Breaking Through Limiting Beliefs w/ Max Rosencrantz

Breaking Through Limiting Beliefs w/ Max Rosencrantz

April 10, 2024

Each of us carry limiting beliefs – we’re not smart enough, strong enough, or skilled enough. Our mind is full of can’t, won’t, and never. Our guest, Max Rosencrantz comes on the show to show us how to break through these mental barriers and become the man that we know we are meant to be.

Episode Transcript:

0:41

welcome to the show I’m your host Mark azoulay and I’m here with Max Rosen CR he’s a coach he’s a men’s work expert and he’s

0:47

a founder of a wonderful organization in my backyard in Colorado called Rocky Mountain rights Max welcome to the show

0:54

thanks for having me Mark So today we’re going to talk about a topic that comes up so often with the guys that I work

0:59

with which is limiting beliefs and I know that you have developed a system and you’re really like a wizard at

1:04

helping people overcome their self-sabotage their procrastination you know their their kind of impostor

1:11

syndrome and it’s something that is just unbelievably common nowadays I mean you see that in the work that you do too

1:18

yeah I see it a ton I mean it’s it’s everywhere yeah people just are so pinned down by these beliefs that they

1:25

have um so I’m excited as we get into the meia show to learn about exactly how you do do that with the guys that you

1:31

work with and giving some tips to listeners I’m sure as you’re listening you’re probably like oh wow I have some of these things I procrastinate I have

1:37

imposter syndrome I don’t feel like I belong anywhere it’s it’s really common and Max is here to

1:42

help yeah yeah I’m excited for it yeah so let’s dive in first uh with your story right so like how did you get into

1:50

this work um what was your experience with masculinity and coming of age and

1:55

kind of um where are you at today yeah uh great question so my story is I think non-traditional

2:03

in the same way that a lot of people’s stories are non-traditional I was a mechanical engineer for a long time I did consumer product development and I

2:11

thought that was the career I wanted I thought that that was the path I was going to take and I burned out I was

2:17

struggling with a lot of anxiety a lot of impostor syndrome a lot of procrastination uh and I burned out

2:23

really bad and was struggling with my own mental health challenges and had an

2:28

Awakening in the back of manuver on the way to the airport one day uh and

2:34

realized that a lot of my troubles were inside my head and not out there in the

2:39

world and so that sent me on a path for last about five and a half years of

2:45

Discovery and training and working on myself uh and working on integrating and

2:51

embodying masculinity among other things uh and now my focus has become really

2:57

going deep on the subconscious programming that was keeping me me stuck that keeps a lot of guys stuck yeah so

3:03

let’s dig into a little bit more detail can you tell me about some of the limited beliefs that you had like what

3:08

are some things that I mean I have a whole list marked that my the list is like 87 long that I worked on and

3:13

there’s 75 more to work on H it’s a continuous process but for me the the

3:19

big ones at the start were things like I’m not good enough I’m not lovable that was a big one had to do a lot of work

3:25

around my relationship with my mom uh I’m not important I have nothing valuable to offer uh a lot of fear about

3:33

making mistakes fear about being perceived as incompetent so these were the kinds of things that were running in

3:39

the background that I wasn’t really aware were running in the background until uh until I was aware of them and

3:45

then it was very painful to be aware of them so I worked on them um but those are really common ones that I personally

3:50

had to work through in order to get to where I am today yeah and I imagine right like when you were in it you

3:57

weren’t aware that those were the roots so I’m curious how those showed up in your life and I’m asking this question

4:03

also for our listeners if they might have some of these we’ll call them symptoms or something right of limiting beliefs um what are some what are some

4:09

things you were able to see were happening yeah I think one of the biggest ones was more on under the

4:16

general heading of perfectionism that I as a mechanical engineer designing systems I really liked to get things

4:23

perfect and to some extent that’s an asset in a technical role and so it gets

4:29

hidden and so for me it was hidden it was like oh this is this is what makes me a great engineer why would I change

4:34

this but what that led to is I would spend a long time perfecting an email

4:40

that didn’t really matter it was just like write a sentence send it get a response but I would reread it and

4:47

reread it to make sure there no no typos no grammar errors and it sounds like a

4:52

small thing but if you’re sending 20 emails a day and every time you’re spending 10 minutes in anxiety thinking

