Well, I think the law of attraction and manifesting are the same thing. So law of attraction for everybody who has not read the secret is simply your thoughts become things. And it's true. We've talked all about how when you have a negative self-talk, it tends to draw more of that to you. I think about it like lint in a dryer. Once negative stuff starts collecting, it collects a lot more. We can also talk about your brain filter or something called the reticular activity system and how it is a live network that filters the brain. We'll dig into that deeper, but let's do surface right now, manifesting law of attraction. Here's what everybody gets wrong about manifesting. Everybody, at least in the mass market, what you're trained to think about when you think about manifesting is vision boards. When you hear the word vision boards, you think about the big stuff. Should you have big dreams? Of course you should. Should you dream of building a mansion on the ocean, if that's your thing? Yes. Should you dream of the log cabin? Yes. If you want to Lamborghini or the new Ford Bronco, should you buy?

Yes, yes, yes. If you want the family, if you want the body, should you think about? Yeah, absolutely. Here's where everybody goes wrong. You dream about the end, you make this gorgeous collage of all this stuff that has nothing to do with your current life. That literally, as you're sitting in your studio apartment with the cat box that hasn't been changed in two weeks. No food in the fridge. No food in the fridge. And you're looking for a and you're staring at a mansion going, Someday, it's going to make you feel like a loser because the gap between where you are and where you want to go, it seems insurmountable. What happens, based on the research, is when you only visualize the end game, Lewis, it's demotivating. At first, it's really fun to have a bottle of wine and make your collage. I'm going to visualize. I'm going to slap this up. There's my vision board. This is fabulous. Law of Attraction, baby. Come on. I'm going to think about it. It's going to come to me. Okay, I've been doing this for two days. I'm still in this apartment with the cat box that needs to be changed.

The way to visualize properly is to visualize the bridge between where you are and where you need to go. The bridge. Yes, and particularly the horrible stuff. Let's use your example of the marathon. The vision board would be Lewis Crossing. With the arms up with the metal. Yeah, the arms up with the metal. Exactly. The high fives. Yeah, I did it. Yes, I did it. Exactly. That will not help you because when you hit Mile 13 on the actual race and it is sleeting rain. You're just like, Why am I doing this? Yes, it feels nothing like that thing on your vision board. You're going to start a negative dialog. I can't do this. My knees hurt. This is not what I thought it was going to be. I'm not ready for this. I didn't train for this. I'm running New York. I trained in LA. Are you running in New York? La. Okay, good. Well, then at least you're trained in the right weather. So on and on and on, and you are going to tank yourself. What you do by visualizing the bridge is you train your nervous system and your mind to do the hard work.

You should visualize not crossing the finish line, but what is it like to be at Mile 12 when your batteries run out on your ear buds? Yeah. No, I'm serious. And you keep going. What's it like when your shoelace breaks and now your heel is lifting and you're starting to get a blood blister at Mile 17? What's What does it feel like when you wake up and it is pouring rain and you visualize yourself running anyway? That way, when you visualize the work, you are preparing your body for it so you're not resistant to it when it comes. Isn't that cool? I think it's great. It's a story that I had. Georges St. Pierre, who's one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time. He said that he always puts himself in the most uncomfortable situations in practice leading up to the fight, the hardest situations to get himself out of. When his arms are behind his back and he's facing against the mat in between the fence and he's just getting punched in the face. He's like, How do I get out of this? He's like, Visualize that and seeing how can I get through this?

Yeah, exactly. Where it seems like I just want to tap out. Yes. Instead of tapping out, what's the process for figuring out how to get through it to then raise my hand at the end, victorious. Totally. You are literally building up almost like this resilience and this muscle inside of you to do the work, to get the thing. Yeah, create the vision board, but make sure in addition to crossing the finish line, you have somebody running in the rain. You have somebody who... You have an alarm clock that says 5:13. You have these images that show the stuff that you don't want to do. For people who want to launch a business, for example, a There's a lot of people that I'm sure follow both of us are dying to launch a business or interested in being an influence or social media or making money online. And what you visualize are the checks, or you visualize the money you're going to make, or you visualize how cool it's going to be when you're a lifestyle entrepreneur, whatever the hell it is. Don't do that. Visualize working a day job and telling your friends that you're not going to go out tonight because you're working on something.

Visualize making cold calls and being told no. Visualize not going to that party because you're in on a Saturday and not going to the barbecue because you're putting in the work. Visualize sitting in a seminar and learning from other people. Visualize watching YouTube videos. Visualize your first ever course, failing miserable. Like, literally, That's the thing that you want to visualize yourself doing and pushing through because that's going to help you do the work. Yeah. Isn't that cool? I think that's great. Yeah, visualizing. So in order to manifest what you want, don't just visualize the good things happening. Visualize the Bridge, all the things it's going to take together. Yes, and the hard parts of the bridge because then you're ready for it. Then you're like, I didn't expect this to be this hard.I mean, it's still going to be hard.Right. But you're less likely to quit. Yes. So what have you done in the last five years to help you manifest after the first book. Were you doing this as well? Or once you get on a rhythm and build momentum, does it become easier to manifest, in your opinion? Well, so I am constantly training my mind to work for me.

And there's this little trick that I talk about in the book that is all the beginning of having a high five attitude. And a high five attitude is the ability to catch yourself when you're going mentally low and to flip yourself back up into a high five attitude. The thing that I know to be true is that you cannot control the things around you. You can't control what's going to happen. You can't even control how your nervous system might respond or what thoughts might pop into your head. But you can always choose what you do next and what you make it mean. That's where all the power is. I do this thing where I... This is, again, It's going to sound so dumb, but it's a way for me to introduce you to the power that your mind has to change in real time. We've talked a lot about negative self-taught, and part of the reason why negative self-taught crippling is not only because you've repeated it for so long and now it's a pattern, but it's also because you have a filter on your brain called the reticular activity system. This puppy is the keys to everything.

It's remarkable that most of us have never heard of it. We've experienced it, but we don't know how to use it to our advantage. First, let me tell you what the RAS does. Then I'm going to give you an example of when you've experienced it in your life. Then I'm going to explain to you how to use it to get what you want in life. This is like the super attractor manifesting, and it also works for It's going to interrupting negative self-taught. It's going to supercharge all the work you're doing with the mirror and interrupting thoughts. First, let's talk about the RAS. The RES, imagine a hair net on your brain, only it's electric, meaning it's alive. Now, the RAS has one job, and the job is block out 99% of what's going on and let in 1% of what's going on. Our brains, at this moment in history, are having to process about 34 days' worth of cell phone data in one day. Crazy. It's crazy. And so your RAS has a monster job. It's like a bouncer at a bar. You're not coming in, you can come in. And you've experienced this. So have you ever shopped for a car?

Yes. Okay, so what's the last car you bought? Tesla. Oh, Tesla. Oh, fancy. Lewis house. I like that. Well, I never had a nice car until three years ago. I had a $4,000 car for five years before that. Yeah, yeah. And then I was like, You know what? I have no Bluetooth. I have no... It's like, I just needed an upgrade.Yeah. No, I love it. You deserve it.It was a 1991.Dude, you deserve it.I had a 1991 Cadillac.You deserve it.And I was like, Okay, let me buy a car.So I bought a Tesla.Right. Before you thought about buying a Tesla, you drive down the road, you don't really think about it. The second you're like, I think I'm interested in a Tesla. What do you see everywhere?Teslas.Yes, everywhere. Everywhere. My husband just bought a pickup truck. I'd never even noticed them. Now I'm like, There are baby blue pickup trucks everywhere. What is going on? That's the bouncer in your brain. Let me tell you how this works. There are only four things that automatically get through the bouncer in your brain, the R-E-S. Number one, your name. You've experienced being in a crowded place and you think you hear Louis and you're like, Huh?

