

if you're struggling with money but other people aren't,

recognizing, OK, well, maybe they figured out something

that I haven't yet, so let me go collect

all the evidence of other people that

disprove this limiting belief.

Could be the same thing around health.

Actively-- proactively-- searching out and creating

a whole stack of evidence to the contrary is, I think,

how we can also start to begin to change

some of those negative beliefs.

The word that's used in science is called "mental

rehearsal."

And mental rehearsal-- there's two types of mental rehearsal.

There's what's called internal mental imaging, which

means you're in the scene as the first person experiencing it,

and then there's called external mental imaging,

which is you're observing yourself in the scene.

Turns out that when you are actually

in the first person and not the third person,

that action of rehearsing what you're doing

produces this strong biological change.

So there's been some really cool studies with

visualization.

There's an Australian researcher, Alan Richardson,

who took three groups of basketball players.

One group did free throws for 20 minutes every day for 20 days.

One group imagined doing three throws for 20 minutes every day

for 20 days.

And another group did nothing.

So the group that did free throws

every day got 24% better.

The group that didn't, they didn't get any better.

The group that imagined doing free throws

got 23% better, just by imagining.

They didn't shoot a single hoop, and they got 23% better.

So what's the relevance?

Number 1, when you're truly focused

and you're truly paying attention,

your brain does not know the difference

between what's going on out there

and what's going on in here, so the thought becomes

the experience.

Now, from a biological standpoint,

our brains are a record of the past.

They're an artifact of everything

we've learned and experienced to this moment.

When we prime the brain to change its circuitry

before the experience, now the brain

is no longer a record of the past.

It's now a map to the future.

And so as we warm up those brain circuits, it's more easy for us

to slip into a supernatural behavior.

So for example, Roger Bannister--

what did Roger Bannister do in 1954?

He broke the four-minute mile.

Throughout human history, no one could run a mile less than four

minutes, because the belief back then

was the human heart wasn't able to sustain

a sub-four-minute mile, it would explode in your chest,

and you would die.

How do you do it now?

Yes, lengthening his amazing stride,

this was Venice [INAUDIBLE].

Watch his final 300-yard dash, first

passing Chataway, then on, battling

against unfavorable conditions, a crosswind and a sudden track.

[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]

But the interesting thing was he would actually visualize

himself crossing the finish line, and in his mind,

he would see the clock, and it says 3:59,

because he knows that it has to happen in here before it

happens out there.

Now, that was an interesting part.

But the other part that I found interesting

was what happened after that.

Nobody can run a sub-four-minute mile, all of a sudden,

one person does it.

What happens over the next few years?

Dozens and dozens of people start

running a sub-four-minute mile.

Now, was there a big advancement in shoe technology, training

methodology, nutritional supplementation?

No.

Where was the change?

A change in belief, because all of a sudden, one person

could do it, then it gave permission for everybody else.

It shook up that limiting belief.

It's going to be very close--

Nine-time gold medal swimmer Carl Lewis uses visualization.

Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Muhammad Ali,

tennis legend Billie Jean King, Michael Jordan--

all the greats in every area of sport,

they all use visualization.

Tiger Woods' father taught him how to use visualization.

He says that every time before he hits the ball,

he visualizes where he wants it to go.

Arnold Schwarzenegger-- when he was a bodybuilder,

he visualized himself up on stage

winning the Mr. Olympia, the Mr. Universe.

When he was an actor, he visualized being an actor

and just crushing it.

When he was in politics, he used it.

In everything he did, he used visualization,

and that's why he's always been successful at the things

that he's been focused on-- because he's using his power.

There's the story of Jim Carrey,

where he was a starving actor, and he wrote a check

for himself for $10 million.

He dated it three years in the future,

and said, for acting services rendered.

Three years later, he got a check for $10 million

for the movie "Dumb and Dumber--"

exactly three years to the day.

It's unbelievable.

Well, manifesting is all about aligning with the energy

of joy.

So if a visualization makes you feel good,

then you're manifesting.

If visualizing something that you don't have doesn't make you

feel good-- makes you feel lack or insecurity or as though

something's missing--

then that wouldn't be the tool to use,

because it's all about feeling good.

