Shawn Stevenson : Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson and I am so grateful for you tuning in with me today. Welcome to The Model Health Show, this is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson and I am so grateful for you tuning in with me today.

Listen, I'm really passionate about this subject today and very, very excited about this episode. I think that a lot of us often overlook the fact that our perception is our reality, right, our perception is our reality. We can be in a stadium full of 20,000 other people, watching the same game take place, and you're going to have 20,000 totally different perceptions or perspectives about the same exact thing.

And our perception is really built on our life experience. Our perception is really colored by the things that we've been through in our own lives and the way that we see the world, our beliefs about the world, right? And so the thing that we often overlook however is the fact that we can create our beliefs, we can choose to think the thoughts that we want to think but we often just have our beliefs and our thoughts impressed upon us by the world around us, because we're not aware that we get to choose this.

Many of us feel very disempowered in our lives because things might take place, things might "happen to us" and we believe that we are a victim of these circumstances, and again not realizing that we get to choose what they mean to us. And just to share a really visceral story for me, is my grandmother, and I've talked about her on the show before, she gave me a very powerful imprint when I was a child.

I lived with my grandmother through kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and these are my earliest memories, pretty much my earliest memories, I have a couple of things before that. But this was the imprint of unconditional love, of routine, of certainty. I went to bed knowing what I was going to wake up to in the morning, which means a lot for certain individuals, for some kids where things can be very volatile which is what I lived in after this, where I don't really even know what I'm waking up to.

And she instilled in me the dedication to education, and learning, and reading, and laughter, and fun, and joy. And her mandate in my life was to create magic for me, and I was her first grandson, so I really feel like she just loved being a grandmother. And I'm so grateful for that experience.

Now, cut to my grandfather had multiple open-heart surgeries, he had multiple heart attacks, and he wasn't doing well, they moved to where he grew up, he's a country boy, in the country, gravel road, that whole thing, and he got to hunt, he got to fish, he got to live out the rest of his days but it was still a big struggle. And eventually, he passed away.

And my grandmother was obviously devastated, she and he were an entity, they were an actual entity. It was Mima and Pop, and shout at to people who don't call their grandmother grandma or you know, grandmother, Meme, Pepe, Popo, Mima, whatever you call your grandmother, shout out to you. But they were an entity, they were an entity, and they loved each other so much and she really struggled to live without him.

And I've shared this before, so I have a little bit less difficult time talking about it but I am feeling some emotions talking about it, but she stayed around, she was there at my wedding and she cried so much that day. And I just remember my wife, Anne, was just like, "Why is she crying so much," and she told her these words that stuck with my wife, that she even said, we've been married for 12 years she even said the words last week, but she said that "I really pray that you and my grandson have the kind of love that me and Pop had".

And shortly after that, she was heartbroken and she took her own life and I was heartbroken as well, as you can imagine you know that was my imprint, she made my life magical and she loved me so much. She's got so many other grandkids, I think she's got like 11, and her children.

And I was at a different place in my life, however, you know, I've done a lot of work to break out of the conditions that I was in, being around a lot of struggle and violence and a lot of pain, a lot of heartaches, a lot of hardships. I had 2 kids already at a really young age and I struggled just to make it through school, not because of education, I did excellent on that side, it's because of my attitude and my finding myself in trouble when fighting so frequently.

And because of that, and the work that I was doing for myself and realizing, this is the most important thing, I realize that I get to choose the meaning, it's not the thing that happens, it's the meaning that we create from what happens. And when she left, other people in my family took on the meaning that she left them, "Why would she do this to us?"

And for me, I took on the meaning of, "She loved him so much, she couldn't live without him, and I want to love like that." So funny, I mean even on the drive over here I just thought about this and I just felt tears coming because I'm so grateful for her. I'm overwhelmed with happiness right now I'm just so happy.

And that's why I'm feeling these tears, it's not because of sadness, it's I'm so grateful what she gave me and the time that I had with her. I got to choose my story and choose my perception of the experience, and we all get to do that.

And so let me get rid of this cry voice and just share with you today, I have a guest on that she is probably the top person in the world in helping people to actually transform their perception, because that's what really was controlling everything about you in your life, whether it's your health, whether your it's your finances, your relationships, it's all based on the way that you think.

Your life right now is a result of how you think. And so I'm really, really excited about this episode and I think it's really going to blow your mind, so be prepared to take some great notes. Now with that said, I just got back from a really cool trip I went and spend a couple of days at my friend's Shaun T's house, you probably know Shaun T, the creator of Insanity, T25, Hip Hop Abs, legendary icon in fitness, probably the icon in fitness.

And so I was hanging out at his place for a couple of days and we were just hanging out, we had a conversation and my wife was there with me as well, Anne was there and we were just hanging out. And somehow we got to talking about sleep and rest and recovery which is a topic when people have small kids, he has twins, him and Scott they have twins and they call it Twinsanity, right 2-year-old kids.

And they sleep wonderfully, but there was a time, obviously, you know, when it was a struggle. And so Shaun is a huge fan of naps, all right, he's like that's his thing right. He's like anything with nap in it, napkins, alright, napster right, if there's nap in it he's about that alright. And so I did an episode of The Model Health Show dedicated to the science of naps, the science of napping and also sleep tips for parents as well. So I'll put those for you in the show notes.

But when we were talking about sleep and the rituals and routines, I realize, wait a minute, hold it, I know he's about that good sleep and I was like, "Do you sleep on Ettitude sheets though?" And he was like, "What's that Shawn?" And I was like, "Shaun," see how that's happening? But I was like, "Shaun, listen, you have not truly had an incredible sleep until you sleep on Ettitude sheets."

This is organic Bamboo lyocell, softest material ever to be made into sheets, number 1. Number 2, they are hypoallergenic. Number 3 they are anti-microbial. Number 4 they are moisture-wicking, so that means, you know we sweat when we sleep, right, that's kind of gross and if you get too hot that can cause disruptions with your sleep. Number 5, they're also actually thermo-regulating sheets.

Guys, come on now, we know now through the advent and the popularity of "Sleep Smarter" and all the sleep science that controlling our body temperature is one of the things that regulates our sleep cycles, right. When we're sleeping there's a natural drop in our core body temperature, this is how we evolved, we were designed this way with all of life, when it gets dark outside, the temperature, even if it's hot where you live, the temperature still goes down a little bit in the night time and the human body wants to do that as well to elicit a sleep-related hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes that help to facilitate sleep, so we don't want to be running too hot.

Those things are cool, but these sheets are so soft, so amazing. So listen, it's that time of year, it's gift-giving season; give yourself this gift, because guess what I did as soon as I got home I ordered Shaun some Ettitude sheets and had them sent to his house with a little card and guess what— whole month made, right being able to give a gift like that. Don't give me a tie, I don't want to tie, I don't want socks, I don't want— what did my brother give me last year, he got me a thermos, don't give me a thermos! Ettitude sheets is the gift.

And shout out to all the gifts though, I like socks and thermoses, but Ettitude sheets is a game-changer, that's something you give a gift to somebody who has a lot or maybe you could say they have everything— they don't have these sheets. And you need these yourself, give yourself this gift. Right now, I've got a very special offer, head over to ettitude.com/model that's E-T-T-I-T-U-D-E.com/model, I've got a special discount for you, and we're also going to get you an exclusive 30-day sleep trial.

And so you can sleep on it, dream on it, and if you don't absolutely love these sheets you can send them back for a full refund, but I guarantee you, you're not going to want to give these up. Alright, so head over there, check them out, it's ettitude.com/model and get the hookup. That's E-T-T-I-T-U-D-E.com/model. And now let's get to the Apple podcast review of the week.

iTunes Review: Another 5-star review titled "Smart and Gentle" by Belbelisa. "I only listen to The Model Health Show, can't get into any other podcast. I love your knowledge, your voice and your gentleness with guests."

