July 12, 2025 • 33 mins
Episode 92 Harnessing Focus and Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
In this episode of 'Conversations with Kimen,' host Kimen Petersen delves into the power of focus, belief, and attitude in shaping our lives. Drawing inspiration from Albert Einstein and the concept of mirror theory, Kimen discusses how our perceptions and beliefs influence our reality and personal growth. He emphasizes the importance of shifting focus from limitations to possibilities, using personal anecdotes about overcoming dyslexia and achieving academic success through hard work. The episode encourages listeners to challenge negative beliefs, cultivate an inner advocate, and ask themselves better questions to lead a more fulfilling and inspired life.
00:00 Introduction to Conversations with Kimen
00:28 The Power of Focus
02:50 The Theory of the Mirror
06:15 Healing and Recovery
11:40 Challenging Confirmation Bias
14:24 Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
27:01 Building Your Inner Advocate
29:57 The Power of Positive Questions
33:07 Conclusion and Call to Action
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
. Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
If you can change your focus,you can change your life.
You see, Albert Einstein saidthis really incredible thing.
He said, what you focus on expands.
(00:46):
And to me this means that yourlife is actually given by what
you are focusing on continuously.
If your life is not goingthe way you want it.
That you need to really take a goodlook at what you're focusing on and
see if you can shift your focus morein the direction you want to go.
(01:10):
It's kind of interesting, thebrain and the senses can take in
so much information every moment,
but we can only consciouslybe aware of or, or conceive
or be present to a certain.
Percentage of that, andit's not a large percentage,
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so some of it has to beinhibited, um, ignored, bypassed,
and how the brain decides that couldbe largely in what you believe is
possible, uh, what you feel is true.
(01:56):
Um, your added toward, towards life.
Say, if you're an incre, incredibleoptimist, you're gonna be seeing all kinds
of things that confirm your optimism.
If you're an incredible pessimist,you're gonna see all kinds of
things that confirm your pessimism.
And the truth is all that everyone of those things is going on
(02:17):
all the time at the same moment.
And there's as much good going onas bad all the time, but our life,
our, our feelings, our emotions, ourstate is really given by our focus.
You can think of like the brain's notgoing to be able to have a context
(02:42):
for what you don't know is possible.
Right.
It's interesting when.
Um, a few years ago, I, I, Iheard this theory of the mirror,
and I don't know if you've everheard of the theory of the mirror.
The theory of the mirror says that ifyou don't, if you see something you
(03:03):
don't like about another person, it'sprobably an aspect of you either hasn't
come to the surface or something you'reconcerned about, or something that
you possibly believe you are as well.
Or you're afraid of being,
and that really, really, really put a, aspotlight on the way a lot of people are.
(03:32):
The majority of the peopleprobably look at life as
negatives as things we don't want.
And
you know what really struck me when Iheard that was that if that is true.
What, if you see something you that'syou really are inspired by in another
(03:53):
person that you think is amazing, yousee the incredible strength in another
person, like something that you're soproud of, some intelligence or wisdom
that's amazing in this other human being.
Well, according to themirror, both is true, right?
If you see something negative, it'sprobably an aspect of yourself.
(04:13):
If you see something positive, it's also.
Probably an aspect of yourself,because the only way you can recognize
anything in this planet like seesomething exists is if you have a
context for the fact that it exists.
Uh, if you ever watched The Secretor if you ever get a chance to
(04:34):
watch this Secret, it's a, it was aninspirational documentary and I don't
even know for sure when it came out.
It might've been two thousands,um, late 90 nineties and maybe.
But one of the stories in, in, in theSecret was they were talking about, um,
the indigenous people on these islands.
And it could have been Fiji,it could have been another one.
(04:54):
I don't remember who the Explorerwas, but they brought their big
ships and they, they parked themin, like they anchored off the,
off in the harbor, off this island.
And all the indigenous people were,were hanging around their village.
And they said, at first.
Um, they couldn't recognize the bigships 'cause they had no context.
(05:19):
Like they didn't see them.
They were, they like, there's noway their brain could conceive
them 'cause they didn't have acontext to know that was true.
So they didn't even see these bigships and maybe, maybe some of
the wise elders saw something,but the rest of them couldn't.
Until the explorers got into theirlittle boats and started rowing on
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shore, and suddenly they were able tosee these smaller boats because they had
a context, 'cause they had built boats.
So this makes me wonder if,if you're so focused, if your
context is how things don't work,
that's all you're really gonna see.
That's what you're focused on,is how things are not working.
(06:03):
And even when things work, becauseyour focus is so on how they
don't work, maybe you won't evenrecognize, you know, it's interesting.
Another thing comes to mind right away.
Working, working withpeople, working with injury.
This is all something I talk abouta lot is so when somebody's coming
back from injury, the healingprocess is extremely slow, right?
(06:29):
So slow.
But it is going on 24 7, 365.
There's all these incredible cellslike I just released the, uh, a recent
episode was The body is Resilient.
Listen to that, to get the,the full detail of this.
But it's super interesting when peopleare stuck in a long-term injury.
And it's the same, it's the same.
It's the same.
(06:50):
And the way pain scienceworks is if there's a pain
in the in, in a similar area.
Um, it kind of makes itall the same all the time.
'cause you're always, you're focusingon this injury that knee's injured, it's
injured, it's injured, it's injured.
And even though it's healing all thetime and it's like minuscule healing
every day, you don't recognize ituntil it builds up to the point
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where there's a significant change.
And sometimes people will come in andsays, you know, the other day I was,
I was, you know, I was doing my walkrun and suddenly I realized that I
haven't felt that pain in like 10 days.
And that's how it works, right?
Because I wonder if that personwas focusing on injury, injury.
