E307: The most dangerous limiting belief and fixed mindset | Mental Health Podcast

The greatest limiting belief and fixed mindset is the one that other people give you.

What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. Run my first marathon on Sunday, as I'm sitting here recording let me tell you this, I'm incredibly sore, everything hurts moving hurts but I did it, it was half marathon, I did it two hours forty minutes, the most I've ever ran at one time in my life and I'm very, very happy that I did it.

You know, I'm such a proponent as you all know about following through with the decisions that I make, living in no excuses just results mentality, being unbroken, the whole nine like, I practice what I preach and so after I had my surgery in February, I wrote down run a marathon, Doctor told me, it may might be too soon and I said let's see, what happens.

And so, on Sunday I was able to complete the Colfax marathon which was really beautiful experience that said, as I was running something hit me in the middle. Now a lot of times, I will run with headphones on, I'm normally like listening to podcast or books or rarely music but sometimes music and I'd said to myself, I'm gonna bring my headphones, I'll just put him around my neck if I decide at some point, I would need to listen to them I will and that didn't happen until like the last mile because I wanted to have this experience of something I'd kinda planned for a while. But for the first twelve miles I did not have my headphones on and I was just running and breathing and thinking and looking at the people and hearing like the feet hitting the pavement. And in this, one of the things that dawned on me is I remembered being like twenty two or twenty three and my roommate at the time had told me when I was like oh, I think one day, I'm gonna run a marathon, right? And this was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years ago, so about fourteen years ago. And he said something to me that actually stuck with me until this year, he said big guys don't run, big guys don't run and until this moment I have held on to that belief and the most dangerous limiting belief and fixed mindset that you can have – that I can have even in real time like going through and acknowledging it is what other people tell you is fact, is truth, is life because I'm pretty sure, I'm a big guy who just fucking ran and I'm pretty sure actually I know there are other big guys who were run. There was a big guy who like freaking seven feet tall running next to me at one point, I looked over it and I was like what is happening right now? And I realize that those mental blocks that other people give us, will stop us, we'll hold us, we'll keep us from being able to step into our greatness and it could be anything, right? You guys, know this because we've talked about limiting beliefs, we've talked about fixed mindset many, many times on this show but in real time what was happening for me and I've been training for six weeks now, it was difficult, there a lot of sword days or a lot of hard runs, there's a lot of like I don't wanna do this, I can specifically remember a couple of days where I'm like, I don't wanna do this, I'm just gonna quit and I don't allow myself to quit ever, I always find a way. And so, in those moments being on the treadmill or being on the street being like, I wanna quit, I would just tell myself, you will die before you quit and I know that's intense, you guys, all know I speak to myself in a very intense way because it's what I need and I was like no, you will die doing this figure it out, get it done, stop making excuses, it's possible and as I'm going through this training like, I was thinking about all these other places in my own life over the course of my journey that I felt limited.

Like it's nuts to me that when I was at the beginning of starting to get in shape around twenty-six years old, being about three hundred and fifty pounds like running was I never ran. Now of course there's the argument like you probably shouldn't run it that size, as many of you know I used to be a certified personal trainer nutrition like sure, there is an argument for that but there's also the argument of pushing your body and so everyone's gotta figure it on that. But in my head, I'd had already predetermine that I was not going to run, I was not going to be a runner, I wouldn't do it, it would not be a part of my experience or my journey, no matter what I'm not running. And so, I didn't and I did it for a very long time and I just kept seeing all these people in my life have these physical feat and accomplishments and yes, I mean, I've successfully done cross events and I've practiced more Thai for a long time and all those things but it was really this running thing even going back in my twenties, I was like, I wanna do that. But my friend was like big guys don't run and he was a big guy like, he was like six foot five, two fifty, three hundred, I don't know how much you but he's a big guy. And he said that to me and that became my truth like, think about how fucking and crazy that is, that someone else's idea of who you should be would become your truth. So, when I said to myself when I recognized this and I understood that there was some kind of mental block keeping me from ever having run a marathon before it was during the running of it that I realized that's where it came from.