Shawn Stevenson: I love that so much. Listen, I don't mind if The Model Health Show is all you listen to and I'm going to keep it coming for you as well. Thank you so much for making me a part of your life, it means everything. Listen, everybody, if you've yet to do so please pop over to Apple podcasts and leave a review for the show it means so much to me.

And also on this episode if you're watching on YouTube, guys we're blowing up on YouTube, alright, leave a comment below this episode and please let me know what you thought about this episode, I appreciate it so much. And on that note, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day.

There are few speakers and therapists today who have the wide experience and stellar reputation of Marisa Peer, named Britain's Best Therapist, Marissa has spent over 3 decades treating a client list that includes international superstars to CEO's, royalty, Olympic athletes and the list goes on and on. A bestselling author of 5 books, Marisa's USP is that she teaches "simple steps that produce dramatic and life-changing results."

Marisa has also been featured in major media, television shows, just about any magazine that you could name related to health and wellness and she's also just had a really huge impact on so many of the people that I know personally, and I'm very, very grateful to have her on the show today for you, so now we're going to jump into this conversation with the incredible Marisa Peer.

Shawn Stevenson: So speaking of art and speaking of culture, you were just mentioning that you spoke for Vogue?

Marisa Peer: Yeah.

Shawn Stevenson: And I'm curious about this because your big movement is "I Am Enough". And that lack of belief is, for me, and I know you'd agree with this, this is your movement, it's at the core of so many psychological issues. And so speaking to a magazine that traditionally would probably make women feel like they're not enough—

Marisa Peer: Exactly.

Shawn Stevenson: How did you, how did that all work out in the first place?

Marisa Peer: Well, the strangest thing is they asked me to come in and give them a talk about why their sales were plummeting. I mean, all magazines across the world have that because people don't buy magazines or papers anymore, they go online. And so I told them the truth, “You make women feel they are not enough, but you could do so much for them to feel they are enough”, and I introduced them to the "I Am Enough" movement. And they did take it on board, and they did put posters and artwork around saying "I am enough."

Because if you can get your workforce to believe they are enough rather than not enough and, of course, when a magazine, especially a fashion magazine, we're in a competitive, we don't get along, everyone is, "Oh, you're better than me, you're taller, thinner, you've got a better label than me”, and they found that just getting all the staff into the "I Am Enough" movement changed that, mean girls competitiveness and made them much more supportive of each other.

And then they decided to introduce it to their readership. I mean, obviously, a magazine is going to sell fashion, that's their sponsors. But you can do both, you can sell fashion and enoughness and it changes everything because we all know that anorexia, bulimia practically didn't exist until the media came in.

In fact, there were studies in both Turkey and Fiji that prove that there was very minimal anorexia, bulimia or any eating disorders until cable television came in, and within 3 years both those countries had an epidemic of eating disorders. Because girls start to look at friends and go, "Oh, I should look like that. I should be really thin with big hair, I should have thin thighs and big hair, but I've got big thighs and thin hair, so I'm not enough."

And when you— the media has done a huge amount to damage our next generation, because it's what I call overexposure to fake perfection, everyone in Instagram is perfect, everyone on Facebook picks their perfect pictures, and young kids coming up thinking, "I should look like that, I don't look like that. I'm not enough."

And then they have all these role models like Kim Kardashian and they don't understand that's not real. No one leaves their house looking shiny and glossy unless they've got a team of staff behind them. And I see that with young mothers too, they have a baby and, of course, they're tired and stressed but they look at all these women who's had a baby, skinny, shiny hair, perfect and perfect baby and think, "Oh, I'm not enough." And the media has really damaged people.

And not just women, guys too. I worked with so many depressed teenage boys, so many suicidal kids and when you peel away the layers of what this is all about, it's always, "I am not enough, I'm not clever enough, attractive enough, smart enough, successful enough." And it's behind every addiction too. I've worked with thousands of addicts, I've never met one in my entire life that said, "I'm enough."

And when you don't feel enough, guess what you need— more. "I need more drugs, more meds, more praise, more stuff because I don't feel enough." And what conventional medicine is doing is trying to treat the symptom so just treating the root of this not-enoughness.

Shawn Stevenson: I'm aware that a lot of psychiatrists, psychologists, they realize and are taught some of these kinds of core gaps in our personality in the way that we think, but they're not exactly, and you know this, the field isn't that successful with actually treating it especially treating it in the short amount of time that you're able to do it. So what's different about your approach and why are you so successful? So many people that I know love you so much, you've had such a huge impact on their life in like talking to you in one conversation.

Marisa Peer: Well, my passion was, "Why don't I simplify therapy?" I mean, there's no other thing where you go, "I've got a headache, shall I go and talk about it for a year?" "I got a pain in my tooth, shall I go to my dentist, hey can I come in and discuss this?" "No, you've got an infection in there, I've got to get the infection out."

Therapy is a very strange model, “I invite you to turn up and discuss your pain for a long time without any guarantee that you'll get better”. No other doctor would go, "Hey here's the model, come and talk about your pain. You might not get better, you might, who knows?" "I'm going to ask you every week how do you feel?" "Well, I feel I'm in pain. When are you going to take the pain away?"

And so I found that model frustrating, all therapists have a good heart and want to help but it's a broken model. Where else would you go, "I invite you to bring your pain to me, pay me every week to talk about it, and I might not even be able to help you". And with my clients, people in pain want to get better whether that’s physical pain, “I've got a headache”, so acts more emotional pain, “I feel inadequate, I lack self-esteem, I am self-destructive, I sabotage myself,” they all want to get better fast.

So I created my own therapy called RTT, and the whole point was, let's treat the root, not the symptom. All my graduates are taught to look for what lies beneath. So when people come in and go, "You know, I'm a compulsive shopper/ compulsive shoplifter." "I've got this compulsive scratching or itching", "I've got terrible headaches," or, "I've got irritable bowel", or, "I'm addicted to sugar." We don't treat that, we treat what lies beneath.

And in RTT is what I call the 5 I's. First of all you become like a detective, you investigate— where did this begin? People got, "I've never been able to be, I'm not good with confrontation. I don't like being the center of attention". No baby is born going, "Hey, don't look at me, I haven't got any hair, I haven't got any teeth, I've got these really fat legs." You know, having children, they love attention. The first thing you're born with is attention, no baby says, "I can't leave food," if they've had enough they just stop.

So I understood the all of our issues are acquired. That's actually great news, because if you acquire an issue you can become free of it. So we investigate where did this come from. And then we find the imprint that has caused the behavior and then we interpret it, interrupt it, get rid of it.

I'll give you a great example. I work with a lot of anorexics and bulimics because conventional medicine cannot help those poor kids, it weighs them and tries to get, it was a mental illness. And I worked with someone who said, we went back, "When did this begin?" And this girl remembered being in the car with her dad who would look at women and go, "Look at her, look at her dressed like that in those tight clothes, she's just a tramp." And she began to think, "I never want anyone to say that about me." And her dad would say about her mom, "Your mom is a, she wears all these tight clothes," and she formed a thought which is an imprint, "I couldn't bear if my husband spoke about me like that."

And when you say something to the mind, it's an absolute command, “Do anything and everything to make sure that doesn't happen”. And then I worked with an anorexic who said almost the same thing, "My dad used to look at porn and I found him one day by mistake looking at porn and I was his princess and I thought, 'I never want anyone to look at me like that.’ " Now the mind's like, "Okay, my job is to make sure no one ever looks at you like that," so the anorexic didn't develop, the bulimic got very heavy, they both had the same thought, "I don't want to be looked at like that." And they both change their shape.