(07:32):
Injury, taking a long time, taking along time, taking a long time, taking a
long time, and they weren't looking ator seeing that minuscule change that was
building up and building up, buildingup till the point that it was gone.
And this is one of the thingsI do to like kind of be.
Like to kind of coach people on advocatingfor themselves is like when somebody comes
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in with an injury, I always say on theirway out the door is like, pay attention to
how it's different, not how it's the same.
And let me know howit, how it changes now.
Like it's all good.
If it's more painful, that's good.
If it moves up, it's good.
If it moves down, it's good.
(08:18):
If it moves the other leg, it's good.
As long as things are movingand changing, I'm happy.
It's like when they're not, whenwe're not having an impact on
them, that's when I'm concerned.
Another thing like we we're not gonna haveany real context for, and the brain is
probably gonna inhibit or or ignore, isthings that are contrary to our beliefs.
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You know, it's interesting, there's somany people have so many strong beliefs
they're focusing on like, oh man, it'sgonna take so long to get to that point.
Like, say you wanna break thisbarrier, and it's like, oh man,
it's gonna be so much work.
Or like, coming back, um,coming back to fitness.
It's like it just takes a long time.
It just takes a long time.
And if you're just focusing on it'staking, it's gonna take a long time.
(09:10):
Confirmation.
You're gonna get confirmationthat it is gonna take a long time.
But the incredible thing is one dayyou realize once again you are, you're
running and you're enjoying, and you'renot really focusing on that thought
that it's gonna take a long time.
And you look down at your watch andyou're going fast, like as fast as you
used to go and everything feels smooth.
(09:32):
And wow, that changed fast.
But it probably changed long before.
Yeah, but maybe it was, I'm notsaying it is your belief that's
getting in the way, but maybe it is,you know, maybe doubt that belief.
You know, maybe doubt the fear.
How about that?
If you're afraid of something, doubt it.
(09:52):
Doubt that.
That's true.
You don't have to, youdon't have to ignore it.
You don't have to like say, no, no,no, just, just create a healthy dose.
Of doubt around the time it's gonnachange, take to change and create
a healthy dose of doubt around,
you know,
(10:15):
around the fear.
I,
I am I.
Sometimes I'm inspired, so I justhad to write down healthy dose of
doubt because I think I need to makeit short on a healthy dose of doubt.
I think that's a powerful statement,
and like I said, like your life isgoing to be gonna be shadowed by so
(10:40):
many things, conscious and unconscious,like your beliefs, your attitude,
your pessimism, your optimism.
And then we also have selfsubconscious beliefs that are
a little harder to deal with.
Something, the underlying belief.
So like if your focus is giving yourworld, if you are a really negative person
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or what I call, like, a lot of people callit say I'm a realist, but like I feel like
a lot of realists like really lean intothe more to the negative than the positive
or even a pessimist.
Your brain's actually gonna highlightall the things that align with that
(11:28):
belief or that attitude, or who you are.
So it's like your life is gonnabe given by your focus and
your belief and your attitude.
It's gonna align things right.
And this is kind of likea confirmation bias.
Now, if you have never heard the wordconfirmation bias, it's a really cool
(11:48):
word that I heard a few years ago.
Um, because I do manual therapy andaround research, they're talking
about confirmation bias is when theresearcher or the therapist, um.
Like how they see the researchor the treatment they're doing is
heavily shaded by their beliefsin a, like in an incredible way.
(12:13):
So it'll cause thatresearcher or therapists.
To just focus on all the evidence and allthe changes that confirm their beliefs.
Like everything that confirms theirbeliefs, they, yeah, see, I prove it.
That's this.
Yep, it's this, it's this.
But at the same time, confirmation biaswill create this way that we ignore all
(12:38):
the things that challenge our beliefs.
So confirmation biasis a really cool thing.
Sorry, I'm,
I think I'll do another shortoncon confirmation bias too.
But like, like I said, so if you'resitting in confirmation bias as a
(13:02):
researcher or a therapist, you'regonna be really, really hyper-focused
on all the things that confirm yourhypothesis or what you believe to be true.
At the same time, you beginignoring anything that doesn't
match up with your bias.
So when I heard about this, I realizedthat I have this incredible confirmation
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bias around certain things I work, certaintreatments I do, and how I see that
like almost everybody who comes in hasa similar thing going on in some areas.
So I realized that I need to create away to challenge my confirmation bias.
And so what I would do is I wouldwork really, really, really hard doing
(13:47):
special testing and everything I cando, working as hard as I can to prove
that what I believe to be true is wrong.
So I would work so hard.
I do all the special testing totry to prove that my assumption or
my hypothesis is completely wrong.
And I would work really,really hard to do that.
(14:08):
And I'd spend a lot of focuson that and try everything I
could to prove myself wrong.
And in the end, when I couldn'tprove myself wrong, that probably
meant that I was correct.
And I find for me that's a good wayto challenge my confirmation bias.
So think about it like if you havethis negative attitude, like you're
never going to amount to something.
(14:29):
'cause I live that, like literally.
Um, it took me years and yearsto understand that I was actually
dyslexic and that it wasn't that Iwasn't intelligent, it was more that
the way my brain sees some things isa little bit different than normal.
(14:49):
So this is a real challenge for spellingand a real challenge for reading.
So I had to, I had to findways to overcome these things,
and I had to challenge mybeliefs that I wasn't smart.
Uh, so when I went back toschool, I realized that there's,
(15:10):
there's this interesting thing.
We cannot, you've heardof affirmations, right?
And like I get kind of annoyedwith affirmations in a sense,
depending on the affirmation.
Because somebody, some, or some peoplewill say, affirmations work like this.