Somebody call my name? That was the bouncer in your brain. The second thing The third thing that always gets let in is any threat to your safety. There are loud noises all the time, but only ones in close proximity make you go like this. That was the bouncer in your brain letting it in. The third thing that gets let in is when you sense that your partner is interested in sex with you or somebody else. You're like, Chris, stop looking at her. You know what I'm saying? You pick up on the signals. That's the bouncer in your brain. The fourth one, and this is where This is the billion-dollar thing that everybody needs to know. The bouncer in your brain lets in whatever you think is important to you. When you get intentional about telling your brain what's important to you? Like, I'm interested in a Tesla, your brain's literally like, Oh, let all the Teslas in. Come on in. Here's the downside to this. If you have told yourself that you are a bad person, For the last 10 years, guess what your brain thinks is important? Examples that mean you're a bad person.

I'm going to give you a very specific example. I personally don't think I'm a bad person. I don't think I'm perfect, but I know I do my best. I mean well. I don't have that story about myself at all. I used to, but I don't. Let's say I oversleep and I miss the dentist. I miss the dentist appointment, I'm I got to pay the 25 bucks. I got to reschedule that thing. That blows. That's all I think. And then I go on. My daughter, who constantly beats herself up and says she's a bad person, this is a real example, by the way, She oversleeps, misses a dentist appointment, and it becomes, See, I always screw everything up. I'm always messing things up. Everything that gets let in confirms that you're a bad person. She finds proof and evidence. Yes, that's the bouncer in your mind. I'm here to tell you that when you get intentional about what you want to think about yourself, it changes in real-time what your brain lets in and what it doesn't. That helps you with the other things that you're doing, the high five in the mirror, the I'm not thinking about that, the pathetic mantra.

Hey, just because I missed the dentists appointment, doesn't mean I'm a bad person. I'm doing the best I can here. Give myself a break. High five. You know what I'm saying? Shake it off. Get back in there. It's true, right? Because it's these little things. Somebody cuts you off. Somebody reaches for the last thing of cereal that you wanted to buy at the grocery store. You think it's like a sign that the world's out to get you. This is all your story and your mind skewing the world to prove all of the stuff you keep repeating. The only way to get a handle on it is to start acting the opposite. Like, high five yourself, even though you don't feel like it. Interrupt the crap that you keep saying. Put your hands on your heart and settle your body down. Yeah. All of these things are things that somebody does when they care about themselves, when they think they deserve to be treated with kindness, when they think they deserve support, and when they realize they need it. And when you start to build yourself back up, you'll show up very differently in other relationships.

Absolutely. If you tolerate this treatment from yourself, you'll tolerate it from other people. It does begin with you.

I want to talk about a buzzword that's big in the personal development space now, and that's manifestation. And I know you talk a lot about it, but I think a lot of people get manifesting wrong in that they think that, oh, I'm I'm just going to write something down. I'm going to say a prayer, and then things are going to come to me. To me, I think that's total BS. I think you have to take action. What's your opinion on manifesting, and how can somebody do it the right way?

Manifesting is an incredibly important tool in your toolkit for a fulfilling and happy life, and most of us are doing it wrong. So manifesting done properly is the process by which you train your mind, body, and spirit to help you get what you want. Manifesting is not, based on the research, thinking about something, and then it suddenly, magically happens. And since so many of your listeners are people who are very spiritual and faithful, I'm sure you've had an experience where you've prayed and prayed and prayed for something, and it's not coming, it's not coming, it's not coming. You go through the worst experience or breakdown of your life. I bet jail and getting arrested was probably this for you. Then it's 10 years later that you look back and go, Oh, my God, my prayers were answered, just not in the manner in which I had been praying they would be answered. And so what I want you to understand is that if you want to use manifesting, here's how you're going to do it. Don't think about the end. Don't think about the mansion you want to buy. Don't think about the soulmate that you're going to meet.

Don't think about the finish line on the marathon. Because thinking about the end doesn't help your mind, body, and spirit prepare you to do the work to get it. There are no get out of jail free cards in life. There just aren't. You're going to have to put in the work to get the real results that you want. And so what you do when you manifest properly is you're going to visualize the bridge or the path in between where you are today and where you want to go. So why don't you pick something that you want, Doug? What's a goal of yours for this year?

Let's see. A goal of mine for this year is I want to get my podcast to a point where it's helping tens of thousands of people.

Okay. So you just said that I want to get my podcast to a point that it's helping tens of thousands of people. Now that you have identified what your goal is, let's back up to the present moment and let's do step two. Step two is, now I want you to close your eyes and I want you to visualize what are all of the tedious, annoying, boring, hard things that you need to do that you're either not doing now or you need to do more of. Start to list them out.

Being more consistent on social media, engaging with other podcasters, just being consistent and practicing patience, getting more creative, and not being scared to invest money.

That's the big one.

Right.

That's the big one. You just said that you needed to be more patient You needed to stop being afraid to invest money. You needed to connect with more podcasters. You needed to be on social media more. Now, what you do, now that you have a list of all the things that you need to be doing that you're not doing or you're not doing enough of. For a lot of people, they don't know. Okay, well, I don't know. I know what I want, but I don't know what the work is. Just find somebody on social media or out in the world who has the thing that you want. Study what they did, and write all those things down as an action. But generally, there are videos you can watch, there are events you can go to. There are webinars that you can take. There are books that you can read. The information of what to do is out there. How do you use visualization now that you know what you want and you know some of the actions that you need to take that will take you in a path leading toward what you want? Well, now what you do is every single morning, you're going to add to your morning routine, writing down five things that you want.

And one of those things is going to be, I want whatever it is that the goal is. In your case, it is, I want my podcast to reach tens of thousands of people, right? Then the why, you know why you want to do that. Why do you want to reach tens of thousands of people, Doug?

Because I feel that I have a strong message, and I want people to use hard times to grow and make themselves better and not use it as an excuse to make their situation worse.

Okay, now let's make it about you. How do you feel when the stuff that you're putting out impacts people?

I feel amazing because it continues to reinforce that there was purpose in a lot of the pain that I went through when I was younger.

There's your why. You feel fulfilled turning the tremendous pain that you felt into a sense of purpose. And that purpose is acknowledged when you hear from people who listen to your podcast. That's your why. That's the intrinsic source of motivation for you. It's not about them. Anybody who wants to make a difference in the world, the reason why you're motivated to do that is because it feels so good for you. I'm dead serious about this, and there's nothing selfish about it. That's why it feels so good to volunteer. It's why it feels so good to give back. Because you get something, you get affirmed as a human being that your time, your energy, your pain matters. And that's so important. So now that you feel that feeling inside your body of why you want this thing, because it makes you feel like you matter. It makes you come alive, whatever the reason is. Now you're going to close your eyes and you said the hardest thing for you is going to be to invest money in growing this podcast. So I want you to close your eyes and I want you to describe for me an image of how much money and what you're actually investing in.

Okay, so describe that scene for me. Put me at the scene.

So I'm investing in production. I'm investing in somebody to help me do some of the tedious tasks that I'm working I'm staying up super, super late that can be overwhelming at times because I still do have a training business. I'm investing in travel to network with other podcasters and meet different people at conferences.

And as you see the money going out the door, what are you feeling that's negative in your body?

It's uncertainty.

Where do you feel it in your body?

In my legs.

You feel it in your legs? Okay.

I don't know why. I think it's because I hold a lot of stress in my hips.

You know what that is, by the way, is that's your nervous system feeling uncertainty. That's where You feel it.

Right.

This is how you manifest properly, by the way. Right here. You have to visualize in your mind, writing the check and feeling the pain in your legs of uncertainty. You have to visualize in your mind sitting in that plane seat, flying to a conference, feeling the pit in your stomach, being worried about whether or not anyone's going to take you seriously because there's all these big podcasters there. You need to feel your chest contract and squeeze in as you walk up to somebody that you deeply admire, and you start a conversation, or you walk up to an event organizer and say, I'd like to apply to be on a panel next year. How do I do that? And your chest gets really tight because you feel like you don't belong there because you don't have the numbers yet or whatever your stupid story is. When you picture that in your mind and you feel the negative sensation in your body, you are doing resistance training. This is how you align your mind, body, and spirit to not resist the hard Here's a cool fact about your brain. Your brain doesn't know the difference between you actually spending the money buying the plane ticket, getting on the plane and flying to that event, or you imagining it in your mind.

