Dentists Who Invest Podcast
Official Podcast of the Dentists Who Invest platform. Talking all things investing, money and finance with a dental spin. Have you ever wondered how you can grow your wealth and protect your hard earned money as a Dentist? We've got you covered. Featuring famous guests such as Andrew Craig, Edward Zuckerberg and Benyamin Ahmed we delve deep into EVERY aspect of finance to educate and empower ALL Dentists.
Dentists Who Invest Podcast
How To UnF*CK Your Finances with Tom Fortes-Mayer
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In this episode, mindset coach Tom Fortes-Mayer reveals how unconscious beliefs could be standing in the way of your wealth and happiness. Discover how deep-rooted psychological barriers can hold even the most successful individuals back from achieving their true potential, and learn why financial success alone doesn’t guarantee fulfillment.
Tom dives into the workings of the unconscious mind, explaining the role of the “protector” that leads to self-sabotage and cycles of self-doubt. Through powerful insights, we explore how early life experiences shape our emotional responses and can hinder our ability to live fully. By uncovering and challenging these ingrained patterns, Tom guides us to break free from the self-imposed limits that hold us back from experiencing happiness, love, and true abundance.
Join us as we shift from a fear-driven life to one rooted in purpose, with practical advice on overcoming approval-seeking behaviors, burnout, and more. Plus, get a sneak peek into Tom’s upcoming book, Stop Fcking Up Your Life.* This episode is a must-listen for anyone ready to challenge their mindset and unlock the path to a more fulfilling, abundant life.
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Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional.
We want to welcome more wealth into our lives, but actually we're subtly low-key, sabotaging ourselves on an unconscious level in ways we don't even realize, and that is exactly what my guest today, mindset Coach Mr Tom Fortes-Mayer, is going to be talking about. He's going to be talking about how we can unleash the power of our mind, be in harmony with the best version of ourselves, and what that means is that we can welcome more wealth into our lives. As a consequence, tom is going to be giving us some frameworks we can use on a daily basis so that we can delve deep into our subconscious and identify things that are holding us back, overcome them and smash our goals for 2025. Stop fucking up your life and, by extension, messing up your finances. That's what we're here to talk about today on the podcast with and, by extension, messing up your finances. That's what we're here to talk about today on the podcast with master mindset coach, mr Tom. Tom, what do we mean by fucking up your life and messing up your finances and all that other stuff?
Tom:You know, for 25 years I've been obsessed with the human condition and what makes it work and what gets in the way and turns out. We all get in the way of our greatest expression. Some of you might be absolutely crushing and smashing out there in some areas of your life, but it's very, very rare that someone's winning in every area of their life, and understanding how our psychology is supporting us and how our psychology is blocking us is an absolutely essential thing to do. We have huge aspects of our psychology that are there to contain us, to curtail us, to get in our way, and at one end it can be super problematic. So we're completely flawed, we're completely held back and we can't get anything out of the game. We can't achieve anything. But for a lot of everyday people it's not like that. They're highly functional. Even for a lot of very successful people I work with, they're highly functional and yet they're still holding on to unconsciously held beliefs that fuck up everything and, by extension, yeah, mess up their finances. They might they might still be on seven figures, but they could be on eight. You know it's.
Tom:People make a comparison to where they're at or to how they're doing compared to their brother, but make a comparison compared to what's possible for you. You know, and listen, I'm not on about this is just about everyone just trying to make loads of money. It's wonderful to make loads of money, but it's more wonderful to be happy and content in your life. When people you know, one of the ways we fuck up our life and, by extension, fuck up our expenses, you know, fuck up our finances is we have buckets of cash but no happiness. That would be a fuck up in the financial sense. For me, that's not the plan. And people say you know well, money doesn't make you happy. That's not true. Money can make you really, really happy as long as you're already happy, but if you're not happy, money won't make it any better. And unfortunately, a lot of people think that money is the answer to their unhappiness. Yeah, that's a different problem. So that's one way in which people will really up their finances.