4:59

about oh okay is this right it slows you down a ton um so that was that was a

5:04

really common one for me and then avoiding hard conversations even simple things like

5:12

you know hey I didn’t finish that thing that I said I was going to finish today uh I’m G to get it done tomorrow

5:18

or I need more time I avoided those conversations and then just tried to pull in all nighter to finish things or

5:24

would get into work the next day and say oh I didn’t finish I’m going to finish it today instead of of just giving

5:30

people proactive communication to say hey I’m struggling with this I need some support or I’m struggling with this it’s

5:36

taking longer than I thought um so those are some of the things that just led to me really feeling burned out and

5:41

overwhelmed uh yeah yeah I’m hearing like yeah there’s like a conflict avoidance right or like if you’re disappointing others that’s underneath

5:48

that and wanting to not be critiqued right because I imagine like if you’re perfect then there’s no room for critique there’s no one can say anything

5:55

about your email right if your email it just like nails it exactly yeah yeah so

6:02

you’re in this thing right you’re in this like storm right of limiting beliefs and then you talked about this

6:08

Awakening in the back of an Uber I’m curious like what is that story what how did you wake up what did you realize in

6:14

that moment yeah so I’ll give you a little bit of context I was down in

6:20

Beaverton Oregon visiting a client I was working on a Consulting project uh on the engineering team visiting a client

6:26

really hard day I’d woken up at like 4:00 in the morning to go to the airport I’m exhausted I’m in this Uber on the

6:32

way back to the airport and it’s stop and go traffic like 15 miles an hour really slow and the driver is speeding

6:41

up and slamming on the brakes speeding up and slamming on the brakes he was really taking stop and go literally and

6:48

I’m sitting in the back of the car just stewing like oh my gosh you have one job I paid you to drive me there why are you

6:54

struggling so much with this there’s all this negative critical talk happening in my head it was just the norm for me at

7:00

that point so I didn’t know any different and I sat up to kind of say something to like make a comment to ask

7:07

him drive smoother like hey man I had a long day can you but before I opened my

7:12

mouth I saw this shiny blue object near the steering wheel and I didn’t know what it

7:17

was and so in that moment of confusion fortunately I got curious and

7:24

so I just asked him I was like hey what’s that what’s that blue thing on the steering wheel and he said oh I have

7:30

polio my legs don’t work I’m driving the car using my hand this is a device you

7:35

can buy for 300 bucks on Amazon and it’s you know DOT approved and now I can you

7:41

know make a full-time living driving Uber this was in 2018 or 19 when I think you could probably make more as an Uber

7:46

driver um but yeah so here’s this guy who had who’s disabled in a way and he

7:52

can drive for Uber because of this device and that really put things in

7:58

perspective for me I I that something kind of cracked open for me that oh this

8:03

guy’s not a bad driver I was making him the villain in the story that like oh he’s such a bad driver no he’s like

8:10

actually awesome he’s driving the car with his hands that’s why it’s a little bit less than smooth and then we had a

8:16

great conversation and basically I recognized in that moment that what’s happening in my head and what’s

8:21

happening in reality are two very different things and when I argue with what’s happening outside I

8:28

lose yeah that was be like well one I guess I love that story because it sounds like like compassion one in that

8:34

moment right like once you’re like oh wow this guy is working with his limitations and he’s doing something that I imagine most people with polio

8:41

never get to do I imagine they don’t get to drive vehicles right um so compassion like punch through all the Judgment

8:47

right that again so many people carry around um and I’m also interested in this like good vers evil narrative

8:53

perfectionist narrative because and please correct me wrong because I make some stereotypes but I would assume that

8:58

as an engineer like Perfection and black and white and like right and wrong is such a huge part of the job so it sounds

9:05

like in this story you got you opened your mind to like the gray you know in a way that maybe you hadn’t before is that

9:11

fair to say or would you change that I would say that’s fair to say yeah and and I’d say that falls under a bigger

9:17

Narrative of that internal battle something like something I’ve been working on recently is that internal

9:24

battle is often a way to drain myself and so I see this with other people as well that like if I can fight myself

9:32

enough that can do one of two things one it can protect me from fighting somebody else and two it can justify my existence