And when you run through the hard things that you're avoiding in your mind, and you allow yourself to feel the negative sensation in your body, you are training and mentally rehearsing the exact same way Olympic athletes do with the nine sports psychologists that the US Olympic team has to help our athletes prepare. You are mentally rehearsing before the actual event so that your mind and your body are trained to anticipate and push right on through all the stuff that's scary because you've already rehearsed it. That's how you use manifesting to help you do the work to get what you want.

Wow. I'm so grateful that we brought that up and that you helped walk me through this.

What did you get out of that?

Well, I definitely... One, I became aware of not only what I need to do, but what's the fear that's attached to it.

What is the fear?

Well, the fear is always going to be uncertain to your scarcity because I think the one thing that's been beneficial to me in my life is that I've always had my back against the wall from being somebody who is a convicted felon in jail, not growing up with a ton of money, that thing, where I've always been forced to just hustle, hustle, hustle, work, work, work, where I'm used to this situation. But on the flip side, the negative is I'm so used to being stressed because I grew up in a stressful environment. I put myself in a stressful environment from selling drugs and doing drugs for a majority of my life when I was younger, so that a lot of times now I've had to become aware of when I'm creating more stress around something that's a good thing instead of something that I would have seen back in the day as something that was bad or whatever.

What we're going to talk a lot about today is we're going to talk about this principle that I believe. And the principle is this: profound personal and professional change starts with you. That's right. Profound personal and professional change starts with you. And change starts with you because the most effective change starts from the inside out. Okay? And so as you think about a behavior change or a thinking pattern change that you want to make or some goal or dream, I want you to take everything that I'm about to teach you and have that example in mind, okay? So that everything that I'm talking about isn't just stuff I'm doing in my life, isn't just stuff that you read about when you look at the research in terms of habits and manifesting, but you actually walk away with takeaway that is specific to what you want to achieve, okay? So good. So you've You've dreamed with the lid off. You've written it into the comments. Now, let's start by letting me give you a hack. I'm going to share with you something that I'm working on right now, okay? So one of the things that I want to do is I want to drink less in my life.

I have a habit, and I've had a habit for decades, of around 6:00, when I start cooking dinner, I typically will pour myself a drink. It's something that I enjoy. It's something that I do as a ritual to end the workday and ease into being in the more personal part of my life. And as I've gotten older, as I've started to understand more about my health, I thought, I actually don't want to be doing that every night. And so I would make this I promised to myself that I wouldn't have a drink, and then 6:30 would roll around, and next thing you know, I am mindlessly walking over to the cabinet where the gin is, and I'm making a gin and tonic. And it's not that I feel that I have a problem. It's that I was having a problem getting a new habit to stick. And so here is one hack that is based in science that is going to help you make any new habit stick. And yes, this is relating to manifesting. But what is this little hack? Well, this little hack is something that taps into what's called your procedural memory.

Okay? And let me I'll tell you how you use the hack. So with that thing, that behavior change, I saw some of you writing down that you want to make more money, you want to stop procrastinating, you want health goals. Here is a hack that you can use using your procedural memory to make a new habit stick. All you have to do is you need to close your eyes and picture yourself step by step by step, practicing the new behavior or thinking pattern. So in my case, this is what it looks like. I close my eyes and I think, okay, I'm in the kitchen. I turn to my left and I can see the red clock and I visualize it saying 6:30. I feel the pull of the cabinet where the gin is, but I picture myself walking over to where the glasses are instead. And then I take a glass, and then I picture myself walking over to the fridge, and then I open up the fridge, and then I reach for the kombucha, and then I pull it out, and I grab a lime, and then I grab a soda water, I shut the fridge, and then I pour I take the kombucha, I pour a little soda water, I take the peeler, I peel the lime, so I get that neat little lime strip, and I see it twisting, and I see the little...

When you twist citrus, it sprays that little And then I drop it into the glass, and I see myself picking it up, and I see myself sipping my mocktail. I don't even want the gin. This tastes delicious. You want to know something fascinating? Research that has been peer-reviewed shows that simply going through that procedure of the new habit or thinking pattern, step by step by step. By going step by step by step, you are locking in a new sequence in your procedural memory. Based on research, that one time that you do it makes it way more likely that when 6:30 rolls around, you are not going to drink the gin, you are going to make the mocktail. Now, why does this work? Well, the reason why this works is because you're using science to rehearse the new behavior or the new situation or the new thinking pattern and to encode it in your brain before you actually do it. And when you use your procedural memory to rehearse something that you want to have become a new habit or a new way of acting in your life, you're basically putting it in your long-term memory.

Now, what is your procedural memory? Well, your procedural memory is the part of your brain that has stored all the motor skills, like writing, like picking up a glass and drinking, like walking. It is all stored in your procedural memory. The reason why you and I can walk without thinking about it, or talk, or skip, or brush our teeth is because we have rehearsed that sequence, that procedure, that series of events, over and over and over again, and now it's locked into my brain, into my procedural memory. Now, here's what's really cool, everybody. Your brain doesn't know the difference between an event that you have closed your eyes and imagined and an event that you've actually done. And what's happening in your brain when I visualize myself making that mocktail step by step by step by step is I am We're making connections between the gaps at the end of the neurons in my body, the synapses, and every time I either imagine that sequence of events or I practice it, we're making that connection between neurons stronger and stronger and stronger. And so here's what's really cool. What I just told you is manifesting.

Seriously, manifesting done correctly is when you use your procedural memory as a tool to train your brain, your nervous system, your spirit, to help you feel motivated and to help you do the work that actually changes your life. How cool is that? I want to be very clear about something. Manifesting gets a bad rap because of the law of attraction. But manifesting is not woo- woo at all. It's not a cheesy topic. Manifesting is not just think about something that you want, and suddenly it'll magically appear. No, no, no, no, no. Manifesting is when you use your procedural memory and you visualize the step-by-step-by-step actions that you need to take in order to make your big goal or the thing that you want or the new habit to become a reality. You see, manifesting isn't the end, everybody. Manifesting is the bridge. It's the series of actions that you're going to take in order to have this new habit. And when you rehearse something and when you encode it in your procedural memory, what actually happens is because it's now something that your brain recognizes, the walking to the other cabinet, not where the gin is, the opening up the fridge and grabbing the kombucha instead of grabbing the gin in the cabinet.

When you rehearse this over and over, you are lowering the limbic friction, the friction in your mind, the resistance that you feel. You are lowering that resistance, and that is how manifesting helps you achieve achieve your goals. So what are the four steps to manifesting properly? Number one, we've already done that. You got to give yourself permission to dream with the lid off. And for many of you, this is going to be the hardest part. Seriously, you have held yourself back for so long, you don't even allow yourself to dream. And here's the thing, you're allowed to want things. You're allowed to want more for your in life. In fact, you're wired this way. And part of what you need to do is you got to give yourself permission to want things again. I guarantee you that when some of you wrote down what you wanted, you shrunk it. You literally said, okay, I'm going to write down this little thing, but I'm going to make it really small because I'm worried that it's not going to happen. One of the things that I want you to do is I want you right now dream with the lid off.

If the manifesting that I'm teaching you removes the doubt, removes the fear, if it lowers the friction and the resistance that you feel to doing the work to get what you want, what is it that you dream of doing? For real? Like, I almost, with you guys, I almost said, I'm going to launch one of the top podcasts in the world. I almost shrunk it down. Everybody. But then I push through because I've been manifesting this. No, I'm launching the number one female-hosted podcast in the world, period. So what is it that you are interested in having. Don't shrink it down. Write down what you want, because this is step number one. And the reason why this is so important is because you have a filter in your You have a filter in your brain called the reticular activity system. And this filter works just like the Discover page on Instagram. So if you're ever on Instagram, and TikTok is the same way, there's the page where you can discover new accounts. And if you've ever noticed, what Instagram shows you on that mosaic and what TikTok shows you when you're looking for new things are accounts that are just like the accounts that you follow.

