Episode #045: The Mindset Gap
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Todd: [00:00:00] I live a life that I thought was impossible when I started this a few short years ago.
And the only difference between me and you is I've applied this knowledge and I lived it every day. And convinced myself of my own worth, convinced myself of my own power of belief, and I spent time visualizing and constructing the life that I wanted. And I managed my mind and let go of my doubts and here I am.
I closed the gap for myself.
What do you need to do to close the gap for yourself?
Intro: Welcome. You're listening to the reprogram your mind podcast, and I'm your host, Todd L Bauerle. You
think between 60 and 70, 000 thoughts a day, 98 percent of your life is controlled by habit. If you want to change your life, you have to start by changing how you think. When you change you, everything in life changes.[00:01:00]
If we can see it in our mind, we can hold it in our hands.
Todd: Welcome back everybody to the reprogram your mind podcast. My name is Todd Bauerle. I'm a coach. I work with clients all over the world, helping them reprogram their minds for the lives that they wish to have, whatever their goals are, whatever their dreams are.
You have to have a mindset equivalent to those. Otherwise you just won't experience it. And that's what I want to talk about today is this gap that we have in mindset. I think that we recognize all of the principles of mindset, of accomplishment, of personal growth and becoming better, of overcoming obstacles and achievements.
We understand all of that completely for other people, but most of us don't really believe it for ourselves. And that's the gap. I believe these principles work for you or for a famous person or in sports or, Wherever else, but I don't believe it works for me. And that gap [00:02:00] causes just about everybody to struggle, no matter who you are.
If you don't believe that this information applies to you directly, to your life and what you're experiencing today, Then you're not going to apply it. You're not going to act on it. You're not going to integrate this information into your identity and into your behavior. And so what I want to talk about today is these examples that we look at in our media, in our lives, and we say, of course, that's true.
That's proof that this stuff works. I love this kind of mindset. I love Triumph. I love success. I love overcoming the odds. I love leading with your heart, but it just doesn't work for me. We're going to highlight that. And I want you to be critical of yourself and I want you to be thinking, especially if you're a long time listener, if you're somebody that's really consumed a lot of my content online.
Watched all my videos, or you've studied Bob Proctor, or you've gone to other seminars. I want you to be really critical. [00:03:00] Where is the area that you are holding yourself back right now? What is the gap of belief that you have? If you really believe all this stuff, what's the gap that you need to close for you?
Because unless you're aware of how you are stuck, or how you are not acting, or how you are out of alignment with this material, you're never going to change and become in alignment. So let's talk about a couple of things. I first want to talk about having a goal, a dream, something bigger than you've ever done before.
Most people want to make goals realistic, make them small, make them something that's a little bit more achievable, something that's a little bit more manageable before you go after them. But you're not really growing there. And actually, you're settling. Most of the people are settling in their lives. I know that I still have large parts of my life where I'm settling, where I'm comfortable.
Actually, success has defeated me to some degree. I've been comfortable. And that's one area, one gap where I'm holding myself back, but ~let's talk about goals. We know that the impossible is impossible, is possible. We, so ~let's talk about goals. We know that the [00:04:00] impossible is actually possible. How do we know that just our modern technology, the fact that I'm recording this podcast episode here in Utah, and you're going to listen to it around the world.
I forget how many countries this podcast is streamed into, but it's a bunch and it blows my mind all over the world. This was not possible. Not very long ago, planes, if you've ever jumped on an airplane and flown across the country or across an ocean. That was impossible 150 years ago. And people thought that if you could fly, that would be blasphemous.
The Wright brothers they're. Their father was an evangelical pastor, he told them that it was blasphemous to think that man could fly, that's for angels and birds. We know that the impossible is a reality because we went to the moon. And I'm not gonna get into the truthfulness of that or flat earth and all that kind of silliness, I'm not gonna go there.