9:40

it can make me feel like I’m working hard enough to deserve to be here even if I’m not doing anything externally um

9:46

and that’s a a Surefire recipe for Burnout yeah yeah I want to dig into that a lot more that that inner battle

9:53

because the way I talk about with my guys is the difference between cold anger and hot anger you know and hot

9:58

anger is what we typically think of when we think of you know men right this idea of you know blowing up being a bully

10:05

punching people breaking walls like whatever that is right and then cold anger is what you’re talking about also what I was in like I wasn’t an outwardly

10:12

angry dude I was actually very conflict avoidant very friendly very like nice

10:18

guy right um but I had a lot of cold anger which is that resentment that judgment that black and white thinking

10:24

for me sometimes tapping into grandiosity like oh I’m better than everybody else or so smarter or like like everyone’s an idiot and I’m just

10:30

like trying to navigate the world and like why don’t I have what I deserve because everyone else sucks and I’m so great right like I would be like in this

10:37

stew of just resentment and and judgment and yeah I see you you know laughing and smiling so I imagine you you have some

10:43

similarities there um what would your C anger like I mean yeah resentment bitterness

10:51

and resentment and it’s you know it’s a work in progress I’ve made so much progress on this and so I’m grateful for that but I’m not perfect in any way

10:59

today but yeah resentment of feeling like I wasn’t able to communicate the things that I really was good at my

11:05

gifts I wasn’t able to share those gifts with the world and so in my head it was oh like I have so much to offer and it’s

11:13

better than everybody else and yet nobody recognizes it and nobody sees me

11:18

uh and so those are some of the mental thought patterns that I was really stuck in that led me to working really really

11:25

really hard and then giving up and in both cases trying to prove that I was better than other people

11:31

somehow yeah doing that like pendulum swing right you know my version of it which I’ve always identified with like a

11:37

cycle of recovery because I’m sober right but like this idea of like going hard going big and then burning out

11:44

crashing down resurrecting From the Ashes Like a Phoenix feeling like the hero going big and burning out right and

11:49

just being in this cycle and so much of of my work has been like lengthening that cycle to some extent so I can at

11:55

least be functional for more of it and making it less extreme so so the burnouts and the and the you know big

12:01

hero moments are not as big moving towards more like stability and consistency but I’ll tell you and I I I

12:07

hear you talking about this like it’s boring like it’s way more boring than being like the hero of the story right

12:13

or being the smartest man on earth being aim mandus or whatever right like you don’t have that kind of level of

12:19

grandiosity if you’re just living like a stable normal life yeah yeah I mean and so that’s a

12:26

that’s I think the goal of integration is getting to that more balanced State and being okay with that like we have a

12:33

secure enough ego that it’s okay if I’m just balanced and sort of middle of the

12:39

road that doesn’t conflict with this need to be better than or this need to

12:44

be the victim and yeah so it’s a process of integrating that yeah yeah there was

12:50

a great actually our um our last guest uh Scott Donald was talking about this

12:56

progression and I’m curious if you agree with this he talked about um you go from villain to victim and then victim to

13:02

hero and then hero to guide and and I really related with that as he was talking about that as far as

13:08

like the progression of of my sense of self and I’m curious if that Rings any bells for you yeah that resonates a lot

13:14

for me yeah I like that victim or villain to victim to Hero to guide yeah and and I

13:22

would even offer guide in the place of guide sort of just human MH like you may

13:29

may you may become at peace with the fact that you’re just one human and that’s enough yeah yeah you may finally

13:36

become humble right which is like such a spiritual Pursuit you know and and and I

13:42

think and and I was in this boat I’m curious if you were right like so many men fear humiliation right which is like

13:47

the dark shadow cousin of being humble but like this idea of like being embarrassed or being exposed or like you

13:52

said feeling unlovable um I think we really keep ourselves guarded and have these masks masks up to not be

14:01

humiliated yeah I mean that’s super common because shame is such a powerful

14:06

emotion such a such a strong protector that will often do just about anything

14:13

to avoid being humiliated to avoid being embarrassed uh and and it’s a sneaky

14:19

emotion because we don’t want to feel it so we’ll avoid it through basically any number of complex layers of Personality

14:27

structure or behavior or how you know pick your poison on this one but yeah that’s a big one yeah so I want to do a