Dr James:They think their finances will fix their unhappiness. You know, there is a saying that I really like, and that saying is that the wealthiest people in the whole wide world just see the world in the most clear fashion. They see it the most clearly as in with the least distortion or through they've minimized the lens of their perspective and their mindset on the world, and that's what's enabled them to become wealthy. And I was like right, so the more clearly I can see the world by removing the distortion and doing the inner work is the more money will actually be welcomed into my life. And I used to be super skeptical about this stuff until I started to do it and it actually frigging works. It's crazy 100%.
Tom:I mean, I used to be a jobbing therapist at practice on Harley Street and I was helping all sorts of people do all sorts of things. But when I was working with business people that I noticed after we would be clearing these distortions in their perception. I love how you describe it. You know, just unconsciously held beliefs, unconsciously held bias, imaginary limitations, an internal barometer of wealth which was just lower than it needed to be, you know, or happiness, or relationship success. You remove all of those weird ideas that everyone drags around with themselves, which they learned from their family or the culture or you know, or their neighbor, and then people just started being a lot more content. They start making a lot more money. That's why now I I kept my practice.
Tom:I was a therapist, but now helping, you know, high net worth individuals and elite athletes, uh, be better at what they do. So, yes, they make more money, but they're more content as well, enable me to focus on far fewer clients and charge better, you know, better fees and and enjoy more abundance in my life. But for me, our natural state is of happiness, love and abundance. So for me it's like, well, what gets in the way? You know, what are the things that really really you know get in the way and let's focus on that right now.
Dr James:What I know. I know that there's going to be like a list of thousands of these potentially, but if you had to distill it down to some of the most common ones that you see out there, the most common issues.
Tom:We can distill it down to three parts.
Tom:Three main parts. Okay, now there's kind of umbrellas and they have many beliefs linked within those. But essentially give the overview first, then we can dive in a little bit deeply. The first is the protector. So the protector is the part of our unconscious that decides what level of awareness we can handle. Yeah, when we're little, life's confusing, scary, weird, disappointing. That's just normal. It's normal for everyone.
Tom:Even if you're brought up in a pretty good house with pretty good parents, there's still loads of moments of utter shit that you just have to work your way through right. So we have inside ourselves an awareness gate, a consciousness gate I call it the protector and that person in your mind, that aspect of you, basically decides what you can be consciously aware of or what it needs to suppress. So most of us are walking around with a bunch of suppressed emotions of negativity, doubt, fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, resentment. All of those negative feelings, if they're not released from our system, massively bring down our general sense of well-being, our general sense of happiness, massively affect our mood, massively affect our confidence. Happiness massively affect our mood, massively affect our confidence. Now, that's just the emotional aspect of it and that's enough to massively reduce your success and happiness in the world that will affect your bottom line 100. But the protector has a darker shadow, which costs us a lot more money, costs us a lot more happiness, and that is that. One of the ways in which the protector makes sense of these difficult moments when we're younger is it takes responsibility for things that aren't its responsibility. We blame ourselves for those moments when things weren't going the way that they should. So if we weren't getting the support or affection or kindness that we deserved from a parent, we won't hate the parent, we won't be angry with them, we won't want to question them, we won't want to think differently about them, so we'll think differently about ourselves.
Tom:I saw this brilliantly on a meme the other day. It said don't shatter your kids. They won't hate you, they'll hate themselves. It kind of explained it all. So the protector is the part of you.
Tom:He goes no, no, no, no, no. They're all fine, it's me and most people carry around at least a cup full or even a bucket full of I'm not good enough, I'm not okay. As I am, I'm not okay and most people think well, that's just. You know I've had some knocks. You know I've had some bad news. I've had some rejections. I've had some abandonment. I've just been a human in this crazy rock flying through space and that's normal. Yeah, that's true.
Tom:But that makes it a self-esteem issue. That means you've just lost faith in yourself. But that's not what this is. This isn't self-esteem issues. This is self-sabotage. Self-sabotage affects most people, at least to some degree, and that is this part of our brain, the protector, saying no. No, it's not them, it's you. You are a piece of shit. You deserved it. Don't get your hopes up too high, don't try too hard. Why don't you just take it easy and don't hope too much? And it wants to perpetuate that we're not that great. So it doesn't want success. It pushes away compliments, pushes away people that would love us easily and it craves disappointment, and it throws spanners in works and it pushes away opportunity and costs people an absolute fortune.