But that was a, that was an accomplishment that was [00:05:00] impossible. That people thought couldn't happen, and groups of people masterminded together to make it a reality. We know that the impossible happens all the time for other people, but we don't believe it happens with us. I was watching a show called Light and Magic on Disney Plus.
If you guys know me at all, you know that I'm a Star Wars geek, you know that I love movies and all of that. Light and Magic is about the history of George Lucas's company, Industrial Light Magic. It was their special effects house. And, when he wanted to make the original Star Wars, that was released in 1977, He saw in the industry that ~what he wanted ~what he needed to have happened to allow the vision in his mind to be shown on screen.
He knew the technology just didn't exist. The technology didn't exist. It had never been done before. And he was going to have to find people that could create the technology and [00:06:00] execute on the shots that he needed to make the movie. He is famous for saying, I know it's going to work because it's impossible.
Years later, they were talking about computer animation and getting ready for the prequel films. Episode 1 came out in 99, 25 years ago, if you can believe it. And he looked at the technology and he looked at the troubles that he had with his company and on film, in that special, he says, I know it's going to work because it's impossible.
He knew that from his own personal experience. People were telling him it was impossible to do what he did. And then look what he did. When he came up against barriers and when his Companies, employees came up against barriers. He was the voice that was there encouraging them saying, I know it is possible.
We've just got to find the way to make it work.
Another example of impossibility that we live with all the time is when you turn on a light switch. It was not very long ago that the [00:07:00] world was illuminated by candlelight and not electricity. And every time you turn on a light switch, you are doing something that people thought was black magic, they thought it was impossible. And in fact, Thomas Edison, and regardless of what you want to say about whether or not he took ideas and information from other people and all of that stuff, I'm not going to debate that. But you have to admit, he did accomplish something that nobody else had accomplished.
And it all came from a dream and a vision of what was impossible. If you go to the Smithsonian, you can read in his notebook the challenge that he gave himself. I will create for the world a method of Illumination that will make the candle obsolete or something like that. I haven't actually been there and read it I've heard about it, but that was his idea and goal and now his attempts to get there have turned into the stuff of mysticism and myth I don't know whether it's 10, 000 tries that it took for him to make the lightbulb or 1, 000 or, I [00:08:00] don't know, I hear 10, 000 often.
And what I hear is when he was challenged, why didn't you give up? You had 10, 000 failures, why didn't you give up? He says, I didn't have 10, 000 failures, I found 10, 000 ways that didn't work. And each one got me to a point where I finally found the way that it was going to work. We hear these stories and we believe them for other people because we're already living with the evidence that it could be accomplished.
You've already seen Star Wars with the Star Destroyer flying overhead. You've already seen digital dinosaurs and digital characters in movies. You turn on the lights every day since you were born and you see it and you live in that reality. We live in a world where planes have been flying the entire time
What we accept as commonplace, normal, and natural for us is a land of make believe to science fiction authors like Jules Verne from centuries before.
If we're living in a land of impossibility, why [00:09:00] can you not also create a life of impossibility? You are no different than another person, but you think you are. And I really think it's Confucius that says, He who thinks he can and he who thinks he cannot are both usually right.
This creates a major gap for us. Because you think there's something different or special about you that means you can't. Either you're cursed, you're not good enough, you're not worthy, or this belief that you're not supposed to. For some reason, maybe your existence is supposed to be struggle and hardship.
You're not supposed to find the person that you want to marry and love. You're not supposed to Have the dream job. You're not supposed to have the house that you've always dreamed of. You're not supposed to earn the amount of money you really want to have. You are supposed to struggle. It's supposed to be hard.
It's supposed to be disappointing. One of the favorite seminars that I listen to over and over again is by [00:10:00] Abraham Hicks. And she talks about how We are really good as human beings, we're conditioned, we're really good to struggle, to get down in force, and to work really hard, because my mother worked hard, my father worked really hard, and that's just what we do.
