How To INSTANTLY IMPROVE Self-Esteem & MANIFEST ABUNDANCE | Marisa Peer

Marisa Peer 0:00 You need to talk to yourself. That is the most important conversation you'll ever have. Your mind's job is to keep you alive on the planet. It doesn't actually care if you're happy. [upbeat music]

Lewis Howes 0:18 Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness Podcast. Super excited about our guest. Marisa Peer is in the house. I'm so glad that you're here. One of our top guests of all time. We had you on, when was it, a year ago or a year and a half ago?

Marisa Peer 0:29 Year and a half. Year and a half.

Lewis Howes 0:30 Year and a half ago, we had you on. I didn't even know who you were at the time. Someone had emailed me a few different times over months and said, "You got to check out Marisa." And I was like, "Who is this therapist from the UK-"

Marisa Peer 0:40 Who is?

Lewis Howes 0:40 "... with an interesting accent?" But then I watched a video of yours online, and I was like, "Hmm, I really like your approach and your style." So we had you on, and it took off, and the audio, the video, and we really helped heal a lot of people. So, and we had you speak at Summit of Greatness last year.

Marisa Peer 0:57 We did, yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:57 You were one of the top speakers. It's been an amazing time. So very grateful that you're back, and I think people could use your wisdom and your healing ways more than ever right now. Because I think a lot of people's thoughts are sick.

Marisa Peer 1:11 Sure.

Lewis Howes 1:11 And, and they don't know how to change their thoughts, heal their thoughts. You know, if we're so focused on negative thoughts, how do we even get to the place of stopping those thoughts and starting to heal from years or decades of thinking negatively?

Marisa Peer 1:28 And I guess that's a great question, because most people don't even get there. You have to understand thoughts are things. When you think a thought, you have an immediate reaction.

Lewis Howes 1:38 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:38 That's why if you think about eating-

Lewis Howes 1:40 You're hungry

Marisa Peer 1:40 ... your stomach rumbles.

Lewis Howes 1:41 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:41 You think about sex, you get aroused. People say, "I, I didn't believe that." I say, "Well, what do you think an erection is?" You think a thought, you get a physical reaction. That's not a one-off. If you think a thought, a thought has a physical reaction in your body immediately, and an emotional response. If I think I'm embarrassed, I might blush. If you say something moving, my eyes might fill up with tears because my body is reacting to thoughts. And if you could all be taught that early on, you react to thoughts, that's a fact. Here's another great fact. You can change your thoughts anytime you like, and if you change your thinking, it changes your entire life. So for instance, we're all saying, "I'm stuck at home." I go, "No, I'm safe at home."

Lewis Howes 2:25 Hmm.

Marisa Peer 2:25 Stuck, safe. You change one little word, it changes everything. So we say, "I'm trapped. I'm in a lockdown." You know, we're not actually trapped. They're not sealing up the doors like they did in the plague. In the plague, they sealed your doors, and you couldn't physically get out. But we are asked to stay indoors. We still go out for walks. We go out to the store. We go to the pharmacy. We're not stuck. We're not locked in. We're not trapped. We're not in prison. It's not an apocalypse. It's not Armageddon. But if you start to use those words-

Lewis Howes 2:59 Hmm

Marisa Peer 2:59 ... it begins to feel exactly as if it is that case.

Lewis Howes 3:04 Hmm.

Marisa Peer 3:04 So it's really important that you change your words, and I learned that when I was helping a hospital who had people who couldn't go in the scanning machine. And they'd all say things like, "Well, I, I feel like I'm in a coffin. You know, when I get in that scanner, and I can't move, I'm so trapped." I'm like, "Look, come on. You lie in bed for eight hours every night and don't move. Why don't you just say, 'I'm in my bed. I'm super chilled.' "

Lewis Howes 3:28 Hmm.

Marisa Peer 3:28 "And I feel so relaxed." And what will happen is your mind will react to your thinking. And so I had many people do that, and I was teaching nurses how to get people to do that, especially little kids of six-

Lewis Howes 3:40 Hmm

Marisa Peer 3:40 ... going into the scan. And they said, "You know, when we tell them they're in their bed, they actually fall asleep in there." And we say, "We're going to play a game now of statues. How long can you keep still, still for?" So when I actually, a few years ago, was in a scanner, which I didn't ever plan to be, and I thought, "Well, let's, let me play a game here."

Lewis Howes 3:57 Let's try this, yeah.

Marisa Peer 3:57 So I lay in there, and I went, "I'm in my bed. I'm so chilled. This is so great. I've got half an hour to just lie here." And then I decided to go, "I'm in my coffin now." And they start to talk, they go, "Marisa, you're moving all the time." I had no idea because I was saying, "I'm, I'm stuck. I'm trapped. I'm claustrophobic." My body was like, "Get out." And it starts to do things to make you want to leave. And so if you just understand-

Lewis Howes 4:26 Hmm

Marisa Peer 4:26 ... um, how you are, everything changes. So our ancestral brain is like, "Flee, fight, freeze." I can fight. I can flee. I can freeze. So I'm in a scanner, and it's like, "Well, I, I need to flee this. I need to fight it."

Lewis Howes 4:44 Hmm.

Marisa Peer 4:44 And I'm like, "No, if you can't fight, and you can't flee, don't freeze, flow."

Lewis Howes 4:50 Hmm.

Marisa Peer 4:50 I can't fight. I can't flee, but I can flow. I mean, Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in solitary confinement. We can't even do three weeks.

Lewis Howes 5:01 No. [laughs]

Marisa Peer 5:01 We're going, "Oh, it's hell. It's a nightmare. I'm cooped up. My kids are driving me mad. I, I want to get a divorce. I can't stand it." But he did 27 years. You know how he did it? Because he said, "Everyone in my country is in prison. I'm just in a different prison to them. If they can do it, I can do it, and I'm going to come out here the leader of my country."

Lewis Howes 5:22 Wow.

Marisa Peer 5:22 And he did. So, you know, we, we have this belief that events affect us. They don't. The meaning you attach to an event affects you. The interpretation you choose on an event is what affects you. So some people are going, "I love it. It's great. You know, I'm so much time. I'm having the best time." Other people go, "I hate it. I can't stand it. I'm climbing the walls. I'm going cray. I'm ripping my hair out." None of which, we're not actually ripping out our hair or climbing the walls or going insane. We shouldn't use that. But clearly, it must be the interpretation because we're all reacting differently. This won't affect you, but what you make of it will, and it's your job to change the interpretation. And if you can change the interpretation, it will change your entire life.

Lewis Howes 6:11 How do we change the interpretation to go from-

Marisa Peer 6:13 Yeah

Lewis Howes 6:13 ... flee or fight, or freeze to flow?

Marisa Peer 6:15 Well, you first of all, you think, "What does this mean? What does this mean?" You know, I, I've had a couple of clients who went to jail, and they reacted inter- One of them was a very rich woman who went to jail for tax evasion, and she said, actually, she ended up really liking it. She lived-

Lewis Howes 6:33 Being in jail?

Marisa Peer 6:33 Well, she was a typical rich woman. She had a beautiful house, lots of staff. She didn't really go anywhere. Everyone did everything for her. She didn't really have any friends. She had the ladies who lunch. And when she was there, she trained to be an aerobic teacher. She trained to be a yoga teacher, nothing else to do. She really bonded with the other women. And when she got out, she went back every week to visit them because she said, "You know, it was different in there. It was like girls' boarding school. I didn't realize I was isolated at home-

Lewis Howes 7:00 Mm

Marisa Peer 7:01 ... and more connected in jail," which is an interesting way to think about it.

Lewis Howes 7:06 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 7:06 And people who, often people who've been in jail or been trapped in their house, been in lockdown... So Isaac Newton, I believe, in 1665, he developed the theory of gravity while London was locked down because of the plague.

Lewis Howes 7:20 Mm.

Marisa Peer 7:21 Sealed in their house, and so he used that time. So I guess you have to think, "Well, you know, I can't change this, but I can change what it means." One day, I'll look back and go, "Well, actually, there was a lot of good stuff. What can I do-

Lewis Howes 7:36 Mm

Marisa Peer 7:36 ... about it?" I mean, we all go, "I just haven't got enough time. Oh, I'd love more time. If only I had time to myself." Well, here it is. What could you do or learn or achieve? And I'm not saying it's easy, 'cause I'm also safe at home, and I really miss going out and meeting people. But I'm also doing things I've wanted to do for years that I couldn't do because of time. So silly things, like cook with your kids and make that a math lesson. How much does that weigh? How much vitamin C is in the skin-

Lewis Howes 8:07 Mm

Marisa Peer 8:07 ... of a potato? Do the laundry. You know, why do you think detergent's called biological? Uh, you can make it interesting. You just have to really decide, "Okay, what does this mean to me, and can I change the meaning of it?" When I can change the meaning, it will change my life, 'cause the meaning is yours to change, and the interpretation is yours to change.

Lewis Howes 8:31 Oh.

Marisa Peer 8:31 But the fastest way is to look at words. Am I saying apocalypse, Armageddon, uh, trapped, stuck? Someone said to me, "They've, they've taken away my freedom." Who? The government.

Lewis Howes 8:42 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 8:42 Government forces have taken away my freedom. Maybe. But how about-

Lewis Howes 8:47 Mm

Marisa Peer 8:48 ... they want me to live. They want me to be safe. The government has put this in place to keep me safe. So I'm safe at home, or they've taken away my freedom.

Lewis Howes 8:57 Mm.

Lewis Howes 8:58 Why, why looking at your words first? Why is that so important?

Marisa Peer 9:01 Because the way you feel about everything is down to two things, the pictures you make in your head and the words. The way you feel about everything every minute of every day is only down to two things, the pictures you make in your head and the words you say. But you could make that even simpler and say forget about the pictures, 'cause the words make the picture. You know, a lot of us are, I, I, I'm not visual, and I can't see stuff. But if I said to you, "Lewis, think of anything, but you may not think of an orange snowman, especially one whose snow is the same color as the carrot in his nose."

Lewis Howes 9:37 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 9:38 You gotta think of an orange snowman. And so when you hear words, they make pictures. When you say, "Don't think about blushing. Don't think about falling." You know, I paddleboard every day, and I notice if you go, "Oh, God, I'm, I'm wobbling here. I'm gonna fall," I've never ever, ever fallen off, 'cause I don't think about falling. I think about balance-

Lewis Howes 9:59 Mm

Marisa Peer 9:59 ... and how much I like it. But when you say a word, you make a picture. And even the words you use in front of words make a picture. You can say, "This is driving me crazy. I'm going insane." There's a picture. Or you can say, "It's a challenge. It's interesting. It's an opportunity," 'cause they don't make a picture.

Lewis Howes 10:22 Mm.

Marisa Peer 10:22 So when you say, "I've got this cracking headache. Oh, my God, it's killing me. I'm in agony. My head is killing me."

Lewis Howes 10:29 Swelling. It's throbbing.

Marisa Peer 10:31 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:31 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 10:31 Or you say, "I've got a little niggle here."

Lewis Howes 10:33 Mm.

Marisa Peer 10:34 "A little niggle. Not great, but so what?" When you say, "I'm starving," this is what people do. They come in the house-

Lewis Howes 10:40 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 10:40 ... "I'm starving. I could eat a horse. I'm dying of hunger." See, what you're doing, which most people don't know, is that 500 years ago, the thing that killed us more than anything else was not disease, and it wasn't war, it was hunger.

Lewis Howes 10:57 Mm.

Marisa Peer 10:58 And we're wired to be scared of hunger. So when you say to your body, "I'm starving. I, I'm dying of hunger. I could eat a horse," your mind goes, "Oh, that's that dangerous thing that could kill you." You have an apat set here that regulates what you eat, but if you say you're starving, I'll put that on hold so you can eat-

Lewis Howes 11:17 Yeah, so much

Marisa Peer 11:18 ... stand in front of the-

Lewis Howes 11:19 Yeah

Marisa Peer 11:19 ... fridge and eat so much stuff. And then when you've eaten, you still feel hungry, 'cause you just told me you were starving.

Lewis Howes 11:26 So you're saying that, uh, using the words I'm starving or I'm okay, I don't need food-

Marisa Peer 11:31 Yeah. Or, yeah

Lewis Howes 11:31 ... whatever you say is going to manifest in the body.

Marisa Peer 11:33 And you just have to think, how could I change that? Am I really starving? I don't think I've ever been starving. I mean, I've been hungry, but I have never been starving. Could I really eat a horse? No, not even a horse's leg. Of course you couldn't. Am I really dying of hunger? That takes at least 12 days-

Lewis Howes 11:49 Yeah

Marisa Peer 11:49 ... probably even longer. So then you think, "Why would I lie to myself-

Lewis Howes 11:54 Mm

Marisa Peer 11:54 ... and delude myself?" How about saying the truth? "I need to eat. I'm ready to eat." And you see what happens is maybe you're driving home or maybe you're on the train station and you say, "I'm starving." Now your mind goes, "There's a Kit Kat machine right there. You should eat three of those, and maybe some jelly beans-

Lewis Howes 12:13 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 12:13 ... and taco chips as well, 'cause you're starving. And I'm your mind, and my job is to keep you alive, and you just said you're starving." Because your mind's job is to listen to your words, and your job, and it's a great job, is to tell it better stuff.