Like if you've got something, likeif you, if you, if you have this
(15:32):
like negative inner critic that'sgoing, you're stupid, you're stupid,
you're stupid, you're stupid.
And the affirmation is, I'm smart,I'm smart, I'm smart, I'm smart.
I really don't believethat's gonna do anything
because.
You probably have a deep underlyingbelief that you're not intelligent
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and your, your inner critic is thatnegative voice in your head is trying to
protect you from getting hurt by makingsure you don't try to push yourself
in the area of academic pursuits.
So that inner critic, what itdoes is it's trying to protect
(16:13):
you, but it protects you by.
Being like keeping you small and notpushing outside of your comfort zone
or what you know is possible for youor what you think is possible for you.
So when I went back to school, Ihad, I realized that I had this
thing, like I'm, I'm not very smart.
Um, I, I'm not good enoughwas actually the, the thing.
(16:37):
So if, if your focus is, I'mnot good enough, you can't fight
it by going, I'm good enough.
I'm good enough, I'm goodenough, I'm good enough.
Because like, if your underlyingbelief is, I'm not good enough and
you're putting, I, I'm good enoughon top of it, it's like putting the
sweet, delicious icing on a crap cake.
(17:01):
It's still a crap cake.
So what I had to do is I hadto focus on something I like.
If you wanna go after a focus, abelief that's holding you back, you
have to go at it a different way.
You can't go directly at itin this, in this incident.
See, one of the things I really knewto be true of myself, and it was so
(17:24):
true and it was ingrained in me, is I,I am the hardest worker you ever met.
I work 12 hours a day, six days a week.
I, you know, right now I'mtr training for a 5,000.
I just ran a half marathon.
I'm gonna run a marathon next week.
So I get up every morning incrediblyearly, and I either run or go
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to the gym seven days a week.
I also have time.
This is Sunday.
I just did a workout this morning.
I got out the door at five 30.
Uh, I don't even knowwhat time it is right now.
Let's see.
It is 10 39 and I'm recording apodcast episode and every day I
(18:13):
release two shorts on social media,and every week I release two episodes.
I go to bed at 9:00 PM I get upin between four 30 and 5:00 AM
and when I work, I work hard.
So I knew for a fact I knew thisto be completely true about that.
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I am a hard worker, so the underlyingbelief is I'm not intelligent
or not good educationally.
But you know what?
I knew I was the hardest worker, soI decided that how I would challenge
that focus, that belief, is I wouldjust, I know I'm the hardest worker.
I know I don't, I don't knowanybody who works harder than me.
(18:59):
So I said it doesn't, to myself.
I said like, this is myinner advocate talking.
Now, it doesn't matter if I'm not giftedintellectually, I will just work so
hard that that doesn't even matter.
And when I was in school, I wouldstudy four and a half hours a
night, 19 hours on the weekend.
In the breaks, I was creating flashcards.
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I hit the honor roll everysingle semester, and at the
end I was the valedictorian.
So I challenged that beliefand I focused on what I could
do to challenge that belief.
I focus on hard work.
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So
if you really, really wanna changeyour life, you need to change
your focus and your focus, orsometimes given by your beliefs.
Anything, you know, to be true,to be a fact about your life for
yourself, it limits you to that.
(20:14):
That's your focus, that's yourbelief, and you're limited to that.
And that's, that's bothpositive and negative.
So on the positive side, to stoplimiting myself, I learned to let go.
On my beliefs just by changing mybeliefs into strong suspicions.
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And you might've heard me, uh, if youlistened before, you might've heard
me say this before, that anythingyou know, to be a fact about yourself
or you believe to be a fact aboutyourself in life limits you that fact.
So if you think you're strong, you'restill limiting yourself to that
kind of, that level of strength.
If you think you care about people,you're living limiting yourself.
(20:59):
Or you say, I know I'm somebodywho cares about people.
So what I did to like expand that tomake, give it an opportunity to be
way bigger than I ever dreamed wasI decided like my, uh, with my inner
advocate, I have a strong suspicionthat I am a man who really, really
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cares about people and really wantsto make a difference in, in life.
But you know.
I don't know how deep that caregoes, and I don't know how big of a
difference I can make in people's lives.
I'm open to finding out andlearning the depth of that.
(21:47):
Yeah, what a great thought, eh.
So no longer limiting myself in apositive way and opening up a possibility.
Uh, being way more than I thought.
'cause like, I don't wannalimit myself anymore.
I've spent a lifetime of that.
So when, when you, that'sa positive beliefs 'cause
positive beliefs can limit you.
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But the other thing was thenegative beliefs and the negative
release really, really limited me.
Like really it, I thinkwhen I went back to school.
It was 26 years since I'd been inschool of thinking I'm not good enough.
I'm not smart enough becauselike I said, I was dyslexic and
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I didn't know I was dyslexic.
I just thought I wasn't smart.
And even when I found out I wasdyslexic, I still didn't think I was
smart, which is really interesting, eh.
So now you have an understandingof why, but you still haven't
changed your focus or belief.
It wasn't until I got into actionthat I was able to find a way
to change my focus and beliefs.
And it wasn't until I really focused onthe fact that I am such a hard worker.
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It doesn't matter how smartI am, I'll just do the work.
And you know what?
If you consistently do the workand you do, you focus deeply on the
work and you focus on how hard ofa worker you are, and you keep on
focusing on that, you will succeed.
It's inevitable.
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I also really worked on
like challenging the all the I can'ts,
challenging all the I cans.
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I can't do this.
I can't like, oh, Icouldn't go back to school.
Like, I'm not smart enough.
I can't read fast, blah, blah, blah.
And it was a simple, simple,simple reframe from, I can't
to, I don't know if I can.