14:34

little bit of a pivot because your other thing I think is you got connected on was Rocky Mountain rights where you help

14:39

young men do initiation rituals um out of Boulder Colorado so I’m curious with in your

14:45

story what did you have childhood roots to some of this or did you feel like you lacked initiation in a way when you grew

14:52

up yeah I I would have loved to do the event that I run today as a teenager

14:58

yeah I did something when I was about 14 15 that brought in the wilderness

15:04

experience The Outdoor Experience the sort of facing the unknown component but

15:10

it didn’t have the emotional intelligence piece that we bring into Rocky Mountain rights it didn’t have the community building uh sort of connective

15:18

components it was just let’s go in the wilderness build a shelter sleep alone uh in the middle of nowhere on your on

15:24

your own for a night um learn how to tie knots learn how to make a fire and that is really cool and fun and so teenagers

15:32

love that stuff and so we incorporate that and the next level and especially in a place like Boulder the next level

15:38

is saying okay how do we authentically express our emotions how do we share as men and as soon to be men what it’s like

15:47

to go through this journey that like yeah you’re not always going to be the hero you’re not always going to be um

15:53

able to achieve what you want to achieve and bring that humility and and hum

15:59

humbleness into things so we bring a lot of connection and Community Focus around

16:04

emotional intelligence yeah I think that’s wonderful and and like you said like that’s the missing piece you know I

16:11

really agree with that like I think watch I love the organization what you do because I think having young men

16:17

watch older men be open and talk and be vulnerable is like unbelievably critical

16:22

now because I didn’t have that experience right I mean the only time I saw my dad express emotions when his

16:27

father died I saw him cry but aside from that like zero and my dad’s a great dude

16:33

I mean he’s a role model to me in so many other ways but as far as like emotional bandwidth it’s just not really

16:39

there you know so I think yeah seeing getting those emotional Role Models is is really important yeah yeah and

16:47

telling a young man to do something usually doesn’t work but showing him it

16:52

coming from yourself authentically maybe in the moment he’s not going to respond but at least then he has a model of like

16:58

okay that’s available and you get 20 or 30 guys each modeling what their unique

17:05

expression of masculinity looks like then all these teenagers they have the opportunity to say oh okay it doesn’t

17:12

just look like what Instagram says it looks like it doesn’t just look like what the movies say it looks like I kind

17:18

of like what that guy’s doing he seems authentic to me he seems cool to me in a way that would work for me and then they

17:25

get to take that and try that on yeah I think that’s wonderful right and it just widens the definition of masculinity so

17:31

we’re going to move to our first commercial break when we get back we’ll certainly talk more about that I also want to talk more about limiting beliefs

17:38

namely imp posture syndrome perfectionism and self-sabotage um and here some tips for how people can start

17:44

to identify and overcome their limiting beliefs so if you’re listening there’s a lot on the docket hang on in there and we’ll see you on the other side yes

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20:17

welcome back to the show I’m your host Mark a I’m here with Max Rosen CR and we’re talking about self-sabotage and

20:23

limiting beliefs in and what keeps guys stuck so we were talking a little bit over the break that a entry point for a

20:30

lot of the guys you work with is procrastination and something that I suffered from um sometimes still creeps up for sure uh did my own a lot of my

20:37

own work around but but I’m curious like what you think about it because it seems unbelievably common you know there’s

20:44

like when people are doing stuff on time doing stuff consistently like they’re a hero you know I think most of us are

20:50

just like scrambling and winging our lives in a lot of ways yeah I mean I think that’s true and

20:56

the norm has become that we’re overloaded in a lot of ways and that procrastination is normal and I’ll get

21:03

to that later has become normal and yeah and so procrastination it’s often a

21:08

starting point because if you can conquer that piece of the puzzle it frees up energy and bandwidth to work on

21:14

the other things uh and procrastination has a lot of layers in my experience and

21:19

the main ones are um I’d say the first main layer of procrastination is the fear that you’re

21:26

going to be exposed as flawed if someone sees that your work is flawed and so you

21:33

avoid the work I like to say that procrastination happens when the expected benefit is smaller than the

21:39

expected drawbacks it’s really simple if in your subconscious it’s more likely

21:44

that something bad is going to happen then something as good as then something good is going to happen if you do a task you’re not going to do the task it’s a