Dr James:Crazy, and that's a little part of our psyche that's just operating low level every single day, trying to help us. Trying to help us right, and what you're saying is that the first step to us addressing that is to become aware of it and recognize whenever we have those thoughts correct.
Tom:It's become aware of that part and understand why it's been doing what it's doing and recognizing we have a historical bunch of difficult experiences that we haven't processed. There's just a whole bunch of negative emotions and limiting beliefs. So we have to go in, spend some time detoxing our system from all of that resentment, frustration, anger, sadness, and cleanly hold the disappointment that we legitimately had as a child when looking at our parents and their inability to be the people we needed them to be at times, which is for everybody across the board, at least some of the time for lots of us a lot of the time, and I think it's important to say that they didn't do it out of malice.
Dr James:They just didn't realize that they were doing it a lot of the time.
Tom:Our parents, yeah, of course, absolutely. You know, most parents are doing their very best to do a good job, right, but they're busy, not conscious, got their own pain, got their own limiting beliefs. I mean, before we look at that stuff, there is also just the what did we?
Tom:learn from our family about money? What did we learn from our family about marriage? When we bring up in these homes, we're looking around, we're paying attention. This sets our bar relationship. This is what it is to have money. This is how hard it is to have money. All these ideas, all these beliefs have a massive impact on the perceptions we bring to reality and people feel that. People feel that. You know, there was a really interesting experiment, james, where they videoed civilians walking down the road and then they took those videos into prison civilians walking down the road and then they took those videos into prison and they played those videos to people who were, um, who'd been convicted of violent attack. Yeah, so mugging, rape, all this stuff. And they asked them you know who would you, who would you target? And and it was fascinating, you know they were able to identify that just how people walk, just how people hold themselves, makes a difference between the type of person that a mugger would leave alone or attack oh, wow, I see.
Dr James:So when you have these thoughts and they're subconsciously limiting you, you're essentially projecting them unconsciously, which leads you to be more likely to potentially have undesirable events happen to you, which, again, is a self-perpetuating sabotage thing. 100%, whoa, 100%.
Tom:Which again is a self-perpetuating sabotage thing. A hundred percent, whoa, a hundred percent. They've done experiments where they've taken people who identify as being lucky and they've compared them to groups of people who identify as being unlucky. Right, and then they give them a newspaper, right? And they've just asked to notice what they notice, right, and in the middle of this newspaper was a big advert that said no joke, first five people to call this number get a free car. No trick, no holds barred, you know. And a massively, a large, significant number of the lucky people noticed that advert, but the unlucky people didn't.
Dr James:So it really is about how you identify and what you hold internally. It's huge, crazy. So that's the protector.
Tom:So that's the protector, right? So that's one of the ways in which we block ourselves. The other part that blocks us is the primitive. So have you seen these TV um tv shows with bear grills where they take a bunch of urbanites and they put them on an island and they and they see if they can survive, right, and they have to find their own food and all that stuff? Right, I love those shows.
Tom:The thing that you learn watching those shows that when we were primitives, the most important formula we were always playing in our brain was how many calories am I using to hunt for food compared to how many calories I'm getting from the food? Right, that's really what it comes down to when you're in the wild, that's what it comes down to. So the primitive in us all is petrified of survival. Survival was that word. Yeah, it is petrified of survival. Survival was that word? Yeah, it is petrified of not surviving, right, so it's obsessed with survival, right, so so it it's hardwired to want to be as to conserve as much energy as possible. It wants to do the absolute fucking minimum, and that's good news for it. It wants comfort, it wants ease. It doesn't want things to be hard, doesn't want to have to apply itself, doesn't want to sweat, doesn't want to use up calories. The University of Georgia did some research years ago and they found that 80% of people University of Georgia did some research years ago and they found that 80% of people 80% of employees, I'd rather add admitted that they could double their output if they wanted to.
Tom:And most people who are watching this or listening to this who are thinking well, that's not me, I work really hard, I run my own business. It's like, yeah, yeah, you probably learned that if you put in 60% effort, you stand heads and shoulders above everybody else. But if I put you on the spot right now and said, are you really special? Like, are you really bringing your very best? And I'm not suggesting that everyone suddenly works a hundred hour weeks, but it's about recognizing that we could.
