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Are you ready to take the steps necessary to thrive? Join us every episode as host Adam Gragg discusses what is holding us back and how to move forward with purpose, along the way developing healthy relationships and navigating life transitions while overcoming fear, stress and anxiety. Adam is a family therapist, mental health professional and life coach helping individuals and organizations find the transformational clarity that unleashes hope. Live the life you want, the legacy you decide.
Ep133
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[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 133 of the Decide Your Legacy podcast. Today's episode is called Changing Your Mindset. I'm going to give you three reasons why you want to focus on changing your mindset. Not always, but sometimes. But at times when it's negative, bringing you down, not healthy. I'm your host, [00:01:00] Adam Gragg.
Adam Gragg: I'm a coach, a family therapist, speaker. I've been a mental health professional for over 25 years, and I'm passionate about helping people find transformational clarity that propels them forward to face their biggest fears so they can live their legacy. I talk about stuff. I struggle with myself, do not have it all figured out.
I will give you my best stuff today, but I am also a fellow traveler, and I do this because I have had a lot of struggles in my life with fear, with worry, with playing it safe, and that's not good for your mental health it's super important that you face your fears. That is how I've come about creating Decide Your Legacy and this whole concept of facing stuff in your life, because that's been my struggle myself.
I've been unemployed. I've had a lot of setbacks in my life, but each one [00:02:00] I can look at now has been There's been learning and I can use it to help other people. I try to do that every day. I'm not successful every day, but that is my hope and my calling and my passion. So have you ever been in your life a hundred percent convinced that something is true?
And then you found out that you were wrong. Okay. So you're 100 percent convinced that it's true, that something is going to happen. Maybe something bad is going to happen in this specific situation that you're going to be in. And then you find out that it didn't happen. There's a great sense of relief because it didn't happen, that bad outcome.
Well, I mean, I've had, I have many times, I thought something bad would happen in a social situation and it ended up not being a bad situation. I can think back on social events and even high school and in college where I thought it was going to go bad, but it ended up being friendly people. I [00:03:00] thought they were going to be mean people that wouldn't like me.
And they ended up being friendly and it ended up being a great, fun situation. I like to teach tricks to people for facing their fears, to dealing with anxiety. One of my favorites is to expand your time horizon. Whenever you have a worry, to tell yourself, Well, if I had 10 years and I could expand my time horizon, how would that impact the situation?
For example, if you think you need to make a change today, or deal with a situation today, and if you don't, something bad's gonna happen, we'll expand it just a week. And will something bad happen if you don't do that today? Don't procrastinate. Don't use that as an excuse to put it off. But if you expand your time horizon, it's not going to be as anxiety provoking.
At times, I will think as a dad that I have to deal with this situation today. And if I say, well, I have more time, I can talk to my friends, I can get some counsel, I can pray about it, and then I can address it. I don't want to put it off. I have to address it. [00:04:00] But that expanded time horizon relieves my anxiety.
This is what I'm talking about when it comes to mindsets and shifting them. It's changing the way you think about a certain situation, getting some space between your thoughts and that situation. It's not nearly as urgent as you think. So I will have people come into my office and say, I got to deal with this relationship challenge today.
And I'll say, why? Well, and I'll say, because something bad's going to happen if I don't today, they're going to reject me. It's never going to be repaired. I'll say, well, why? Well, again, give me the reasons why it has to be dealt with today. Sometimes it does.
Oftentimes it does not. You can expand your time horizon. I'll ask them too, like, well, what is the reason why? They'll start thinking about how really they have about for them. Five, 10 years to improve this relationship. So they make a mistake here and there. They make a big mistake.
It can be repaired. That's part of growing, not a big intentional horrific betrayal type mistake. I mean, that's sabotage. That's going to blow the [00:05:00] relationship out of the water, but you're going to make mistakes. You don't have to be perfect. That decreases their anxiety because they don't have to be perfect in that situation. So I want to share something uncomfortable that I have done recently because, as I've already mentioned, nothing is more important to your mental health than facing your fears and nothing more damaging than playing it safe. Last week I spoke at an HR conference called Disrupt HR and there's going to be a video that I will release of me speaking.