21:50

pretty smart system um so if you’ve got beliefs like I’m not good enough or I’m not smart enough or I’m incompetent or

21:57

I’m not capable or there’s something wrong with me that’s a big one there’s something wrong with me just like this fundamental

22:03

feeling that you have some flaw the risk of that flaw being exposed is going to

22:08

create a strong anxiety response anytime you try to push through a new task try to do something that might be outside

22:14

your comfort zone or something that exposes you to the potential of being criticized so I say that’s layer number

22:21

one and then layer number two is feeling like uh you’re something bad is going to

22:27

happen if you make a mistake so usually i’ work with this as to believe mistakes and failure are bad or if I make a

22:33

mistake I’ll be rejected uh and that comes from when we’re kids the way most

22:38

of our parents operate is that we criticize mistakes and we praise uh when

22:43

people do things right and so as an adult we still have that programming running in us that if we make a mistake

22:49

we’re going to be criticized and we’re going to lose approval from this important figure that in our childhood is our parents who we depend on for

22:55

everything um so those are those are the two first layers and I I’ll pause there

23:00

yeah well it just I like the way you put it because yeah the brain doesn’t know like what’s right or what’s good it just

23:07

goes for what’s easy and what feels you know pleasurable right so even though like you should do that homework

23:12

assignment or you should get that project done if it’s going to feel bad the brain’s going to avoid it so I

23:17

really like that that first layer of it just like the brain moving away from difficulty um and the second one of yeah

23:24

avoiding disappointment or avoiding critique I think is really common for a lot of people too and you know the

23:29

horrible tragedy perfectionism right it’s like the more you perfect the more sorry of a procrastination the more you procrastinate the less chance you have

23:36

of succeeding right because it’s going to become like a lower quality output anyway so it can become this like

23:41

vicious loop I think for a lot of people where they they don’t perform up to what they want to because they only did it in

23:47

the last four hours before it was due right or they pulled that all nighter and their brain wasn’t in a great place when they’re doing it so I I’ve seen it

23:54

like kind of drive people into the ground where they’re in this constant like state of anxiety and fear around

24:00

the whole thing yeah well in that comment that you made there’s a couple pieces that I see one is if you save it

24:06

till the last minute and you give yourself less time then you can say that’s why it isn’t good that’s why it

24:13

made I made a mistake not because I can’t do it but because I just didn’t give myself enough time in the second

24:18

piece is a lot of people don’t realize that they’re hooked on the stress chemicals that come from waiting until

24:24

the last minute they think that’s excitement they think that’s oo this is I like you know get things done and pull

24:30

through at the last minute and be the hero and they don’t realize actually that’s wrecking your health because that’s just a bunch of stress that you

24:35

don’t need to be experiencing yeah I mean the metaphor my guys back to that hero conversation

24:41

right is like yeah procrastination it’s like you know you let your guard and get overrun and then you got to go in the back with the machete and the

24:47

flamethrower and like you get to like save your backyard right from The Vines and the weeds and all this stuff right

24:54

and then the other one is just like you just go out and you weed a little bit every day right which is not nearly as exciting and you get to you don’t get to

25:00

be this like Indiana Jones character like you’re just like a dad you know like you’re just like a normal guy that

25:07

maintains his yard every weekend um and yeah it is telling I think and sometimes

25:13

actually sad for me that I think as men we find challenge in that way we have to create challenge that way rather than

25:19

seeking it out in perap perhaps more healthier and Progressive forms I’m curious what you think of that is like

25:25

using as a way to to in kind of impart challenge into our lives yeah well I

25:31

think when we create many of us me certainly and a lot of guys that I work with have the luxury

25:37

that we get to choose what challenges we take on for the most part life has risk and uncertainty but our society as a

25:44

whole is at a pretty high level of comfort so we get to choose what challenges we take on and we want

25:51

challenges to be the hero partially and I think for a more mature reason to grow

25:56

to like become a bigger version of our eles so when you take on a challenge which is a big part of why I do Rocky

26:02

Mountain rights like it’s not fun most of the time that I’m preparing for it the weekend itself is fun but the six

26:07

months leading up it’s a lot of challenge but it gives me an opportunity to be challenged in a way where I’m