Tom:It's about recognising that we have a part inside us that is entropic, it is conservative, it wants to do the minimum and it is scared of standing out, it is scared of being seen, it is scared of exile, it is scared of offending other members of the tribe. It creates a way in us where it gets massively in the way of the things that enable us to go out there and be successful, right, and anyone who tells you when they've made it big. You know how that impacts their family members. You know having money is no joke, right.
Tom:It comes with some complexity and the primitive understands that and is very nervous to stand out and be seen as being special. And so this part of us really also gets in the way of us really applying ourselves, putting ourselves out there, being willing to be seen, be willing to put output on social media, being willing even to be successful. It's terrified of other people's envy. It's terrified of other people's attack. It's terrified of other people's attack. It's worried that the neighboring cave people are going to come and steal our acorns and drag our woman off by the hair.
Dr James:It's petrified have, and actions and subconscious traits that we hold inside our head are actually things that have evolutionarily arised over the years, yeah, from an era where they did actually service, but the part of the point you're making is the, that era being the caveman era, where these things were real risks and the the risk takers, the entrepreneurs of nowadays.
Dr James:They got removed from the gene pool, right, because they just got eaten by the saber-toothed tiger, right, or whatever you know, they literally got literally got eliminated and it's like, yes, those did serve us in that era, but now we live in 2025, which is completely different, and unless we're aware of these things, we're not realizing how they hold us back, because they don't actually serve us in this modern world anymore.
Tom:A hundred percent A hundred percent and there's loads of tacit limitations built into our culture. You know so. For me it's like you know this, crazy, like you know crazy. I can't see it because it's my background conflicts. If I showed you my keyboard there, it's a typical QWERTY keyboard, right, right, and the QWERTY keyboard was created by psychologists to make typing slower.
Dr James:What so it came from?
Tom:the time. No, it came from the time when we had secretaries in typing pools and they were getting so good at typing and the old typewriters. You do that, and a little arm would bounce up and punch through the ticker tape, right through the ink tape and leave an imprint on the paper. Right, it was mechanical, right. But if you press too many buttons in close succession, so many of the mechanical arms would be firing up that they would actually jam and you'd have to undo them. So the psychologists thought to themselves how can we slow these secretaries down? And they got together and they worked out a formation of letters that would be the least optimal and that is the QWERTY keyboard, the same keyboard that we all use, or most of us, because some people have created new keyboards that don't do that. To make it easier, right?
Tom:mind-blowing right, but that's just one example of the madness of modern life. You know, it's like it's got baked in unnecessary limitations, you know, and until we start really exploring what we believe and why we believe it, you know it's like we are being held back. I'm reminded, in the in the nineties, there was this brilliant Pirelli advert is a billboard advert. I don't know if you saw it at the time. Carl Lewis was the fastest man on earth, you know, and you know he's a beautiful black American sprinter and the billboard was him on the starting blocks in a kind of red, you know, sprinting mankini. You know, all muscular and fucking shiny and he had the most amazing physique right. And so you pan down the video. He's like he's set there, it's like he's going to win again the 100 meters in you know nine seconds or whatever he did it in, you know. But then you pan down the image this is Pirelli tires, I remind you, and he's wearing bright, shiny, like eight inch stilettos and the advert is like power without control is nothing. And so for me it's like I think of those heels or those trainers as the foundational beliefs that we walk around with People out there.
Tom:They're trying to make a lot of money or make a successful business, and they've got all of their KPIs in place and they're working with the best marketing agencies and they're doing. They've got all the PR and they've got all of this in place, but they haven't invested in understanding the limitations of their psychology, the limitations of their team's psychology. They haven't looked at the level of trauma that people are operating with or their relationship with their family. It's like this stuff has a massive impact on how people apply themselves, on how they try, on how they let themselves flow. It's huge. I'm now working with investors and they get me to assess some of the people they're looking to invest in, because they look on paper and the business looks great, everything's there, the product's good, there's a market for it. But they know that if that entrepreneur doesn't have a sound footing, he's trying to run races and win races with their money in stiletto heels. It's going to break an ankle or worse, just go slow. It's not going to work. So the world is waking up to the importance of looking at the foundation of our psychology.