And I work with many obese women and men and they almost always go back to being abused. "I don't want my mum's husband to look at me like that." "I don't want my granddad to look at me in that weird way, I can't handle it." And the mind goes, "You leave that with me. I can find a way of making sure no one looks at you with that lusty look."

And that's what happens, the mind acts on our thoughts; every thought you think and every word you say is a blueprint that your mind must work towards. The most common example is someone who says, "You know, I was in a relationship and that person broke my heart, they ripped it out and stabbed it. I could never go through that pain again, it would kill me to be rejected like that again." "If I met another woman that took all my money," "Another guy that cheated on me, I would die."

And your mind goes, "You would die? You can't die, my job is to keep you alive and if a relationship will make you die, leave that with me, I'll make sure you never have one again. I can give you gas, I can give you compulsive, I can make you a complete, I can do anything. I can make you become a recluse but I can make sure that that doesn't happen."

And you see we say these crazy things, "My job is killing me, this commute makes me want to die." "If I have one more customer like that I'm going to jump under a train." And the mind goes, "This place called work is killing you, oh no, my job is to keep you alive, so why don't I give you a lovely ulcer so you can't go to this place called work and then it can't kill you."

Shawn Stevenson: Wow, so this is leading me to an important question I want to talk to about, which is I heard you say something along the lines of our thoughts create our reality. And so when I hear statements, even today, just before us meeting each other, but when I would hear somebody say, "I'm starving," it would literally pop in my mind like, "You're not really starving." But these words that we use really do create our existence.

Marisa Peer: Yeah, do you know that's so true, because the strongest force in every human being in the world is you must act in a way that is actually consistent with how you define yourself. The words you speak, the thoughts you think, your mind has no choice but to make that, "Oh, I'm starving, I'm dying of hunger, I could eat a horse," your mind really believes that is true.

When you say, "This is killing me, this is driving me insane, this kid is making me want to die," your mind goes, "You are not having another one. If one makes you want to die, why don't I just give you unexplained infertility, secondary infertility." Because we think our mind’s job is to make us happy, it really isn't. It's just to keep you alive on the planet when not long ago, the odds weren't that great, so everything we do is to keep us alive.

One of the reasons we can't bear to be hungry is that that is the number one thing that killed us 500 years ago, not disease, hunger. And our mind to this day is scared of hunger and our logical mind goes, "You know, I've got fish and chicken in the fridge at home and salad," but alert goes "I'm going to die of hunger, I am just going to eat all these jelly beans now and taco chips."

And if you only knew that you could dialogue back with your mind you could have everything you want in the world because people know, "Oh I just heard Barack Obama say mindset, you need mindset, 80 percent of success is mindset," they don't even know what mindset is. I said, “What's mind” to the guy, “I don't know, it's something.” “Is it focused?” No, it's how you dialogue with you. And since your mind believes everything you tell it you might as we'll tell it amazing stuff.

Shawn Stevenson: Oh my goodness, that's so true, that's the other part I want to get to, is this programming more empowering things. But for me, it's just like just going back on this statement of, "I'm starving," we're going to naturally have a tendency towards overeating, most likely. So it's just, I think awareness is important, obviously, being aware of the language that we're using ourselves, but I got to ask you this, and maybe this is a really big question, but how is it that some of us can become aware of our deficiencies, we can become aware of our stories, the roots, but yet we're not able to change it?

Marisa Peer: I guess because no one teaches this stuff, no one teaches you that you have a choice. You see, here's one of the rules of the mind, I have like 23 rules, that might be his best one. Your mind does not care if what you tell is right or wrong, true or false, useful or useless, helpful or not helpful, beneficial or not beneficial, it doesn't care. It lets it in.

You make your beliefs, but then your beliefs make you, and then even more oddly then the world starts to actually match what you believe. If you believe everyone is out to get you and dogs are the vicious creatures that attack, you can make that belief real. And if you believe people are actually honestly really very nice and kind and dogs are lovely creatures, they're man's best friend, that too will become real. So a lot of people know this stuff. But they actually don't know how to change it.

So I had an American PA, I loved her, and she used this expression all the time, "When I got the job with you I wanted to die." "When I knew I was coming to London I wanted to die." "When this cute English guy asked me out, I wanted to die." I'm like, "Darling, you don't want to die, you want to live, stop saying, 'I want to die.' " Because some people, nobody teaches us this stuff, if you go, "Oh my God, I've got a memory like a sieve, I forget everything," you make that real.

And it's very important when working with children to really be aware of not saying— I see many with wealth blocks, they come in and they go, "I can't make money, I can't keep money, I can't attract money," and your relationship with money is actually fixed almost before you are 5 years old. And if you see your father going, "This job is killing me," "This is the price you pay for working for yourself."

So one of my clients said, "My dad used to lie on the sofa every Sunday with a headache, and go, 'That's what happens when you have your own business, it kills you.' " Another one said, "My dad took antacids every morning and said, 'I've got an ulcer because this job is killing me.' " And a small child thinks, "I don't want that job that's getting, I'd rather not have a job." And then they've got this wiring, this coding that now says a job will kill you and even if they want a job, they don't understand this old wiring.

So it's very much the same thing when you have a parent that says, "If you're a good kid you'll eat everything on your plate, you know how much money I spent on that? Think of those starving children," and they're wired to eat everything until they don't understand how to leave food or even more simple, the parents going, "Come on, school bus is coming, hurry up, you're making everyone late."

And children naturally very slowly, I think, engage with the food, you know when you're feeding your baby you got the next spoon, they are not going to take it until they have done with the first one. But when you make them eat faster, make them eat faster, you wire into them this eating mindlessly without even thinking what's in front of you. "Do I want it, do I like it? I don't know, I just hoover it all up."

Shawn Stevenson: This reminds me of, I mean, I grew up, I literally heard these statements every day of my life. I want to go to the store and just get some Penny candy you know, I ask my mom for money and she says, "I'm broke as a joke," was her big thing, that was classic. "Do I look like I'm made of money," all these little statements. And whenever we would have food, because there were times when you know, we had to get food from WIC program, food stamps or food pantries, and whenever we get a plate of food she said, "Eat it all, eat it all." And even, and it's like, it raises that question of like, "If we're poor how is everybody obese?”

So that programming and, of course, once I got out of the environment and I decided, "I'm going to make my life different," even though I was semi-aware that this was a problem, I still repeated those behavior problems. I would come into some money, I would find creative ways to get rid of it. So I am assuming this happens for a lot of people?

Marisa Peer: 70 percent of lottery winners are dead broke in 3 years. I worked with somebody recently who was working as a trash— we call them dustbin men, I guess you call them trash collectors? Anyway, he went from earning 300 dollars a week, he on the lottery got 20 million dollars, and within 3 years was dead broke. And I went to him he says, "I actually preferred, I didn't know who I was with all that money, I didn't know who my friends were, you know if I paid this I was showing off, if I didn't pay they are like, 20 million dollars, do you still expect us to chip in?" And he said, "You know what, I didn't enjoy it."

But I've also heard it from a lot of rock stars who make so much money and are always broke. And when you tell them that their relationship with money they go, "Well you know, my dad got a paycheck on a Friday it was run out by Thursday night." And so that pattern is you get money and you spend it and when they win the lottery, they're coming into that pattern and they just buy stuff they don't need until it's all gone.

The 30 percent who don't go broke when they win the lottery, are the ones who already had money, already had a relationship with money and understood. Donald Trump went broke, how fast did he come back? So if you have a template for love or money, you'll keep it.

But one of the things about the mind that even psychiatrists aren't trained in, which I find in my clients is that we are hardwired to run back to what is familiar while avoiding what is unfamiliar. And that is a tribal behavior, if I live in a tribe and I decide I am bored, and we used to live in ward cities and they locked the gate at night to keep you safe, nobody said, "Oh this is boring, I think I'll just climb over the gate and go and find another tribe," because that was dangerous.