26:14

choosing to do that and then okay it helps me just focus on let me get the

26:19

other things done to get them done not to make those my big project where I’m being the hero uh so anytime that you

26:28

can do that for yourself I think that supports you in showing up more consistently in other areas of your life

26:33

take on that motorcycle project or that classic car restoration so that can be

26:38

the place where you’re the hero and then weed your yard every Saturday and get your work done on time and that’s just

26:45

your dayto day yeah yeah I I help my clients do that a lot and I’m curious how you do it with your guys I say the

26:51

same thing it’s like we have to put challenge in our life because life is so cushy and I think especially living in

26:57

privil and living in Boulder Colorado right like living in a pretty wealthy like unbelievably safe part of the world

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right it’s like we need that or else I think we do go soft right or or we our self-esteem goes in the [ __ ] right

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and like we don’t know who we are and I think a lot of guys get lost um when they seek Comfort all the time you know

27:16

I think we we need to we need to feel like we’re still dangerous sometimes you know or we need to feel like we still

27:21

got it you know it’s kind of like the the midlife crisis is maybe like the acting out of that idea of being like do

27:27

I still have it am I still man am I still tough am I still cool uh and I try to help my guys like find ways that they

27:32

can reinforce that about themselves without needing to you know go buy a car that’s too expensive and leave their

27:38

wife and you know start a cocaine habit right like we’re trying to avoid that one yeah yeah I mean one of the things I

27:46

love doing is just going out into the Wilderness with no technology and doing the simple things like you go out and

27:52

collect your own firewood start a fire in the snow uh do it all off grid you

27:59

can spend a bunch of hours doing basically nothing but feeling like a badass that like man I started a fire

28:06

like I’m cool and no harm was done and no 401ks were drained yeah yeah I mean

28:11

that’s why I love backpacking right because it’s it’s so simple it’s just like walking eating sleeping pooping

28:17

right like that’s it but but yeah everything is so hard because you have no support in doing those things um but

28:24

I think it does like unlock that almost um primitive or primal sense of adventure that I think a lot of guys

28:30

need I mean I would go as far as I think all guys need that sense of adventure in their life to to some extent to feel

28:36

fulfilled yeah absolutely yeah so so I’m curious to kind of go back to our topic of liviing beliefs about self-sabotage

28:44

and maybe impostor syndrome is kind of like a cousin of that but there’s so many ideas and thoughts about

28:49

self-sabotage like whether it’s you know a fear of success or it’s like an inner self-hatred or it’s like you know people

28:57

reaching like a threat threshold and going back to what they know so I’m curious how you would Define self-

29:03

sabotage what you think that that is like but I guess to I guess to guide you a little bit is like I’m thinking about

29:09

things like perhaps addiction Tendencies or people that tend to get into toxic relationships or you know the guy that

29:16

to make it you know I guess racked it down a little bit someone who’s like just hitting their stride at the gym and then all of a sudden finds himself at

29:21

home overe eating not going back you know or the person who like doesn’t put in for the new job promotion even though

29:27

they know they could get you know like those kinds of behaviors I’m curious what you think about those yeah um oh man Mark I could say so

29:35

much about this I’ll start with upper limiting there one of my favorite books is the big leap by gay Hendrick he talks

29:41

about upper limiting that essentially when something good happens we will often do something to counteract it to

29:48

bring us back to homeostasis and the way I think about that is we feel safe in a

29:54

domain that we have Mastery over and that we’re comfortable with which means having more success than you have right

30:00

now is going to be unsafe at a deep subconscious level because you don’t have Mastery over that making more money

30:06

you don’t know what that’s like you don’t you haven’t got it mastered and so your system will try to bring you back

30:12

down oh I’m not going to go for that promotion or I do get the promotion and then well I’m going to start arguing

30:17

with my partner because that will kind of bring things back to what I’m comfortable with what I’m used to um so

30:23

that is the framework that I love to think about self-sabotage in and then why is that why is it that we’re

30:29

uncomfortable with those higher levels of success often it comes back to these core beliefs like I’m not good enough or

30:35

I’m not worthy or I’m not deserving of that um and then it gets fun when once

30:42

we clear out some of the core stuff that’s where the really interesting internal conflict come up so for me the