Tom:So we have the protector, we have the primitive, but the other place, you know, and so the other way in which the primitive can really cause trouble for us is the primitive is obsessed with stuff. He's obsessed with acorns. Right, if you think of it like that, it's like the primitive is that is the bedrock of our materialism, our unbridled materialism, the part of us that there's never enough acorns for him to feel safe, you know. And so listen, I'm all for accruing abundance and for living well and having comfort and having joy.
Tom:But if you're so driven to make money because you're petrified not to have it, because your security and sense of safety is wrapped up in money, then you'll never relax, you'll never enjoy the money that you've got, you'll just be driven by the crazy chimp mind, the primitive mind, you know, and it'll drive you crazy. There will never be enough. So you'll never enjoy it, you'll never stop. You'll grow up and you won't have met, won't have known your kids. It's not worth it. So you have to cool the primitive.
Tom:Primitive is wild, wild eyeyed, crazy. It's a savage and needs to be brought down to ground, needs to be rested, needs to be secured. You know it's the warrior and we need to bring ourselves out of the warrior archetype to the sovereign archetype to be the king or the queen. You know the warrior sleeps with one eye open, half armor still on, you know, boots still on sword under the pillow, you know, whereas the sovereign sleeps naked in silk sheets, doesn't even need a guard at the door, because the kingdom or queendom is abundant and peaceful and everyone loves them.
Dr James:you know, Love it. So we've got the protector, the primitive. Are we going to go three from three with the alliteration? Is it another p tom is?
Tom:it at the moment it isn't. No, it'd be good if it was, but no, it's the. It's the nihilist right, the nihilist, the nihilist, the, the part of us that believes that there is no meaning to anything.
Dr James:Hey, you could go pessimist for that one just throwing it out there, if that works anyway, that could work I'm derailing the conversation anyway.
Tom:No, it's fine three p's would be great. So you know you may be born here. You know the ultimate form um, you know of the pessimist is denialist. You know that the belief that nothing has meaning, it's all pointless and that disrupts our purpose more than anything. And if we don't have a purpose, we don't have a reason for why we're living, then we will not apply ourselves properly to it, we won't enjoy the process, we won't bring our A game, we probably won't be anywhere near as successful People who are most successful and most driven.
Tom:They're on point, they're on purpose. There's a meaning to what they do and you know, for me it's like you want to flip that. You know, and for me the ultimate flip of that is everything has meaning. How you do, everything is interconnected with everything else. How you sleep, how you fuck, how you play, how you work, it's all connected. How you are with your team, how you are with your kids, how you are as you make your way through this world, everything has meaning, everything is connected how you do. One thing is how you do everything. How you do, everything impacts on everything else and if you're paying attention, this crazy universe is chatty. Every dynamic, every interaction, every moment is communicating to you. How integrated are you, how aware are you of who you really are.
Tom:But you know, the thing that messes us up, that underpins all of this ultimately, it's fear, and where our sense of what's the point really is driven from is our relationship to death. You see, the truth is, james, most people are quite pissed off about the fact they're going to die. They don't like it and it kind of makes, on some level, the whole is. James, most people are quite pissed off about the fact they're going to die. They don't like it and it kind of makes, on some level, the whole thing pointless for them. So they'll accrue money and do their best to have wild experiences and have exotic holidays and try and make the most of it whilst they're here, but underneath it all, it takes away their sense of beauty. So they're fighting against the tide of life, whereas if we can actually find a place of meaning because we're going to die, if we can allow the finality of life to equate to the preciousness of every breath, then we start to kind of bring a love of life to life, you know.
Tom:And then we start to kind of bring a love of life to life, you know. And then we start to see, see the beauty in everything, and then we start to see the meaning in everything. Then we start to have a a a more meaningful, purpose-driven relationship to life. Then, amazingly, we're way more likely to lead with power and passion. People are way more likely to follow. People are much more likely to lead with power and passion. People are way more likely to follow. People are much more likely to want to invest in us, partner with us, sleep with us.
Tom:You know, life gets way more juicy whilst we believe in it, whilst we're hooked up, whilst we're signed up for it.