So that's why visualization works for so many people--

because holding that image--

that makes you ignite a feeling.

And it's that feeling that is magnetic.

It's that feeling that puts you into alignment with God,

with the universe, with source.

In that space of alignment, you become

what I call a super attractor.

You start to magnetize towards you what you desire,

and you start to become a match for the things

that you think about--

but as long as you're in a presence of joy.

You're a match for the things you think about even when

you're not in the presence of joy,

but those are things you don't want.

So if it's visualization that makes you feel good

and it empowers you and it lights you up to see--

I visualized myself sitting next to Oprah Winfrey for a decade

before I did, right?

But it made me feel good.

I could feel the feeling of being interviewed by Oprah,

or holding that baby in your arms, or having that abundance.

So making sure that that feels good.

If there's anything about that visualization that

doesn't feel good, then we want to find another tool.

So visualization is using the language of symbols.

And to me, symbols are the universal form

of communication.

If you want to communicate with someone

that doesn't speak your language,

you're going to use symbols.

For example, if you just landed in China

and you want to know where the bathroom is,

you're going to look for a symbol.

You're going to look for the symbol of the men's

room or the women's room, and that's

how you know where the bathroom is.

That's how you communicate with someone that

doesn't speak your language.

And the interesting thing about the body--

we see the body mostly as a machine, but the body

isn't really a machine.

The body is living consciousness.

We just don't know how to communicate with it.

It doesn't speak English.

We can't say to it, I want to lose weight,

because in six months, I want to look good for my wedding.

The body doesn't understand a wedding.

It doesn't understand six months.

It doesn't understand English.

And one of the biggest problems that we all

have that we don't even know we have is we

don't know how to communicate with our own animal

brain, our own physical, consciousness brain.

But when you use symbols, you're bridging that gap.

So when you make a vivid image of exactly the way

you'd like to look, or if you're doing sports,

a vivid image of exactly the way you'd like your body

to perform, you're communicating to your body,

and all the changes are taking place-- the neuronal changes,

the hormonal changes.

Everything is changing because you've now

been able to communicate with your body.

At a certain point, I decided to apply visualization

to my weight loss.

And when I did, everything changed.

I was over 400 pounds.

I had a vivid image of how I wanted to look.

I imagined myself with tight skin and stomach muscles,

and looking great.

And every night, as I went to sleep, I'd have this image,

and things started to change.

I wasn't as hungry during the day.

I wasn't craving junk food.

I started finding people that could help me, and programs.

Everything started to work after that.

And over a 2 and 1/2 year period,

I lost all the weight that I gained.

I lost 220 pounds, and I looked exactly the way

I had imagined myself looking, down to a T,

and that's why visualization's so powerful.

Visualization is a huge contributor to a lot

of the success I've had in my life.

Becoming a four-time free diving world champion,

I realized that you didn't have a big impact, because it's

a very small sport.

I think the most important message

from my free diving records is the fact that it's a metaphor.

It's a metaphor for a huge challenge.

You were told, you have doubt, you're tired,

your body is going crazy, because you can't breathe.

You go against the strongest reflex

of life, which is breathing.

Without stress, there is no life.

So meaning that without resistance,

without difficulties, there is no growth.

Did 250 feet under ice in Speedos, and in that,

I reached my goal of getting the message out that breathing,

breath work, and linking that with your mind really

can have a tremendous impact on both your performance,

but also your daily health.

When you know how to control your mind and use

visualization-- imagery, breath work,

eating healthy, surrounding yourself

with people that believe in you and support you,

you can take it to the next level.

The most difficult thing about holding your breath

is not lacking oxygen, but to fight the urge to breathe.

Being uncomfortable in life doesn't

mean that you can't succeed, so the metaphor

is to show people that there is light at the end of the tunnel,

I guess.

Literally, when I dive under the ice,

you're there, but then the light shines down

from that hole 250 feet ahead of you, and it welcomes you.

A big part of my job is to break those limiting beliefs.

And I guess that's what it's all about.

When you want to break limits, you

want to change the mindset of people--

scientists or athletes or everyday people,

you want to change their mindset.

For me, holding my breath for 22 minutes was a dream.