I dressed up like an old man for shock value. My disruptive comment and thought, my disruptive principle was that I do not want you to hire old people. And then I discuss what an old person is. Old people are rigid. They get stuck in their ways. It has nothing to do with age, everything to do with attitude.
You can check out my, this concept, if you want to learn more, episode 131 of the Decide Your Legacy Podcast. I talk about why you don't want to be an old person. And this is what I talk about in this five minute brief video at this conference as well. So that was my [00:06:00] courageous thing. I was risking being embarrassed.
It went pretty well. It could have been better, but you know, I'm learning and growing. It'll be better the next time I learn some things. This is the podcast that you do not just listen to. So that means you take an uncomfortable action as well. I want to start you off with an action. Write this down.
Speak it into your phone. What is something in your life that you have had a great deal of trouble not focusing on in recent. Weeks or months. Something that you've worried about. Is it a relationship? Is it something at work? Is it a health issue? Is it a financial issue? Something you've worried about and it's consumed your mental energy.
Think about that right now as we go through this content. You can have a fixed mindset regarding something or a flexible mindset. Flexibility is your friend. The cardinal trait of all mental illness is rigidity, inflexibility. I'm not going to look at things through another point of view.
There is right [00:07:00] and wrong. Don't get me wrong on that. I believe in right and wrong. I believe there's evil. I believe that confusion is the way, spreading confusion is disruptive and it can be a form of absolute Anxiety, causing, turmoil, evil kind of stuff. I'm not gonna argue with the fact that there's evil in this world.
So there is, I've been, I've been exposed to it. I've experienced it. Perspective. We're talking about figuring out how we can have more flexible mindset, not how we can compromise values or compromise what is right and call something that is wrong, right. And something that's right, wrong, not talking about that.
Mindsets. Our thoughts that we have about ourselves that come out of a variety of different perspectives that form our perspective is how we view the outside world, how we view situations. A mindset can be fixed or flexible. I can't change. If it's a fixed [00:08:00] mindset, then you're not going to look for any evidence.
That is going to show you that you can change for the better. You're closed off to that. I'm too old can be a fixed mindset. I'm too old. I'm worthless. I have nothing to offer can be fixed mindsets. I don't deserve to have good things in my life can be a fixed mindset or a flexible mindset. If we're willing to look at evidence that's contradictory to that kind of focus.
People will use mindsets as excuses and act as if they cannot change them. I'm not a fan of that. I don't believe in that. That old mentality pushes the good stuff away. The reality that we can change our mindsets, that we can make progress in our lives, that there are opportunities and not just obstacles.
Yes, there are obstacles, but an old mindset focuses on the obstacles. A young mindset can see the opportunities, can see the good stuff ahead. They don't have tunnel vision. We're going to talk about how you and the [00:09:00] reasons why you want to rise above your mindsets and change them. You can change your mindset.
You can change your mind. These are some, some healthy thinking skills that I'm so passionate about at Decide Your Legacy, helping people grasp because it's going to change their life when they change their mindset. So number one, reason why, and these three reasons are not in any particular order is because when you change your mindset, you're going to have increased personal freedom.
When you change your mindset, you're realizing that you have control and power over what you focus on the most. That freedom relates to relationships and time and money and purpose. You're choosing not to get sucked into things that you could and have in the past been sucked into. You can have freedom from it.
The ball is in your court. You get to choose what you focus on the most. Salespeople that are really good, they use a lot of psychology on you that gets you into believing [00:10:00] that you may not have influence over your perspective. That you're, you're controlled, that you have to make specific decisions based on what has happened.
So a test drive is a sales tactic that has a ton of good, solid psychology behind it. Because if somebody starts. By making a small decision to get, their intention into something, they're more apt to make a much bigger decision, like purchasing a car, because they've started the process.
And it's harder, once you've taken a test drive, to not start to become more drawn to purchasing that vehicle, or at least being interested in purchasing a car, being open to purchasing a car, because you have started the process. And it's wise for them to actually offer a test drive. Because that's what leads to often people purchasing.