Tom:You know, and we have these moments of elation or enthusiasm or passion, and we like it. But people think that's just, you know, when you're lucky, you know you just. Every now and again you wake up and you're in a good mood. It's like no, you need to understand what is preventing you from waking up like that every day, because our natural state of consciousness is peace, is love, is abundance, is confidence. That's who we are. It's actually what we are. But modern life, education, the trauma of our childhood, the frustrations of commercial practice, employing people, you know, and realizing that what we thought was our dream isn't our dream, and the various frustrations and disappointments of life. You know it can knock the crap out of us and take the shine off life, but if you can have a metaphor or a meaning or a mission for life that creates a context to understand that those challenges are opportunities for growth, for example, then suddenly life gets back on track and you're pretty excited, even when it punches you in the gut every now and again, like it's inevitably going to.
Dr James:You know yeah, you really can rewire your brain to see those negative things as opportunities for growth, because how we are actually conditioned to react to any situation is exactly that. It's a conditioned thing, it's not actually a law of physics. We don't have to get down when something, a setback, occurs like you actually don't right. You just you're just trained unconsciously to think that that's not a good thing. But actually the only really, really real way to avoid setbacks is to never attempt anything and not make any progress. What sort of life is that to live?
Tom:Yeah, 100%, I totally agree. You know good salesmen will tell you that if it takes you 20 no's to get to a yes, then a no is one twentieth of a yes.
Dr James:Oh, I like that.
Tom:Right. So you've picked up the phone, they say no, you're like, great, I'm on my way, I. So you've picked up the phone, they say no, you're like great, I'm on my way, I'm building my yes. Right, it's like that's the way it is, with setbacks, you know.
Tom:And ultimately, the most interesting philosophy or spirituality that I've discovered in my 25 year search for meaning is pantheism or non-dualism. It is the equanimity we can bring to life when we don't buy into this idea of good and bad when it is. It is the equanimity we can bring to life when we don't buy into this idea of good and bad, when we're not so quick to label this as a bad outcome or this is a good outcome. We don't just get quite as elated by the good result, but we also don't get anywhere near as depressed by the seemingly bad result. We recognize it's a tapestry of in and out, up and down, and it's all moving in the direction it's supposed to, and we're at peace with whatever direction that ends up being, because we're cool with whatever's occurring.
Tom:You know that's not a position you take, it's a position you practice. You know people don't realize that philosophy is an active practice. You know it's like okay, these original philosophers weren't just philosophizing. They were working out a strategy to to bring wisdom to life. It's that it was. It was an endeavor dedicated to working at how we can be here and bear it.
Dr James:how, how can we can be here and thrive I've got a question for you, tom, because obviously you've helped a lot of people with a lot of this stuff and you've been fortunate enough to come into contact with some dentists over the last year or so. Since we've known each other, we seem to have more commonly than the general public whenever it comes to these things, or maybe, maybe, maybe you know you've noticed that a lot of because a lot of dentists are really driven right and chances are, if you're really driven, you're trying to prove something to somebody or something or maybe yourself, and that's obviously related to what you're talking about yeah, I would say.
Tom:I mean it's difficult because we can't generalize, of course we don't want to generalize.
Dr James:No, I mean I, you don't want to generalize.
Tom:No, I mean, you know, as long as people are clear, you're generalizing, but I've also been exposed to a very particular sample group within the world of dentistry, because the fees I charge, I work with very successful dentists who want to be even more successful. So those guys, those women, are insanely driven. I would say insanely driven, and I use that word purposefully, you know, it's like driven to the point of insanity. And that's why they need my help, because they want to be more successful and I want to help them be more successful, but I want to stop them sacrificing their families, their lives, their futures, their health. You know, it's like how can we bring it from balance? And a lot of them, when you scratch the surface, you're right, they are trying to prove something to themselves or to somebody else, or be a good boy, or be a good girl, or all that stuff, right, and? And so you, you, you, as we've talked about, you know they're running. We know you've you introduced me to this phrase you know they're running on dirty fuel. You know it's quick, right, but maybe, maybe it'll burn out the engine. You know it's like you wouldn't want to be pumping nitrous every time you take off from the lights right and so so my work has been about just bringing it into balance and actually getting people to realize.