And that changes in real-time all the time. So right now, my Discover page has a lot of accounts with nails because I've been growing my nails up. It has a lot of home design accounts because my husband and I are building our dream home here in the United States, in Southern Vermont. It has a lot of motivational accounts. And so it is reflecting back what I'm already looking at. One of One of the reasons why it's important for you to allow yourself and give yourself permission to want the things that you want without limiting it is because when you limit it, the filter in your brain pays attention and it limits what you see. When you start to give yourself permission to dream with the lid off, to just let your desires flow through you, then check this out. The filter in your brain changes in real-time, just like the Discover page in Instagram, and it'll I'm going to start showing you more of what you want. It's freaking cool. Now, you can practice what I'm saying two ways. Number one, there's a game that you can play that I call Find a Heart. Every single day, wake up and play this game where you're going to try to find a heart that is naturally occurring in the world around you.

It could be a leaf, it could be a cloud, it could be a stain in your coffee. Tell your brain, show me a heart, and then look for hearts all day. And you'll You'll be shocked because all of a sudden, you'll be walking past a building that you walk past every single day, and there, right on the side of the building, the coloration on the brick of the building, it is as plain as day There is a freaking heart right there on the side of the building. You've missed it. You've walked past this building a thousand times. It's been there the whole time. Why am I seeing it now? I'll tell you why. That Discover page in your brain, the filter in your brain, you told it you wanted to see hearts, just like I've started looking at nails. And now suddenly, the filter is showing you what's important to you. That's how your brain works. So one way you can start to do this is look for hearts. The second thing that you can do is you can Start your day every morning in your journaling practice by writing down five things that you want.

That's it. Five things that you want. What do you want? You want a purse? You want a new job? You want a loving relationship? You want to feel happy again? You want to have more fun in your life? You want to finally be able to do a handstand? You want to be a best-selling? Whatever you want. It can be the same thing every single day, or it could be new things every day. Because what you're doing when you give yourself permission to dream and to let those desires flow through you again is now what we're doing is we are letting you start to lead with your dreams. Literally, you can lower the resistance by inverting this and letting the dreams flow through you. Every day, look for a heart, write down five things that you want, and you are well on your way to step one of learning how to manifest properly, and that is, let the desire lead, let the dreams flow through you, and that way your mind will start paying attention. The second step I've already I've given you an example of when I talked about visualizing making a mocktail step by step by step by step, all the way down to peeling the lime and twisting it and that little juice going off of it.

That type of step by step by step, encoding in your procedural memory is step number two. The thing that most of us get wrong about manifesting is that we have this big dream, publishing a book or launching a podcast, and all you dream about is the end. That's it. You miss the bridge between where you are and the thing that you want. And so let's use another metaphor, everybody, okay? Let's use the metaphor of running a marathon. So a marathon is 26.2 miles. How many of you have on your bucket list? Someday it would be amazing to run and complete a marathon. That would be something pretty cool to do before I die. Now, you may have a million excuses for why it's not going to happen, but just allow the dream to flow through you. Have you ever wanted to summit a mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro? Have you ever wanted to run a marathon, something like a 5K? It doesn't matter. We're going to use this as a teaching tool. So let's say that your goal is to run a marathon, 26.2 miles. Okay. The mistake that everybody makes is they literally visualize crossing the finish line.

That's not how manifesting works. Manifesting, remember, is the bridge that's going to get you to the finish line. Manifesting is preparing you. It's like a training run. So what do you manifest? What do you visualize when you want to complete a marathon? You got to visualize the pain in the rear-end stuff. You got to visualize running in the rain. Visualize your alarm going off at 5:30 in the morning. It's dark, it's cold. You don't want to get out of bed, but you 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, get out of bed. And then you visualize yourself pulling on your tights and the dog is looking at you. And you visualize walking through a quiet apartment or house. And then you visualize opening the front door and, oh, it's raining. And you visualize that you don't want to go outside and maybe you'll skip the run. But then you visualize grabbing your raincoat and going out that door. And then you know what you visualize? You visualize yourself at Mile 7 on a training run and your ear buds, the batteries die. And you just want to give up. But guess what? You keep running. That's the stuff that you visualize.

You visualize the hard, the annoying, the stuff you don't want to do. If you want to make more money, you better visualize staying in on the weekends and working on your business instead of blowing your cash at the bar. If you want to have a different relationship with your spouse, you should visualize going to counseling or listening to books about how to improve your relationship and working on yourself. Seriously, you got to visualize the hard stuff. Okay? That's step two, the step by step, by step, by step, by step, the path, the bricks along the way. Now, step three of visualizing correctly. Feel What you are visualizing, that procedural memory, step by step by step by step, by step. Feel it in your body. What does it feel like to do this? You know, what's interesting is research from UCLA says that visualization works because we are activating the part of the brain that you use when you're actually doing those actions. So you are rehearsing it before you even do it. And according to research from UCLA, this is why manifesting is so powerful. Okay, everybody? So again, step number one, you got to give yourself permission to dream.

And you're going to start training your spirit to lead, and you're going to start training the filter in your brain, the RAS, to help you get what you want. And you're going to do that by, A, looking for hearts every single day, play a little game. And B, you're going to start your day by writing down five things that you want just as an exercise to learn how to let your desires flow through you. Step number two of manifesting the correct way is you visualize the bridge, brick by brick by brick by brick, visualizing the steps that you're going to take along the way. This is how you encode the behavior into your procedural memory and thereby reduce the friction and resistance that you feel to taking those steps. Step number three, you got to feel it in your body. Feel it in your body. This taps into your nervous system, everybody. So as you're taking these actions that are really difficult, you want to take the actions. I see this question, but why visualize the heavy stuff? I'll tell you why. Because the hard stuff is what you're avoiding. The hard stuff is where your doubt comes in.

The really difficult things is where you come up with excuses and reasons not to do it. And so we're going to lower your resistance, your excuses, your fear, your anxiety anxiety, which raises your courage, your confidence, and your brain's ability to help you get moving. Because you're not going to change your life by simply thinking about what you want. You change your life by changing the actions that you take. Right now, the difficult, the hard, the heavy, the irritating, the annoying, you got a bazillion reasons for why you're not doing that stuff. And so we're going to use manifesting to lower your resistance internally to do in the hard, the heavy, the awful stuff. So when you feel yourself walking out that door at 5:45 in the morning with your rain jacket on and going for that run when you didn't feel like it, I also want you to feel proud of your sofa doing it. Okay? That's what you do. When you visualize yourself staying in and working on your business plan, instead of spending money that you need to save or invest in your business, feel proud of yourself as you are rehearsing that in your mind.

That's a really important step in this. And this is your brain is visualizing you taking action, but now your body also is tapping into the pride that you feel when you do something that's really hard. Now, the fourth step of manifesting, do the work. All that stuff that you're visualizing, you got to use my five second rule, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and push yourself to take the actions. It's not sexy, like the secret of just thinking about this stuff and expecting it to come to you. You got to do the little things, brick by brick by brick, and take the actions that lay the groundwork for this change. And here's the thing that's super cool about it. When you do this and you start practicing this skill and you use manifesting as a tool, you are training your mind, your body, and your spirit to align with what you want instead of resisting it and being afraid of it. And when you align your mind, body, and spirit with what you want, you will be naturally inspired and motivated and empowered to take the actions to walk toward it. That's why this works. Okay, can I give you some coaching real quick?