It was fantasy.

So before I do that, I become the 22 minutes.

If I'm like, maybe it can happen someday, or--

no.

It will not happen.

Until my subconscious mind accepts

that it will become a reality--

a physical reality--

I cannot manifest this dream I have in real life.

6, 7, 8, 9, 22 minutes.

So when I do my dives or my performances,

it's just a manifestation of a long journey, of a dream.

And for all the dives I do and all the visualization,

all the work I do, I always connect it with breath work,

because then you have doubled up on the efficiency.

When you link the breathing to all the positive

reinforcement-- all the happy thoughts, basically,

all the winning thoughts--

then every time you breathe on a more conscious level,

you ignite that power of possibility.

And especially when the breathing becomes, also,

on the subconscious level, so strong that it

leads your movements, it leads your thoughts

in that direction.

So as kids, we are normally in this deep state--

a dream state, this alpha and the theta state.

We get into it really easy.

And then we unlearn that, because our teacher says,

stop dreaming, stay focused.

So we lose that.

A lot of literature, culture, art was created in dream

states.

So for example, Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein

in her dreams.

Paul McCartney came up with "Yesterday" in his dream.

Elias Howe created the sewing machine in his dream.

The periodic table came to a chemist in his dream.

So many times, you'll come up with answers,

you'll come up with solutions, you'll

come up with inventions, works of art, in your dreams.

Learning how to get back into that dream state is the key

to being successful in visualization.

So the first step in visualization

is you want to know how to relax yourself.

So you can breathe deep, do just a simple meditation.

At a certain point, you're going to feel really relaxed,

and you're not fidgeting anymore.

Then you're in a deeper state.

Maybe you're not-- your mind's not fidgeting either.

That's the time to do visualization.

And when you do it then, it just imprints.

You just get it.

So then you want to imagine, or feel.

It doesn't necessarily-- you don't have to see it--

a lot of times when you first learn visualization,

you can't see it.

It's a skill that you get better and better at over time.

But you can feel it.

You can feel what it feels to run faster than the other guy,

or to have the weight melting off of your body,

or achieve whatever athletic performance.

You can feel what it feels like.

You can hear the crowd shouting.

You can feel the wind on your face as you're running by.

And you can imagine different things.

When an athlete does visualization, the muscles,

the neurons, nerves-- they're all firing

in the exact same, coordinated sequence as you're actually

doing the sport.

To me, visualization is the creative principle of life.

And I think we've just all lost that.

I think in indigenous cultures all around the world,

they all use visualization.

And as a kid, we used dream.

We used imagination.

We used that creative faculty.

And I think it is the creative faculty of life.

It is the way to set the dials of the automatic pilot

if you're in a plane.

It's like setting the dials of your life

when you visualize where you want to be.

You're the dials down when you visualize how you want your day

to be, how you want to perform in sports,

how healthy you want to be.

You're using that creative principle.

We don't know that.

We haven't tapped into that, but it's ours.

We lost it somewhere along the way,

but it belongs to all of us.

I compare your life to an egg--

that if an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends.

But if it's broken by an inside force, life begins.

All great things begin on the inside.

You have genius inside of you.

You have greatness inside of you.

Now is the time to unlock it.

[MUSIC - NICK BROADHURST, "ALWAYS YOU"]

(SINGING) Going back to where the story all began,

do you want to hear the journey of this man?

Some maybe, maybe, you're gonna call me crazy, a feeling,

I know it can't be wrong.

So one day, you're gonna be my lover.

Everybody run for cover.

The ceiling's coming down.

And one day, we're gonna be forever.

Everybody said we'd never.

The ceiling's coming down.

So stop, I'm gonna be there for you now.

Don't run, I'm gonna be there for you now.

You, always you, always you.

I'll walk you through the sunshine and the rain.

I believe that second chances come again.

So maybe, maybe, no longer call us crazy.

A feeling, I know it wasn't wrong.

So one day, you're gonna be my lover.

Everybody run for cover.

The ceiling's coming down.

And one day, we're gonna be forever.

Everybody said we'd never.

The ceiling's coming down.

So stop, I'm gonna be there for you now.

Don't run, I'm gonna be there for you now.