Tom:You know, like when you're in the car and if you're driving stick shift, you know, and you're pulled onto the motorway and you've been driving for a while and you thought you were in fifth gear, but then you look down and you realize, oh, I didn't move up, I've been in fourth gear. That's a mistake. You know, I haven't done it a lot, but I've done it a few times. And then you go from fourth gear to fifth gear, the revs come down, the car goes faster. That's what I'm looking for, you know. It's like how can you use less petrol, less revs, put less strain on your system but actually go faster? And that all comes down to belief. And what's driving you? What's the fuel? If the fuel is, I need to achieve to therefore prove to myself and others that I'm OK, forget it, your engine is going to snap.
Dr James:I don't believe he had a formal qualification in psychology. He was actually more of he was. I would say his main skill set was he was a marketer, but he knew a fair bit about psychology because of that because marketing is a huge part of that is psychology and we had this one session and we were getting really into it and he was like trying to figure out because obviously I that around about that time I used to do like 18, 16, 18 hours a day every week because I was like right, I gotta be grafting, I gotta be working hard. To me, I equated that with being effective and productive, which I no longer do, because that is the biggest illusion of all time. If you ask me, they correlate, they do correlate to the point, but past a certain stage, it's actually not the most effective way to be productive. Is the whole hustle culture, if you ask me but that's a podcast for another day um, but I was in that zone where I was just like I believed that that's what I needed to do and he was like but why? You know where does this come from? You know, are you trying to prove something to yourself or maybe someone?
Dr James:But what I realized in that moment was I was trying to prove to my dad that I could build this business and it would be amazing and I could be really successful. Because I realized that basically he's not very good at giving approval and that was basically. That little primitive part of my brain was trying to get his approval. And this was as a 31 year old man, you know, and I was doing this right, and he didn't even. He didn't care, like he genuinely doesn't care. He's like, fine, have a business or don't have a business, like's not even bothered. So I was trying to get the approval from someone who wasn't even necessarily going to give it to me, because they didn't care about the thing that I was. They didn't care as much as I cared about the thing that I was trying to do.
Tom:So I and was probably someone who was brought up in a culture where he wasn't taught because he didn't experience much receiving of approval, so it's just not in his lexicon. So you could have done any number of different things, even something he absolutely loved, and you still might not have got that extent verbal approval right.
Dr James:There you go. So I was chasing a mirage. I was chasing something that I couldn't. It was very likely I was unable to obtain because the person that I was seeking that from wasn't even aware that they were doing it to me right, or or didn't even necessarily value the thing that I was channeling energy into. You know, and, by the way, just for clarity, you know we've got a good relationship and everything like that, but that was.
Dr James:I realized in that moment that I was doing that unconsciously and that was like, literally, I don't know 10 years of my life doing that, right, which is really powerful, okay, and here's the thing. Right, I know that there'll be people. Every little boy just wants approval from his dad, right, and maybe little girls as well. I don't know, I've never been a little girl, so I can't say but I have been a little boy, I still am. We're all you know. To men, the men in the audience, uh, chances are and tom correct me if I'm wrong on this um, from what I learned from that mentor and that coach, he was like, yeah, but jims, you know, the vast majority of men are doing this on some level, would you agree?
Tom:well, I think if, if you haven't done work on it, you would be, yeah, a lot of people, you know, and and you know there are some people out there that got lots of approval and got loads of support and they're still doing it because then they like it, right, the dad says he's done a good job and they feel good.
Tom:You know, but there's definitely something in in male wiring, particularly where it's like we're, from a caveman perspective, wired to drop a man mistake on the cave floor and everyone go yay, and then we feel good, right, right, it's the ultimate dopamine hit, provider, protector, creator. You know, whether it's little boy or big man, we are driven, we are wired to respond to respect Someone going I see what you're doing and I approve, because that's what makes us providers for the tribe. So, yes, sometimes it comes from dysfunction. Yes, it comes because our dad wasn't able to say it and we needed more of it. Yeah, that's true. But also it's just part of that wiring of being human which is like a dopamine system which makes us feel good when we get shit done. That's true of men and women, you know, and it's like, ooh, we don't want to be run by the caveman, cause that guy's crazy.