We are hardwired to return to what is familiar and to run away from what's unfamiliar. Even if it's bad for us, people who don't have money actually reject money, people who don't have a love, they reject love, they go, "I don't really want that, I now feel dependent and vulnerable, I'd rather be on my own."

And it sounds very hard to understand but you see this in a 2-year-old. Your 2-year-old child will all of the sudden go, "I don't want that yogurt it's got lumps in it. I don't want that, I only want the pink bowl and the blue spoon, I want the same story every night, I want the same movie every night," because familiar makes them safe exactly that age when they could wander around on the prairie and pick their own dangerous berries, they only want what they already know as familiar.

And it's the most vexing thing for a therapist to say, "Look, why don't you date a nice guy?" "Oh, they are too good for me." What they're saying is their behavior is so unfamiliar, I need to run back to what I want. And one of the fastest ways to get what you want in life is to look at your behavior and go, "Okay, what am I making familiar?"

I mean I work with so many clients, movie directors, rock stars, film stars, and when to go, "I love your movie," they go, "It's terrible, didn't you notice—" "No, I thought it was amazing, you won an Oscar." "I know, but the nominations that year were really bad." "But you won another one." "I know, but they were really bad that year."

And then I go, "You know what's wrong with you? You can't accept praise. Tell me about your life?" "Well, my dad always said, 'There's nothing to you, you're never going to make it, people like us don't make it.' When I made it he was resentful, 'That's not work.'

"Recently a client said to me, "My dad said, 'You haven't suffered enough to be successful, you don't deserve all this success, you just ponce around making movies but I, I drive a cab, you know, I am successful. What you do doesn't count.' " If you saw a Rocketman, there was a very sad scene where Elton goes to visit his dad and he says, "Sign this album," and he said, "Oh not for me, I don't even like your music." I had someone at work say rejecting withholding parents give their child a familiar, what is familiar is criticism, what is unfamiliar is praise.

And what's so tragic is that people who never get praise, when you give them you go, "Hey, I love your hat," they go, "Oh it's not mine, I just found it in a lift." "I love your talk." "Oh, I forgot the best bit." So not only do they reject what is unfamiliar, they add what is familiar, criticism. And people think depression is because of a chemical imbalance in your brain. It really isn't. The number one thing that causes depression, are harsh, hurt for critical words that you say to yourself on a daily basis and blocking praise while adding in criticism will make anybody depressed.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, that's a formula for unhappiness, for sure. That's so powerful and I've got so many different ideas and stories that have come up for me personally and that I've just seen with all the people that I've worked with. But I just want to pivot back to when you said that we're hardwired to do this and how kids are kind of adverse, they have an adverse response to new things with food, for example, and we're just like, "Why won't the kid just eat?"

And I was just with my friend, Shaun T, and he's got twins and they just turned 2. He knows they'll eat sweet potato and chicken, right, and a lot of times he just doesn't want to deal with the fuss. And we did that same thing with my son and we kind of considered, he's a nutrition expert and so it's more of like there's a patience factor because his little brain is just saying like, "I don't know about this, I don't know what the response is going to be." Because some stuff to my evolution could have made me very sick or killed me.

Marisa Peer: Yeah, exactly.

Shawn Stevenson: So there has to be a level of patience and understanding, and it's difficult to do when our culture is pushing us to do everything faster. Right? This is blowing my mind.

Marisa Peer: One of the things we teach people in RTT is the psychology of human behavior because we all want to run our mind and run our life. If you want to run your mind you better understand it. And if you understand your mind, there are only 3 things wrong with everybody, one is I'm not enough. One is what I want is not available and the other is I'm different so I can't connect. Whatever you're treating somebody for, if you're a psychiatrist, a doctor, a mental health worker, you only have to treat those 3 things.

And then even better is, I was told that the mind is very complex and it takes a lifetime to understand the workings of your mind, and a second lifetime to put it into practice, I'm like, "No, that can't be".

Nobody would go, "Hey, Shawn, he has a great brain, oh my god your brain is amazing, and you know what— when you're 95 you'll crack it, what a shame it's too late to put it into practice," and I thought that can't be true. And in fact, I'm very lucky that I've traveled all over the world working with everyone from CEOs to billionaires, to someone who's got a bakery or is a schoolteacher.

And our brains all work the same, they're very simple. The mind does what it thinks you want based on what you tell, if you go, "That will kill me, I'll die if I do that." "I'd rather die than give a speech." "Oh my god, I'm so terrified of standing and opening my mouth and sounding stupid." Your mind goes, "Don't worry, I'll give you a massive panic attack, you'll never get on that stage."

When you say, "I'll do anything rather than have to have that meeting with my boss next week," your mind goes, "Have a chronic bout of diarrhea." If you keep saying, "God, I don't want to do that, I'd do anything not to do." Or even when you go, "I'd love to lie around with nothing to do," your mind goes, "How about the flu?" So your mind does what it thinks you want it to do and it bases it exactly on the words you use.

And the pictures you make that's the mind, and if you haven't got what you want in life you mind thinks you don't want that. And if you've got a lot of things that you don't want like procrastinating or self-sabotage I can guarantee you've said somewhere, "I'm scared of being successful, what if I eclipse my husband and no guys like wealthy women." Or, "If I make it I'll be a terrible parent," or "If I make it the stress will make me ill."

So if you haven't got what you want your mind thinks you don't want that. If you got a lot of things you'd rather not have, your mind goes, "No you need those, they're very useful to you, people can't reject you now." So your mind does what it thinks you want, always, even if it's completely wrong. The way you feel about everything is only down to 2 things, the pictures you make in your head and the words you say to yourself, there's nothing else.

You could say, "I'm going to get in this metal tube and hurtle through the air and that's going to kill me." If you go, "Wow, I've got 6 hours on a plane I can watch my favorite movie, I've downloaded my favorite show, I can read a book". And we are wired to love what is familiar and avoid what is unfamiliar, that's a fact. But there is an even better fact, you can make anything you like familiar or unfamiliar.

Shoving a lens in your eye is a very unfamiliar thing to do, no one goes, "Oh here's a lens, ram in, I've done it." It takes about 10 days and then you can do it even without a mirror. You can make anything familiar, and if you want to make something good familiar make it praise, because there is nothing on the planet, nothing that will boost your self-esteem like praise, and there's nothing that will wither it like criticism.

Shawn Stevenson: So hearing this, and the fact that we run back to what's familiar like we're just hardwired to do this, but we can make the unfamiliar familiar. And I'm thinking about, and I know a lot of people listening they've either been in this situation or have friends, just like, "Why are you still with that person, why do you keep running back to the abuse?" It's because it's familiar.

Marisa Peer: Yeah, oh my goodness that, I mean that's such a great question. I worked with so many people who go, "You know, I could go to a bar there could be 500 people there, I seem to go home with the one who is abusive and critical." I'm like, "Well that's because it's your dad, you know you're in bed with your dad, you're having sex with your dad." They'll go, "Oh, we just clicked, I suddenly I thought I've known them my whole life," well you did! That was your father, withholding father or it's very critical mother.

And but you know what, you can choose to do something else and when they go, "He was too good for me/ she was out of my league," what they are saying is, "This behavior is unfamiliar, let me run back to what's familiar." But you can make anything you like familiar.

Peeing in the toilet wasn't familiar once. Getting a banana in your mouth was not familiar. I mean, I pictures of my daughter when I first gave her yogurt, it was in her hair, it was in her ear, but now she can eat yogurt. You can make anything familiar. And one of the things to do is to go, "I will make this familiar."