(24:02):
And you might say, well,that's not much of a change.
But there is a distinction here andit's a big change because knowing I
Kent is an affirmative, a positive.
It's what you know thatwill limit you in your life.
Everything you know for a fact aboutyourself will limit you to that fact.
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But I don't know if I can.
It is kind of cool 'causeit's a double-edged blade.
'cause on the other side of, I don't knowif I can is also, I don't know if I can't
because I don't know is anextremely powerful place to be.
'cause it opens up anotherpossibility going from the absolute
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negative to the possibility.
Because remember, if you don't know thatyou can, you also don't know you can't.
So that is a much more, I don't know,powerful place to sit than I can't.
(25:10):
I also spent a lot of time.
Because I used to focus onthat inner dialogue, that inner
critic, what it was saying.
And you know, there was a lot of timein my life, and I don't know if you've
been through this or if you're in thisright now, that negative inner voice,
that automatic whatever it's saying toyou, there's a few ways of looking at it.
(25:32):
First off, if it's saying you are well,then that's some, but something somebody
said about you and that you took onpower, you powerfully took it on as truth.
And if it's, I am, that'ssomething you took on for yourself,
so you have power over that.
But let's, we'll talkabout that another day.
(25:55):
That's just a distinction.
Like get really clear on what it's saying.
So that inner critic, that ego, the senseof identity, whatever we want to call it,
like it's a word, is a word is a word.
If you're tripping over a word,call it something else until you're
not tripping over it anymore.
It is not a terrible thing in a sense.
Okay, so in one sense it's not terrible'cause it's, it was created out of
(26:18):
situations where you were embarrassedor hurt or like you just tuck your neck
out a little too far and it failed.
And some part of you said, I'mnever gonna let that happen again.
And then the inner critic decided thatevery time you got close to doing that
(26:41):
again, that it would drop fear, anxiety.
It would say, no, no, no, you'renot this, you're not this.
You can't do that.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
It protects you, which is beautiful, butit protects you by keeping you small.
And if you don't wanna be smallin this life, you cannot listen
to that inner critic and.
(27:01):
The only thing I can I can saythat we can do is start building
our own inner inner advocate.
And an inner advocate isexactly what it sounds like.
It's somebody cheering foryou on supporting you on like
somebody who's got your back.
When that inner criticstarts coming at you,
(27:25):
you start building it by when the innercritic starts saying something that.
It is not aligned with the directionyou want to be or is holding you
back or is giving you a, a negativeself image, or you're creating
a negative self image with that.
Or if you're believing it,
you come with a, with a positive,intentional rebuke to that conversation.
(27:51):
So when, when my inner critic says,you're not good enough, I said.
No, I'm, I am good enough.
And when it says you're, you're,you're, you're not smart enough.
I said, it doesn't matterif I'm smart enough or not.
I'm gonna work so hard,I'm gonna figure it out.
(28:17):
When, when that inner criticsis really hard on you.
You gotta like, you gottabe your own best friend.
The, the inner advocate is yourfriend who's supporting you.
The critic is trying to supportyou by preventing you from getting
hurt, by keeping you small.
The inner advocate wants you, wantsyou to get to all your dreams.
(28:40):
Your inner advocate isreally your cheerleader.
You know, if, if an inner critic can like.
Focus on all the negativesand all the failures.
Why can't the inner advocate focuson all the times that you overcame?
(29:00):
What is wrong with in, in yourown head saying, great work, man.
Look at that.
We did this.
What?
What is wrong with having thispart of yourself that keeps
on focusing on everything?
You're working hard.
Four and everything you're doingevery time you get up and you, you
get back out there and do it again.
What is wrong with that?
(29:24):
Your, your inner ing.
Like when the critic says,oh yeah, this is too hard.
You say, you got this.
Keep going.
I believe in you.
And when it doesn't gowell, it, it doesn't fail.
When, when it fails andyou're feeling really down.
Why?
What would your best friend say?
This is your inner advocate.
(29:47):
You're gonna get 'em next time.
It's okay.
One more thought today.
Tony Robbins said this incrediblething a long time ago, and I took
it on very, very, yeah, yeah.
I took it on really well and.
(30:10):
This is part of focus, right?
So if, if you don't actuallycreate something, that that
space will be filled up, right?
So he said the quality of yourlife is directly related to the
(30:30):
quality of the questions you'reasking yourself every day.
He said, if you want a betterlife, just ask yourself.
Better questions and like, if you don'tintentionally put some positive questions
into your life in the morning, your innercritic will fill it up with a lot of
questions and they're not gonna be great.
(30:50):
It's like, how am I gonna make it?
I'm so tired.
How am I ever gonna, like,you know, how am I ever gonna
have enough money to retire?
How am I gonna be able to afford a house?
How am I this, how am I that?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Oh man.
See, what I did was Iwrote down 10 questions
(31:11):
like,
what can I do to make adifference in the world?
Who can I help today?
How can I become a me a better man today?
So why don't you try taking thison just as a little experiment.
(31:31):
Okay, take a piece of paper, writedown 10 really, really extremely
positive questions that are directingyou, like very directional questions.
And then every morning when youwake up, before you get outta bed,
read them out loud, create them.
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'cause when we speak out loud,we speak things into existence.
And this way you're feeling yourhead, you're feeling your mind.
Up with really positive focus
first thing in the morningbefore the negative can get in.
(32:16):
Just remember
what you focus on expands
and your life is directly given by thethings you're consistently focusing on.
So if you want to, if you wanna havea better life, an credible life, an
(32:37):
inspired life, focus on all the thingsyou need to do, all the things you
want in a positive light, focus onsupporting yourself towards those goals.