Can I give you some coaching? Yes. Okay, you're ready? This is a super cool trick, everybody. You're about to see me change her. Okay, here we go. Tell you what we're going to do. All right, so zero to 10. How nervous are you right now? I'm thinking like 11. Okay, great. Can you describe what's happening in your body? I'm warm. I'm getting sweaty. Awesome. Are your pits starting to sweat now? Okay, she's getting warm under here, everybody. I don't know what to do with my hands. Okay, they're perfect. Just keep moving them like you're dancing. Okay, great. What else is happening as you're an 11? I can't stop smiling. Okay, terrific. So the anxiety and the nerves are through the roof? No. No? Okay, yes. See, she doesn't even know where she is. All right, great. So let's make it worse. Let's go on stage. Everybody, give her a round of applause. Here we go. Okay, come here. Okay. All right, 0-10. How nervous are you? Did it go higher? Yeah, it did. Okay, it went higher, everybody. Do you have a neck rash yet? It's getting there. Yeah, you're sorry. I used to get that all the time.

Yeah. Okay. I want you to just look out and look at everybody. How many... Yeah. Great. Okay, so I'm going to teach you something really cool. You ready? Yeah. Your body doesn't know the difference, everybody, between nervousness and excitement. Okay. Tell me, who's your favorite band? Nervana. Okay, so let's say, well, I realize Kurt Cobain isn't here, but if he were and if they were playing and you had a front row seat, how excited would you be? Oh, God, I'd be so excited. I was crying. Yeah. Would you have a neck rash? I don't know. Actually, I'd be sweating. You'd be sweating? Yeah. Would your heart be racing? Yeah. Are those all the things that are happening right now? Yeah. Okay. So your body, everybody has the same physiological response to nerves and excitement. Exact same. The only difference between you being able to see nirvana and you standing here looking out at everybody else and you're the one on stage, is what your brain is saying about it. So I'm going to teach you a really cool trick. Okay. So the next time you're nervous, Just go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I'm so excited.

And then say whatever you're doing. Start going, I'm so excited to be up here. I'm so excited to be up here. Say it again. I'm so excited to be up here. Say it again. I'm so excited to be up here. Say it again. I'm excited to be up here. Yeah, that's right. Let's walk. Say it again. I'm excited to I'm so excited to be up here. I'm so excited to see everyone here. Okay, so zero to 10. How do you feel? I feel great. It goes down, right? Yeah. So fear builds when you let it sit. It actually lowers the moment you move. And that's a little trick, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I'm so excited. That has been now researched at Harvard Medical School. And when you use it before an exam, you use it before any competition, you use it before a speech, you use it before a big pitch, anything, I'm so excited to go in there. I'm so excited I work so hard. I'm so excited I prepared for this. I'm so excited because regardless of what happens, I'm not going to die. Right? If you say that, you take control of what's going on in your brain and your body pays attention, and you just look at how different she looks.

Literally, she is calm. She's not freaking out. You are So literally, you're doing the next keynote. I'm out. All right, so how do you feel? I feel good. Okay, great. So what was your question? Okay, so I have big dreams, and sometimes they just feel like they're not quite out of reach, but they are. I have a hard time. My dream is to be a cougar. A who? A cougar. A wait, a what? A cougar. A cougar. Okay. There's lots of hot men around me in the beach. Okay. But that's later. That's nice. That feels like it's within reach. I don't know, right? Okay. That's just for later. I'm talking about career-wise. It just seems like I'm stopping myself or I'm so busy. I have two full-time jobs right now. I'm always on the run and on the go. I just don't know what I can do to get myself to do these other things or what way to go. Okay, so let's bring this. Now, I'm going to coach you, and we're going to make it less up in the sky and grow it in reality. What is the thing that you want to go pursue?

I just want to be the best I can be. I want my own business. I want to be independent. Great. So you would like your own business? Yes. Okay, great. So let's start. So what do you want to do first? We're going to take them one at a time. Do you want to move out of your state first, or do you want to have your own business? I think I want to move out of state first. Okay, terrific. So I'm going to teach you guys how to use manifesting and goal setting properly. Okay? Because so it's critical, everybody, to have huge dreams. And so I want you to turn to the person next to you and tell them what is something that you dream about doing. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go. So for me, I dream about launching a podcast, like a big podcast. I thought you said Rockets. No. Step aside, Joe Rogan. Mel Robin's coming through. All right, great. All right, great. I'm just giving you a second. I'm giving you a second. So even if you didn't have a chance... All right, come on back. Come on back. All right, even if you didn't have a chance to say it, I know you thought it.

And so here's the difference between dreams and goals. Dreams are the beacon, right? It's the lighthouse. Goals are the brick by brick path that walk you toward it. You need big dreams because they pull you out of the stress of your day to day life. They raise your gaze, and they remind you of where you're headed. And if you don't know where you want to head, there's a simple trick that can help you figure it out. Number one, ask to yourself, Well, what do I not want? And move in the opposite direction. Number two, who am I jealous of? Jealousy is blocked desire. You are jealous of people because you think you can't have the thing that you feel called to have. And so if you are jealous of somebody, it means inside of what they're doing or how they're being, there's something that is meant for you. You can't be jealous of something you don't want. I'm not jealous of anybody that has a penthouse, for example, in Abu Dhabi. I don't want to live there right now. Don't even feel anything when I think about it. It's not meant for me. But when you think about the things that you want, that is a really clear direction signal from your soul that you are not giving yourself permission to move toward those things.

So jealousy is just block desire. So you know you want to... That's the dream. And so what I want you to do is I want you to to tell me, what are two things that somebody who's preparing to move out of state is doing in their day-to-day life? Saving money. Okay. I guess by the expression on your face, you're not that great at that. Well, I was, and then I came here. Okay. That's okay. Guess what? This is going to be money well spent. You invested in yourself, okay? And you know how to save money. And so by being on this stage, you got plumped up here because it's time to get serious about this goal. And so a couple of things. Here's how you're going to use science to train your body to help you lay those bricks towards moving. You are not going to envision moving to the new state. You are not going to envision your new apartment. You are going to envision the annoying pain in the ass stuff you don't want to do in order to have that thing come true. You will envision yourself not going out with friends on the weekend because you're saving money.

You will envision yourself only putting things in the Amazon cart but not actually purchasing them. You will envision yourself opening up bills and noticing, Oh, great. I'm slowly saving. What is one thing that you hate doing that you know you need to do? Changing my water box. Oh, okay. That was not the one I was expecting. Related to money and saving Saving money. Related to money and saving money. I put whole paychecks in my savings account, and it just hurts me a little bit. Great. I want you to visualize and feel that it hurts. I want you If you visualize that next paycheck going into saving and feel the like... And then I want you to say to yourself, I'm really proud of myself for doing that because that's going to help me go. And so for those of you, for example, that want to get in better shape. Visualize walking in the rain because that sucks. And what happens when you visualize it and you feel it is you're training your body to expect that, which makes it more likely that you will take that paycheck and put it in savings, or you will keep walking as the rain comes because you've already mentally rehearsed this moment in your mind.

This is the way that a team of nine psychologists are training our Olympic athletes in the United States. This has deep research with it. Stop thinking about the state and start thinking about all the annoying little stuff you got to do right now, and you will be there before you know it. You got it? Yes. Good. Go do it. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, I'm Mel Robbins, and I wanted to make this video because boy, has the interest in manifesting just skyrocket? Do you know that there has been a 700% increase in Google searches for manifestation and manifesting techniques just this year alone? So if you're brand new to manifesting, you are in the right place because I'm going to unpack the basics for you. I'm going to help you understand this. And more importantly, I'm going to empower you to put this to use in your life to help you get what you want. And if you've been trying to manifest for a while now and it's not working, this is also an exceptionally awesome video for you to watch because it's probably going to reveal some of the mistakes you've been making. And so let's just jump into it.

So here's what we're I'm going to cover in this video. First of all, I'm going to give you a definition for manifesting that's going to clear a lot of stuff up. Next, I'm going to talk about what it is for real based on science and what it can help you do and what it isn't. How manifesting is very different than dreaming, hoping, wishing, and wanting. Then what we're going to do is we're going to talk about why this is a skill that you need. I'm going to tell you a story about how some of the top performing athletes in world at the highest level, Olympic levels, are using the science of manifestation to get what they want when it comes to performing at their top level. I'm also going to tell you a deeply personal story about how my husband and I use Manifesting Manifesting over 20 years ago to help us get this incredible dream house, this farmhouse that we always wanted outside of Boston, Massachusetts. And by the time that we are done with this, you are going to feel so excited, so empowered, because you're going to know what manifesting is, you're going to understand why you need it, and you are also going to be equipped to get started using it.