We work and work, and we beat ourselves up, and we make it really hard and difficult. And then she also says this, she says, And we've heard that there's rewards in the afterlife for those that really struggle, and I want some of those rewards. So I endure the struggle that I have. See, we believe and accept our struggle.
We don't believe and accept our impossible potential. It works for other people, but not for us. Let me talk about another example. One of belief. You've got to really believe in yourself. I post on social media all the time, and I have a lot of people that want to challenge me. the believing in yourself and the positive thinking movement because of some misunderstanding they have about it.
And a lot of people want to say well, believing in yourself isn't [00:11:00] enough. The system is corrupt or the system's against you or whatever. It's never, we're never going to live in a world of equality because we have racism and we're in late stage capitalism and the whole world's a dumpster fire.
Believing in yourself isn't enough, but watch a movie where the main character is struggling with something. And they learn how to believe in themselves and not give up and to be persistent and push through and finally they achieve some kind of success and the whole audience is in tears and it might be a silly movie or it might be a little sappy.
But those movies are stories based on real people's circumstances and you might want to reject that and say but it is a Hollywood movie and they distort some facts and they heighten the drama and all of those other things We're really good at rationalizing ourselves out of why these principles Work in a story or work for somebody else and not for us
One of my favorite movies about success and changing the course of your life is the pursuit of happiness by Will Smith and again, you could say or [00:12:00] criticize Will Smith for what happened at the Oscars and all of those things. Look, all of that might be true, but it also doesn't change or take away from the fact that this movie is incredibly inspiring.
It's based on real people. And there's a scene where he tells his son, Don't ever let somebody else tell you can't have what you want.
Because he lived his whole life surrounded by the voices of people telling him that he was no good and that he couldn't do it. And that movie is a great example of persistence, of hard work, of overcoming the unexpected trials and challenges. He shows up for an interview, with paint all over him because he had to paint the apartment he was in, or I actually forget the details of it, but it's one of my favorite scenes when, the hiring manager looks at him and says, what would you say to.
Somebody that I hired who wasn't wearing a shirt and tie. What would that mean for me and my company? He says I would say that guy must have worn some really great pants. Something like that. And he creates a laugh. He creates this [00:13:00] space of humor and humanity that allows the Employers to take a chance on him and it was driven by this absolute belief in dedication that character Chris in the movie pursuit of happiness that character could be a stockbroker could be successful could pass the test and the qualifications could do it and could Have that job and it showed up in his attitude in the way that he talked to other people in all of his behavior in his work ethic in his persistence in And of course in that movie he gets that job and by the end he's so happy he's got tears coming down his face that he can barely hide and he says thank you and he goes outside to finally express some emotions, express this happiness, this triumph that he has.
We watched that movie and we're emotionally affected by it because we recognize the truth of the principle believe in yourself and get to work and do whatever you can. And it'll happen for you. [00:14:00] We believe that on a story, but we don't believe it for ourselves. Isn't it bizarre? We know these things work.
Sports is another great example of this. We know that You have to see the basketball go through the hoop in your mind for a free throw before you actually step up and throw it. We know that if you hit a golf ball, you've got to see it landing on the green. You've got to see that happen in your mind before you can do it.
Joe Dispenza has a great example of the power of visualization in one of his books, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. He talks about piano players practicing piano. And we've got a couple of control groups. We've got one that practices, let's say, 30 minutes a day, actually sitting down at the piano and playing.
And we have another group that doesn't practice, but they visualize it. They visualize their practice. And we have a third group that doesn't visualize, and they don't actually practice. Sit down and practice either. And what did they find? Clearly, sitting down and actually [00:15:00] practicing helped them because their skill grew.
They did brain scans and saw areas of their brain that grew because of that physical practice. But you know what? The people that visualized only, they also showed greater development In their brain. They actually grew brain cells that were related to playing the piano. Because they closed their eyes and visualized.