And honestly, take thatoutside of yourself and.
(33:00):
Focus on supporting other peoplein the pursuit of their goals.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
Please remember to follow andlike this podcast on Instagram,
Spotify, apple Podcast, Pod Beanor wherever you find this episode.
(33:22):
Please share this podcast withanyone you feel would be inspired
and benefit from this content.
. Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
If you can change your focus,you can change your life.
You see, Albert Einstein saidthis really incredible thing.
He said, what you focus on expands.
(00:46):
And to me this means that yourlife is actually given by what
you are focusing on continuously.
If your life is not goingthe way you want it.
That you need to really take a goodlook at what you're focusing on and
see if you can shift your focus morein the direction you want to go.
(01:10):
It's kind of interesting, thebrain and the senses can take in
so much information every moment,
but we can only consciouslybe aware of or, or conceive
or be present to a certain.
Percentage of that, andit's not a large percentage,
(01:32):
so some of it has to beinhibited, um, ignored, bypassed,
and how the brain decides that couldbe largely in what you believe is
possible, uh, what you feel is true.
(01:56):
Um, your added toward, towards life.
Say, if you're an incre, incredibleoptimist, you're gonna be seeing all kinds
of things that confirm your optimism.
If you're an incredible pessimist,you're gonna see all kinds of
things that confirm your pessimism.
And the truth is all that everyone of those things is going on
(02:17):
all the time at the same moment.
And there's as much good going onas bad all the time, but our life,
our, our feelings, our emotions, ourstate is really given by our focus.
You can think of like the brain's notgoing to be able to have a context
(02:42):
for what you don't know is possible.
Right.
It's interesting when.
Um, a few years ago, I, I, Iheard this theory of the mirror,
and I don't know if you've everheard of the theory of the mirror.
The theory of the mirror says that ifyou don't, if you see something you
(03:03):
don't like about another person, it'sprobably an aspect of you either hasn't
come to the surface or something you'reconcerned about, or something that
you possibly believe you are as well.
Or you're afraid of being,
and that really, really, really put a, aspotlight on the way a lot of people are.
(03:32):
The majority of the peopleprobably look at life as
negatives as things we don't want.
And
you know what really struck me when Iheard that was that if that is true.
What, if you see something you that'syou really are inspired by in another
(03:53):
person that you think is amazing, yousee the incredible strength in another
person, like something that you're soproud of, some intelligence or wisdom
that's amazing in this other human being.
Well, according to themirror, both is true, right?
If you see something negative, it'sprobably an aspect of yourself.
(04:13):
If you see something positive, it's also.
Probably an aspect of yourself,because the only way you can recognize
anything in this planet like seesomething exists is if you have a
context for the fact that it exists.
Uh, if you ever watched The Secretor if you ever get a chance to
(04:34):
watch this Secret, it's a, it was aninspirational documentary and I don't
even know for sure when it came out.
It might've been two thousands,um, late 90 nineties and maybe.
But one of the stories in, in, in theSecret was they were talking about, um,
the indigenous people on these islands.
And it could have been Fiji,it could have been another one.
(04:54):
I don't remember who the Explorerwas, but they brought their big
ships and they, they parked themin, like they anchored off the,
off in the harbor, off this island.
And all the indigenous people were,were hanging around their village.
And they said, at first.
Um, they couldn't recognize the bigships 'cause they had no context.
(05:19):
Like they didn't see them.
They were, they like, there's noway their brain could conceive
them 'cause they didn't have acontext to know that was true.
So they didn't even see these bigships and maybe, maybe some of
the wise elders saw something,but the rest of them couldn't.
Until the explorers got into theirlittle boats and started rowing on
(05:39):
shore, and suddenly they were able tosee these smaller boats because they had
a context, 'cause they had built boats.
So this makes me wonder if,if you're so focused, if your
context is how things don't work,
that's all you're really gonna see.
That's what you're focused on,is how things are not working.
(06:03):
And even when things work, becauseyour focus is so on how they
don't work, maybe you won't evenrecognize, you know, it's interesting.
Another thing comes to mind right away.
Working, working withpeople, working with injury.
This is all something I talk abouta lot is so when somebody's coming
back from injury, the healingprocess is extremely slow, right?
(06:29):
So slow.
But it is going on 24 7, 365.
There's all these incredible cellslike I just released the, uh, a recent
episode was The body is Resilient.
Listen to that, to get the,the full detail of this.
But it's super interesting when peopleare stuck in a long-term injury.
And it's the same, it's the same.
It's the same.
(06:50):
And the way pain scienceworks is if there's a pain
in the in, in a similar area.
Um, it kind of makes itall the same all the time.
'cause you're always, you're focusingon this injury that knee's injured, it's
injured, it's injured, it's injured.
And even though it's healing all thetime and it's like minuscule healing
every day, you don't recognize ituntil it builds up to the point
(07:11):
where there's a significant change.
And sometimes people will come in andsays, you know, the other day I was,
I was, you know, I was doing my walkrun and suddenly I realized that I
haven't felt that pain in like 10 days.
And that's how it works, right?
Because I wonder if that personwas focusing on injury, injury.
(07:32):
Injury, taking a long time, taking along time, taking a long time, taking a
long time, and they weren't looking ator seeing that minuscule change that was
building up and building up, buildingup till the point that it was gone.
And this is one of the thingsI do to like kind of be.
Like to kind of coach people on advocatingfor themselves is like when somebody comes
(07:58):
in with an injury, I always say on theirway out the door is like, pay attention to
how it's different, not how it's the same.
And let me know howit, how it changes now.
Like it's all good.
If it's more painful, that's good.
If it moves up, it's good.
If it moves down, it's good.