I worked with a girl a little while ago who dated a horrible man who hurt her and her father was supercritical, super withholding and that's the kind of guy she went for. And I said, "Okay, this is what you do, you say, 'I am going to make a nice guy familiar, never add if it kills me, if it's the last thing I do', just say, 'I'm choosing to make a nice guy familiar' it may feel a little odd but if you keep saying it, it becomes real."

It's no different to saying, "I drink tea every day with heavy cream and sugar, and I know it's bad so I'm going to have black tea or herb tea," I go, "Oh, this isn't the same," you go, "But I am making it familiar. I'm making it familiar, I'm choosing to like it this way."

Because when you say to the mind, "I'm choosing to say no to candy and yes to fruit, no to doughnuts and yes to fruit", if you say the words, "I'm choosing to do this and choosing to feel great about it," your mind goes, "Oh, you want this? I'm going to make it happen." When you go, "Oh, this fruit is so boring, it doesn't taste anything like a doughnut," your mind does, "Go back to what's familiar."

If you want to make something familiar, add in this sentence, "I am choosing to make this familiar. I'm choosing to feel great about it!" People even say you know, "I want to go running but oh, it hurts, and my knees hurt, I bought a gym membership but I don't like it, it's too hard."

And if you go, "I'm choosing to work out every day, I'm choosing to meditate, I'm choosing to make a new nutribullet instead of a coffee, I'm choosing to eat salad instead of taco chips, and I'm choosing to love it," your mind will move you toward it like a laser, really fast. And if you go, "Oh, it's not the same, is it, I am this rabbit food now, who likes that," your mind will move you away from it.

Shawn Stevenson: Man, I could speak from experience on that one. I literally see, even when I met my wife and we were just dating, she would eat salads, I didn't eat a salad until I was in my mid 20's. And I literally would say, "Why you're eating rabbit food?" Like you might as well go outside and grab something off that tree? First of all, what's wrong with that, the tree, whatever is on the tree is probably healthier than my pasta or whatever.

It's the language that we use, it just creates an aversion or can draw us closer. So I want to ask you about the ownership language that we use as well, you know that's something I would see in my practice in the years I was working and as a nutritionist, people come in they say, "My diabetes, my heart disease, my cancer," they were really owning whatever these different issues, "My depression, my anxiety, my social anxiety." Can you talk a little bit about that?

Marisa Peer: Yeah, when you prefix anything with "my" you own it. "My" is an ownership word and if you put "my" in front of it "my diabetes, my cancer, my migraine." "I need my cookies, I need my Starbucks every morning," if you say that, you own it and if you call it "the" that's neutral. Women don't like it when you go, "Here's the wife," because that's uncertain, the wife? "Here's the kids," how about "my kids"?

So if you understand, if you call something "my" you own it, you can go, "This is my house, this is my book I wrote, this is my kid, aren't they great?" You don't call something “the” if you're not going to possess it, but don't ever say, "I've got my headache again," it's the headache, "I've got the headache," I don't own it, it doesn't belong to me. "I've got the illness, I've got the tension."

My little girl went to visit my mother and came back with, "Mommy, I've got my tension, headache," I'm like, "No darling, you're 5 years old, 5-year-olds don't get tension, that's a grandma word." We don't do illness, we don't do pills and medication, but my mother was a massive hypochondriac not to teach my daughter. "I've got my irritable bowel, I've got my this," and one day she said to my mum, "Grandma what are all those pills for?" "That's for my headaches, that's for my leg pain, that's for my stomach." "But grandma, how do they all know where to go?" Which I thought was a clever question.

If you don't want to own something, never call it "my", "my temper" you know, "I'm Irish, I've got my temper." "I'm an Italian, of course, I've got the alcoholic gene." No, you haven't, genes are only one percent of you, it's a very simple thing to do is look at how you speak to yourself because the words you use are the blueprint for what you are. Take out the word "my" you can go, "my ambition, my drive, my passion to be a speaker. I got something to say and I can say it."

But if you go, "Oh, I've got my nervous stomach now, I don't want to go on stage, my blushing happens and then I open my mouth and my fear makes me go o-o, and I knew I'd messed that up." No, so put the word "my" in front of something you want and put the word “the” in something you don't want. But even the words you put in front of, you can go, "I am freaking awesome", that's more powerful than awesome. "I'm amazingly driven, I'm super successful, I'm fantastically motivated," that sends a clear message to your mind.

So if you want to have a mindset and you want to dialogue with your mind, here's a couple of things to understand. The mind only works in the present tense, you can't go, "Next year, I'll be rich next year. I'll have a bikini body next year, I'll have a great relationship," because your mind doesn't even know what that is, it has to be now. "I'm successful now, I'm healthy now," even though it isn't true, it must be in the present tense, it must make a picture saying every day in every way, "My life is better." I call that WTF expression.

What does that even mean? Life is a walk through a garden. No, it isn't, sometimes it's raining and you step in dog mess so that is not true, but if you say, "Okay, I'm motivated, I love what I do, I'm on fire with passion, I love spending the whole weekend working on my website. I'm thrilled to be an RTT therapist, I've got something to share with the world and I'm amazingly, super successful," the mind goes, "Oh, your words are telling me very clearly what you want." Present tense, exciting words.

But exciting words in front of the words, so if you go, "I'm not bad me, I have good days and bad days," that again, that's a WTF. If you go, "I am motivated, passionate, I've got a gift, I've got a skill and I'm monetizing that gift every day. I'm doing it right now." Your mind goes, "Your words are telling me exactly where you want to go, and I'm going to take you there." But if your words are vague, your mind goes, "Well, I'm stuck here now because I don't really understand what you want."

So people go, "I want a wild, passionate— So for instance, I used to live in Nothing Hill, it's got lots of rock stars there and my friend lived in a street with this rock star and she used to sing this song, "I want that guy, I want him, I want him in my bed, I want that guy." And actually it wasn't that difficult, he got drunk one day, pressed the wrong doorbell and she got him in her bed and they had a great night. She never saw him again.

I'm like, "Why didn't you go, 'I want that guy for life, our souls are going to collide, we're going to bump into each other, he's going to fall in love and I am going to fall in love with him, we'll be together forever'. You said, 'I want that guy for a night of passion, and you got it, you are a great manifestor, but you could have kept the manifestation going.' " People go, "I want more money," "Well, here's $5." No, I don't want that.

Women say, "I want to be pregnant," I go, "Really?" "That's all I want." I said, "I don't think so. You could be pregnant 6 times and never have a baby. You say, 'I want to be pregnant,' that's what you get. Have, 'I want to create a perfect, healthy, robust, perfect baby. I insist on, I require of my body to give me a perfect pregnancy, to grow a perfect baby who's going to be born full-term,' but if your mind goes, 'I understand what you want, I thought you just wanted to be pregnant. Now I see you want a perfect, robust, healthy, full-term baby,' and you can add in, 'I can have a fantastic, easy birth too.'"

Because if you tell your mind what you want, and you put in the detail, it gives you what you want. But if you don't, it's like going to a restaurant and going, "Hey, can you bring me some food?" And go, "Oh, I didn't want that." Well, you get what you ask for. I didn't want that, I don't like that sauce, it's like saying to someone, "I'm going away could you paint my house?" Then you go, "I didn't want that," but you didn't tell them what you wanted. Detail, detailed words.

People think this is affirmations, it's not, it's a detailed, relevant, up to date dialoguing with your mind using specific, exciting words. Mohamed Ali said, "Hey, I said I was the greatest before I even knew I was, but I said it, I'm the greatest, and something amazing happened, I became the greatest! I wasn't when I said it and then I was." He could have just said, "I'm not bad me, I have good days and bad days," but where would that have taken him?