Lewis Howes 12:27 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 12:27 So then instead you go, "You know, I am hungry, I need to eat, but I've got some chicken in my house. I've got some veggies. I've got a casserole I cooked it yesterday. I can wait an hour-

Lewis Howes 12:37 Mm

Marisa Peer 12:37 ... and eat better food." And we all have to say that, "I am hungry, but I'm choosing to wait 30 minutes for better food." You know, it's the same thing in a restaurant. And when I go to restaurants, I'm not hungry. The minute I sit down, they bring that bread- bread basket, I think, "Oh. Oh, I need that." And I could have eaten all of those at one time until I learnt to say, "I'm choosing to wait half an hour to eat this really nice food I've ordered."

Lewis Howes 13:03 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 13:04 But you have to talk to yourself. You know, we're all taught if you can, um, talk to your customers, you'll have a great business. If you can talk to your kids, you'll be a great parent. But no one says, "But you need to talk to yourself." That is the most important conversation you'll ever have, the one you have with yourself. "This relationship is killing me. This kid is killing me. I'm dying under my workload. This freeway makes me want to die." This is not true. Why don't you say the truth? That the- the- this commute-

Lewis Howes 13:36 It's challenging, yes

Marisa Peer 13:37 ... is a challenge.

Lewis Howes 13:37 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 13:38 "I've got all these audiobooks to listen to. I've got some snacks in my car. I'm prepared for the challenge," rather than, "It's killing me." So-

Lewis Howes 13:46 'Cause what happens when we say, "This is killing me," over and over again? What happen- how do we manifest that physically?

Marisa Peer 13:51 Yeah, if you say that, your mind... Your mind's job is to keep you alive on the planet. It doesn't actually care if you're happy. You know, people think, "My mind's job is to make me happy." No, it's not. It's to make you live long enough to reproduce yourself. And actually, that takes the first 30. So you got another 70 left. So our mind's job is a little confusing to our minds.

Lewis Howes 14:11 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 14:12 But, you know, we are ancestral people in very modern bodies, and when you say, "My job is killing me," it goes, "Don't go to that place called job."

Lewis Howes 14:22 Mm.

Marisa Peer 14:23 "And if you keep going to that place called job and keep saying it's killing you, I'll just give you a nice ulcer. I'll keep you at home now. I'll-

Lewis Howes 14:32 Make you sick.

Marisa Peer 14:33 I'll-

Lewis Howes 14:33 I'll give you a disease. I'll-

Marisa Peer 14:33 I'll make you sick. I'll give you a disease." And- and we see that. People say, "Oh, I need a week in bed," and then they get flu. Now they've got their week in bed. "I- I need to get out of that meeting," and now they get chronic diarrhea. So it happens all the time anyway. And because your mind is designed to keep you alive, and so if you say you hate something... And people say, "You know, this guy, oh, he ripped out my heart, stamped all over it, and threw it in the trash." Really? I think he got bored with you, darling. And you know what? If you stuck around, you probably would've got bored with him. He was just your starter relationship.

Lewis Howes 15:09 Right.

Marisa Peer 15:09 He taught you a lot, and you learnt a lot. And everything he loved in you, but he didn't take it. When he packed his washbag and left, he didn't put in it all the things that made him like you. They're still in you. He couldn't take them home. And everything he liked in you is still there, and you can find a way better person that loves you more. But when you say to your mind, "He ripped out my heart, stamped all over it. He killed me," the mind goes, "You know what? Don't have another relationship."

Lewis Howes 15:37 Mm.

Marisa Peer 15:37 "Stay single. I'll make you the biggest-"

Lewis Howes 15:40 You can't trust any man. Yeah

Marisa Peer 15:40 ... "bitch in the world."

Lewis Howes 15:41 You-

Marisa Peer 15:41 "I'll make you the cold, most cold-hearted guy," 'cause you keep saying, "If I meet another person that leaves me, I'll die. If I meet another person that hurts me, I couldn't take the pain."

Lewis Howes 15:54 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 15:54 You know those songs, I haven't got time for the pain. I can't live without you. When you say to your mind, "It'll kill me if another guy dumps me," or girl-

Lewis Howes 16:04 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 16:04 ... "I'll die if I get rejected. If I have another miscarriage, it will just be the end of the world for me," you've told your mind, "I couldn't cope with that event," and your mind's job is-

Lewis Howes 16:16 Mm

Marisa Peer 16:16 ... "Okay. My job is to make sure you never have to experience that event ever, ever, ever again." So-

Lewis Howes 16:25 So I'm gonna make you a- a bitch. I'm gonna make you-

Marisa Peer 16:27 Yeah

Lewis Howes 16:27 ... mean.

Marisa Peer 16:28 Infertile.

Lewis Howes 16:28 I'm gonna make you obese.

Marisa Peer 16:30 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 16:30 Or unattractive, all these things.

Marisa Peer 16:32 Yeah. You know, I worked with someone, it was so fascinating. This girl had hypersensitivity to light, so bad that she couldn't go out in normal daylight. And when I talked to her, she said, "You know, when I was 11, I got really, really badly bullied. And I said to my mom, 'Can I stay home?' And she's like, 'No, I'm a single parent. Of course you can't stay home.'

Lewis Howes 16:53 Mm.

Marisa Peer 16:53 "I gotta go to work, and I hate my job, and you have to go to school and deal with it.' And she said, 'But Mom, I- I- I need to stay home.' 'No.'" When she got hyper light sensitivity, what do you think happened?

Lewis Howes 17:05 She was able to stay home.

Marisa Peer 17:06 She had to stay home-

Lewis Howes 17:07 She had to

Marisa Peer 17:07 ... every day. Her mind believed that staying home was what she wanted, and was really seductive. And we have to be so careful when we say, "I want to be at home. I- I- I- I don't want to go out into the world and deal with that. It's too much for me." And recently, I was teaching, 'cause I teach RTT all over the world, and I was teaching my course and- and I heard this story. I'd- I just trained a graduate, and I was so proud of her because she said, "You know, my first client was an anorexic girl. And when I talked to her using RTT, I said, "What..." W- 'Cause we always say the same thing, "What was going on when you first began to have this?" It's ca- what I call what lies beneath. And she said, um, "Well, I was 11 years old, and I opened my dad's study, and he was looking at porn, and he was panting, you know, like a dog. And I remember standing at the door thinking, "Ugh, I never want anyone to look at me the way he's looking at that girl."

Lewis Howes 18:04 Wow.

Marisa Peer 18:04 "I would die- ... if a man looked at me the way my dad is looking at that girl. Now, that's actually a command to the mind. Do anything and everything to make sure no man ever looks at me- This way, yeah ... the way he's looking at her. And that's when she became anorexic. Mm. When you're anorexic, the ovaries don't develop. You don't go into- you don't get breasts. You, you lose your hair. But what was even more interesting is a girl in the audience said, "That's so bizarre, 'cause I'm bulimic. And my dad used to c- I used to- he used to drop me off when they were divorced, and he'd go, 'Look at your mom. Look at her in those tight clothes. Who does she think she is? She just looks like a tramp.' She says, "And I thought, I never want my husband to ever talk about me like that. And I'm so fat-" Oh, my gosh ... "that he would never talk about me like that." So same, almost the same scenario. The same request to the mind. I couldn't cope if anyone spoke about me like that. And one became anorexic, and one became obese. Because the mind took the command, do anything and everything to make sure no one ever- Mm ... looks at me like that. Yeah. To protect yourself, yeah. And it doesn't have a set thing. But, um, what is interesting is we in RTT have something called role, function, purpose. So we say to people, "If this headache had a role, what would it be? If, um, your irritable bowel had a role, if these panic attacks had a purpose," and they come up with the most profound stuff. But it's only ever three things in 30 years. It's always the same three. The panic attacks protect me, you know? My dad wanted me to be a family lawyer like him, but when I got panic attacks, he said, "Oh, you could never do that. No, you can't. How could you ever be in court with panic attacks?" So they protected me from this expectation- Mm-hmm ... I knew I could never meet. The second thing is they punish me. You think, "Why would my mind punish me?" But when I talk to people, they go, "Yeah, you know, I had an affair with my friend's boyfriend, and I, it, it caused so many problems, and now I've got colitis. I've got autoimmune," which means the body is attacking itself. "When I was 15, I stole money from my mom's purse, and then I never told. But ever since, I've had this chronic irritable bowel- Mm ... these terrible headaches. I blush all the time." You know, years ago we used to go to do penance. We wo- used to wear hair shirts. But if you have guilt, your mind's job is to become judge, juror, jailer. Let me punish you. So punishing ourselves is, is huge. A lot of people do it. They don't even know why. And the third thing is to get attention. Mm. You've all seen kids lying on the floor in the store screaming 'cause they want attention. That was me. [laughs] Getting sick because they want attention. Yeah. You know, many, many children who can't get... If you can't get the love of your parents, the very next best thing is to be sick. It's almost as good. They have to pay attention. Yeah. "Oh, I didn't think my mom loved me, but she's driving all over town buying this gluten-free flour, getting me special cream, doing something." And, and for many kids, being sick is like, "Oh, I didn't think I mattered, but clearly I do. Now you've got all this special stuff in the house." And when I got sick- So the more sick I get- Yeah, the more attention I get ... the more hurt, the more... Yeah. And those children tend to become life's hypochondriacs. And my mother, in England in the war, they evacuated children. They took all the children from the cities, put them on trains, sent them to the country. And people had to take you in. They had no choice. And some of them had a great time. Some of them had an awful time. But my mom didn't like it, and she stopped eating. She got covered in boils. Hmm. She was really sick. She was the only one who was allowed to go home early. And she never, ever her whole life gave up being sick. I used to talk to her. Really? [laughs] It, it, it met all her needs. She got so much attention. She's the only person I know. I'd go and see her in a hospital. She'd sit up in bed, and she goes, "Oh, the doctor's very worried about me. You know, he thinks it's really serious." And, and she would speak with such a sparkle in her eyes. Really? And she was so happy. She loved being in hospital. And I remember my little girl saying to her one day, "Grandma, what are all these pills?" And she'd go, "Well, that's for my legs. That's for my headaches. That's for my irritable bowel. That's for my allergies. That's for my foot." She'd go, "But Grandma, how do they all know where to go?" Which I thought was a great- That's funny. Yeah. And my little girl came back from my mother's one, she went, "Mommy, I've got my tension headache." I'm like, "No, darling, you're five. We don't have tension headaches." [laughs] Yeah. "That's a grandma thing." Yeah. But one weekend with my mother and she'd go, "Oh, I've got a tension headache. Oh, this is all going to go wrong. Oh, that's giving me a stomach ache." Because children learn what they live. Well, mimicking. Yeah, we're mimicking. Yeah. And my mom was a lovely, lovely woman, but she was so invested in being ill. And you know, a weekend in her company, by osmosis my little girl picked all of that up. Mm. And then she says to me one day, "You know, Phaedra's very, um, active. I think you need to put her on Ritalin." I'm like, "She's a child, Mom." Your mom? Oh. [laughs] Yeah. I said, "I'm not gonna drug her. She's like a puppy. They're- it's called being age-appropriate. They run, they jump- They got energy, yeah ... they touch stuff. Why would I drug her?"

Marisa Peer 23:42 But, um, you know, my mother learnt. And we do something in RTT which I love, and it's called foreplay. Mm-hmm. [laughs] It's not about sex. Yeah, that's great. We talk about that a lot, too. But in, in foreplay, you know, I, I created this, and I'm quite proud of it because it's so interesting. It says that if you don't feel loved by your parents, if you're not sure they love you and care, there's only four things that you can do

Lewis Howes 24:07 If you're not loved

Marisa Peer 24:08 ... if you don't feel, well-

Lewis Howes 24:10 If you don't feel loved

Marisa Peer 24:11 ... you don't feel that you're loved.

Lewis Howes 24:12 They might give you love.

Marisa Peer 24:13 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 24:13 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 24:13 But if you don't feel loved, if you don't feel significant. See, children have needs, and they're very simple needs. I need to feel loved, I need to feel significant, I need to feel protected, and I need to feel I matter.

Lewis Howes 24:26 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 24:27 I need to feel safe. That's really their needs.

Lewis Howes 24:29 Mm-hmm. Are these the four things?

Marisa Peer 24:30 Five.

Lewis Howes 24:30 Or no, go.

Marisa Peer 24:30 I need to feel loved-

Lewis Howes 24:31 Yeah

Marisa Peer 24:31 ... significant, protected, safe, matter. Protected and safe are kind of the same, so it could be four.

Lewis Howes 24:37 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 24:38 Pretty much that's a child's needs.

Lewis Howes 24:40 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 24:41 And if these needs are not met for whatever reason, then they have no choice but to do one of four things. The first is to get sick.

Lewis Howes 24:48 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 24:49 Being sick is so powerful for a child. Suddenly they do feel loved, they do feel significant, they do feel they matter. They, they might feel safe 'cause a doctor or nurses are very kind to them. The second one is to be brilliant.

Lewis Howes 25:04 Mm.