All right, so let's start with the definition of manifesting. What the heck is manifesting, Mel Robbins? Well, let me tell you what manifesting isn't. Manifesting is not thinking thoughts and then hoping that they come true. Thoughts become things only when your thoughts inspire you to take the actions to get those things. That's where Manifesting comes in. Manifesting is preparing your mind, body, and spirit to help you take the actions to get those things. That's right. I'm going to say that again. Manifesting is like training for getting what you want. Manifesting is socializing your mind, preparing your mind, rehearsing your mind to help you take the steps before you take the steps so that you can get what you want. When you use manifesting properly, what you do is you remove the obstacles of self-doubt, of resistance, of being cautious, of focusing on tiny of being minutiae, of feeling blank and overwhelmed. You remove all that crap, and you retrain your mind, and you retrain your nervous system, and you retrain your spirit to help you get the things that you want in life. When you manifest properly, what it does is it inspires you to take the actions that lead you to what you want.

Now, that sounds like a lot of like, Okay, Mel, what does that actually mean? What it means is this. Manifesting is going to help you see, feel, and act your way toward the things that you want. That's what it does. It's so freaking cool. Now, let me tell you the difference between manifesting according to science and Wishing, wanting, hoping, dreaming. Let's focus on wishing. There's a lot of you that are confusing wishing for something with manifesting. They're the opposite ends of the spectrum. Before I explain the two, let me just give you an example so that we can use the example to compare and to contrast. One big goal and dream that a lot of people have is financial freedom. The ability to take your kids to Disney World, the ability to buy what you want, the ability to put enough money away so that you don't have to worry about money, the ability to buy the things that you need, to go on the trips that you want. Financial freedom is something that you deserve in your life. It's something that you can do the work to achieve in your life. Let's talk about the goal of financial freedom and the difference between wishing for financial freedom and hoping and dreaming about it versus manifesting and doing the work to go get it.

If you can hear my cat outside, you know that he sounds like he's dying. What he's actually doing is he's really pissed off because we have come into this little room and shut the door, and so he's walking around going, Where are you? Where is everybody? Let's take a listen for a minute. So did you notice that wishing he would leave didn't work? What you're going to always get when you watch Mel Robin's videos is you're going to get the real deal, okay? But literally the real deal because this is real life, and these are tools for real people to make real changes. And so you might as well see what's going on. So the cat is now sleeping on my lap, and he's very happy. We were talking about financial freedom, which is a goal that so many people have, right? And what's the difference between you wanting and wishing for financial freedom and you manifesting it and using manifestation and the science of to help you get it. The big difference between wishing for something and using manifesting to help you do the work to go get it is that when you wish that you were financially free, Have you ever noticed that the second that you wish for something, like I wish I would win the lottery, you're also present at the same time to the fact that you're lacking money right now?

Wishing that you would win the lottery, it doesn't bring up all of this empowering feelings. What it does is it reminds you that you're so broke that you need to win the lottery. And that's very different than manifesting. Manifesting is declaring what you want. I am committed to creating financial freedom in my life. Then once you declare what you want. Manifesting is about the actions and empowering yourself to go get it. There's a really big difference between focusing on and wishing for something, which only reminds you that you're lacking it. Oh, I wish I would meet somebody. That just makes you feel more alone. I wish I could get in shape. That just makes you feel more out of shape. I wish I could win the lottery. That just makes you feel poorer. I wish I didn't have to work for this jerk. That just makes you feel more stuck. Do you feel how wishing for something amplifies what you don't like? Versus, I'm going to manifest and work for more money in my life? I I am committed to being in a loving relationship, and I'm going to manifest and make it happen. I deserve to have a career that I love, and I'm going to use manifesting to help me get it.

I I want to be in incredible shape. I want to do a handstand in yoga. I want to heal my trauma, and I'm going to use manifesting to help me achieve those things. That's a big difference. Wishing and hoping makes you present to what you don't have. Manifesting makes you present and feeling empowered about what you want and your ability to go get it. And that highlights the second big difference. When you hope for things, when you wish for things, you are handing the power to somebody else or to outside forces. You are literally giving away your power because hoping and wishing just inherently assumes that somebody else is somehow going to come in and solve the problem. We all know that that's not happening. Manifesting, on the other hand, locates and amplifies the power inside of you to do the work to get those things, to do the work to change your life. It's important that you locate the power inside of you because you're the one that's responsible for your dreams, and you're also the person that's in the best position to make those dreams a reality because you have the ability to change the way that you think.

You have the ability to change the actions that you take every single day. And when you change the actions that you take and you change the way that you think, you change your entire life. And manifesting is a tool that will help you train your brain and train your nervous system and train your mind, body, and spirit to help you achieve the things that you want. The thing that's super important for you to get as a major takeaway from this video is the thoughts alone won't achieve the things that you desire. But if you manifest properly, it will inspire you to take action. And action is is what will create the results that you deserve and that you want in your life. That's as simply as I can put it. I want to explain a little bit about the science. I promised you that I was going to quickly tell you a little bit about how some of the world's most successful athletes are using the science of manifestation in order to win at the Olympics, in order to come back after an injury. The US Olympic team, there's a big article in the New York Times about this.

They hire sports psychologists precisely for mental training. And what these sports psychologists are doing, there are five of them alone that work with the US snowboarding and ski team. And what they do is they are doing the mental training with athletes before the Olympics to help them prepare to show up at the Olympics and absolutely crush it. And you're going to do the same thing. You are going to use use manifestation to mentally prepare before and while you're doing the work to achieve your goals and dreams. Because when you mentally prepare, you remove all of the obstacles like self-doubt and nerves and anxiety and imposter syndrome and fear that are currently stopping you from taking action. And so how do you mentally prepare? Well, let me talk to you about the ski team because they do this super cool process that is basically what you when you manifest. The sports psychologist would sit down with one of the gold medal winning skiers and snowboarders, particularly after injury, because if you think about it, somebody that's been injured during competition, even after they've had surgery and they've recovered, they're going to be nervous about competing again.

And you may feel the same way about going for what you want. You may have faced a bunch of setbacks. You may have faced a bunch of disappointments. You may have faced a bunch of rejection. And so you're nervous It's about putting yourself out there. That's okay. Feeling nervous is normal, but you're not going to let it stop you. We're going to use manifestation to train your mind, body, and spirit to be able to do the work. We're going to rehearse what you need to do in your mind, and your body, and your spirit so that when it comes time to do it, you feel like you've actually already done it, which removes your nerves. It's so cool. So back to the US ski and snowboarding team, the sports psychologist would sit with the athletes and let's just say the crazy snowboarding thing where they go off a jump and they do 50 million hoops and loops and tricks and whatever. That's like a 10 second jump in the air. And so what the sports psychologist does is they have the snowboarder or the skier describe in detail, not the jump, but point A, point B, point C, point D, point E, point F, All the way to Z.

Okay, I'm getting off the chair lift, and I've got my snowboard tucked under my right arm, and I'm walking up to the place where everybody's getting ready. I hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of the snow, and I feel the breeze. Do you notice I've got my eyes closed? I've got my eyes closed because I have made manifesting a habit. I do it every single morning. When I start to manifest, I do something that I used to do as a trial lawyer, and that is put someone at the scene. Really good trial lawyers are able to put a jury right at a scene, right where it happened, with such detail that you can smell the cup of coffee on the counter. You can hear the cars passing outside. You can see the bright orange sweater that somebody's wearing right in your mind. You have the ability, with your imagination, to put yourself right at the scene. And that's exactly See what these sports psychologists are coaching Olympic athletes to do. As you're standing there and the wind is blowing and your hat is on and they're calling your name, now you're clipping in. Now you're feeling the excitement in your stomach.