Dr James:And I think the reason that I told that story was I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still happy to put in loads of hours and, you know, work really hard. But I realized that, because I was trying to attempt to get that approval, that I wasn't actually doing things. I was doing things that were more aligned with that outcome, rather than the outcome that I said, at least consciously, that I desired, that I wanted to create a company and do all these crazy things, and they actually weren't aligned. They were aligned to a degree, but not fully. So that meant that I was able to recalibrate and become so much more effective at actually achieving what I wanted to do, rather, rather than letting that little need for approve, that little unconscious need for approval, pull, pull me away and let me get sidetracked. So it allowed me to become becoming aware of it doesn't mean that it is fully, its power over me is fully dissipated. It just means that I have more control over when I listen to it and when I don't listen to it.
Tom:Yeah, 100%. But also it's like you know what the truth is. It isn't dirty fuel, right. It's fuel that's pure, with impediment in it. Yeah, so you don't need to change out the fuel, you just need to clean it, right? It's like that part of us is powerful. Right, it's powerful and we don't want to. We don't want to.
Tom:A lot of my clients, like when I work with them, or what prevents people from sometimes working with me is they're worried that they're going to not have the drive and they're worried that they're not going to have that why? And they're worried that they're going to work less and make less. They're like, no, I'm coming to see you for performance. I'm like I offer guarantees If you don't get returns, you don't pay. So for me, it's like I want you to get the results too. So it's like those parts are powerful.
Tom:What you want to think of it like is you want a mindset which is like a toolbox and you want to have fluidity between being able to pick up that part of you that has to pull an all-nighter sometimes and do it with grace. Right, but take the right blood, have the right diet so you can weather that. Have the right body so that you can weather. That you know. Take the right diet so you can weather that. Have the right body so that you can weather. That you know. Take the right supplements so you can weather that. You can't ask yourself to do 100 hour weeks every week, right, but it's like do you want to have the capacity to, if you need to, 100? You want to keep that power. You want to keep those parts of you fresh and fit and vibrant and have that balance. So you've got that fluidity, so you can walk into any situation and you have a plethora of extraordinary tools to draw on resources, capabilities, ways of being.
Tom:That's ultimately the most powerful person isn't fixed in an identity. They're not defined by a trauma story. They're not looped into trying to get affection and adoration for people because they didn't get enough as a kid. It's like, no, no, you've developed all these skill sets because of all of that crazy stuff and now you're just fully able to bring whatever any situation requires. You know you're not defined by your past, you're refined by it and it's left you with more choices, more capability, and that, to me, is a really artful, it's a creative way of living, you know let's shout out your new book, tom, because it's really pertinent to all these things we were talking about today yep, thank you.
Tom:Yeah, so I'm still working on it. I'm on the final draft now and it's called stop fucking up your life and it and it talks about these blocks, it talks about these parts and it talks you through how to resolve them. You know, and I've been developing this stuff for, yeah, 25 years and codifying it and distilling it and simplifying it and this is a bit of a wild rant actually. You know, it's like um I you know, because, for me, I'm a bit disturbed at the state of the world and I'm disturbed that just more everyday, people aren't doing more about it. It's like we're just watching the world go crazy and we're all just just concentrating on storing up our own acorns and we're not really doing much to confront the madness.
Tom:You know, we're trying to insulate ourselves from the suffering and the craziness just by making sure we have enough wealth to to to, yeah, insulate us from the madness, which is sensible, you know, and I'm not going all doomsday, but I just think it's a really, at what point do people go? You know, enough is enough, but it's really hard to come together and question the status quo and to pull together to create significant changes in how we're operating as a society, if you know, if we're just a bit ragged around the edges. So, for me, I don't believe in a big political revolution, I don't. I believe in millions of personal evolutions and if we can move beyond fear, come back to harmony, come back to balance, be, be abundant, but in right relationship to reality. You know clean the fuel, calm the system. You know live well, enjoy life, make the most of it. I think, collectively we can start to question some of the societal systems that are perpetuating suffering. And just you know, and turn this puppy around. You know.