Marisa Peer 25:04 Doesn't matter at what. The kids who become outstanding athletes, grade A students. Is that-

Lewis Howes 25:12 'Cause they get all the attention

Marisa Peer 25:13 ... because they s- they feel validated. My, my parents are really proud. They say, "Look at my son. Look at his report card," or, "Oh, and my daughter the track star." And suddenly they do feel significant. They do feel they matter.

Lewis Howes 25:24 And they lean more into that.

Marisa Peer 25:25 And they, yeah.

Lewis Howes 25:26 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 25:26 But they can never give that up, and they become adults who are always still having to be the best.

Lewis Howes 25:32 That was me.

Marisa Peer 25:32 Mm.

Lewis Howes 25:32 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 25:32 The sick kids are the adult hypochondriacs. The third way, and I'm a therapist so I can say that was me, is the carer. They go, "You know, life isn't fair. I'm not getting love and attention. I know. Why don't I give it?"

Lewis Howes 25:48 Mm.

Marisa Peer 25:48 "I'll be a nurse." And the statistics of nurses who come from that need to give what they haven't got is really high. That's why it's a calling as much as a profession. So the next role is the carer. I'll go out and I'll-

Lewis Howes 26:02 I'll put other people before me. I'll-

Marisa Peer 26:03 ... and I'll, I'll be a nurse

Lewis Howes 26:05 ... yeah.

Marisa Peer 26:05 I'll be a doctor, I'll be a counselor, I'll be a therapist. And they give so much, but they don't receive. And so the carer's needs are met by giving what they didn't get.

Lewis Howes 26:15 Mm.

Marisa Peer 26:16 So one of my clients was saying her mother was a very high-powered executive, but she drank all the time secretly, and she had no time for this daughter except when she'd drunk too much, and then she'd be the one that would hide the bottles, clean up the house, make her some soup, or maybe run to the store and get her more alcohol or go and find her where she'd hidden it in the garage before dad came home. And she only felt needed when she was looking after an alcoholic mother. And she also became a high-flying executive-

Lewis Howes 26:45 Mm

Marisa Peer 26:45 ... and she only ever dated alcoholics 'cause she was playing the only part she'd ever known. If I nurse an alcoholic, I feel useful. I feel wanted. It's the next best thing to being loved is to be wanted.

Lewis Howes 27:01 Mm.

Marisa Peer 27:02 And the thir- fourth way, which is really interesting, is to be the rebellious, difficult one. And that usually happens when all the other roles have gone. My sister's sick. My dad's brilliant.

Lewis Howes 27:14 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 27:15 My brother's perfect and caring.

Lewis Howes 27:17 [laughs] That's the one.

Marisa Peer 27:18 So I'm gonna take my spoon and bang it on the table.

Lewis Howes 27:21 Right, right.

Marisa Peer 27:21 And I'm still doing it 40 years later because I got to get the power off these people.

Lewis Howes 27:26 Wow.

Marisa Peer 27:26 So I'm gonna be the difficult kid.

Lewis Howes 27:28 And if I can't be the best in the family, and if I can't be the most brilliant-

Marisa Peer 27:31 Yeah

Lewis Howes 27:32 ... then I have to find some other role.

Marisa Peer 27:33 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 27:34 If I can't be the most giving and loving-

Marisa Peer 27:35 Yeah

Lewis Howes 27:35 ... I gotta be the rebellious one.

Marisa Peer 27:37 And if you look at dynasties like the Kennedy dynasty, the Guinness dynasty, if you look at maybe Michael Douglas' sons, one was just like him. One was a drug addict and died.

Lewis Howes 27:49 Wow.

Marisa Peer 27:49 Whenever you look at that, it used to be much easier when you had families of four kids or three kids, but you can actually see it.

Lewis Howes 27:57 Mm.

Marisa Peer 27:57 I see it all the time playing out. You can see it in the royal family, in our English royal family. You can see who's the good, brilliant one, who's the ill one, who's the rebel, who's the caring one. And even if there's only two kids, sometimes mom and dad take that role.

Lewis Howes 28:12 Mm.

Marisa Peer 28:12 So I was in, um, Costa Rica and this guy came up to me on the beach and said, "You know, I've always wanted to meet you," he said, "because," he said, "I'm a terrible addict. I've done everything. I've been..." He said, "I went into rehab, came out and got run over by a bus 'cause I went straight from rehab to the pub." [laughs] He said, "My parents have sent me into rehab so many times. My wife's sent me. I've got-"

Lewis Howes 28:34 Mm

Marisa Peer 28:35 ... "two children, but I can't stop being an addict. What's wrong with me?" I said, "I don't know. Tell me about your life." And he said, "I've an older brother. He's brilliant. And then me, and then I've got twin brothers. I don't... And that's it. Just like..." I said, "That's it." Because when you're a little kid, and he, he was Iranian too, which was really interesting.

Lewis Howes 28:55 Mm.

Marisa Peer 28:55 Nothing wrong with that, of course. But in that culture, the older brother was the firstborn son. That role would never be taken away from him.

Lewis Howes 29:03 Mm.

Marisa Peer 29:04 His parents are both doctors. The parents are brilliant and carers. They've got the role. Now we've got the firstborn son, who's also brilliant. Now you've got this one, and that's okay 'cause he's the baby. That's cool. But then they have twin boys after him who totally smash his role out of the park-

Lewis Howes 29:23 Mm

Marisa Peer 29:24 ... 'cause they're forever... And they were premature.

Lewis Howes 29:27 Mm.

Marisa Peer 29:27 So they were the sick ones.

Lewis Howes 29:28 And they needed attention.

Marisa Peer 29:29 So much attention, so much care. Monitors in the cot, checking if they throw up, feeding every hour, all night long, being weighed. So the other th- the mom, dad, and brother never lost their role, but he lost his role. He wasn't the baby brother anymore.

Lewis Howes 29:46 Mm.

Marisa Peer 29:46 And there's two more, and they're sick, so his only role was to be the difficult, rebellious one. And the minute I told him that, he never, ever used again. Just stopped. He said, "Gainsbourg." He was able to say, um, "Oh yeah, of course. I, I had no choice but to take on that role." And I said, "Well, you know, we play the only part we've ever known." And then you make that part your own where you go, "You know what? I think it's time for a new part. I'm a father with an amazing wife." And two children Mm. I don't need to do this. But just looking at, oh, okay, what was my mom? What was my dad? What was my sister? What was my brother? Because they know my sister was so competitive. But suddenly I have great compassion, 'cause she was just trying to get noticed, like I was- Right ... being sick or brilliant. Wow.

Lewis Howes 30:36 So we can start to have compassion-

Marisa Peer 30:37 Yeah

Lewis Howes 30:37 ... for our family who play these roles.

Marisa Peer 30:39 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 30:39 Can we shift these roles as children if we start to become aware? Or how do we-

Marisa Peer 30:43 It's, it's hard when you're very little, because as a little child, you have what I call unmet needs. And when a child has unmet needs, something very interesting happens. They believe this need will never get met. They have what I call tagging. So when something happens to a child, they form a tag. It will always be like this. It'll be like this for the rest of my life, and I can never change this. So you often see children when the parents are violent or abusive or desperately poor. And when the parents don't meet the child's needs and are violent or cold or just absent 'cause they're working all the time, the kid never stops loving the parent. They stop loving themselves. Mm. They immediately go into this, "My mom isn't here. She doesn't love me. My dad's not here. I'm not lovable enough. I don't have what other kids have. It will always be like that." And that's the biggest problem, the tagging, is that we go into our adult life with the same belief. And we see many people who have everything, but they're still that child. "Oh, you wouldn't love me if I didn't have this." Mm. "I'm, I'm just faking all of this. It's not real. It's not me." Because we play the only part we've ever known. Yeah. And you know, I was teaching recently at a hospital in London and, and all the doctors said, "Wow, every person coming on stage to work with you, they all have unmet needs." Mm-hmm. It's always the needs of a child were not met, and now they've got vitiligo or impetigo or a chronic stutter or a nervous twitch. Yeah. 'Cause their body's like, "I'm going to get this need met." You want attention. You want to feel significant. You want to feel you matter. Well, being sick is a great thing, or be brilliant- Mm-hmm ... or be rebellious or be good. But it's, it's saying, "Okay, okay, I can see I did that." Like you straight away saw your part. Yeah. My brother was brilliant in my house. My sister was gorgeous and enchanting and clever, and I just felt like this freak in the middle. [laughs] So I became the carer. Yeah. I would always clean the house for my mom and be so good. And, and my dad was a carer. He was an amazing head teacher or principal. But then as you get older, you just think, "Well, let me look at this." Mm. My mom was that. Okay, but I don't have to do that anymore. I don't have to do that now.

Lewis Howes 33:12 So it's just making a conscious decision-

Marisa Peer 33:14 Yeah

Lewis Howes 33:14 ... and being aware is the first step.

Marisa Peer 33:15 Yeah. And I, another client I met, and he said, "You know, I had a heart attack wakeboarding, and I've got a wife and kids, and my wife is just going to leave me if I don't..." He said, "I love extreme sports. I heli-ski. I do everything. The more dangerous, the better." And his story was his brother was really sick. He was born, then the baby brother was really sick, and they had to have a sterilized house. Mm. It was all, "Brother, don't bring, your brother." And he said, "I used to jump over, um, bikes on my skateboard or go over bikes. And the only time I got attention was if I hurt myself. If I came in covered in mud, they go, 'Oh my God, your brother, germs.' But they would patch me up and go, 'Are you okay?'" And, and he says, "And I used to go out," this wild kid, like, doing crazy things. Mm. "But I didn't realize I only got attention by hurting myself." Mm. So the minute he saw that, he s- that was a game changer. Yeah. "I'll never, ever... I don't need to heli-ski. I'm all done with that." Right. But you have to see it to fix it. You know, most of us don't really look at, "Oh, I don't want to look at that." You have to look at your life- Mm ... and go, "Okay. Okay, what was going on when I began to do that? What was happening in my life?" And sometimes you'll get it, sometimes you won't. Even if you don't, just think- Mm-hmm ... "But it's not me." You know, one of the most powerful things we do in RTT is get people to say, "It's not me." Mm. I make people say, "It's not me because, that is not me anymore because it will never be, be me ever again for the rest of my life because it cannot be me." And you know, when I, I do huge auditoriums, I have the whole room say, "That's not me ever again for the rest of my long, gorgeous life because..." But then I make them justify it. Mm. Scream that out. That's good. "Well, well, I'm not seven. I don't live with a dad who says, 'Eat everything on your plate, and you're not getting down until you've finished even that congealed bit of fish.' I don't live in that world. I have the ability to say, 'Fuck you.'" [laughs] "I'm not eating that." And I was talking to a client one day about that. She said, "You know, I eat everything on my plate." And I said... So we went back to the father who was, you know, the typical sort of, it came out at every meal until it was finished. She couldn't get any other food till she ate this congealed, disgusting fish- Mm ... including the skin. Mm. And I said, "Well, imagine if you went to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and he said, 'You're not leaving till you eat that food.'" She goes, "Well, I'd stay and eat it." I'm like, "No, you wouldn't." She went, "I would. I'd be so scared of Gordon. If he said eat it, I'd, I'd have to eat it." I'm like, "You play a tape in your head." Mm-hmm. You can go, "I don't want it. I'm not hungry. It's lovely, thank you, but I'm full." Adults can say no, but children can't say no. Mm. They have no power to say no.

Lewis Howes 36:05 How do we not mess up our kids, then? You've got two, three, four kids.

Marisa Peer 36:08 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 36:08 You're busy. You're running around. Your marriage is not the best you want it to be. Like-

Marisa Peer 36:12 Well, it's probably impossible, you know?

Lewis Howes 36:14 Do you... You're going to mess up your kids.

Marisa Peer 36:15 Yeah. You probably... I mean, you know, how can you not?

Lewis Howes 36:18 How do you, how do you best give attention?

Marisa Peer 36:19 But you can do damage limitation.

Lewis Howes 36:21 Yeah. How?

Marisa Peer 36:21 So damage limitation is like, you know, I was a single parent. I loved being a parent. I always thought I could never, ever have children. The whole, my whole RTT training was based on- Being told I couldn't have a baby-

Lewis Howes 36:35 Mm

Marisa Peer 36:35 ... deciding I would have one, being told that I would lose that baby, then being told the baby would have everything wrong with it. When I had a perfect, normal baby, I thought, "There's something here." And then I began to work with other people who couldn't conceive or couldn't carry a baby to full term, and it was always the way they spoke in their heads.

Lewis Howes 36:53 Mm.

Marisa Peer 36:53 So that, that was interesting.

Lewis Howes 36:55 Did you used to speak in your head a certain way before?

Marisa Peer 36:57 Well, no. People would come in and go, "I can't get pregnant." "Oh, what's going on?" "I don't know." "Let's go back." They go, "Well, when I was 14, I thought I was pregnant." "And, and what did you say?" Went, "Oh my God," I said, "It's hell. My dad will kill me. My mom will kill herself. This is a nightmare. Having a baby is the end of my life."

Lewis Howes 37:13 Which goes back to your thoughts.