So you when you see people who really make it, they dialogue with their mind in a very interesting way. People go, "Oh, well they are born like that." So what? You can adopt it, you can make it your own, you don't have to be born with it, you just have to think, "Well if that's what successful people do, why don't I do it too? And then I'll be successful." And that's absolutely true.

Shawn Stevenson: I'm blown away right now, I'm loving this so much, this is so filled with very tangible, applicable, simple things to do. But I don't think that we realize our power. So I'm choosing to do this, I'm choosing to feel great about it, and we all know there are certain things in our lives that they're challenging, we're trying to make the unfamiliar familiar. And so these are such great insights and we've got more insights we're going to get to right after this quick break, so sit tight, we'll be right back.

I was just riding in the car with my family it was my wife and my 2 sons, Jorden who is 19 and my youngest son Braden who is 8. And Jorden was talking about how in his last year of high school he was getting that coffee hitter, like I had no idea that from time to time he would pick up a little bit of that crackbucks, Starbucks.

And he was just like, because he's not really one of those people that likes coffee necessarily, but he was just like, "Some days, you know dad, you like get up and you are just like, 'Well, not today', but then you have that coffee and you're like, 'Today, today is the day'."

And it's so funny because when I was in high school I never saw anybody drink coffee, but before Jorden got his first car, I'd drop him off at school every day and I would see the students just walking in, holding their crackbucks cups, right. It's just like it's being bred into our culture at younger and younger ages.

But the reality is, cultures throughout the world have been enjoying and utilizing coffee for centuries, right, and in childhood. And it's only recently that this mass production. mass quantity, lower quality has become so pervasive.

And so now, not only are you getting the conventional coffee, but you're also getting a lot of toxicity along with it, the mold, the pesticides, the herbicides and this is creating an atmosphere where the benefits, the potential benefits of coffee are now going down and people are just going to it because it's a source of caffeine or it's a source of sugar, right.

Because a lot of people don't even truly enjoy coffee, they love the stuff that's in it, right, the sugar and the cream and those things. But for me, and what I've been really directing people to because I was just not a fan of coffee, is let's get coffee but let's upgrade it, tremendously, by utilizing some of these powerful medicinal mushrooms along with the coffee.

And I do that through Four Sigmatic, and their incredible mushroom formulas, their mushroom coffee. Now when people hear about mushroom coffee, medicinal mushrooms, they might come out, "Well, what kind of mushrooms are those, Shawn?"

I'm not talking about psychedelic mushrooms, I'm not talking about culinary mushrooms; I am talking about the category of medicinal mushrooms. These mushrooms have been utilized, again, literally for centuries and this one, in particular, has documentation from over 2,000 years ago with Cordyceps and now today, what is so beautiful is that we have our clinical evidence to affirm the efficacy that our ancestors knew about many, many centuries ago.

And so this was a study and this was published recently in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, tested 30 healthy test subjects for 6 weeks to record the effects of Cordyceps on their performance in their sport.

And the group that added Cordyceps to their daily regiment had twice the oxygen intake of the control group and this oxygen again is essential for supplying nutrients to your cells, for preventing fatigue and buildup of lactic acid. And another study done by the same group showed that there was an overall 9 percent increase in aerobic activity, in aerobic performance from taking and utilizing Cordyceps.

Now, this is a real whole food, Earth grown nutrient sourced ingredient, this isn't a hyper stimulant which caffeine in and of itself can be. And what Four Sigmatic was able to do is to reduce the amount of caffeine and add in another natural adaptogen and supporter of your energy that really helps to create this balanced energy.

You'll never have those crashes or these strange, crazy coffee jitters that you can get when you utilize Four Sigmagic. So pop over there, check them out, get your hands on some, like yesterday. It's foursigmatic.com/model, that's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/model, you get 15 percent off the Cordyceps coffee.

The Lion's Mane coffee, if you really want to focus on that mental fortitude because the Lion's Mane mushroom, this was from the University of Malaya found that Lion's Mane is able to actually create new brain cells, that's right, it has neurogenesis capabilities, literally the creation of new brain cells, and it is found to be neuroprotective and now it's being studied for use for traumatic brain injuries as well.

Wow, like you can't get that from crackbucks, but you can get that from Four Sigmatic. Alright, so pop over there, check them out, foursigmatic.com/model for 15 percent off everything. If you're not a fan of coffee, they've got the mushroom coffees and they're just straight mushroom elixirs as well, so whether it's Cordyceps, Lion's Mane, Reishi, you can get the real thing.

Dual extracted, you're not getting this from other companies, they are doing a hot water extract and an alcohol extract to actually get all the nutrients you're looking for. Alright, so pop over there, check them out, foursigmatic.com/model. Now back to the show.

Alright, we are back and we're talking with Marisa Peer. And before the break, we were diving in on some of the language that we're using and really understanding that our words create our reality and we can speak to ourselves in a kind of affirmative manner or we can speak to ourselves in a way that breaks us down. And also moving ourselves from the unfamiliar to the familiar because if we want a better life and that's not our experience right now, it's unfamiliar to us.

And so I'm curious, you mentioned a great story about your mom and the pill assortment and your daughter's experience. So I am wondering what was the catalyst for you? Like, all of these incredible insights that you've shared with people and that you're helping so many with, I'm assuming that you've utilized these things in your own life and then how did you go from whatever work you did for yourself to wanting to help other people?

Marisa Peer: Well you see, my family, my mother was evacuated in the war in England, you sent children away from the cities into the countryside and they lived with complete strangers. And she learned very early on that if she got sick her parents would come to visit, they had no money at all, so being sick was very useful, it met her needs.

When you have children with unmet needs they very often become sick because it's the quickest way of meeting that need, so I grew up with a mother who was always sick and a father who loved his job and was never sick. And I realized very early on that when you have a brilliant brain, which we all have, you can choose, rationalize why you feel so bad.

I had one parent who always rationalized, "Oh the weather's changing, I'm going to get sick now, this is all going to go wrong, this will all end in tears." My mother was a master in rationalizing would go wrong and my father was a master, he was like, "I never get sick, my body would never get sick, I love my job too much, those kids need me." He was never sick a day in his life.

My mother was always sick it was an interesting environment to be brought up in and I realized very early on, your words shape your reality. If you don't want your reality change your language, rationalize why I feel so bad, talk yourself out of it, "This freeway is killing me," or, "Hey, I've got a car, I've got money to pay and gas, that's someone else's fantasy, dream come true".

What would you have given 10 years ago over this problem that you've got to commute to a job and you moan and about it about, "Oh the freeway is killing me, this job is too much, I'm dying under my paperwork. I am at my maximum bandwidth I can't take it anymore." Of course you can, it's someone else's fantasy.

And so that was very interesting to me to understand that you can choose how you feel about anything, I mean after all, if you decided to get a whole sleeve of tattoos, would you go and going, "Hey, is this going to hurt me?" They go, "Of course, it's going to hurt, it's going to take you a year to get that tattoo done." Some people choose to love pain, how weird is that? I'm choosing to love tattoos, I love a bit of pain, I love endurance training, I love pushing myself to the limit. But you see how they choose it, other people go, "I couldn't do that, that would kill me, no."

So you've got to understand that you should be your own best friend and talk to yourself better. And so, I wasn't destined to be successful, my brother went to a private school I didn't, my parents try to train me to be a nanny because I was told I would never make it. But I realized very early on that's not up to anyone else, that's up to me.

And when I was told I could never have a baby, I would never get pregnant, I couldn't carry a baby to full term, I had a voice in my head going, "Don't let that in." Much, much later I had cancer and I heard the same thing, "Well you know," my doctor said, "It's got your name and address it will probably come back." And I thought, "What a terrible thing to do to someone, to actually knock on the table and go, 'Well it knows where you live, it's probably going to come back.'" I'm like, "No, it's not coming back, I'm never having that come back."