(08:18):
If it moves the other leg, it's good.
As long as things are movingand changing, I'm happy.
It's like when they're not, whenwe're not having an impact on
them, that's when I'm concerned.
Another thing like we we're not gonna haveany real context for, and the brain is
probably gonna inhibit or or ignore, isthings that are contrary to our beliefs.
(08:45):
You know, it's interesting, there's somany people have so many strong beliefs
they're focusing on like, oh man, it'sgonna take so long to get to that point.
Like, say you wanna break thisbarrier, and it's like, oh man,
it's gonna be so much work.
Or like, coming back, um,coming back to fitness.
It's like it just takes a long time.
It just takes a long time.
And if you're just focusing on it'staking, it's gonna take a long time.
(09:10):
Confirmation.
You're gonna get confirmationthat it is gonna take a long time.
But the incredible thing is one dayyou realize once again you are, you're
running and you're enjoying, and you'renot really focusing on that thought
that it's gonna take a long time.
And you look down at your watch andyou're going fast, like as fast as you
used to go and everything feels smooth.
(09:32):
And wow, that changed fast.
But it probably changed long before.
Yeah, but maybe it was, I'm notsaying it is your belief that's
getting in the way, but maybe it is,you know, maybe doubt that belief.
You know, maybe doubt the fear.
How about that?
If you're afraid of something, doubt it.
(09:52):
Doubt that.
That's true.
You don't have to, youdon't have to ignore it.
You don't have to like say, no, no,no, just, just create a healthy dose.
Of doubt around the time it's gonnachange, take to change and create
a healthy dose of doubt around,
you know,
(10:15):
around the fear.
I,
I am I.
Sometimes I'm inspired, so I justhad to write down healthy dose of
doubt because I think I need to makeit short on a healthy dose of doubt.
I think that's a powerful statement,
and like I said, like your life isgoing to be gonna be shadowed by so
(10:40):
many things, conscious and unconscious,like your beliefs, your attitude,
your pessimism, your optimism.
And then we also have selfsubconscious beliefs that are
a little harder to deal with.
Something, the underlying belief.
So like if your focus is giving yourworld, if you are a really negative person
(11:05):
or what I call, like, a lot of people callit say I'm a realist, but like I feel like
a lot of realists like really lean intothe more to the negative than the positive
or even a pessimist.
Your brain's actually gonna highlightall the things that align with that
(11:28):
belief or that attitude, or who you are.
So it's like your life is gonnabe given by your focus and
your belief and your attitude.
It's gonna align things right.
And this is kind of likea confirmation bias.
Now, if you have never heard the wordconfirmation bias, it's a really cool
(11:48):
word that I heard a few years ago.
Um, because I do manual therapy andaround research, they're talking
about confirmation bias is when theresearcher or the therapist, um.
Like how they see the researchor the treatment they're doing is
heavily shaded by their beliefsin a, like in an incredible way.
(12:13):
So it'll cause thatresearcher or therapists.
To just focus on all the evidence and allthe changes that confirm their beliefs.
Like everything that confirms theirbeliefs, they, yeah, see, I prove it.
That's this.
Yep, it's this, it's this.
But at the same time, confirmation biaswill create this way that we ignore all
(12:38):
the things that challenge our beliefs.
So confirmation biasis a really cool thing.
Sorry, I'm,
I think I'll do another shortoncon confirmation bias too.
But like, like I said, so if you'resitting in confirmation bias as a
(13:02):
researcher or a therapist, you'regonna be really, really hyper-focused
on all the things that confirm yourhypothesis or what you believe to be true.
At the same time, you beginignoring anything that doesn't
match up with your bias.
So when I heard about this, I realizedthat I have this incredible confirmation
(13:23):
bias around certain things I work, certaintreatments I do, and how I see that
like almost everybody who comes in hasa similar thing going on in some areas.
So I realized that I need to create away to challenge my confirmation bias.
And so what I would do is I wouldwork really, really, really hard doing
(13:47):
special testing and everything I cando, working as hard as I can to prove
that what I believe to be true is wrong.
So I would work so hard.
I do all the special testing totry to prove that my assumption or
my hypothesis is completely wrong.
And I would work really,really hard to do that.
(14:08):
And I'd spend a lot of focuson that and try everything I
could to prove myself wrong.
And in the end, when I couldn'tprove myself wrong, that probably
meant that I was correct.
And I find for me that's a good wayto challenge my confirmation bias.
So think about it like if you havethis negative attitude, like you're
never going to amount to something.
(14:29):
'cause I live that, like literally.
Um, it took me years and yearsto understand that I was actually
dyslexic and that it wasn't that Iwasn't intelligent, it was more that
the way my brain sees some things isa little bit different than normal.
(14:49):
So this is a real challenge for spellingand a real challenge for reading.
So I had to, I had to findways to overcome these things,
and I had to challenge mybeliefs that I wasn't smart.
Uh, so when I went back toschool, I realized that there's,
(15:10):
there's this interesting thing.
We cannot, you've heardof affirmations, right?
And like I get kind of annoyedwith affirmations in a sense,
depending on the affirmation.
Because somebody, some, or some peoplewill say, affirmations work like this.
Like if you've got something, likeif you, if you, if you have this
(15:32):
like negative inner critic that'sgoing, you're stupid, you're stupid,
you're stupid, you're stupid.
And the affirmation is, I'm smart,I'm smart, I'm smart, I'm smart.
I really don't believethat's gonna do anything
because.
You probably have a deep underlyingbelief that you're not intelligent
(15:53):
and your, your inner critic is thatnegative voice in your head is trying to
protect you from getting hurt by makingsure you don't try to push yourself
in the area of academic pursuits.