Marisa Peer 37:14 Yeah. And here you are now, 35. Your dad loves your husband. Your mom loves you, and they're waiting-

Lewis Howes 37:20 They're begging you, please

Marisa Peer 37:21 ... to have this baby. They may be devout Muslims, and you were dating some crazy white guy, and they would've been devastated. But now. And they go, "Yeah." And then just undoing that and unpicking it makes it work. And so, but with children, you know, I digress then, but what I meant to say was I had a much wanted baby. She was my miracle baby. I loved her 'cause I thought I'd never have one. But of course, I did so many things wrong. I mean, I always think you shouldn't wish for what you can't have. If I could ever have one wish, I'd go back and do her whole childhood again-

Lewis Howes 37:55 Mm

Marisa Peer 37:55 ... but better. But you can't get that wish. You can only fix it. But with her, and with all children, it's about owning it. "Mommy was very cranky today. That was not about you. It's about Mommy. Daddy lost it today."

Lewis Howes 38:08 Mm.

Marisa Peer 38:08 "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have shouted like that." Because life isn't a fairy story.

Lewis Howes 38:14 Right.

Marisa Peer 38:14 You know? You're gonna have moments where things aren't... You, your day doesn't go well. The most important thing with children is sitting down and going, "Darling, I'm really sorry. Today, I lost it. Today, I was mean. Today, I was unkind. Today, I was not present with you, and I know that's all you want is me to be present, and I wasn't present." And if you apologize, you do something magical. They don't think it's their fault.

Lewis Howes 38:38 Mm.

Marisa Peer 38:38 They understand it's you, so they don't have to sit and think, "Oh, Mommy's always angry. I guess she doesn't love me. Daddy's never here. I guess I'm not enough. Mommy's always fighting. If I was enough, she would be happy. She's not happy. It's my fault." And then here comes the tag again, "It will always be like this."

Lewis Howes 38:57 Right.

Marisa Peer 38:57 "I can't change this." So-

Lewis Howes 39:00 So let me fall into one of these four roles-

Marisa Peer 39:01 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 39:02 ... to get the attention I need.

Marisa Peer 39:03 Sure.

Lewis Howes 39:03 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 39:04 So the, so the minute you go back and say, "I messed up today. I'm really sorry," they go, "Okay," 'cause they understand life isn't perfect. But it's when you don't do that, that you force them to take one of the roles, to believe their life will always be like that, to go through life going, "Nobody can meet my needs."

Lewis Howes 39:21 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 39:21 "Who's gonna love me? My dad left when I was two. Who's gonna want me? My own mom said I was a mistake. Who's gonna want me? I, I was the fourth child. I was supposed to be a boy. I was a girl. I was supposed to be a girl. I was a boy." And they always joke about, "Well, we only had you, you know-

Lewis Howes 39:37 Mm

Marisa Peer 39:37 ... 'cause we wanted a son, but we got you, and it's great. We love you, but you were supposed to be a boy."

Lewis Howes 39:41 [laughs] Right.

Marisa Peer 39:42 Even when you say these things as a joke, the child... I mean, that's what Diana did. She knew. Her mother had three, two girls and then her, had to keep going until they had a boy.

Lewis Howes 39:53 A child.

Marisa Peer 39:53 And she always said, "I was supposed to be a boy." She knew. So owning it, owning your mistakes.

Lewis Howes 39:59 So don't, so don't... and don't joke about certain things because even if it seems like a silly joke to you-

Marisa Peer 40:05 Oh, yeah

Lewis Howes 40:05 ... when you're seven or 10 or 12 and you hear, "You weren't supposed to be a boy. You weren't supposed to be a girl," or, or, "We weren't... You were an accident."

Marisa Peer 40:12 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:13 "We didn't want to have more kids-

Marisa Peer 40:14 Yeah

Lewis Howes 40:14 ... but then you came out, and then we tied our tubes."

Marisa Peer 40:16 Or, "Oh, you were a nightmare. You nearly killed me."

Lewis Howes 40:19 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 40:19 You know, I worked with somebody who had narcolepsy, which is really interesting, and her medication cost $18,000 a month. And she didn't have a job, and she was terrified that her Medicare would end, and she couldn't get these meds. What was so interesting is she said, "You know, when I was little, my mom used to tell me this story. 'Your brother was the devil child. He was up all night."

Lewis Howes 40:40 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 40:41 "Slept. It nearly killed me. It nearly killed me. He was the devil."

Lewis Howes 40:45 Oh my gosh.

Marisa Peer 40:46 "But you, you were the angel from heaven. You were such a good sleeper. You slept all the time." And she'd say to people, "She's such a good sleeper. She's always asleep. She's an angel. Her brother's the devil. He nearly killed me." Now, a baby doesn't have logic. You don't have logic till you're five, only feeling, and the baby's feeling is, "My brother is a devil. He nearly killed her, but I'm an angel because I sleep all the time. I'm a good sleeper." She learned what she lived. She had narcolepsy because the mother told her, without meaning to, "You're a good sleeper."

Lewis Howes 41:20 Wow.

Marisa Peer 41:21 "He's a devil." And often parents do this. They go, "This is the pretty one, and this is the clever one."

Lewis Howes 41:26 Right.

Marisa Peer 41:27 "This is my problem child. Oh, this one is gonna be the death of me." And they say it in a jokey way, loving their child. "Oh, this one. He's gonna kill me. This one, I'm gonna have nightmares about."

Lewis Howes 41:38 What can we be saying instead as opposed to these-

Marisa Peer 41:40 Yeah

Lewis Howes 41:41 ... you know, subliminal joking-

Marisa Peer 41:42 Yeah. Well-

Lewis Howes 41:42 ... you know, whether it's from love, but-

Marisa Peer 41:44 Yeah. First of all, you have to understand that every word you say to yourself is an imprint that your mind and body must act on. Whatever you say is an imprint.

Lewis Howes 41:55 Mm.

Marisa Peer 41:56 And your mind's job is go ahead and make that imprint real. And for a child, whatever you say is also an imprint. "I love you because you're beautiful" is an imprint which reads as, "And if I wasn't, you wouldn't. I love you because you're smart. You're a grade A student. I love you," is like, "Oh, if I wasn't, you wouldn't." And so you have to say to your kids, "I love you because you're you. I love you."

Lewis Howes 42:22 Mm.

Marisa Peer 42:22 "I'll always love you. I don't love your behavior, by the way. I don't love the fact that you just hit your brother or got, um, black currant juice all over the carpet. That's not good. I'm really unhappy about that." I don't, I love you, but I don't love your behavior Mm-hmm. And if you can bring your children up to separate your love for them from how they behave, they feel safe. And feeling safe isn't, is again, is a need. Mm. I'm safe. There's nothing my mommy would ever do that would stop her loving me. And, and we know that, um, uh, people who try and abduct children will often say, "Your mommy doesn't want you. You did something really bad. What did you do?" And there was a very famous case in America, you probably know it, of this guy who drove up to a school, stopped the car and went, "Your, your mom's really ill in the hospital. She sent me to get you. She's really, really ill." The kid got in, drove away, and he said, "They don't want you anymore. You did something really bad. What did you do?" And he said, "I wrote on the garage wall." "And that's right, you wrote on the garage wall, and that's why they don't want you." And you know, he never called home. He had his phone number. There was a movie of this. Elvis Costello played the horrible guy. But this kid never called home, and he put up with it for years until the guy came back to the trailer with another kid. He'd taken a little girl, and he was so freaked out at what was going to happen to her that he, in the middle of the night, took this little girl and went to the police station. They tried to arrest him. He was a teenager by then. Wow. I think he'd lived with this guy from eight to 16. He went to school every day. No way. It's a true story, and he never called his parents. And then when he told the police who he was and found that the parents just never changed their number. I think he did try to call once, but he didn't understand- Oh ... about the dialing code. But you see, pedophiles will tell you, "I sit in a park and I know which kid to go after. It's the one who looks a bit sad, a bit lost, a bit..." Like they don't go after the one who's really confident and loud. [laughs] Yeah. They don't go after the rebellious one- Mm ... 'cause they never shut up. And um, one of my clients was telling me that her uncle, she was one of four girls, and he used to come to the house for Friday night dinner and go upstairs, and he molested three of them but not the fourth, and the fourth was the rebel. She would have screamed the house down. But he systematically, systematically abused three of his nieces. And much later they told the father, and he said, "What, what do you want me to do? He's my brother." Oh my gosh. But they actually took him to court and had him arrested. He went to jail. Gosh. And they all said, "Why didn't you tell?" And you see, what pedophiles say to children is, I know, I see enough of them, "If you tell anyone, you'll go to jail." Wow. "It's your fault, you see. You've, you've made me do this." Mm. "If you tell anyone, we'll all be in so much trouble. Mommy will go to jail. Daddy will go to jail. You'll go to jail. I'll go to jail." Right. And a child doesn't have that logic. And so if you have a child who you brought up going, "I love you, and there's nothing you could tell me that would stop me loving you. Tell me you're gay, I'll be at the wedding." Mm-hmm. "Tell me you've stolen something, well, I, we'll talk about that, and we'll go back and give the money back. But there's nothing you could do that would ever make me not love you." Mm. That's a beautiful line. Those kids can come out and say, "Mom, this neighbor touched me." And they go, "Well, that's not acceptable." One of my clients said she told her mother, her mother slapped her face and went, "Don't say that in this house." No way. Some people do crazy things, maybe in shock. But a lot of people... You know, one of my earliest clients told me this really sad story. She was the only Jewish girl in her area, and her father told her that all Jewish fathers have sex with their daughters, so- No way. Did not ... and so later she asked a friend. She went, "That's not true." She goes, "Well, I thought it must be- No ... because he told me that's what good Jewish girls do." And I mean, of course the Jewish fathers don't do that. Jewish fathers on the whole are wonderful fathers. But if your kid doesn't feel safe to come and tell you anything... You know, I've had, as my daughter was a teenager, the amount of kids in my house coming and going, "Oh, I think I'm pregnant. I'm taking drugs. I'm sleeping with this boy just to make him like me." 'Cause they knew that I would never judge them. Mm. Like they'd tell me everything. Yeah. I said, "Tell me everything." You're not going to react in an angry way. Well, sometimes I really wanted to. Right. I really wanted to, but I remembered I said to her when she was little, "You will never, ever get in trouble for telling the truth." She goes, "Mommy, I just got green nail varnish all over your carpet." [laughs] Oh, damn. And I'm like... And she goes, and she says, "I feel so relieved, Mommy." [laughs] She said, "Now if I tell you the truth, you won't..." I said, "Well, I am cross, but you told me the truth, so I'm just going to have to suck up the green polish." Um, I mean, she didn't have a perfect childhood. Yeah, yeah. She got grounded. She got punishment. Yeah, yeah. She got consequences, but I always wanted her to know I will never punish you for telling the truth, ever, ever, ever. Mm-hmm. And one day her school called and said, "Well, she's gone missing with another girl." They just didn't turn up in the afternoon. And so I said, "Well, what happened?" She goes, "Well, Mommy, my friend had to get the morning after pill, and her parents would be so angry. So I went to the clinic with her- Mm ... and said it was for me. 'Cause I knew that you wouldn't be angry, so we bunked off school, went along- [laughs] ... and I said that I needed it. 'Cause I knew if they called- Wow ... you, you wouldn't punish me. But if they called her parents, her dad would have probably beaten her." Oh, wow. So it's very important. It's not easy, but you have to. And, and when they tell you the truth, they will tell you stuff that make your eyes come out on stalks. [laughs] I mean, if you watch that movie, that series, if you watch Sex Education. Parts of it, yes. So good. People say, "What, that really goes on?" Yeah. It really goes on and... But you got to tell, let them tell you the truth, and then not judge them. Mm-hmm. You know, I remember my daughter coming home one day. She goes, "Mom, you know, my friend's brother was stealing all this stuff in a store and stealing loads of baseball hats. And she went, "I felt so bad." I said, "Well, that's your feelings telling you it's wrong." You know, your feelings- Mm-hmm ... are the most real thing you have. And if you feel bad when someone is shot, if you feel bad when some guy says, "If you love me, you'll have sex with me"- If you're 14 and you've got a 20-year-old boyfriend, it, it's going to be great, and it's all right. And you have terrible feelings. Your body's going, "You're not ready."

Lewis Howes 48:50 Mm.

Marisa Peer 48:50 And you have to say to him, "I'm not ready." And if he leaves, you will, he would have left you anyway.

Lewis Howes 48:56 Mm.

Marisa Peer 48:56 So tell your kids the truth. Own up to your faults. "I lost it. I was cranky. I was irritable." Tell them, "Whatever you do, you know, if you were in jail, I'd be visiting you every..." I said to my daughter-

Lewis Howes 49:07 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 49:07 ... "If you ever went to jail, I'd be visiting you every week, 'cause there's nothing you could do that would ever make me not love you. Nothing. You suggest anything, I'd still love you. I'd be upset at what you did-"

Lewis Howes 49:19 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 49:19 ... "but I would still love you." And that gives them the freedom to be honest with you.

Lewis Howes 49:25 Yeah. And make mistakes without-

Marisa Peer 49:26 It gives them the freedom-

Lewis Howes 49:26 Yeah

Marisa Peer 49:26 ... to know that you're not going to throw them out of the house because they're pregnant, kick them out-

Lewis Howes 49:31 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 49:31 ... because they did something bad. You know, I had one of my trainers. He's this amazing Chinese guy, and he was telling me under our training, he said, "My dad made me leave the house when I was 11. I didn't get on with my mother." I said, "When did you go back?" He went, "No, I never went back."