It's much harder to say no. If you worked for a pet store, if I owned a pet store, I'd want to be giving people the dogs to take overnight. I mean, with some conditions, let's see your [00:11:00] license, let's maybe do some kind of a Check. If you're going to give somebody a car to drive, you're going to maybe do a driver's check on them, or you're possibly going to do a criminal background check if you're going to let them keep a dog overnight, I believe, but it's a great win when they take the dog home because they're much less likely to feel the freedom, the personal freedom to actually return the dog and to say they don't want to purchase a dog.
Plus all their emotions are tied to that cute little puppy. And that's going to make a difference as well. So if you want to work on stepping back and changing your mindset in those sales situations, what I suggest is one step is to recognize that you are being, you are a victim, and I'm not saying this is negative way, but you are a target for their sales tactics.
for their psychological warfare type sales tactics. They're getting you involved. They're doing a lot of other things, which I'm going to [00:12:00] talk about as well. And these are things that I would encourage you to do to help people to see that you have a great, valuable service as well.
They can be used to take advantage of people. They can be used to help people because you may have a service that somebody would greatly benefit by being involved in that service. And you do something free to get them to experience you. I mean, I used to do a lot of free one on one coaching sessions and I would provide a valuable service.
I would do my best. I would be all in and help them out and it would get them exposed to me. At a level where I could potentially, they would potentially even reach out on their own to have me do coaching with them, a coaching package with them. You can start recognizing how you're drawn in to negative mindsets if you think about and start listing your mindsets before you do something that is potentially scary.
One. Activity that I love to have clients engage in is to [00:13:00] write down those thoughts that they have before they do something scary and to recognize, to start the process of recognizing that they're having thoughts like it's going to go bad, I'm going to be rejected, it's not going to go well, I'm going to be embarrassed, my career is going to be over and then start getting space from those and replacing them with some truth.
So that freedom is what a great thing when you recognize you don't have to be controlled by the way other people approach you and what they share with you, how they're trying to convince you to believe something in a certain way. You don't have to fall for that tactic because you're willing to go ahead and get evidence.
Even if you're saying to yourself, they're just doing a sales tactic, they're engaging in a sales tactic. That's the start of getting space and some evidence in that situation. So you're not going to become victim of it when you shouldn't be buying that specific product.
Cause there's times when you want to say, no, you have that kind of power in that situation, a wonderful thing. So you get that freedom to rise above it and to not become victim of it. So [00:14:00] number two reason that you want to change your mindset in situations where it's warranted is because you're gonna start to see opportunities.
You're gonna start to become more positive and energized as you see those opportunities because you're changing your mindset to see the cool, wonderful, awesome stuff that is in your life. You're going to change your mindset and become a more encouraging, uplifting, engaging, positive, energized person.
It's going to improve the workplace morale that you're involved in. It's going to help you find ways to encourage other people as you shift your mindset. Your creativity is going to increase. You're going to be funnier. You're not going to judge people and look for obstacles and look for weaknesses and things that they're doing wrong.
You're going to recognize what they're doing right. You're going to stop having tunnel vision that's keeping you stuck and seeing that there's a whole world out there that you can engage in. That's that opportunity mindset. You know, you want to engage in the opportunity over the obstacle.
You're going to [00:15:00] still see the obstacle and it can be an incredibly important thing to point out the obstacles to people you love and care about and yourself and to recognize them, which is a great goal setting tactic to see the obstacles and recognize how you can overcome that obstacle. Really cool thing, but you're going to focus on the obstacle much, much, much less than the opportunity at hand.
10 to 1, at least 7 to 1 in those situations, and then you won't be willing to surrender to your fears because they get smaller, because you see the opportunity. Another sales tactic that happens is people will try to help you to believe that you're very similar to them. What they can do, and this is a mindset tool that you can rise above, is they will try, let's say a car salesman, or let's just say a salesperson, and any, a furniture salesperson, whatever, they are, they ask you where you're from, and then they tell you that they are from the same town, or they're from the same state, [00:16:00] or they know somebody from the same state,
that they grew up with from the same state, they're trying to find some level of similarity to you. We naturally are going to be drawn to people that are similar to us. It's a proven psychological concept that similarity draws people because it provides a sense of safety.
Same political opinions, same car, that's a very strong draw right there. Even being in the same age category is a draw. There's so many ways this can be utilized against you and actually for you because it creates this bond because we have a similar type of belief structure, similar type of belief system.