And then clearly the control group didn't have any change. In their skill or in their gray matter. And the difference between the two the practice physically and the ones that practice just with visualization, was within a few percentage points of each other. Almost a statistically insignificant difference between the two.
We read stories like that and we know, yep, you've got to see it. You've got to see it in your mind before you do it. ~I was~ I was taking my son to pitching practice over the last couple of weeks for baseball, which I'm going to do a whole episode ~about ~about his season at some point in time here.
But his pitching coach, Ethan, told him, If you [00:16:00] don't step on the mound thinking you are the most badass pitcher in the world, you are defeated before you even throw out your first pitch. I think we know that in sports, in any sort of high competition, athletics, we know that, but yet most people won't visualize for themselves.
won't self talk themselves into an unstoppable confidence that way. If it's true for a pitcher on the mound, then it needs to be true in your life. What's the disconnect?
There's an old saying out there called fake it till you make it. I'm sure you've heard of it. And there's another saying out there that says act as if. Act as if it was impossible for you to fail. Act as if you were that person. And one of my favorite Ted Talks that's out there is by a woman named Amy Cuddy.
And she has a really great. Story and example of how when she was first teaching at university, she felt like she wasn't confident. She felt like she couldn't do a good job. She was really doubting herself. She didn't [00:17:00] feel like she belonged there doing what she wanted to do. Classically had imposter syndrome.
And she learned if I just act as if I belong there, one day I will belong. And she shares this incredible story in this TED talk. Of talking to a student where the student comes up to her and is struggling the student says I feel Like I don't belong here feel like I'm not good enough and two thoughts came into Amy's mind at the time one was Oh my gosh, this girl absolutely belongs here.
And so she told her that you absolutely belong here. You just have to start acting as if you do belong here. But the second thought, one that she had for herself is, it's been a long time since I felt like I don't belong here.~ She's ~she says, I realized I didn't have to act like I belonged there that had become who I was and I belonged there now.
And I could see the potential in this girl, she says. And I wanted her to know that she can belong there too. And so we know that this kind of stuff works for someone like [00:18:00] Amy Cuddy. You might be listening and say well, I know this stuff works for you, Todd, but it doesn't work for me. This gap is the thing we're going to close, and we're going to close right now, because you know what?
The only difference between you and me is what we're thinking about. The only difference between you and the stories of the piano players, or the basketball players that visualize sinking a free throw, or all of those things, the only difference is they are doing it and getting the results, and you are questioning it.
The only difference between me living a lifestyle that, look, in a couple weeks I'm about to go back to Michigan again, and I'll be doing the podcast from there, and I'll be doing my coaching calls from there, and that was a life that was impossible. I am sitting in my studio office, and a few short years ago this was an unfinished basement with a set of bookcases behind me and everything was unfinished here. I am now with the highest quality podcasting equipment I can [00:19:00] get all the fancy lighting finished basement studio. I thought it was impossible to have. I live a life that I thought was impossible when I started this a few short years ago.
And the only difference between me and you is I've applied this knowledge and I lived it every day. And convinced myself of my own worth, convinced myself of my own power of belief, and I spent time visualizing and constructing the life that I wanted. And I managed my mind and let go of my doubts and here I am.
I closed the gap for myself.
What do you need to do to close the gap for yourself?
And I tell you it's a lot simpler than you think. Stop thinking you can't. Stop thinking that you are the exception to the rule. Your mind is exactly like mine. You have a conscious thinking mind that you're listening to me ~to ~through your senses. And in that conscious thinking mind, you have mental superpowers that you're not using.
We're going to have another episode this season talking about what thinking actually means, and I'm going to dive into these six [00:20:00] mental faculties that you have in your conscious mind. I have them. I had to learn how to use them. I had to strengthen them like muscles, and you have to do the same. One of those is your imagination, your ability to see.
In your mind, what it is that you want. You have that ability, and so do I. As a kid, you had that ability, you've forgotten it. You have a will. The will is your ability to focus. Focus on what you want, give your attention only to what you want. You have intuition, your ability to connect to a higher self, infinite intelligence, receive messages, decode ideas from other people that you pick up a feeling of.