Lewis Howes 49:47 Oh, goodness.

Marisa Peer 49:47 "They wouldn't have me back." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, they kicked me out." I said, "Where'd you live?" He said, "I lived with actually a bunch of hookers. They were very kind to me. And pimps." And he said, "And I drank a lot to survive." And he said, "What was so interesting is people often say you're killing yourself with drink." He said, "I had to be numb to get through that."

Lewis Howes 50:08 Wow.

Marisa Peer 50:08 But then he said something. He said, "They were Chinese, you see, and that's what Chinese people do." I said, "No, that's not. That's like a Jewish thing." Chinese people don't kick their children out of the house because they don't get on with them, and let them never come back. But he had justified it and made it okay.

Lewis Howes 50:27 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 50:27 And I have to go, "It's not okay. It's never okay."

Lewis Howes 50:30 What's the difference between feelings and thoughts?

Marisa Peer 50:33 Well, you could change your thoughts. So feel-

Lewis Howes 50:36 Mm.

Marisa Peer 50:36 It's a good question. So a feeling is something you feel. It's come from the body. Uh-

Lewis Howes 50:40 Physical.

Marisa Peer 50:40 Suddenly I've seen a snake, and I feel... I've seen a rat, and I feel repulsed. I, I remember seeing a rat in my house, and I had the feel- I felt, "Ugh, a rat." Horrible. I mean, I could pick up a hamster.

Lewis Howes 50:51 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 50:51 I could pick up a little, um-

Lewis Howes 50:53 A bunny rabbit

Marisa Peer 50:54 ... gerbil.

Lewis Howes 50:54 Yeah, yeah.

Marisa Peer 50:54 You know, I could hold a butterfly or I could hold a ladybug, because the picture is this is cute.

Lewis Howes 51:01 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 51:01 But I wouldn't hold a cockroach or a dung-eating beetle. I wouldn't hold a moth. And so when you get a feeling, you've got a picture, and you feel scared.

Lewis Howes 51:11 Ah.

Marisa Peer 51:11 And the feeling is so instant that we think the feeling comes immediately. So a feeling, you have to talk yourself out of a feeling. Thoughts are also pretty instant, but you can change them very quickly. I, I'm going on a date. I feel terrified. No, actually, I don't.

Lewis Howes 51:29 Mm.

Marisa Peer 51:29 I feel excited. I got a choice. Feel terrified, feel excited. You know, uh, one of my clients was a very famous rock star, and he had to pay someone to push him on stage. So he'd get all ready, super excited. He's at LA Bowl or the O2. He's got the guitar. He's just about to go out and he thinks, "Oh my God, I can't do this." 'Cause he's got the feeling of absolute fear. And so up comes a guy whose job it is to-

Lewis Howes 51:58 No way [laughs]

Marisa Peer 51:58 ... push him on stage, and he begins to do that.

Lewis Howes 52:01 Oh, gosh.

Marisa Peer 52:01 And then he feels great. But that feeling would have overwhelmed him if he hadn't decided I'm just going to feel the feeling and carry on. So, you know, feelings, we think we're a victim of our feelings. We're not. You can, you can choose to interpret a feeling, and thoughts, you, you have to make sense of them.

Lewis Howes 52:23 Mm.

Marisa Peer 52:23 But here's an interesting rule. Your thoughts control your feelings. Your feelings control your actions, and your actions control your re- or you could say your thoughts dictate your feelings.

Lewis Howes 52:37 Mm.

Marisa Peer 52:38 Your feelings dictate your actions, and your actions dictate your events. So that actually says the thought comes first, even before the feeling.

Lewis Howes 52:46 Really?

Marisa Peer 52:47 The thought comes first, and then comes the feeling, and then comes the action. So all the laws go back to change your thoughts. We, we try, say, "I'm going to change this. I feel so sad. I'm going to change that. I feel so lonely. I feel so unhappy." But actually, if you change your thinking, it will take care of the feeling.

Lewis Howes 53:09 You won't feel that way. Feel that way.

Marisa Peer 53:10 No. It's like if you go and watch a rollercoaster. People are screaming. You have... Are they screaming because they're terrified or happy? Who knows? But you get to choose what you think-

Lewis Howes 53:21 Mm

Marisa Peer 53:21 ... about that. It's a bit like, you know, I think I told you this story before about one of my clients who had breast cancer, and she said, "Well, I feel so lucky, 'cause I don't need a breast. I need a leg and an arm and an eye-

Lewis Howes 53:33 An eye. Yeah

Marisa Peer 53:34 ... but I don't need that." And sometimes with the strangest things that happen, if you can look back and go, "Oh, well, how I thought about that event affected me way more than the event."

Lewis Howes 53:48 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 53:50 It's always how you think about it.

Lewis Howes 53:51 The meaning.

Marisa Peer 53:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 53:52 The meaning behind it, yeah.

Marisa Peer 53:52 So we're taught that we're, we can't change our feelings. Our feelings come upon us, and there's nothing we can do. But we're taught that our thoughts, well, we maybe we can run those. But it, it's not true. You can change your feelings and your thoughts. And if you change your thoughts, you change your feelings. If you change your feelings, it doesn't change your thoughts.

Lewis Howes 54:14 Mm.

Marisa Peer 54:15 So a lot of people go, "You know, I'm, I'm really nervous. I'm gonna, like, jump up and down, and take some deep breaths, and breathe into a brown paper bag, because I heard that was good. And I'm doing all of that. So I'm controlling the feelings, but the thoughts come back." So let's say you said, "I'm, I'm terrified of birds or dogs."

Lewis Howes 54:32 Mm.

Marisa Peer 54:32 "And if I saw one-

Lewis Howes 54:33 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 54:33 ... I'd have a heart attack."

Lewis Howes 54:34 Right.

Marisa Peer 54:35 A little bird landing on my table, oh, no. I don't even go to outside restaurants because a little bird, that would kill me. Or, or dogs. I, I don't like do- I don't like cats. See, these are thoughts. Now, if you try to say to someone, "Look, but it's such a cute little dog. It's such a sweet little bird. It can't hurt you," because the feelings are going on, you believe that's not true. But when you change the thought, the feeling does go away completely.

Lewis Howes 55:03 Mm.

Marisa Peer 55:03 Which is why, again, people can have a little pet gerbil and be terrified of a mouse. It's why you could eat lamb but not horse. I mean, I would never eat foal. I wouldn't eat donkey. I wouldn't eat pony. I wouldn't eat baby elephant. But I eat lamb. I don't eat lamb very often, but-

Lewis Howes 55:22 Right

Marisa Peer 55:22 ... I'm not a vegan. I was for a long time, and a vegetarian. It's the thinking.

Lewis Howes 55:28 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 55:28 So a vegan would go, "I, I could never eat anything with a face." But the thought is there, and then they would feel sick if they ate anything with a face.

Lewis Howes 55:36 Mm.

Marisa Peer 55:36 So if I had a big lump of meat in my hand now, what would you think about that? Well, if you're a vegan, you'd think that's disgusting.

Lewis Howes 55:44 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 55:44 That was a living, sentient creature. If you're a Hindu, you'd think that's so offensive. That's a sacred animal. If you're a boy, you would go, "Great. Protein." If you're starving, you think, "Protein." If I had a syringe in my hand right now, what is that? Well, if you're having a tattoo, it's very exciting.

Lewis Howes 56:04 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 56:04 It's the way to get inked all over your arm. If you're in immense pain, that's fantastic. It's gonna take the pain away. If you're a drug addict, that's like, "Oh, yes, I'm gonna get off my face now." And if you're scared of needles, it's like, "Oh, I, I f- I faint at the sight of needles. I, I can't even look at... No, no, I c- I've got raging toothache. I'm not going to the dentist ever-

Lewis Howes 56:27 Mm

Marisa Peer 56:27 ... because I don't like needles." So it's not the needle, is it?

Lewis Howes 56:32 Mm.

Marisa Peer 56:32 It's not the lump of meat. It's what you think about it dictates what you feel about it. So you don't have a feeling about the meat or the needle. You have a thought, and the thought dictates the feeling.

Lewis Howes 56:46 Is this why hypnotherapy is so powerful?

Marisa Peer 56:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 56:49 Because if people can't change the thoughts themselves-

Marisa Peer 56:51 Yeah

Lewis Howes 56:51 ... then you can-

Marisa Peer 56:52 It does it for them, yeah

Lewis Howes 56:52 ... get them to a relaxed state-

Marisa Peer 56:53 Yeah

Lewis Howes 56:54 ... to allow them to think differently-

Marisa Peer 56:55 Yeah

Lewis Howes 56:55 ... and say, "Oh, it's not that bad"?

Marisa Peer 56:57 It's really powerful. I mean, proper hypnotherapy, the kind I do, and, you know, all therapy is good, but proper hypnotherapy excites the imagination. It doesn't say-

Lewis Howes 57:06 Mm

Marisa Peer 57:06 ... "Every day, in every way, you're getting better." It says, "You are elated and excited and thrilled and turned on by going to the gym, and you love working. Then you come home, and you choose to eat the right food. And then you work on your business plan, and you're so excited. And the right ideas take root and develop, and you formulate something amazing. And you monetize a gift, and you're just-

Lewis Howes 57:32 Mm

Marisa Peer 57:32 ... so successful." Because the mind loves exciting words. The words must be in the present tense.

Lewis Howes 57:40 Mm.

Marisa Peer 57:40 They must make a picture, and they must be powerful and dramatic, and even better, have powerful words in front of the words. So I give my clients the words they've always wanted to hear. That's all I do, really, is the first time I'm like a detective and I'm gathering information. They come in, or maybe I'm online, or maybe I'm teaching other people, and the first thing you do is you're an investigator. A detective lays out pictures and goes, "Oh, look at that.

Lewis Howes 58:07 Mm.

Marisa Peer 58:07 Look at that. Look. If I look at those, I understand what went wrong. So I'm a detective, and I'm understanding what went wrong. And then straightaway after that, all good hypnotherapists do this, particularly RTT, uh, Rapid Transformational Therapists, investigate.

Lewis Howes 58:26 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 58:27 They find an imprint. There's always an imprint, a scared child, an authority figure, and something that goes on. But then the next bit, which most therapists don't do, is you interpret that with your client. If you go, "Look, you do this 'cause of that," they go, "What? Really? I went home and I told my mum." She said, "That's rubbish. Of course you don't." "I went home and told my husband. He says, 'I don't think that's true.'"

Lewis Howes 58:49 Mm.

Marisa Peer 58:49 "And now I'm doubting it." And I used to do that, go, "Okay, you do this 'cause of that." And most people said yes. But when I got my clients to do it with me, "Let's work... Why do you think you do?" They go, "Well, now you've mentioned it, of course. When I was-

Lewis Howes 59:04 Mm

Marisa Peer 59:04 ... four, these twin brothers came along, and I, now I can see that I felt replaced, usurped. No longer... I lost my status. I didn't know who I was."

Lewis Howes 59:17 Mm. So it's allowing the patient-

Marisa Peer 59:18 Yeah

Lewis Howes 59:18 ... to investigate as well.

Marisa Peer 59:19 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:19 Okay.

Marisa Peer 59:19 And then, so they investigate, um, find the imprint, interpret, but then you interrupt it. You completely smash that idea out the park. "Yes, I know when you were two, when you were born, you weighed three pound, you nearly died. Your parents fed you with a dropper. If you broke wind, your mom cried hysterically and was on the phone to the doctor, and your dad would go, 'We've got to get this baby to eat, otherwise you're gonna be back into the preemie ward.' But now you're 42. You weigh 300 pound." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 59:50 [laughs] Right.

Marisa Peer 59:51 "You're not gonna die anymore."

Lewis Howes 59:52 Right.

Marisa Peer 59:53 So you interrupt it, and you have to be funny and relevant, and also quite tough.

Lewis Howes 59:58 Mm.

Marisa Peer 59:58 It's not a good enough reason to keep doing that. Going to all-you-can-eat buffets is not a challenge. If you're not supposed to eat as much as you possibly can 'cause it's free-

Lewis Howes 1:00:09 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 1:00:09 ... 'cause there's no such thing as free. Take whatever you want, and then pay for it.

Lewis Howes 1:00:14 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:00:14 And when you eat all that food, they're losing it, but you're paying for it.

Lewis Howes 1:00:19 There's a price that you're paying, yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:00:21 Yeah. So after you've done the investigate, um, imprint, interpret, interrupt, then you do what I call the installing.

Lewis Howes 1:00:28 Oh.

Marisa Peer 1:00:28 So you go from being a detective to, like, a doctor who's extracting all the toxic stuff. Then you become a coder, and you code in, and you wire in-

Lewis Howes 1:00:38 You reprogram

Marisa Peer 1:00:38 ... and you fire in.