So that inner critic, what itdoes is it's trying to protect
(16:13):
you, but it protects you by.
Being like keeping you small and notpushing outside of your comfort zone
or what you know is possible for youor what you think is possible for you.
So when I went back to school, Ihad, I realized that I had this
thing, like I'm, I'm not very smart.
Um, I, I'm not good enoughwas actually the, the thing.
(16:37):
So if, if your focus is, I'mnot good enough, you can't fight
it by going, I'm good enough.
I'm good enough, I'm goodenough, I'm good enough.
Because like, if your underlyingbelief is, I'm not good enough and
you're putting, I, I'm good enoughon top of it, it's like putting the
sweet, delicious icing on a crap cake.
(17:01):
It's still a crap cake.
So what I had to do is I hadto focus on something I like.
If you wanna go after a focus, abelief that's holding you back, you
have to go at it a different way.
You can't go directly at itin this, in this incident.
See, one of the things I really knewto be true of myself, and it was so
(17:24):
true and it was ingrained in me, is I,I am the hardest worker you ever met.
I work 12 hours a day, six days a week.
I, you know, right now I'mtr training for a 5,000.
I just ran a half marathon.
I'm gonna run a marathon next week.
So I get up every morning incrediblyearly, and I either run or go
(17:49):
to the gym seven days a week.
I also have time.
This is Sunday.
I just did a workout this morning.
I got out the door at five 30.
Uh, I don't even knowwhat time it is right now.
Let's see.
It is 10 39 and I'm recording apodcast episode and every day I
(18:13):
release two shorts on social media,and every week I release two episodes.
I go to bed at 9:00 PM I get upin between four 30 and 5:00 AM
and when I work, I work hard.
So I knew for a fact I knew thisto be completely true about that.
(18:36):
I am a hard worker, so the underlyingbelief is I'm not intelligent
or not good educationally.
But you know what?
I knew I was the hardest worker, soI decided that how I would challenge
that focus, that belief, is I wouldjust, I know I'm the hardest worker.
I know I don't, I don't knowanybody who works harder than me.
(18:59):
So I said it doesn't, to myself.
I said like, this is myinner advocate talking.
Now, it doesn't matter if I'm not giftedintellectually, I will just work so
hard that that doesn't even matter.
And when I was in school, I wouldstudy four and a half hours a
night, 19 hours on the weekend.
In the breaks, I was creating flashcards.
(19:21):
I hit the honor roll everysingle semester, and at the
end I was the valedictorian.
So I challenged that beliefand I focused on what I could
do to challenge that belief.
I focus on hard work.
(19:51):
So
if you really, really wanna changeyour life, you need to change
your focus and your focus, orsometimes given by your beliefs.
Anything, you know, to be true,to be a fact about your life for
yourself, it limits you to that.
(20:14):
That's your focus, that's yourbelief, and you're limited to that.
And that's, that's bothpositive and negative.
So on the positive side, to stoplimiting myself, I learned to let go.
On my beliefs just by changing mybeliefs into strong suspicions.
(20:36):
And you might've heard me, uh, if youlistened before, you might've heard
me say this before, that anythingyou know, to be a fact about yourself
or you believe to be a fact aboutyourself in life limits you that fact.
So if you think you're strong, you'restill limiting yourself to that
kind of, that level of strength.
If you think you care about people,you're living limiting yourself.
(20:59):
Or you say, I know I'm somebodywho cares about people.
So what I did to like expand that tomake, give it an opportunity to be
way bigger than I ever dreamed wasI decided like my, uh, with my inner
advocate, I have a strong suspicionthat I am a man who really, really
(21:19):
cares about people and really wantsto make a difference in, in life.
But you know.
I don't know how deep that caregoes, and I don't know how big of a
difference I can make in people's lives.
I'm open to finding out andlearning the depth of that.
(21:47):
Yeah, what a great thought, eh.
So no longer limiting myself in apositive way and opening up a possibility.
Uh, being way more than I thought.
'cause like, I don't wannalimit myself anymore.
I've spent a lifetime of that.
So when, when you, that'sa positive beliefs 'cause
positive beliefs can limit you.
(22:11):
But the other thing was thenegative beliefs and the negative
release really, really limited me.
Like really it, I thinkwhen I went back to school.
It was 26 years since I'd been inschool of thinking I'm not good enough.
I'm not smart enough becauselike I said, I was dyslexic and
(22:33):
I didn't know I was dyslexic.
I just thought I wasn't smart.
And even when I found out I wasdyslexic, I still didn't think I was
smart, which is really interesting, eh.
So now you have an understandingof why, but you still haven't
changed your focus or belief.
It wasn't until I got into actionthat I was able to find a way
to change my focus and beliefs.
And it wasn't until I really focused onthe fact that I am such a hard worker.
(22:56):
It doesn't matter how smartI am, I'll just do the work.
And you know what?
If you consistently do the workand you do, you focus deeply on the
work and you focus on how hard ofa worker you are, and you keep on
focusing on that, you will succeed.
It's inevitable.
(23:19):
I also really worked on
like challenging the all the I can'ts,
challenging all the I cans.
(23:41):
I can't do this.
I can't like, oh, Icouldn't go back to school.
Like, I'm not smart enough.
I can't read fast, blah, blah, blah.
And it was a simple, simple,simple reframe from, I can't
to, I don't know if I can.
(24:02):
And you might say, well,that's not much of a change.
But there is a distinction here andit's a big change because knowing I
Kent is an affirmative, a positive.
It's what you know thatwill limit you in your life.
Everything you know for a fact aboutyourself will limit you to that fact.
(24:23):
But I don't know if I can.
It is kind of cool 'causeit's a double-edged blade.