I think that there's something really important to this idea that I'm always trying to teach you guys that my mentor taught me of commit first and figure out the rest later. And so, in my head, I was like look all these people who do great things seem to have some type of physical endeavor that they're always working towards. Now, for some it's like the ultra-marathons or the double iron man's or whatever like, I don't know that I'll ever do something like that but now I'm like, okay, cool if I can run that I can go do triathlon, maybe I can do an ironman, maybe I can do whatever that next physical feed is pushing the mental capacity that I have to be able to accomplish something in my life. And knowing the truth that what we think becomes our reality and so you guys know what I think about mindset; mindset is what you think becomes what you speak, what you speak become your actions and your actions become your reality then I was thinking to myself for the last decade plus, big guys don't run and so, I didn't run even though I wanted to do marathons, even though I've been invited, even though I have the opportunity and even then best shape of my life I was doing some running, when I say some running I mean a mile here two miles there not a big deal. But I always said to myself well, I can't do a big marathon, I can't do anything over five kilometers which is like three miles or something, right? And so, I was on the limiting mindset, I’m admitting that to you guys here on the show because it matters like, I still even though yes, I'm the coach, I'm the speaker, I'm the mindset guy, I'm mister unbroken blah, blah, blah like, I still am constantly opening up doors into my truth. And in that discovering like shit there are still limiting beliefs, there are still have a fixed mindset about some things and so, I've thought okay cool, if I still have a fixed mindset about some things, how do I move through them? And the answer actually became very clear in the middle of this run-on Sunday in the space of commit first figure out the rest later, challenge the narrative of what you think is possible by doing things you've never done before but at a greater level. Because I'm always telling you the only way that you grow is you do things you've never done before, that you can make meaning of them, that way you can figure out who you are but now I'm thinking to myself, okay, can you do that in a more in depth and complex way so that you can unravel the truth about your capability? In this way that I think only you can discover through physical endeavor because like, I believe my mindset said super, super strong in business and in empowerment and things like that but the physical side was like, wait a second, I'm limiting myself, I'm not trying the thing that I want to try.

And so, all this is to say, I want you to think about the limiting beliefs and the fixed mindset that other people in your life have instilled in you because somewhere in this journey, somewhere in your life right now where you weren't showing up for yourself it's because somebody told you that you can't, that you shouldn't or that quote unquote big guys don't run and what that means is genre of this idea like because you are a man a woman or however you identify because you're short, taller, smaller or white whatever you can't do something. Challenge the narrative of your reality, that's what this is about. Challenge the narrative what other people have portrayed to you as what you are capable of doing because they're wrong. And when I made the decision to sign up for this marathon this had not even crossed my mind, I was just like I'm gonna do it, just go do something physically hard because I stopped doing CrossFit, I haven't done mo Mua Thai in a while and I was like alright, do something hard that's not just lifting weights at the gym and so it was this. And without having committed to this there's no way that I would be able to be having this conversation with you right now.

And so, what that means is you need to commit to something in your life that is uncomfortable and difficult so that you can move through whatever that limitation and limiting belief is that you have, about what you're capable of doing. Very likely it's something physical that you may want to consider doing but it may not be that it could be something very different, it's about putting it on the table and just saying, I'm going to go and do this because one of the biggest fears that I have and is dying with regret.

And so, for me to running a marathon was putting myself in a position go, I'm not going to die with her regret, I'm gonna follow through and execute, I'm gonna do this thing because I need to know if I'm capable of doing it. In crossing the finish line for me it was like, ten seconds of like pure acceleration being like fuck yeah, I finally did this thing done and then it was sitting there in the grass and thinking to myself, well what else can I do? And that's what I want you guys to think about like, can you get to the finish line of the endeavor in front of you that you know you should experience to find out what you're capable of doing?

Now of course there's the byproduct of all that through the training and the growth in the difficult days and the hard moments and like most of the experiences I've had in my life like the finish line wasn't as intense as the moments of the journey on the way to the finish line but the greatest reward that I got out of this experience was recognizing like there are still roadblocks even in mind journey that other people have implanted in me, about just general concepts not even anything very specific but big guys don't run as pretty general, right? I don't even know what that means. And then coming to realize like wait a second, I need to actually evaluate other areas of my life, I need to dive in deeper to figure out if that exists anywhere else.

So, my hope my friends for you today is that you will take into consideration that the greatest limiting belief in fixed mindset that you may have right now is very likely coming from someone else because of something said in passing, that may carry no weight in any capacity in your life but it's also keeping you stuck. And I want you to get unstuck, I want you to be able to move into what's next in your life and of course ultimately to be unbroken.

My friend, thank you so much for listening.

Thank you, Unbroken Nation it means the world to me.

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