Lewis Howes 1:00:39 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:00:39 Yeah. And the mind learns by repetition. The mind learns by repetition, and it only responds to words. Like, a picture, if you go I'm not bad, me. I have good days and bad days. I'm all right. No, you have to go, "I am the greatest." Muhammad Ali said, "I told myself I was the greatest. I didn't even know I was, but I said it, then I became it." He could have gone, "I'm not bad, me. Good days, bad days. I didn't... Sometimes I'm all right. Sometimes-

Lewis Howes 1:01:08 Yeah

Marisa Peer 1:01:08 ... I'm good."

Lewis Howes 1:01:09 I will win. I will win. I am the best.

Marisa Peer 1:01:11 Yeah. No one can beat me. He said that no, uh, no one can beat me, which actually wasn't true. He was beaten, but he carried on saying it, and now we tend to think of him as the unbeaten Muhammad Ali, the person who never got it wrong. So when you meet people who say, "I'm the best, I'm the greatest, I'm amazing," we forget that some of those actors-

Lewis Howes 1:01:34 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 1:01:34 ... did movies that were dreadful. We forget that they did some things wrong.

Lewis Howes 1:01:37 They lost a fight. Yeah, Conor McGregor's- They've lost a few fights

Marisa Peer 1:01:39 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:01:39 ... lost a few fights. It's-

Marisa Peer 1:01:40 We just remember how good they were 'cause they told us we were good. So the most important part of hypnotherapy are the two things. One is you must find the reason-

Lewis Howes 1:01:49 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:01:50 ... and remove it. And the second is you must put in really powerful, powerful, powerful words. And a lot of therapists don't do-

Lewis Howes 1:02:02 And do it repeated-

Marisa Peer 1:02:02 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:02:03 ... repetitively over and over again.

Marisa Peer 1:02:04 Repeated. Yeah, about fi- about a 12 to 15-minute long audio. But it's got to be really exciting. And a lot of people-

Lewis Howes 1:02:08 Listen to it every day. Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:02:10 21 days. Not every day. You can listen to it for three weeks, and then-

Lewis Howes 1:02:14 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:02:14 ... it's gone in, it's wired in, it's fired in. You can then maybe a month later, you've got some important interview, play it again. But a lot of people don't understand. They either go to therapy and they understand why, but they still do it, 'cause they don't do the new installation, or they do the installation without finding out why.

Lewis Howes 1:02:34 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:02:34 So they buy all these recordings. And I know they work, 'cause somebody said, "Oh, I bought your recording for examiners, and my kid, who was lying on the floor hysterical, just said, 'Oh, I'm gonna ace that exam.'" And she went in there and she did. So it does work. But when you do both-

Lewis Howes 1:02:51 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:02:51 ... it, it works forever. And, you know, therapy is such a strange thing, and I'm not anti any therapist, but there's no other professional where they go, "Bring me your pain, and we'll talk about it." Nobody goes, "Hey, dentist, I've got this terrible infection. Why don't you come in and we'll have a conversation about it-

Lewis Howes 1:03:06 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:03:06 ... every Wednesday at 3:00?" They go, "Got to get that infection out."

Lewis Howes 1:03:10 Oh, fix it. Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:03:11 No one says to their doctor, "I've got... I think I've broken my arm." "We can discuss that every week. How's the pain today?" And I know I'm being facetious, but it's such a strange model. "Let's discuss your pain-

Lewis Howes 1:03:24 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:03:24 ... every week until you get used to it, get to understand it, get familiar with it, or get past it." I'm like, "Why don't you just get past it straight away?" Because if someone came to me and said, "I have a chronic, chronic headache," so I wouldn't ever say, "Let's..." I would say, "Let me get rid of the headache today, right now. We use hypnosis, and we can certainly turn the pain right down, and then we can find out why you have it." But I would never say, "Well, let's discuss it." And so hypnotherapy is more powerful, I think, than any other therapy-

Lewis Howes 1:04:00 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:04:00 ... because it, it both removes the pain and removes the cause of the pain.

Lewis Howes 1:04:05 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:04:05 It takes away the pain, and it takes away the c- people say, "But surely if you stop someone smoking, they bite their nails. You stop someone drinking, don't they go gambling?"

Lewis Howes 1:04:13 They do something else. Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:04:14 No. If you do it properly, they never, ever do that.

Lewis Howes 1:04:18 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:04:18 Because you take away the source of the pain and the pain. It's like you saying, "I've got weeds in my lawn. I mowed them." But do you know two years later they came back? That's so weird. It's not really weird-

Lewis Howes 1:04:30 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:04:30 ... 'cause you left the roots intact.

Lewis Howes 1:04:32 What's the m- what's the main cause of most people smoking that, that keeps them addicted for so long? Is there a common theme?

Marisa Peer 1:04:39 Well, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:04:40 Or is it-

Marisa Peer 1:04:40 It's, it's, it's like everything. Whether you're smoking, drinking, gambling.

Lewis Howes 1:04:45 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:04:45 It's your belief. Like a lot of smokers are, "I can't go to the bathroom if I don't smoke." Well, what do they think non-smokers do? They go to the bathroom.

Lewis Howes 1:04:52 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:04:52 They go, "No, no, I, I can't relax if I don't smoke."

Lewis Howes 1:04:55 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:04:56 "I can't focus if I don't smoke. I can't digest a meal if I don't smoke." I mean, I've heard every single reason why people must smoke because, I mean, I worked with a famous writer and she said, "I can't write without cigarettes." I'm like, "Is that where your talent lies, in a packet of Marlboro Lights?"

Lewis Howes 1:05:13 Right. [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:05:13 "I didn't know that. I thought you were gifted. You just said, 'No, it's the Marlboro Lights.' And she went, "It's not the Marlboro Lights." I went, "Well, then, stop telling yourself that it is." But it's the lies we tell ourselves. The smokers will say, "I don't know what to do with my hands." Why don't you look at a non-smoker?

Lewis Howes 1:05:30 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:05:30 Do what they do. Drinkers will say, "I can't relax without a drink. I can't focus. I can't enjoy myself."

Lewis Howes 1:05:38 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:05:38 Eaters will say, "Life, how could you live your life without chocolate? How could you enjoy your coffee without sugar?" We, we lie to ourselves so much. And, you know, I, I do the opposite. Why don't you tell yourself a better lie? Why don't you go, "I love my life-

Lewis Howes 1:05:55 Mm. Yeah

Marisa Peer 1:05:56 ... without sugar. It's thrilling." Even if it's not true, and I know. But if you say it every day, you know what happens? It becomes true.

Lewis Howes 1:06:01 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:06:02 No one was more of a chocoholic than me. No one ate more sugar than me.

Lewis Howes 1:06:07 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:06:07 Until I decided to stop poisoning my body and realize that it's a horrible thing. It doesn't mean it doesn't taste lovely. It's almost like-

Lewis Howes 1:06:14 It's almost like we're all hypnotizing ourselves-

Marisa Peer 1:06:16 We all... Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:06:16 ... every day throughout our whole life.

Marisa Peer 1:06:18 Well, that's true. We are hypnotized every day. So-

Lewis Howes 1:06:21 Based on what we're saying to ourself.

Marisa Peer 1:06:22 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:06:22 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:06:22 And, and also the media, who by the way, if you put on a computer or drive to work-

Lewis Howes 1:06:29 Yeah

Marisa Peer 1:06:29 ... you are invited to eat rubbish food about 500 times a day. You know, you put on an advert. There's no adverts for broccoli or yummy pears.

Lewis Howes 1:06:40 [laughs] Right.

Marisa Peer 1:06:40 There are adverts for fast food. I mean, I went to the Olympics in London. I took my godson.

Lewis Howes 1:06:45 I was there. I loved it.

Marisa Peer 1:06:46 And there were three sponsors. Cadbury's, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.

Lewis Howes 1:06:50 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:06:50 And you probably remember, they were giving out, they had the purple trays.

Lewis Howes 1:06:53 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:06:53 They were giving out Cadbury's. And I'm like- This is, isn't that weird that chocolate is sponsoring the Olympics? But they have the money because they've made us believe that you can't have Valentine's Day without chocolate. You can't have Christmas without chocolate. How can you have Easter-

Lewis Howes 1:07:08 Eggs

Marisa Peer 1:07:09 ... without Easter eggs? So we've got all of this stuff wired into our brain. It makes me happy.

Lewis Howes 1:07:16 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:07:16 It makes me feel good. But, you know, you can unwire that.

Lewis Howes 1:07:19 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:07:19 It's actually really, really easy.

Lewis Howes 1:07:23 I was, uh, in college, my senior year of college. I was... I wanted to be an All-American decathlete, and I had six months where I made the decision, "Okay, my dream was to be an All-American my whole life." I didn't get it in football originally. I did after this, but I had one season left, which is what I thought, and I had the track season. And I was a decent sprinter, and I could high jump, and I could do a few events, but I was not good at any one event in order to make my goal of being an All-American. But the decathlon, which is 10 events, I was like, "Huh, maybe if I put all these together, maybe I could."

Marisa Peer 1:07:58 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:07:58 But I'd never done the pole vault, and I'd never done hurdles and a few other events. And for me, the pole vault was the scariest-

Marisa Peer 1:08:04 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:08:04 ... 'cause I didn't like going upside down. I didn't like being on a little pole-

Marisa Peer 1:08:07 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:08:07 ... 15 feet in the air. I didn't want to bend something and snap and break my neck. All these fears.

Marisa Peer 1:08:11 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:08:12 And I literally did what you said, which was I made it a, a voice audio recording back then.

Marisa Peer 1:08:17 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:18 I was 21. It was about eight to 10 minutes long, just essentially hyping myself up.

Marisa Peer 1:08:23 Ooh.

Lewis Howes 1:08:23 I love going upside down.

Marisa Peer 1:08:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:25 I love bending a pole where it almost snaps and slingshots me to achieve my goal.

Marisa Peer 1:08:29 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:29 And just talked about this over and over.

Marisa Peer 1:08:32 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:08:32 And then every night, I would listen to this.

Marisa Peer 1:08:34 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:35 I would listen to it before I did the pole vault, and I would watch highlight videos every night before I go to sleep-

Marisa Peer 1:08:40 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:08:40 ... of the best pole vaulters in the world. And I was horrible at the time, but I took the actions on the thoughts which made the events a possibility.

Marisa Peer 1:08:49 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:49 And I didn't even know what I was doing, but I was just like, "I need to trick my mind"-

Marisa Peer 1:08:52 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:08:52 ... until I became confident. I'm curious. You talked about, you know, telling ourselves better lies.

Marisa Peer 1:08:59 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:08:59 How do we become more self-confident or overcome doubt-

Marisa Peer 1:09:02 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:09:02 ... if we've never been confident and then just lie that we are?

Marisa Peer 1:09:06 Yeah. Well, it's what I call lie, cheat, and steal. Lie to your mind, cheat fear, steal back the phenomenal confidence you were born with. So a baby doesn't really have a fear of being upside down or a pole. And a baby would put a cockroach in their mouth if you let them.

Lewis Howes 1:09:25 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:09:25 Shove their hands in an electric socket if you allowed them to. Touch a really hot oven because they are fearless. They're kamikaze pilots. So I think you should lie to your mind all the time.

Lewis Howes 1:09:36 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:09:36 You know, when I go on stage, to this day, I still get this tingling in my fingers and tingling in my toes, and I know it's adrenaline. And I could go, "Oh, my God, I'm so nervous. Look, my hands are shaking now," and, "Oh, really nervous." Or I could go, "I'm so excited. I love it."

Lewis Howes 1:09:53 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:09:53 Love it, love it, love it, love it. And many years ago, I had an experience, probably the first time I really listened to the power of lying to yourself. And I-

Lewis Howes 1:10:02 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:10:03 ... was in bed. It was late at night, and the BBC called me and said, "Would... Can you come on the radio in the morning? We want to talk about the work you've done with this football club-

Lewis Howes 1:10:11 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:10:11 ... and how they've gone from nowhere to being in the Premier League." And I'm like, "Sure." And they said, "Well, we'll pick you up at 6:00 AM. It's very early, and then we'll take you to the studio to do the radio show." So 6:00 AM, about 10 to 6:00, I got out of bed, cleaned my teeth. I think I half-combed my hair.

Lewis Howes 1:10:25 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:10:26 Got in the car, went off, sat down. And then all of a sudden they said, "Actually, we're... No, we're gonna put you straight on the news." So they started to run me across the car park.

Lewis Howes 1:10:35 Oh, my goodness.

Marisa Peer 1:10:35 And I'm like, "Where's hair and makeup?" They're, "No, we haven't got time for that. You're going on the news. This is such a great story. Forget about the radio. We want you on the news." So I sat down.

Lewis Howes 1:10:44 Video. TV, yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:10:45 TV. And I'm trying to comb my hair, put on a bit of lipstick. I mean, I've just woken up. And the gurney is there, and I know it's coming towards me like this, and I knew I had a choice. I could go, "Oh, my God. Why didn't you put on a nice jacket?"

Lewis Howes 1:10:59 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:10:59 "Why didn't you comb your hair? Why didn't you put on makeup? Why didn't you..." And I remember saying, "I have a choice now. I've got 30 seconds to either go, 'Kind of idiot you,' or to go, 'I love it.'" So I began to go, "I love it, I love it, I love it. I love being live on the BBC News. I love it so much. I love it." And here it's, you know, "Love it, love it, love it, love it, love it," right in my face. And then I just did the interview, and it was great. But if I'd kept saying, "Oh, my God, I haven't even combed my hair. I look so awful." And actually, one person said, "Hey, I saw you on. You didn't comb your hair." I said, "I know. It was 6:00 AM," but n- no one else... They said, "Oh, it was so cool what you did with that football team."