Now You're feeling yourself push off, and you feel the momentum kick in, and the gravity pull down, and the speed increasing, and you feel the lift off, and you literally mentally rehearse, visually and in your body, You're feeling it. And what you're doing is you are preparing your body to be able to do it. Here's a cool fact about your brain. Your brain can't distinguish between real experiences that you've lived and the detailed experiences that you have imagined and felt through manifesting. So we are using your vision. We are using your ability to picture yourself yourself there and feel yourself there as a way to prepare yourself to be there. And as you're seeing yourself doing all the work, I want you to feel this sense of pride and excitement in order to really imprint the step by step by step by step training in your mind, body, and spirit. All right, well, look, I'm no Olympic athlete, but I am a gold medalist when it comes to the science of manifestation. I used Manifesting as a way to help me keep doing the work to find my dream house outside of Boston. This is the story of how I use manifesting to do the work to find a needle in a haystack, which was an antique farmhouse outside of Boston.

So God, 1997, my husband Chris and I are newlyweds. We moved from New York City to the Boston area, and we have moved from New York to the Boston area because we know that we want to start a family. We know we don't want to be in New York City. We know we want to buy a house and have a hard. And so we rent an apartment in Cambridge, which is right next door to Boston. And for almost a year, we start looking for a house. Now, we were a really young, newlywed couple. We did not have a lot of savings. And Boston, it's a really expensive real estate market. And so we looked at houses every single weekend for an entire year. And we either would go to these open houses and we just hated the neighborhood, or we couldn't afford the house, and we were just feeling so discouraged. And it was about this time that I discovered the science of manifesting. And I, luckily, did I didn't just learn thoughts become things. I learned the see it, feel it, and you'll believe it form of manifesting that you're learning right now. And here's what I would do.

I would, every single day, I knew what I wanted more than anything. I wanted to find an antique farmhouse with a big front porch. I wanted it to be in our budget. I wanted to have some land. I wanted to get a fixer upper. I just had this old house house vision in my mind, right? And I would sit there and I would think about Chris and I going to open houses. And I would think about Chris and I seeing house after house, and I would think about Chris getting really discouraged, and I would feel the pressure of going to all these open houses and us not finding anything. And I could feel Chris getting discouraged, and I could feel myself starting to get discouraged. And Then I would feel and see myself turning to Chris and saying, Chris, you watch. We are really good people, and we have the luck that something magical is going to happen. We are going to find that needle in the haystack. I just know it. If we just keep going to open houses, if we just keep putting it out there that we're looking for an old farmhouse, a fixer upper with a big porch on a nice piece of property, we will find it.

What this manifesting does, where you see yourself pushing through the resignation, you feel yourself believing, you feel yourself doing the work to find that needle in the haystack, to beat the odds, to have something magical happens, is that you start to believe that it's going to happen. Through manifesting, I literally convinced myself that we would, in fact, find a needle in a haystack, that I didn't even need to worry about all the houses that we couldn't afford that we were seeing. I I didn't even need to worry about the number of places that we would look at that were out of our range. I didn't even have to worry about how long it was going to take because I knew, because I was aligning myself with what I wanted through proper manifestation, that it would happen. I wasn't worried about the timeline. I just assumed that if we kept at it and we kept holding on for that needle in the haystack, amazing old farmhouse, that one day, somehow somehow, magically, the stars would align, we would be in the right place, and we would be rewarded because we had done the work and we had held out hope and we had kept on going.

And why did we do those things? Because I had been training myself preparing myself to do all those things. And I'll tell you what happened. About a year into looking in one of the nicest towns outside of Boston, Massachusetts, we got word that there was a rampant sack old farmhouse that may be coming on the market. So we drove out that weekend and we pulled up in front of the house. And I got to tell you, the grass at this house in the front yard was like, waist high. Nobody had mowed this lawn in I don't know how many years. It looked like a field for crying out loud instead of a front lawn. The paint was all chipped. The house was this ugly blue color. Most of the windows were broken. The only living beings inside the house were the family of raccoons who had taken up residence inside the chimney. The kitchen was so hideous. There was astro-turf, indoor-outdoor grass, as the flooring in this house. Now, if I hadn't been manifesting, if I hadn't been training my mind, body, and spirit to see, feel, and believe that my husband and I would find this needle in a haystack, I would have turned to Chris the second we pulled up in front of this thing and said, Are you kidding me?

This dump? First of all, we won't be able to afford it. Secondly, this dump? What? Have we lost? It's not even on the market. Some developer is going to swoop in here, and in this neighborhood and pay three times what we can afford. There is no way we are going to get this. That's what would have happened if I hadn't been manifesting. Because the biggest obstacle to what you want is always your own self doubt, your own excuses, your own fears and your own stories. Because I had been manifesting what it looked like and felt like to align my body and spirit with getting what I want, I stayed open that this could be that needle in the haystack. We got out of the car. We met with the owner. It turns out the house wasn't on the market yet. The family was figuring out what to do because the man who had owned it had just died incapacitated in a nursing home. None of the adult kids wanted the house. And what did they want for the house more than anything? This dilapotated old farm house that they had all grown up in? They wanted a young couple who was starting a family to raise their family in it.

Well, the long and the short of it is that ugly old farmhouse with the broken windows and the raccoons inside and the indoor-outdoor grass turf for carpeting in the kitchen was that needle in the haystack. Chris and I bought it the family before it ever came on the market. And we spent the first two years, honest to God, indoor camping inside of it. We didn't even have a kitchen. We had a Coleman two burner camping stove. We did most of the renovations ourselves, which meant bringing the knob and tube wiring up to code, slapping on a pain of coat, and bringing everything up to a point where it would be safe. And we have lived in this farmhouse and raised our family in it for the past the last 24 years. There is no way that I would have even gotten out of the car without having been manifesting for eight months prior to finding that farmhouse with the big wrap porch on a great piece of property right outside of Boston. It was seeing it, feeling it in my mind, body, and spirit that made my mind believe that it was possible. And when you believe that something is possible, you will do the work and you will stay open to all of the amazing possibilities that come into your life to make it happen.

And here we are, almost 25 years later, sitting here filming in that very house. So there you have it. I promised you that this would be a video that would be perfect if you were brand new to manifesting or if you've been manifesting for a while, but it hasn't been working. I hope that now that you know the real definition and the real purpose of manifesting when you manifest using science and you manifest as a way to train and prepare your mind, body, and spirit to do the work to help you get what you want. I hope you now feel empowered and inspired to stop wishing and hoping for the things that you want in life, and that you use manifesting to prepare yourself and inspire yourself to go take the action to make them a reality. I, a thousand % believe in manifesting, but a lot of us are doing manifesting wrong, where you create a vision board about the big vision. And what research shows is that simply having the beach house or the marathon finish line on your vision board is actually demotivating, because what starts to happen for people is you see the thing that you want and you start to feel further and further and further away from And so, yes, you should have big dreams.

And yes, you should write them down every day. And yes, you should do that because you have a filter in your brain that I'm teaching you to use and to program that will change in real time based on what you tell it is important. But the most important part of manifesting is activating something in your brain called the Zeigenark effect or the Zeigarnik effect. And that is for you to pick the beach out. So let's use a marathon because a marathon is a really simple metaphor that everybody understands. Let's say you want to check off a bucket list item and you want to complete a marathon, which is 26.2 miles. Yes, put the finish line up. Yes, put the race bib up. Yes, put up all these things that show you what it feels like to accomplish the goal. But if you really want to get it done, also put on that board a photo of somebody running in the rain. Also put on that board a photo of an alarm clock that says 5:13 AM. The reality. Yes. Put up the reality. And then when you're manifesting and you're thinking about crossing that finish line, don't stay on the finish line.