But the problem is when we utilize that or they utilize that and we start seeing, we don't see clearly, in that case, when it's a sales situation, there might be a lot of different reasons why you shouldn't purchase that product, but because you've been drawn into the similarity type psychological draw in your life, [00:17:00] you're going to have this propensity to not see the reasons why you shouldn't buy this this product.
And so the same thing happens when we, in our lives, get stuck in a mindset that's very obstacle driven. We're comfortable, we have a level of comfort with focusing on what could go wrong. I know as a parent, there are times in my life where I'm more comfortable pointing out what can go wrong, or as a boss, I'm more comfortable pointing out what can go wrong than what can go right.
But I can work on it, and it encourages me greatly when I do work on it, and I rise above it. I have these healthy thinking skills that I want all of my clients to grasp, consistently grasp, and one of the healthy thinking skills is that you focus on the ten exciting things that you have in your life over the next seven years, or ten years, but you're starting to focus on the opportunities ahead and write those down, and then read them out loud. That's a great mindset tactic that you can start shifting as well. Because if you get stuck in [00:18:00] these obstacles, you become so discouraging to be around. You can become depressed and you can become anxious because you're stuck on the negativity. Just watch yourself.
as that cycle continues and grows in your life. Just one small shift away from that, that ability to see that you have good things in your life can pull you away from those obstacles and start giving you that perspective, that excitement. Like before you go on, on a vacation. I mean, notice how you feel before you go on a vacation because you're working so hard to get packed.
Everything organized on your trip. You're starting to have hard conversations because you don't want to see things with loose ends and those obstacles that you normally would have utilized to avoid situations become much easier to address.
Because you have this vision of an opportunity ahead. That, I wanna have this great vacation, have all these things done before I leave, and so you engage in them at a very high level with this [00:19:00] incredible level of motivation. So that's why you wanna focus on and shift your mindset towards the opportunity.
It's gonna change your vacation. If this topic is attractive to you, this shifting your mindset, changing your mindset, I have numerous podcasts on this topic and I have a whole course dedicated with a section dedicated to shifting your mindset.
It's called Shatterproof Yourself, Seven Small Steps to a Giant Leap in Your Mental Health. And step number four is on shifting your perspective. This quick, light version is free. It's a 30 minute video with a four page worksheet, some real actionable steps you can take right away to work on your mindset.
If you like what you hear right now, today, check out these seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. So the third reason that you want to rise above.
You know, not get sucked into that mindset is because you're going to start seeing truth [00:20:00] over lies, and you're going to have a much better life when you focus on things that are true and real and hopeful and opportunities rather than things that are not true and that are lies. And the main thing here is you're going to start to see how you're focusing on a lot of fear in your life that is bringing you down.
Fear of being hurt, fear of being alone, fear of being rejected, fear of being judged, fear of being embarrassed. And there's so much relief when you recognize that you have fear driving you. At times, I see it on my clients faces when they recognize that that's just a fear.
The client recognized that her sense of urgency in repairing her marriage, where she felt like it had to be repaired today, was not nearly as urgent. She was able to expand her time horizon and say to herself that she had five years because she knew her husband was committed to her. She knows that her kids love her.
She knows that there's potential in the relationship, but she [00:21:00] had this sense of urgency. And I believe it was this anxiety she had with her job that was trickling into this marriage situation. And when she recognized that I have a lot of time, I can take risks. I can apologize. I can repair things. She realized that, Hey, I don't need to have this anxiety.
She had this urgency because she felt like it had to be repaired today. People can be incredibly convincing when they want us to believe something that's going to benefit them, that isn't going to actually benefit us. They're not necessarily doing it with malice, but a lot of times they're doing it because, it's getting them what they want.
It actually works. So, for example, speaking in generalities will get people sucked into the emotions and it can make them very convincing because they're playing to your emotional state. So, for example, Weather. Can speak in generalities, like some bad stuff is going to happen with the weather.
That's a very general comment. I just heard on the news [00:22:00] that some bad weather's coming in. Well, if they speak in specifics, it's not going to be as anxiety provoking, like it's 50 percent chance of hail, or a 20 percent chance of hail is very different than it's gonna hail.