Lewis Howes 1:11:34 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:11:34 "That was extraordinary." No one else said-

Lewis Howes 1:11:38 One person noticed

Marisa Peer 1:11:39 ... sort of blow-dry. Yeah, that was a girl, of course.

Lewis Howes 1:11:41 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:11:41 And I noticed, but, you know.

Lewis Howes 1:11:43 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:11:44 But it's the lying to yourself. "I can do it." You know, I'm sure you know this very famous story about someone asking a major rock star what it's like. He went, "It's amazing. Going on stage, it's better than an orgasm." He said, "Just before you go on, your fingers tingle, and your heart beats, and this adrenaline goes. It's just so awesome. And, and everything is going on. You're shaking, trembling, sweating, heart beat's pounding a million miles a minute. And then you go on stage, and there they are, and they love you, and it's like it's better than sex." Now cue someone, they said, "Why did you stop performing?" They said, "Well, the most terrible thing happened to me. Now every time I was about to go on stage, my fingers would tingle, and my heart beat so fast, and then I'd get all this adrenaline, and I started sweating, and I realized I was having a massive panic attack."

Lewis Howes 1:12:39 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:12:39 "And it happened every time, so I retired from performing." So you see, they both lied to themselves. She said it was a panic attack. He said it was better than sex. But the... It's better to say, "This is exciting. This is thrilling. This is amazing," even when it isn't. When someone's putting a needle in your arm And you go, "Ooh, is that gonna hurt?" Better to go-

Lewis Howes 1:13:01 Understood. I love the-

Marisa Peer 1:13:02 "I'm so great"

Lewis Howes 1:13:03 Yeah. [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:13:04 "And I'm just reading my phone here. Oh, look at that. That's fantastic."

Lewis Howes 1:13:07 Oh.

Marisa Peer 1:13:07 "I'm, I'm oblivious to what's going on in my arm. And by the way, needles are so fine now that I wouldn't even notice it."

Lewis Howes 1:13:14 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:13:15 So it is a lie, but it's a good lie. And we all lie to... When you say, "I'm just rubbish. I'm just useless. I don't even know why I'm here. Who's ever gonna want me?" Well, isn't that a lie?

Lewis Howes 1:13:25 That's a lie. Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:13:26 Why would you say that? You know, some of the most happily married women in the world have got scars, flaws, and yet they have people that worship them.

Lewis Howes 1:13:37 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:13:37 And some of the most beautiful women in the world go, "Yeah, but, you know, I've got big feet," or, "I've got this downy hair on my legs."

Lewis Howes 1:13:44 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:13:44 "I don't even want to see-"

Lewis Howes 1:13:45 This mole or, yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:13:46 Yeah, this mole. Or, "When I do that, I've got this fat." Um.

Lewis Howes 1:13:49 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:13:51 A- and they, they lie to themselves. "I am not enough," is the biggest-

Lewis Howes 1:13:55 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:13:55 ... lie in the world.

Lewis Howes 1:13:57 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:13:57 That's why I founded the I Am Enough movement, 'cause it's a lie. No baby says, "I'm not enough 'cause I haven't got a dad," or, "I haven't got any teeth yet," or, "I've got these milk spots. I've got no hair." And so we all... When we say, "I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not attractive enough. I'm not interesting," that is a lie.

Lewis Howes 1:14:18 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:14:19 Because my granny used to say, "Every pan has a lid."

Lewis Howes 1:14:23 Oh.

Marisa Peer 1:14:23 And, and then when I got married to John, I said, "I found my lid," and he found his lid. And I'm far from perfect and so is he, but these people that wait, they're waiting to be prettier, thinner, richer, more interesting. They're missing out on so much love because that's a lie. You don't have to be perfect to be loved.

Lewis Howes 1:14:43 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:14:43 You have to be you. And you'll never get to perfect. Perfect is a race, and as you run towards it, they move the finishing line again and again and again. And I've worked with many people who appear to be perfect, and they are always the unhappiest of all my clients and always the loneliest, too.

Lewis Howes 1:15:02 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:15:02 Because that's a lie. There, there isn't a perfect person on the planet. And many of my clients are supermodels, so you know, it becomes a... it's horri- Everyone expects me to be amazing. Eric Clapton's wife, Pattie, I mean, they wrote... She and George Harrison wrote for her Something in the Way You Move, Tracks Me Like No Other Lover. And Eric wrote Wonderful Tonight and Layla.

Lewis Howes 1:15:28 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:15:28 And I asked her once what that was like. She said, "It was horrible. Horrible. People expected this goddess-"

Lewis Howes 1:15:34 Oh, yeah. [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:15:34 "... to walk in the room, and I always felt I was gonna disappoint them."

Lewis Howes 1:15:38 Wow.

Marisa Peer 1:15:39 Which is such a shame, 'cause she is actually a lovely-

Lewis Howes 1:15:42 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:15:42 ... lovely person, Pattie. But just 'cause she was a supermodel on the cover of Vogue, and she said, "I looked for every flaw. And you know what? I always found it." Because if you look for flaws, that's one of the rules of the mind, you find what you look for. If you look for what's wrong, of course you'll find it. If you look for what's right, you'll find that. If you look for why you're not enough, of course you'll find it. And if you look for why you are enough just the way you are-

Lewis Howes 1:16:09 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:16:09 ... you're enough because you're enough.

Lewis Howes 1:16:11 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:16:13 So everything's a lie.

Lewis Howes 1:16:15 Lie to yourself.

Marisa Peer 1:16:15 So tell yourself a better lie.

Lewis Howes 1:16:16 Lie, cheat, steal.

Marisa Peer 1:16:17 Well, aren't we all doing that now? "I'm locked. I'm in lockdown."

Lewis Howes 1:16:20 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:16:21 "I'm in, I'm in quarantine." Nobody's in quarantine. Quarantine is when you're in a, like a tent in a hospital and nobody can go in.

Lewis Howes 1:16:27 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:16:27 That's quarantine.

Lewis Howes 1:16:28 Yeah, yeah. You're fine.

Marisa Peer 1:16:29 We're not in quarantine. We're not cooped up, stuck, trapped. No one's taken our freedom away.

Lewis Howes 1:16:36 You're not a prisoner.

Marisa Peer 1:16:36 No, we're not a prisoner, but you see, this is the lie.

Lewis Howes 1:16:39 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:16:39 The lies we say. "I've got to be a grade A student. I'm not enough. I'm rubbish."

Lewis Howes 1:16:45 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:16:45 And you might as well tell... Since we all lie to ourselves, "The freeway is killing me," isn't that a lie? "My job makes me want to die," well, that's a lie. "If I get rejected one more time, I'll jump under a train," but that's a lie. "I've eaten nonstop for 24 hours." Really? Did you pee? Yes. Did you eat while you were peeing?

Lewis Howes 1:17:07 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:17:08 No. "Did you sleep?" Yes. "So did you eat?" No. So you just said you ate nonstop for 24 hours. That's a lie. "My legs are the size of a house," that's a lie. "I've got a barn the size of..." I've got... Sorry. [laughs] Do that again.

Lewis Howes 1:17:22 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:17:22 "I've got a bum the size of a city," that's a lie. I should say butt. "My, my butt is the size-

Lewis Howes 1:17:29 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:17:29 ... of a small city," that's a lie. "I can eat enough. I eat as much as an army eats."

Lewis Howes 1:17:34 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:17:35 All of these things are lies. "My kid wants or to kill myself. My partner is making me go crazy."

Lewis Howes 1:17:43 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:17:43 "I'm insane with tiredness. I'm shattered. I'm exhausted." They're all lies. You're not. You need a bit of sleep. "My kids are nightmare." No, they're age appropriate.

Lewis Howes 1:17:55 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:17:55 So we all lie, so tell yourself a better lie-

Lewis Howes 1:17:58 Right

Marisa Peer 1:17:58 ... and you'll have a whole better life.

Lewis Howes 1:18:00 Tell yourself a better lie, live a better life.

Marisa Peer 1:18:02 Yeah, exactly. Why not?

Lewis Howes 1:18:03 When you came and spoke at the Summer of Greatness, uh, you talked about the I Am Enough, uh, book and challenge and everything, and we... It's funny, 'cause Jeanette and I, my girlfriend, were walking the day afterwards in Columbus and checking out some shops. And there was a big sign that was, uh, an art sign, said, "I am enough."

Marisa Peer 1:18:21 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:18:21 And I bought it for her, and she has it now, and it's a reminder to con- constantly tell yourself that lie.

Marisa Peer 1:18:26 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:18:26 The good lie, that you are enough.

Marisa Peer 1:18:28 Yeah. And you know, one of the wonderful things to do with I Am Enough, you see... I mean, you might notice I have these little bracelets.

Lewis Howes 1:18:33 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:18:33 They all say, "I am enough." I wear them. Um, you should write it on your mirror, write it on your fridge, put it in fridge. Use liner or lipstick or marker.

Lewis Howes 1:18:43 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:18:43 Write it on your mirror. Put it on your fridge. Put it on your screensaver. Put it on your phone alert so it goes off twice a day. And very securely incorporate into all your passwords. Imagine if the first thing you do in the morning is clean your teeth, and there it is, I am enough. And then your phone pings at 8:00 AM, I am enough. And then you go to unlock your phone, you've got to type in, obviously-

Lewis Howes 1:19:03 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 1:19:03 ... dots, squiggles-

Lewis Howes 1:19:05 Right, right, right

Marisa Peer 1:19:05 ... safe, I am enough When you write it, read it, speak it, and see it every day, it goes in anyway. It sinks in, and it makes such a difference.

Lewis Howes 1:19:14 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:19:15 And then it isn't a line anymore, it becomes real. Because first of all, we say things like, "I'm enough," and your mind goes, "You're not really enough, are you? Because you buy all your clothes in Target, and you live in a shed, and you're not really enough because you've got a very lowly job, and-

Lewis Howes 1:19:30 Your girlfriend left you, and this. Yeah

Marisa Peer 1:19:31 ... an old high girlfriend left you, your kids won't speak to you. You're not really enough 'cause you've got cellulite, or you're not really enough 'cause you're not tall. But then when you keep saying it, what happens is, because you're the one objecting, by the way-

Lewis Howes 1:19:45 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 1:19:46 ... you run out of objections. You go, "You know what? I'm not tall. Neither is Kevin Hart. I'm still enough."

Lewis Howes 1:19:52 Well [laughs] .

Marisa Peer 1:19:52 "I, I'm not a size two. Neither is J.Lo. I'm still enough."

Lewis Howes 1:19:56 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:19:56 "I'm not whatever, but I'm still enough," you actually run out of objections. When you run out of objections, then it goes in, and then it starts to nourish you.

Lewis Howes 1:20:07 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:20:07 You know? I always say to people, "When you have dry skin and you put on lotion, you're nourishing yourself," and your body doesn't go, "Is that lotion fair trade?"

Lewis Howes 1:20:16 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:20:16 "Organic? Has it got any parabens?" It just goes, "Oh, this dryness is being nourished now by some lotion."

Lewis Howes 1:20:23 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:20:24 But you have to nourish your soul with words.

Lewis Howes 1:20:26 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:20:26 And they go in, too.

Lewis Howes 1:20:28 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:20:28 So nourish your soul with better words.

Lewis Howes 1:20:30 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:20:30 And there's nothing better than I'm enough because its strength is its simplicity. You were born knowing you're enough, and so what you're doing is reactivating-

Lewis Howes 1:20:41 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:20:41 ... and re-manifesting and regenerating a truth that is your innate birthright.

Lewis Howes 1:20:47 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:20:47 And no one came and took it away. People say like, "Oh, your brother was in my class. He was so... What happened to you?" Or, "Your sister, she's so much kinder or neater than you." So we, people do chip away at it, but it hasn't gone. It's just been buried, and you can resurrect it.

Lewis Howes 1:21:05 Yeah. It's beautiful.

Marisa Peer 1:21:06 Yeah, it's amazing.

Lewis Howes 1:21:07 People need to get your book, and they ne- they need to go to RTT.

Marisa Peer 1:21:10 They do, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:21:11 When it comes, when it comes back open, I'm, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna take Jeanette some time.

Marisa Peer 1:21:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:21:15 And, uh, I've... A lot of people who've listened to the last episode said they went to your trainings, and they buy your programs-

Marisa Peer 1:21:21 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:21:21 ... and they love it.

Marisa Peer 1:21:22 I know.

Lewis Howes 1:21:22 It's transforming them.

Marisa Peer 1:21:23 I'm so lucky.

Lewis Howes 1:21:24 So anyone watching, listening right now, you gotta sign up for your next training when it comes-

Marisa Peer 1:21:28 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:21:28 ... available online, in person. Where can we get access to these things, to-

Marisa Peer 1:21:33 So rtt.com. You can go to rtt.com.

Lewis Howes 1:21:36 rtt.com.