Think about what it's going to be like in February when you're on Mile 11 on a training run and your ear buds run out and it starts to rain and you see yourself continuing to run. And And when you manifest and visualize and allow yourself to feel that moment, the moment in between, the work that gets you there, you want a business of your own? Manifest late nights. Manifest the text where you say, sorry, I got to stay in and work on something, can't come to the party. Manifest you being told no. Manifest the thing getting canceled. Manifest picking up the phone again, because what you're doing is you're socializing your nervous system in your brain and your heart and your soul to do the work and to not stop when all of the things that happen that come into your way will eventually believe. And this is a way to cultivate something that I'm going to teach you how to do, which is to have a high five attitude. A high five attitude is simply the belief that if you continue to work hard, if you stay optimistic, if you give up your timeline through optimism, through hard work, you can figure it out.

Things will work out how they're meant to work out. You can make a difference through your attitude and your effort on anything. That's a high five attitude that no matter what's going on around you.

Do you believe in pessimism and optimistic personalities? Or do you believe that pessimism and optimism are a choice? Because some people have come from a land of no. And is that learned? Or is that something you have to work towards? The land of knowers who- It depends on the baby's first word, yes or no?

I think it's an excellent question. And I believe optimism is a skill that everybody needs to practice and learn because all the studies show that when you have a more positive outlook And I believe in realistic optimism. That doesn't mean toxic positivity. It doesn't mean that you can put a nice brush stroke on really shitty problems that people face from poverty to racism to discrimination to all these things that are real. You may be facing a death in your family. You may have a heartbreak. Somebody may have cheated. This shit is real. But here's the difference that an optimistic or high five attitude has. When you become pessimistic, the Obstacles magnify, and your belief in yourself diminishes. When you start to, again, high five yourself in that mirror. And here's the thing, especially if you're going through a challenging time, you need it more than ever. Because when you raise the hand and you go to high five yourself, right when somebody just said, I'm sorry, I don't love you anymore. I've fallen in love with your best friend. The high five is also an acknowledgement that this fucking sucks. I see you. I see that this sucks.

And it's also in the same time saying, and you know what? You're going to be okay. I got you. I got your back. We don't watch a marathon, right? If you're a spectator at a marathon, you don't I stand at Mile 8 and go, you're not done yet. I'm not cheering for you right now. Look at that split time for that half mile. You don't do that. You freaking high five and cheer for the runners every step of the way because it's what keeps them going. You see, we have bought into this lie that you got to hit the number on the scale before you're going to celebrate yourself. You have to have the money in a bank account. You have to have the right relationship. You got to be where you're supposed to be and drive the right car and have the right house and have the right friend group before you will celebrate yourself. I'm here to tell you it's the opposite. You actually need to show up every day and give yourself the support. If you can drag your ass out of bed after these last 18 months and you're still breathing and you're still trying to do a little bit better, you not only deserve a high five, you need one.

And one more thing about our kids. We can bolster our kids all you want. You want to know there's so much, too, in this book about parenting, because I've got a ton of stories about parenting mistakes I've made, ways I've plummeted my kids' esteem, things that are heartbreaking. As I was writing this book, Chapter 4. I get a text from one of our daughters. How do I not feel like the ugliest girl at the bar every time I go out? You want to know something as a Mom, I can't change that. Only she can. If I stand in front of the mirror and say, but you're beautiful, but you're loyal, but you're an amazing human being, but you're funny, but you're this, and you will meet somebody. You just haven't met the right... She can't even hear it because it's not what she says to herself. So the reason why you have to make this a habit to stand before yourself, the human being, and see the human being in that body and recognize that you're sad or recognize that you're beating yourself up or recognize that you're not where you need to be, and then raise your hand and say, I hear it.

And you know what? I still love you. I still support you. I'm still here for you. Only she can change that for herself. I can provide tools. I can provide a nutritionist. I can provide a psychologist. But your children and you, they got to do the work themselves. And so this is a tool that will help them do it.

There's something that happens between young children because I have a five-year-old who can't look in the mirror or six-year-old who can't see herself, right? Because she's not tall enough to look in all the mirrors, and so she's not looking at herself constantly. She, and I would say all of our kids, when they were younger, just love themselves so much, right? They think they're beautiful and strong and- Best singers, best dancers. Yeah. My hair is amazing. I am beautiful. And there's something that happens with comparisons when they begin to... Although she's obsessed with her older sister, but there's this thing that they have this confidence, and somehow, if we can think about that as adults, that we have... At one point, we were madly in love with ourselves because that's what young children do. They're madly in love with themselves, and then you lose it. So you had it, and then something happened for you to begin to lose it. So you can be inspired by the children around us because that person hasn't changed. That person has just been told to not love themselves like that child has loved them.

So it's going back to that original...

I mean, there's so much beauty in that toddler or that five-year-old who walks down on their tutu And everyone's looking at them and they're like, look at me.

Look at me.

And we stop saying that. We say, don't look at me.

Yeah.

You're exactly right.

Well, you want to know the good news? The good news is all that is wired into your DNA.

Yes.

Life made you doubt it. And so this is a way to get back to who you really are. And that doesn't mean you're arrogant. It doesn't mean that you're selfish. It means that of every human being on the planet, you realize you're the one person you go through life with, and that your relationship with yourself is the foundation of every relationship that you have. Because if you don't love yourself, you will never believe that somebody else truly loves you, and you'll continue to sabotage that relationship. If you're insecure with the person you see in the mirror, you will behave in insecure ways out in the world. It's not with you.

And expect your relationships to fill that. I mean, I think a lot of... I mean, obviously, people have to read this book because I think it's going to help so many people, like you said. And we have been taking up so much of your time. But I want to ask one last question, which is a lot of women When we talk about manifesting or believing in themselves, their partner or spouse will be the first one to knock them down or be like, this is a dumb... What are you doing? This is so dumb. Or when they begin to find themselves, it's a really nervous feeling for the partner, and it can rock their relationship. Any advice... We did a like a dream.

What was it?

Like a live where people came in and they're like, I can't I'll show my husband or my partner when we did the vision boarding. I could never show them because they would just laugh at me for it. I'm too embarrassed to show them. I guess you just work on yourself and when your partner sees you changing- Let me give you a perspective check on this, okay?

First of all, it's super normal. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to end the relationship. It's super normal. Okay. To have the people closest to you not cheer for you and not celebrate you. And there's a reason why. And I'm going to tell you a quick story. Actually, I think I read about this in the book. So there was a period of time after Chris's restaurants failed that he stopped drinking completely and started to get himself whole again. And I remember very distinctly when that happened, I was cooking and I went to pour myself a glass of wine. And I noticed I felt self-conscious that I was about to have a big glass of wine, and he was drinking water. And so I immediately did what your husband's and partners are doing. I was like, Oh, come on, just have a glass of wine. Why do you need to be sober? Like, I started sabotaging and undermining the changes he wanted to make in his life. Why? I'll tell you why. Because his changes made me confronted about what I was doing. And so Chris turned to me and he said, Mel, I don't want a glass of wine.

If you want to have a glass of wine, great. Have a glass of wine. And then he said this, Nobody cares about what's in your cup except for you. So if you don't like what's in your cup, stop barking about what's in mine and focus on what should be in yours. And so keep in mind that any change that you're making is confronting to somebody who's not changing. You have got to keep showing up and cheering for yourself. And this is especially true for women, because we've been socialized to believe that our worth is determined by whether or not somebody else approves or somebody else loves us. You got to be able to look in the mirror to see a human being that you love and to see a human being whose choices make you proud. And if everybody else has a problem with that, they need to deal with that with their therapist. And the more that you do this, the more you'll be able to express boundaries, and the more you'll be able to make requests, and the stronger that you get knowing that you have your own back and you're really confident in who you are, the more that your marriage will change because you're changing.

And it's my hope that it changes for the better. But the fact of the matter is, as long as you are taking responsibility for your own happiness and your own sense of worth and your own sense of value as a human being, if that doesn't improve the relationship that you're in to show up as a better you, agree. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for checking this video out. And if you like this one, I have a feeling you're going to like this one, too. I'll see you there.