And that is how I would encourage you to apply this tactic, to be very specific in your communication with other people, to ask people for specifics from them when you're interacting with them. I know as a dad, when my daughter will say that she's anxious about something, or I'm doing something that's bothering her, or she did something that is bothersome to me, I want to give her a specific example so that she can have something to reference.
Or she tells me that I'm irritating to her, or there's some kind of situation in our relationship, ask for a specific example of how I actually do that, telling her that I want to change and I want to work on that. If it's legit, I definitely want to change. I want that information. I mean, we had a conversation last night where we had a good conversation.
That was a really healthy conversation where [00:23:00] I was asking her for specifics of how I can be a difficult father. And she gave me some, and I agreed with some and tried to incorporate that into my interaction with her there. And yeah. to talk to her about how I can learn and grow and change based on her feedback.
I read in a cool book recently called Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, how the Chinese communists during the Korean war had captured POWs, American POWs, and they were running the POW camp. They were working with the North Koreans in that war and they were very skilled at getting the American POWs to to basically compromise, to give them information.
One of the ways that they did this is this tactic of getting the American POWs to repeat a statement that may have seemed very [00:24:00] harmless upfront. For example, communist countries have less unemployment. Don't worry about unemployment. And then the Americans, would repeat that kind of a comment, or America's not perfect. America is not a perfect country. It has its faults as well as other countries. To get them to start with one type of subtle comment, which, you know, those things, they were using those as psychological ways of manipulating the American soldiers psychologically so that they could have them agree to that and even make a list.
So, well, now I'd like you to write an essay on why America is not perfect and to list ways that America isn't actually doing everything. Great.
So they would do that. I mean, and partially they're feeling some, some pressure, but they would present this as if they're not being pressured, but it can be their decision to write this essay and then present it to a small group and then eventually sign their name to it. Tremendously abusive psychological tactic, but what they were doing is getting people to believe a [00:25:00] small, seemingly inconsequential statement that really was manipulative and dishonest, and then agree to it at some level in that context, and then add to it.
And then eventually they were believing all kinds of things they never thought they could actually do. And most people would cave, even really solid, healthy people would cave, eventually giving the Chinese what they thought they could. Communist information. Crazy stuff. I mean, documented, very well documented information here as well.
And there's a great power and a great relief when you realize that, okay, I do not have to worry about this situation. I know when I was a victim of fraud and I got 5, 000 stolen from me, I felt horrible about myself. I was just beating myself up. But then at some point, I was like, I had to let it go and I grasped the truth.
My mindset changed and I was like, anybody can be a victim of this kind of stuff. Now I have empathy towards other people. I don't have the 5, 000 back, which still ticks me off to this day, but I have a mindset that's more empathetic towards [00:26:00] other people. What I would encourage you to do if you really want to work on this is ask for details from yourself about situations that are causing you anxiety and in relationship situations, ask for details on how you can improve things and give details on things that they can improve.
If you're giving that kind of feedback, give details about things you like and admire and appreciate regarding other people. to a much greater extent than you give them any kind of feedback that would be potentially perceived as negative, but it also could be challenging, however you want to phrase it.
So, let's just go ahead and sum this up. When you rise above your mindsets, you change them. It has such a great benefit. Increased personal freedom. You shift your mindset, you have increased personal freedom. You get to focus on other people's mindsets. Opportunities and that passion and excitement is going to spread, increase the morale of your workplace.
You're going to help more people and you're going to focus on things that are true, which is going to uplift you as well. Challenge you if you have not already done so. Hit the [00:27:00] link to get access to Shatterproof Yourself, seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. There's a section on shifting your mindset, step number four as well, and you only get that through this link.
Download the worksheet, watch the video. You won't regret it. I promise as well. So also share this podcast with your friends and family. Give it a rating and review on Apple or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcast content. It helps it grow organically. I so greatly appreciate that. We are getting close to 20, 000 downloads.
That'll be a big marker for me. And I need your help to do that. Insight is. 20 percent or less of transformational change action is 80 percent or more an okay plan you act on is a hundred times better than a great plan that you do nothing with. What resonates with you most from this podcast today?
By the end of today, apply something that you learned. And if you really want it to stick, Casually teach it to someone else. I'll [00:28:00] sign off today the way I always do, make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone. You decide your legacy, nobody else.
I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time.