Marisa Peer 1:21:37 Yeah, just RTT. It means Rapid Transformational Therapy, but rtt.com, which has won so many awards-

Lewis Howes 1:21:43 Wow

Marisa Peer 1:21:44 ... since I last saw you. I think we've won 18 awards.

Lewis Howes 1:21:46 Wow.

Marisa Peer 1:21:46 Best therapy, best product, best training. We even won the best pharmaceutical. It's not a pharmaceutical. They said, "Give it. You've won it because of the impact you're having on depression."

Lewis Howes 1:21:55 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:21:55 So that's cool. So rtt.com, you can either find a therapist who does exactly what I do, gets the results I get, or you can train to be one. And we do both live and online training. It's amazing. And if you go to marisapeer.com, we give away tons of products. We have, at the moment, a product that boosts your immune system-

Lewis Howes 1:22:15 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:22:15 ... so that you're not gonna get sick.

Lewis Howes 1:22:17 I love it.

Marisa Peer 1:22:17 We have wealth wiring, love blocks, money blocks. They're all completely free.

Lewis Howes 1:22:22 Wow.

Marisa Peer 1:22:22 So marisapeer.com. We don't ask for your credit card or anything like that. Just go there and take tons of stuff. But if you want to find a great therapist or indeed be one-

Lewis Howes 1:22:31 rtt.com

Marisa Peer 1:22:32 ... no background in therapy is required.

Lewis Howes 1:22:34 Really?

Marisa Peer 1:22:34 Just people skills. That's it. Then, um, go to rtt.com.

Lewis Howes 1:22:38 Amazing.

Marisa Peer 1:22:39 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:22:39 Amazing. You've got a great YouTube channel. All that stuff is up-

Marisa Peer 1:22:42 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:22:42 ... on your website-

Marisa Peer 1:22:43 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:22:43 ... marisapeer.com. Instagram, social media.

Marisa Peer 1:22:46 Mm. And I'm so lucky. I'm so glad I was called, like, Marisa Peer and not Sue Smith, 'cause-

Lewis Howes 1:22:50 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:22:50 ... you can always find me on-

Lewis Howes 1:22:52 Yeah, exactly

Marisa Peer 1:22:52 ... YouTube and Instagram-

Lewis Howes 1:22:53 Yeah

Marisa Peer 1:22:53 ... because of my name. Bit like you, it's great when you've got an unusual name.

Lewis Howes 1:22:56 Unique names. I like it.

Marisa Peer 1:22:58 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:22:58 Amazing.

Marisa Peer 1:22:59 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:22:59 Uh, I asked you this question the last time. I'm gonna see if it changes for you.

Marisa Peer 1:23:02 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:23:02 And we'll go back and w- and we'll go back and check.

Marisa Peer 1:23:04 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:23:04 It's called the three truths.

Marisa Peer 1:23:06 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:23:06 So imagine that it's your last day on Earth many years from now, and you've created every program, every free content, paid program, all the stuff. You've created it, but you've gotta take it with you-

Marisa Peer 1:23:19 Okay

Lewis Howes 1:23:19 ... on your last day. So no one has access to it anymore.

Marisa Peer 1:23:21 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:23:21 The hypnotherapy, the healing stuff. No one has the access to your content, but you get to share three lessons to the world.

Marisa Peer 1:23:28 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:23:28 This is all you can leave behind.

Marisa Peer 1:23:29 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:23:30 These three lessons-

Marisa Peer 1:23:31 Right

Lewis Howes 1:23:31 ... or three truths. What would you say would you be yours?

Marisa Peer 1:23:34 I'm enough would be the first truth. Always tell yourself you're enough. Don't let in destructive criticism. You get to choose. Not letting it in will change your life. What would be my third? Talk to yourself better. Talk to yourself as if you are your own best friend.

Lewis Howes 1:23:55 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:23:55 We'd never say to our best friend, "Oh, you're such a loser. Oh, my God. Why did you wear that? It doesn't suit you. How could you ever think you could write a book? That's terrible. You forgot the best ingredient. You haven't left... You don't have enough time to get to the meeting-

Lewis Howes 1:24:06 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 1:24:07 ... you idiot." Talk to yourself like you're your own best friend, your own best lover, your own best parent.

Lewis Howes 1:24:14 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:24:14 You know, so many of my clients come in, and they have what I call the missing bit. They're still waiting for some absent father to go, "I love you," some withholding parent to go, "You're amazing," some mean teacher that had a bad week to say, "You're smart." And half the people, they're waiting to fill them up. They're already dead.

Lewis Howes 1:24:32 [laughs] Right.

Marisa Peer 1:24:34 So whatever the words I've been waiting for, say them.

Lewis Howes 1:24:37 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:24:38 "You're a great kid. How lucky am I to be your parent? You're the smartest kid in the school. You're my favorite. You're the best friend I've ever..." If, if there was a template for the best friend, best girlfriend-

Lewis Howes 1:24:50 I'm it [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:24:50 ... husband, lover, s- kid, you're, you're the template. Tell yourself that, because it becomes true. So one of the reasons I created RTT is 'cause I want people to fix their wounds.

Lewis Howes 1:25:02 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:25:02 'Cause I remember hearing, "If you don't fix your wounds, you bleed on people-

Lewis Howes 1:25:06 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:25:06 ... that never cut you." And I thought, that's so profound.

Lewis Howes 1:25:10 Can you say it one more time?

Marisa Peer 1:25:11 Yeah. If you don't fix your wounds, you bleed on people that didn't cut you. You don't fix your wounds. You bleed on the people that didn't inflict those wounds on you

Lewis Howes 1:25:20 Mm-hmm

Marisa Peer 1:25:20 And that's what we do. We keep bleeding on people that didn't cause our wounds. So I made RTT to really heal those wounds-

Lewis Howes 1:25:28 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:25:28 ... to heal people so they don't bleed on the people that didn't cut them.

Lewis Howes 1:25:32 Wow. It's kind of like that saying of, about forgiveness-

Marisa Peer 1:25:35 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:25:36 ... or resentment.

Marisa Peer 1:25:37 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:25:37 What is it about, like, for, the lack of forgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Marisa Peer 1:25:43 Yeah. And in China they say, "If you're in the business of a revenge, you better dig two graves. One for you and one for the person you're after."

Lewis Howes 1:25:50 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:25:50 But yeah, it's so true.

Lewis Howes 1:25:52 You hurt yourself. You hurt the person.

Marisa Peer 1:25:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:25:53 You hurt the people around you. You're bleeding on the people.

Marisa Peer 1:25:56 Yeah, yeah. Holding on... You know, letting go are the most important words in the world, and holding on are the worst. Like, we h- wonder why we get constipated, 'cause we hold on. You, you need to let go of all that stuff.

Lewis Howes 1:26:09 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:26:09 Let go of what hurt you. 'Cause hurt people hurt people.

Lewis Howes 1:26:13 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:26:13 And damaged people damage people. And if you're attracted to someone damaged, you're gonna have a damaged relationship. But if you're attracted to someone who's worked on themselves, then that'll be your relationship.

Lewis Howes 1:26:25 Yeah. It's not going to be perfect ever, but you'll be able to continue to work on it.

Marisa Peer 1:26:28 No. But some people go, "Oh, I like wild, crazy guys." Why is that? Well, I'm having a wild, crazy life. But how's that going to work when you've got three children or a baby or a problem and you've still got some wild, crazy person and-

Lewis Howes 1:26:42 It's not going to work.

Marisa Peer 1:26:43 No. It's the whole familiar, unfamiliar bit. And again, they s- they think it's a feeling. "I've got this feeling. I find all other guys boring." But it's not a feeling, it's a belief.

Lewis Howes 1:26:54 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:26:54 "My dad was wild and crazy. He didn't love me, so why don't I find someone just like him and try so hard to change the ending of this story?" It's like, why don't you change the beginning of the story and find someone who's nothing like your dad? 'Cause you're not supposed to go home and get into bed with your dad anyway. Who wants to go to bed with Daddy? That's sick. Or Mummy for that matter.

Lewis Howes 1:27:15 What if your dad was the ultimate role model?

Marisa Peer 1:27:17 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:27:17 If-

Marisa Peer 1:27:17 Well, that happens too. People are always trying to change the ending.

Lewis Howes 1:27:21 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:27:21 "I'm going to pick someone withholding and make them loving. I'm going to pick someone amazing and rich-

Lewis Howes 1:27:27 And it wor- it wor-

Marisa Peer 1:27:27 ... and then they're going to want me-

Lewis Howes 1:27:28 [laughs]

Marisa Peer 1:27:28 ... just like my dad." But change the beginning.

Lewis Howes 1:27:31 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:27:31 Life's too short to change the ending. When, when you lie, cheat, and steal, you change the beginning-

Lewis Howes 1:27:37 Mm

Marisa Peer 1:27:37 ... and then you've already won.

Lewis Howes 1:27:39 Yeah. Marisa Peer, you're the best.

Marisa Peer 1:27:42 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:27:42 I love it. [laughs] You're the best.

Marisa Peer 1:27:43 Oh, you're so lovely. Thank you. I was trying not to say anything I said in the first one.

Lewis Howes 1:27:46 No, that's perfect. I think, I think you should be around people that lie to you in positive ways too.

Marisa Peer 1:27:50 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:27:51 Like, say nice things to me-

Marisa Peer 1:27:52 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:27:52 ... you know, so that I can hear back and-

Marisa Peer 1:27:54 So when I say to my little girl, "You are the best little girl in the whole world," she goes, "But Mommy, how do you know? Have you met all the other girls?"

Lewis Howes 1:27:59 Right.

Marisa Peer 1:27:59 I'm like, "No, but I know."

Lewis Howes 1:28:01 Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:28:01 When you say to someone, "You're the only girl in the world for me," that's probably not true. That's a lie. 'Cause frankly, if your partner died-

Lewis Howes 1:28:08 There's lots of people-

Marisa Peer 1:28:08 ... you'd find another one. "I can't live without you. I'd die." All those songs, "I'd die if you leave me. I can't live without... You're the only girl in the world," well, they're all lies.

Lewis Howes 1:28:19 Mm-hmm.

Marisa Peer 1:28:20 Because most people who have had a beautiful relationship will have another one, 'cause they have the template.

Lewis Howes 1:28:24 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:28:24 "I had a wonderful marriage. Sadly, my partner died. And amazingly, I found someone else. I'm in another wonderful marriage."

Lewis Howes 1:28:32 Yeah. And almost by saying like, "You're not the only one for me, but I'm choosing to be with you-

Marisa Peer 1:28:37 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:28:37 ... because you're that special-

Marisa Peer 1:28:38 Yeah, exactly

Lewis Howes 1:28:39 ... it's more powerful probably.

Marisa Peer 1:28:40 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:28:40 "I can be with every other woman I want to be-

Marisa Peer 1:28:42 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:28:42 ... but I'm choosing you-

Marisa Peer 1:28:43 I'm choosing to stay

Lewis Howes 1:28:43 ... because you're amazing." Yeah.

Marisa Peer 1:28:45 Yeah. Choosing to say, "I'm choosing to stay with you, with all your flaws-

Lewis Howes 1:28:50 Yeah

Marisa Peer 1:28:50 ... because you're you. You work for me."

Lewis Howes 1:28:53 Yeah. And you are enough.

Marisa Peer 1:28:54 Yeah. Rather than say... You see, that, when you say to someone, "I love you because you're beautiful," a lot of women hear that and go, "My God, what am I going to do then when I get the menopause or I get pregnant or I get fat or I've got a cold, and I've got runny nose and red eyes?" And so that's the problem. That's why we all love Billy Joel, "I love you just the way you are."

Lewis Howes 1:29:14 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:29:14 That's what we want. "Don't go changing-

Lewis Howes 1:29:17 Changing

Marisa Peer 1:29:17 ... to try to please me."

Lewis Howes 1:29:19 Wow.

Marisa Peer 1:29:19 "I love you just the way you are." We love all those songs. Um, in Bridget Jones when he said, "I like Bridget just the way she is," women go, "Oh, I want that."

Lewis Howes 1:29:30 Mm.

Marisa Peer 1:29:30 "Just the way you are." That's not a lie. But most songs are lies.

Lewis Howes 1:29:35 Right. [laughs] Right. Marisa, I acknowledge you for being a amazing gift-

Marisa Peer 1:29:40 Thank you

Lewis Howes 1:29:40 ... and inspiration to so many of us. From all the experiences you've had in your life, from all the, the people you've, who've been messed up in the world that you've coached-

Marisa Peer 1:29:48 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:29:48 ... over the years, you've just learned so much, and you make it simple.

Marisa Peer 1:29:52 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:29:52 You make it easy for us to understand something that seems so painful and challenging. So thank you for your time, your wisdom. Make sure you guys check out Marisa's stuff. It's mind-blowing. It's powerful. Appreciate you very much. Thank you.

Marisa Peer 1:30:03 You're welcome. Thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:30:05 Thank you so much for watching this video with Marisa Peer. If you want more, make sure to check out this interview right here with Dr. Nicole LePera, all about how to heal your thoughts and the trauma of your past.

Speaker 1:30:16 Being stuck in our lives, watching yourself live patterns, whether or not they're in your daily behaviors or patterns in your thinking mind, or just being stuck in certain specific feelings-