You have intuition that knows how to get you where From where you are to where you want to be, but you've got to strengthen it and use it. You have a memory. And the problem with memory is most of us think our memories are bad, but we can remember with exquisite detail all of the ways that we've failed, or all the traumatic experiences we've had in the past.
We're just forgetting our potential. We're forgetting these [00:21:00] life lessons that we're surrounded by, that society has been built on, We're forgetting that those are real. We have our reasoning, our logic. Most of the time, though, our logic is lazy. It's controlled by our paradigm. And we use it to come up with all the reasons and excuses why we can't change, instead of actually using them, using reason to construct the plans and the methods about how you could get to where you want to go.
And you also have perception. You can change the way that you look at things. When you change the way you look at something ~that things, ~that thing changes, but your paradigm and conditioning has you locked into looking at life one specific way and an alternate perception is invisible to you. You have six mental faculties just like I do.
I had to train mine and use them to get where I am. You may not have developed yours. You also have a subconscious mind. Look, I have programming and limiting beliefs inside of me. I have grown up as a victim, believing that [00:22:00] I wasn't powerful. Believing, maybe just like you, that of course, the impossible works for other people and not me.
Other people can believe in themselves, but not me. If they only knew ~if some, if everybody else already, ~if everybody else knew How I was stuck, or why I wasn't good enough, they would see, too, why I can't change. That was just an idea in my mind that was fixed through repetition, through emotion. I was very emotionally involved, and I can't do it.
I had to learn how to become more emotionally involved, and I can do it.
And just like me, you have a body. You can take action. You can do things differently. You don't have to do it the same every single day, but you've got to learn. You've got to learn and listen to this. When I read a book, when I listen to a lesson, I don't just watch it once and put it away. I listen again and again, over and over, so that I can really take that idea, take that information, and [00:23:00] integrate it into my lifestyle.
Integrate it into a daily routine. Integrate it into a discipline of thinking the way I choose to think. That's what you have to do.
I was really scared to face some truths about myself. I was very scared to acknowledge and admit there were plenty of times where I played the victim. And my whining and complaining served to make me feel better about where I was stuck.
I really had this belief that the success in life that I had or wanted came at the expense of my family relationships. I had to work really hard or give up spending time with my kids. I had to look at, again, religion and those beliefs and was thinking, again, maybe God wants me to struggle. But I just had to look at myself and my life and my relationship with my kids and realize, you know what?
God doesn't want me to struggle. I don't want my kids to struggle. They do. That's their choice. Boy, as a parent, I can really look at my kids and see where it's their choice to [00:24:00] struggle the way that they are. And sometimes they're fighting the same battles that I used to fight. And I've unintentionally passed down some paradigms and habits and ideas that are stuck in their minds that they have to fight and battle with.
And one of those was worthiness in the eyes of God. I'm not a perfect person, so I felt that I was unworthy until I realized there's no such thing as a perfect person. It doesn't exist. That worthiness is not something that is prescribed to me by somebody else. And I was so scared of being deceived in that journey as well.
But I had to confront those things and realize, you know what? Those are stories that I'm believing that I don't know that are true anymore.
I will tell you what this gap, this mindset gap is. Really, what I think it is for most people. ~It's not the ~It's not the fact that you have habits that aren't constructive. It's not the fact that maybe you believe it's good for somebody else and not for you. It's not the fact that, maybe you're not worthy or whatever it is.
I'll tell you really what I think the gap comes down to.
I think the gap comes down to being comfortable where you're at.
I think that everything else is an [00:25:00] excuse. An excuse designed to help yourself stay where you're at. To not risk. I think it's just fear. I think it's just fear of change.