So we get to choose, and one of the biggest things to choose is don't give your power to someone else. No one can tell you how to feel. "You'll never get to find love because you're not a supermodel." "No one's going to love you because you're not wealthy." "You're never going to make it because we haven't, we're not the kind of family where we can send you to college". We hear all these limiting beliefs as kids, "Why can't you be like your sister she's not messy, look at your cousin, she could read when she was 4."

We buy into "I'm not enough" and "I'm enough" would change your entire life because what lies beneath addictions, hoarding, compulsive shopping, neediness is a belief, "I'm not enough and I need more," that might be more food, maybe more drugs, maybe more praise and maybe more stuff, but if that stuff could make you feel enough why do you need more?

And if you understand that when you think you're not enough you will always need more. When you know you're enough you don't need more. When you think, "I deserve a better relationship than this, I deserve a better career than this, I deserve more, because I'm worth it." And so if you want to change your life join the, "I Am enough" movement, write it on your mirror, say it every day. What else are you going to say when you're cleaning your teeth? "I like this minty toothpaste?" How about looking in the mirror and going, "Oh look that's in lipstick or eyeliner or a marker-pen, I'm enough."

Wire it in, put it on your fridge and fridge magnets and put it on your phone to it alert you twice a day, change all your passwords securely, of course, because have you got that, absolutely, but you'd never work it out, because it has squiggles and darts and capitals and a weird spelling, but I type out every day, "I am enough" I read it every day.

One of my clients amazingly had it printed on her kid's pillowcase, so they read that every morning and every night and these kids were being bullied and it changed everything, it was a game-changer for them. So if you can accept that a lot of our own happiness comes from believing we're not enough, we're not born with that belief and you can accept, "Okay if I say I am enough it will change my life." Absolutely. And what is it going to cost you anyway, it's free, it's easy, it's effortless and it's a game-changer.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, yeah. I love it so much. I've got one other topic I want to ask you about. I've got so many things I want to ask you, but I definitely don't want to move past this one because I feel that for a lot of people this is something that keeps them in a kind of chronic state of fear, but they might not realize it. And this is a concept in our culture that you know, for example, once an addict always an addict, right?

Or for me, just to give an example— I grew up in a violent atmosphere you know, if there was a problem you get hit, if you do something bad you get hit very quickly. And so I repeated that behavior like with my little brother and sister they do something out of line I hit them. We take that outside, like when I was 4 years old my mother push me into my first fight and I've got this huge scar on the back of my head to prove it, but she was trying to teach me to be a strong person and never back down. These seemingly good lessons through a really crappy method of teaching.

And so throughout the rest of my life, after coming back from that moment of like going to the hospital, getting my head stitched up, I was on the table you know, they had to put me to sleep, but just screaming like, "I'll get him, I'll get him, mom, I'll get Alphonso." And the next day or 2 he was digging a hole and I clocked him with this tonka trunk and I felt so proud of myself. But that elicited a lifetime of problem-solving through violence.

And so whenever something would happen, whether it's at school, it's just like, "Oh, well, I'm going to have to kick his now," you know, or the kid across the street my brother is out playing, throwing a football around and it hits his tire, and he says something to him and I'm just like, "If he says something else to my brother I'm going to have to kick his."

And I lived my life like that. And for a while I didn't, even if I remove myself from the environment I still have those thoughts, I can't be around people or be around this without expressing violence. Once a violent person always a violent person, but so is that real? Or is that something that we kind of like once an addict always an addict and we just kind of have to remove ourselves from the environment?

Marisa Peer: You see, I don't like that. I know the AA does good work, but that expression, "I'm an alcoholic and I always will be," is a blueprint. "I'm an alcoholic and I always will be." "I can't attract love and I never will." "My dad left when I was 2 so therefore I don't amount to anything and that will always be the way."

We can look at Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, we can look at Heath Ledger, we can look at Michael Jackson, we can look at Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, all had this belief, "I'm not really lovable, I've got to earn love, chase love, buy love, run after love, because I'm not worthy." And that's not true but here is a great saying, we play the only part we've ever known, and then we make that part our own, but sometimes you got to go, "Oh I'm not playing this part anymore."

I don't have to play the part of the stupid, ugly kid who thought she was a freak and was only going to be a nanny, and thought what if I can never have my own kid? Maybe that's a good job, I did momentarily look at that thing I can't have children, it would be a great job being a nanny raising other people's. Your parents and mine, no parent wakes up and goes, "Okay, where's Google, I need to Google how to damage my kid for the rest of their life right now, let me google how to mess up my kid." The worst parents in the world don't have these intentions, if they knew better they would do better.

You know, your childhood, if you think of your life as a clock your childhood is the first 10 minutes and in that 10 minutes you learned violence, I learned that I was stupid and inadequate, and hideously ugly. But then we both decided, "That's the first 10 minutes, I've got 50 minutes left, why would I make the first 10 minutes color my whole life? I have a choice to stop believing what somebody told me." Someone told them it's like that song, "We our kids, we do not mean to but we do, but they were in their turn by fools who half the time were happy and half time on each other's throat."

So your parents are different generation, my grandparents used to say things like, "Never show people you've got money because they won't like you." Never draw attention to yourself because the Bible says the meek who will inherit the earth well by the way, meek means spiritual people, it doesn't mean passive people, you keep everything in so you've got to think, "You know, I don't like these beliefs, I'm going to have some new beliefs here, I'm going to give myself a better belief you are what you believe".

But here's something, you can make any belief you like, I'm going to be an Olympic athlete, I'm going to make it. Meryl Streep when she went to audition for King Kong they went, "Meryl, you're not pretty, you'll never make it as an actress, go home." And she said, "Well, that's one opinion in a sea of opinions, I think I'll find a different opinion," and thank goodness she did. Because if you ever saw her in my favorite movie Out of Africa when Robert Redford is washing her hair, she looks beautiful. But even if she wasn't beautiful she's a gifted, talented, actress who has something to share.

But it's very easy to hear, "You'll never make it, you're not enough, you haven't got the talent, you haven't got the background." And that's another factor that causes depression, not following your heart's desire. So you have to make a decision, "Shall I go on believing this belief or shall I believe something else?"

And most successful people haven't always had a degree or a charmed life, but they have had an ability to go, "I'm not going to believe this anymore. If I make my beliefs and then my beliefs turn around and make me, it's my job to make better beliefs." People say isn't it that simple? Yeah. You know your thoughts control your feelings, your feelings control your actions, your actions control your events, you can't control anything except your thoughts, but when you control them, it changes your entire life especially if you make them good thoughts.

Because we all get to choose. "I'm going to have a bad day, it's raining, my flight is late, they've lost my luggage, everything is going to go wrong," or to go, "Well you know what, I have great coping skills. I can deal with this, yeah, I'm stuck in traffic for an hour but hey I've got something, a thing I've always wanted to listen, I've got some food in my glove box and I've got a great web download, I can listen to Shawn for an hour in this traffic." You see how the choosing is the key? You can always choose, "This is terrible, everything is—" or you go, "Hey, I can still feel great about this."

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, this is so powerful and I want people to choose to connect with you online, pick up your book, you just gave me a few autographed copies of the book. I'm so grateful for you. Can you let everybody know where they can find your book and where they can find you online?

Marisa Peer: So iamenough.com is not just a book it's a whole program. We have an audio program you can try it for free, the book is like $10 and it comes with 3 downloads that we would sell for $40 each, it's a great value. So go to iamenough.com. If you want some free products we've got wealth blogs, love blogs, health blogs, success blogs, just go to marisapeer.com and you can take a lot of free products.