'cause on the other side of, I don't knowif I can is also, I don't know if I can't
because I don't know is anextremely powerful place to be.
'cause it opens up anotherpossibility going from the absolute
(24:46):
negative to the possibility.
Because remember, if you don't know thatyou can, you also don't know you can't.
So that is a much more, I don't know,powerful place to sit than I can't.
(25:10):
I also spent a lot of time.
Because I used to focus onthat inner dialogue, that inner
critic, what it was saying.
And you know, there was a lot of timein my life, and I don't know if you've
been through this or if you're in thisright now, that negative inner voice,
that automatic whatever it's saying toyou, there's a few ways of looking at it.
(25:32):
First off, if it's saying you are well,then that's some, but something somebody
said about you and that you took onpower, you powerfully took it on as truth.
And if it's, I am, that'ssomething you took on for yourself,
so you have power over that.
But let's, we'll talkabout that another day.
(25:55):
That's just a distinction.
Like get really clear on what it's saying.
So that inner critic, that ego, the senseof identity, whatever we want to call it,
like it's a word, is a word is a word.
If you're tripping over a word,call it something else until you're
not tripping over it anymore.
It is not a terrible thing in a sense.
Okay, so in one sense it's not terrible'cause it's, it was created out of
(26:18):
situations where you were embarrassedor hurt or like you just tuck your neck
out a little too far and it failed.
And some part of you said, I'mnever gonna let that happen again.
And then the inner critic decided thatevery time you got close to doing that
(26:41):
again, that it would drop fear, anxiety.
It would say, no, no, no, you'renot this, you're not this.
You can't do that.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
It protects you, which is beautiful, butit protects you by keeping you small.
And if you don't wanna be smallin this life, you cannot listen
to that inner critic and.
(27:01):
The only thing I can I can saythat we can do is start building
our own inner inner advocate.
And an inner advocate isexactly what it sounds like.
It's somebody cheering foryou on supporting you on like
somebody who's got your back.
When that inner criticstarts coming at you,
(27:25):
you start building it by when the innercritic starts saying something that.
It is not aligned with the directionyou want to be or is holding you
back or is giving you a, a negativeself image, or you're creating
a negative self image with that.
Or if you're believing it,
you come with a, with a positive,intentional rebuke to that conversation.
(27:51):
So when, when my inner critic says,you're not good enough, I said.
No, I'm, I am good enough.
And when it says you're, you're,you're, you're not smart enough.
I said, it doesn't matterif I'm smart enough or not.
I'm gonna work so hard,I'm gonna figure it out.
(28:17):
When, when that inner criticsis really hard on you.
You gotta like, you gottabe your own best friend.
The, the inner advocate is yourfriend who's supporting you.
The critic is trying to supportyou by preventing you from getting
hurt, by keeping you small.
The inner advocate wants you, wantsyou to get to all your dreams.
(28:40):
Your inner advocate isreally your cheerleader.
You know, if, if an inner critic can like.
Focus on all the negativesand all the failures.
Why can't the inner advocate focuson all the times that you overcame?
(29:00):
What is wrong with in, in yourown head saying, great work, man.
Look at that.
We did this.
What?
What is wrong with having thispart of yourself that keeps
on focusing on everything?
You're working hard.
Four and everything you're doingevery time you get up and you, you
get back out there and do it again.
What is wrong with that?
(29:24):
Your, your inner ing.
Like when the critic says,oh yeah, this is too hard.
You say, you got this.
Keep going.
I believe in you.
And when it doesn't gowell, it, it doesn't fail.
When, when it fails andyou're feeling really down.
Why?
What would your best friend say?
This is your inner advocate.
(29:47):
You're gonna get 'em next time.
It's okay.
One more thought today.
Tony Robbins said this incrediblething a long time ago, and I took
it on very, very, yeah, yeah.
I took it on really well and.
(30:10):
This is part of focus, right?
So if, if you don't actuallycreate something, that that
space will be filled up, right?
So he said the quality of yourlife is directly related to the
(30:30):
quality of the questions you'reasking yourself every day.
He said, if you want a betterlife, just ask yourself.
Better questions and like, if you don'tintentionally put some positive questions
into your life in the morning, your innercritic will fill it up with a lot of
questions and they're not gonna be great.
(30:50):
It's like, how am I gonna make it?
I'm so tired.
How am I ever gonna, like,you know, how am I ever gonna
have enough money to retire?
How am I gonna be able to afford a house?
How am I this, how am I that?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Oh man.
See, what I did was Iwrote down 10 questions
(31:11):
like,
what can I do to make adifference in the world?
Who can I help today?
How can I become a me a better man today?
So why don't you try taking thison just as a little experiment.
(31:31):
Okay, take a piece of paper, writedown 10 really, really extremely
positive questions that are directingyou, like very directional questions.
And then every morning when youwake up, before you get outta bed,
read them out loud, create them.
(31:53):
'cause when we speak out loud,we speak things into existence.
And this way you're feeling yourhead, you're feeling your mind.
Up with really positive focus
first thing in the morningbefore the negative can get in.
(32:16):
Just remember
what you focus on expands
and your life is directly given by thethings you're consistently focusing on.
So if you want to, if you wanna havea better life, an credible life, an
(32:37):
inspired life, focus on all the thingsyou need to do, all the things you
want in a positive light, focus onsupporting yourself towards those goals.
And honestly, take thatoutside of yourself and.
(33:00):
Focus on supporting other peoplein the pursuit of their goals.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
Please remember to follow andlike this podcast on Instagram,
Spotify, apple Podcast, Pod Beanor wherever you find this episode.
(33:22):
Please share this podcast withanyone you feel would be inspired
and benefit from this content.
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