And you know what? There might be some doubt in there that maybe you can't do it, or that maybe you'll give up. But that was an excuse that I used. I remember talking to my coach, saying, I'm scared I'm gonna give up. I'm scared I'm gonna pay all this money to you, and I'm gonna quit. Or I'm not gonna be consistent.
I'm not gonna persist. And he told me, he says, you gotta be willing to let all that go. I said I'm willing right now. I feel willing right now. But I'm worried that my will decrease. I'm worried it won't stay strong. I said, no, when you get into this material and you start living it and start applying it, and learning how to study the right way, and learning all of these examples of how people can change their life, your belief in yourself is going to grow, and your willingness will get stronger.
Let's just call it what it is. You're afraid of the unknown, because in the past, when you've been unaware, the [00:26:00] unknowns let you down.
But you have to realize there's a big difference between living your life unconsciously, and not having greater awareness,
and closing the awareness gap, learning more, so that you can think different, so that you can feel different, so that you can do different. You have to forget what's happened in the past, ~and ~When you were operating under your old paradigm, and with limited awareness. You have to let that go. You can't let that past continue to control your future.
If you have never taken responsibility for your life to this degree, it's scary. It's scary. Because we've been conditioned with a pass fail society. I'm gonna pass the test or fail the test, and if I fail the test, I'm gonna get in trouble and it's gonna be bad. I have to pass the grade, or pass the subject, and if I fail, I've got to go to summer school, I've got to retake a grade.
Life is not like that. You might have many people in your life conditioned that way who will warn you to not take risks or will punish you for doing things that [00:27:00] they don't like, but for the most part, nobody's perfect and everybody screws up in one way or another.
The biggest way that we hold ourselves back is we are more comfortable with the shit that we're in right now than the unknown and stepping towards what we want. That's what the gap is, and you're never going to change anything until you realize that nothing happens if you stay where you're at. There's this great saying, there is no growth in a comfort zone and there's no comfort in a growth zone.
You've got to get uncomfortable. You've got to start facing these things. And realize, are you going to do it perfect? No. But it is the shortcomings, it's the failures, it's the times where you try and you don't reach it that teach you how to do it better. You have to fail so that you can improve. We've got to change our perception on all of this stuff.
In fact, I would say this is mostly a perception problem because you're looking at the glass half empty and you are ignoring all of the other truths that your soul can look at and go, you know what? I can do the impossible. I can just visualize. I [00:28:00] can just focus on these things.
Here's what I want you to do as I wrap this up. I want you to really analyze your gap. If you've watched my videos, if you've listened to the entire podcast, you've got to ask yourself, do I really believe this stuff? Then why am I unwilling to make changes? You've got to diagnose what that gap is and ask yourself, am I comfortable with the way things are?
Do I really want it to continue the way things are? And if the answer is no, ~do I don't want things to continue. ~The answer is, I do not want to remain comfortable. Then you have to answer this question. What am I going to do differently? It's time to close this gap for all of us. This isn't just something that's a great thing to tell people that you can live the life of your dreams.
It is a reality that you can experience. If it's true for somebody else, then it's true for you. So you've got to say to yourself, What am I going to do differently? You've got to take different action. I don't know what it is, but your higher self does, and it can communicate to you through your intuition.
Let's close this gap. Stop [00:29:00] allowing this stuff to work for other people and not for you. There's countless examples of this information and all these principles that I've talked about working for other people. Start living it. Start doing something differently. And if you get different results, I would love to hear from you.
And if you'd like help, I'm happy to work with you. You can find all those links in the show notes. I just wanted to call attention to this gap and shake you out of your comfort zone. If you felt that this was helpful, please subscribe to the podcast. You never miss an episode. Send this episode to somebody else that maybe needs that encouragement to believe in themselves and then do something different.
~Take action on it. Take action and actually do something different, and you'll see the power that you and I become what we think about.~
I promise if you really listen with your heart, and you have an open mind, and you're gonna put things into action, you're gonna discover the truth that if I can become what I think about, then so can you. [00:30:00]