And if you want to find someone trained in rapid transformational therapy, even if you want to become a therapist and do what I do, which is, by the way, the best job in the whole world, because you change people's lives and your own in the meaning to rapidtransformationaltherapy.com and you can do what I do, no background in therapy is required. We're really changing the world, everybody wants to change the world, but we're changing it, we have RTT and rehab facilities in prisons, in juvenile detention in school systems, it's everywhere and it's really exciting.

Shawn Stevenson: Thank you for making that available for us. And this is a big thing, a big part of my community, and why I do this show is to teach other teachers, because that's how we really create a movement. So thank you for being so generous and just thank you for putting in the time and energy and effort into applying these things in your own life.

And Vishen is the person that's coming to mind who just was raving about you over and over again, and his show was one of the most popular episodes we have ever had. So, guys, we'll put them into show notes, that episode you loved so much with that man, a big part of his success is through working with you.

Marisa Peer: When I met Vishen, he was very uncomfortable speaking on stage, very uncomfortable asking for money and very uncomfortable drawing attention to himself. And this is not a secret because he's written about it in his book, the hypnotist in the hotel room and I said, "Vishen, you can change all of this like that." We went back to some interesting scenes, one is this belief that if he got money other people couldn't have money, and that's very interesting, if I have more someone has less and so he couldn't ask for money.

A belief that good people, because the teacher at his school the nice ones had nothing, good people shouldn't have anything, and then this belief when the teacher humiliated him is that if you draw attention to yourself it's a bad thing. So we found 3 imprints, we erased and eradicated those immediately, then we wired in code installed in a new belief— you have a gift and you're meant to share it.

Imagine if Frank Sinatra never sang. Barbara Streisand became a nail technician. If you're given a gift you have a duty to share that with other people, to show them what human potential can be just like you and I, that's our gift but there's an obligation to pass it onto other people so they too can shine and be amazing. And I love the fact that one session with Vishen changed everything. And now I have 2 RTT therapists who work full time in his office, working with all his staff, making them shine. You know what's so great, it's really easy, it's not complicated, it's not long, it's easy.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, thank you, thank you for making it so easy. This has been so amazing and there's one other thing that I wanted to ask you about that we had mentioned on our break because we started singing a song Solid as a Rock, and you were like, music and song can actually help as part of a really successful and valuable therapy. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Marisa Peer: Yeah there's a song called "You can sing your own song" and with many of my clients I make them sing their own song, they have like a song, "I'll never do it, I'll never get over you, I'll die if you leave me, I can't live without you", and I am like, "Why are you singing that song to yourself?" Of course, you were, how about singing a better song?

So when I'm going on stage I sing a song, "This girl is on fire," and if I was a guy I'd sing, "This guy is on fire". When I'm working with clients, we sing the song from Frozen, "Let it go, let it go," because who needs to hold on to low self-esteem anyway? "I'm having the time of my life," "Don't Stop Me Now, I'm having a good time I'm having a ball, it's a new day it's a new dawn, and I'm feeling good." So what song do you sing? Do you sing, "I can live if living is—" or do you sing, "Hey—" it's like, what was that great song, everyone gets up to dance to this song? Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive".

Shawn Stevenson: I will survive.

Marisa Peer: So what do you sing? Do you sing, "I can't live if living is without you" would you sing "I will survive"? I'm finding someone who's loving me, do you sing "I'm all alone, I am nobody's child" or do you sing— Beyonce also has a song called "Survivor" do you sing "Let it go, here I am come and take me," you can choose, sing your own song, change the lyrics, it doesn't matter what they are.

My little girl used to watch Cinderella and there's a song when they're singing, the mice is singing, "You can do it, you can do it, you can really, really do it," and I've always sung that song, when I'm going to meetings, when I'm going on stage, I sing that song, "You can do it, you can do it, you can really, really do it" because there's a message in my brain, I can do or I can sing, "I'm never going to do it, I just can't do it, it's too hard, too difficult, too unfamiliar."

Sing a better song, singing a better song would change your life. We often have my clients sing that Johnny Mathis, "And I can see clearly now the pain is gone, it's going to be a bright, bright sunshiny day." You can sing whatever you want, sing better lyrics make a little theme song, sing it a lot. "I'm having the time of my life, I love my life."

I wake up every day and say, "Hey it's a great day, I love my day, I am in love with my day. And my mind believes me because why wouldn't it, I could go, "Oh, my god, I've got such a stressy day, this is going to be a nightmare." You always get to choose, if you choose to sing a different song you are choosing to live a different life, it really is that simple, solid as a rock. There is so many great songs.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, so cool because you know songs get stuck in our head. And I love that tip so much, you've given so much value here today and really I'm just so grateful, this is one of my favorite shows so far, so thank you so much.

Marisa Peer: You're welcome, thank you for having me, I'm thrilled.

Shawn Stevenson: Awesome, everybody thank you so much for tuning into the show today I hope you got a lot of value out of this. I truly am, I am smiling so big right now and this is a big affirmation for me and some of the things I have been doing in the past, but we need more people who are thinking and teaching and talking this way. And it all really begins with us though, it's applying some of these principles to our own lives and beginning to speak to ourselves in a kind of manner, in an affirmative manner.

And as we talked about today, awareness starts the process so we do want to become aware and we've talked about this many times in the show of the conversations going on in our mind, but that's not enough, you know that's often not enough and it's inserting and applying some of these things that we've talked about. And of course, going a little bit further so make sure to pick up her book "I am enough" and check out all of her stuff online, it's just absolutely phenomenal.

And just to pivot back a little bit in my story, that was me and we talked about this on the show many times, but the importance of changing your environment, absolutely, it's a powerful game-changer in and of itself but sometimes you can take the old with you to the new place, right, you could take the old you to the new party.

And for that, for me, I removed myself from the kind of consistent influx of violent behavior, violent activity but I still had that thread, I still had that go to in my arsenal, so if I would go out somewhere, if I go to the store, whatever I'm just looking at things through a lens of problems. And eventually, I had to realize, and that's was she talked about that this isn't serving me and I have to change the conversation going on in my mind.

And so for me, it was I jumped to the other extreme and I had to really work on living again once I started to think like everybody's a part of me, you know everybody's beautiful, everybody you know, we're all here together. And if I hurt somebody I'm hurting myself.

And I started to take on these thoughts and these principles and I was really living my life from a place of service and how can I defuse situations, how can I perspective take, right, it becomes very difficult for myself and I'm trying to heal myself to outwardly hurt myself by hurting someone else.

And so you know, again, it started with me taking control and being aware of my thoughts but changing the way that I was talking to myself about other people. And so wow, again so much here, and one of the great things and I am just going to say this again, I'm choosing to do this, I'm choosing to feel great about it. I'm choosing to do this.

Even today I said I have to, right and it's just a little because, I'm about to hit this traffic, it's a little bit hesitation, little feeling of ungoodness instead changing the conversation in my mind to I'm choosing to do this and I'm choosing to feel great about it.

It gave me the opportunity to listen to her in the car, one of her epic talks that she's done and again, make sure to check her out. iamenough.com is a website and guys, I've got some powerful stuff coming your way very, very soon, make sure to share this episode out with all your friends and family, you could tag me and Marisa, are you on Instagram?

Marisa Peer: Yeah, I'm on marisapeertherapy and Iamenough are both my Instagram handles.

Shawn Stevenson: Tag her as well, let everybody know what you thought about this episode. love you guys and I want you to take this statement with you again to this day, I'm choosing to do this and I'm choosing to feel great about it. And this was the big one for me today, I require it, I require it. And I require you to tune into the next episode coming very, very soon. Have a great day and I'll talk with you soon.

And for more after this show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com that's where you can find all of the show notes, you can find transcriptions, videos for these episodes, and if you've got a comment you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome and I appreciate that so much. And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.