30:48

fear of success one piece of that was the belief that if I’m successful I’ll be imprisoned by total responsibility

30:54

for everyone and this was cuz I saw my dad as essentially the only bread winner in

31:00

his family and he had to take care of his sister take care of his mom and kind

31:07

of run everything for the whole family unit and my brain said oh okay so it’s

31:13

because he’s successful that he’s so responsible for everyone else in the family and therefore I I was avoiding

31:20

success I was like well I don’t want to make any more money because then that’s so much burden that I’d have to carry so

31:27

it start starts for me in the work that I do it always starts with what are the Core self-limiting Concepts that we’re

31:33

carrying worthiness lovability capability deserving and then once you take care of those if you want to keep

31:40

going if you’re like me and you just you’re like I want to learn this thing to the end degree uh then you focus on

31:46

what are those subtler internal conflicts of what are the perceived

31:52

threats of success the perceived threats of wealth the perceived threats of a healthy relationship and then you

31:58

neutralize those internal conflicts or I guess a better way to put it would be uh integrate those internal conflicts

32:04

because they’re two sides of the same coin and when we can integrate those two then you have a balanced View and you

32:10

come back to being like we said at the end uh at the end of The Journey the guide of like okay cool maybe I will

32:17

have some more responsibility if I’m more successful but I’ll also have more capability to deal with that

32:23

responsibility so it’s a net benefit yeah so let me ask you this

32:29

right like kind of the heart of the matter how do you help your clients overcome these limiting beliefs or like

32:35

you said clear out the core stuff or integrate that like what does that process look like on a very kind of

32:40

practical level yeah yeah good question so the starting point is identifying what you

32:47

want to change it’s what’s the behavior is it procrastination perfectionism something like that imposter syndrome uh

32:54

or is it an emotional pattern anger anxiety stress fear we always diagnose and

33:02

clearly uh capture what’s the actual problem that we’re trying to solve before we go about solving it and then

33:08

once we’ve identified what that is and we’ll use an example so if the person is struggling with procrastination we don’t

33:14

just label it procrastination we say what’s the specific project that you’re working on that you’re putting off and

33:20

now let’s visualize that you push through that blocker do that task submit it send it out for review and then

33:28

notice what are the thoughts and emotions that come up when you imagine doing that and what that will do is give us access to the subconscious content

33:35

that’s blocking them from doing the thing in the first place once we have access to that we’ll find what the belief is maybe it’s the belief mistakes

33:42

and failure are bad maybe it’s the belief that I’m not worthy once we have the belief we’re

33:48

going to go look in our early childhood to find where was this belief installed

33:53

what are the early experiences that the person had that led them to form this conclusion about

34:00

themselves and sometimes it’s not early childhood but usually that’s where we start that’s where you get the biggest

34:06

bang for your buck because so much of our programming is between age two and six yeah yeah so go to those early

34:13

experiences we figure out where was the belief formed and once we find out where

34:19

the belief was formed what we do is we essentially poke holes in the three major

34:24

assumptions the first assumption is that the belief was true as a child it made sense so we have to poke holes in the

34:30

fact that the belief was true and we do that by coming up with other ways to interpret what happened the second

34:35

assumption is that we saw the belief we think that we looked at the world and the belief was out there and we just

34:43

discovered it but actually it was an interpretation in our mind so when we make that distinction uh that’s the second thing

34:49

that we neutralize and then the third thing is that the feelings that we have we think that those are proof that the

34:56

belief was true but the feelings feelings stem from thoughts our thoughts create our

35:01

feelings our feelings create our behaviors we often think it’s the other way around we think our feelings prove

35:07

that the thoughts are true so when we can refute those three things that the belief was true that we saw it and that

35:14

we felt it the brain goes okay huh something’s not quite adding up here I’m

35:20

going to revise the model that I had I’m going to revise the belief that I had um and there’s a couple more steps to the

35:27

process but that’s the basics of how we get in there and rewire that belief and

35:32

it’s very experiential and once it’s rewired it’s gone and so it’s really

35:38

powerful yeah I’m curious if you could walk our listeners through either like a case study or maybe from your own life

35:44

and whatever you kind of have on tap to help illustrate this point like like what is some of the outcomes people can expect for this kind of

35:50

work yeah uh so I finished with a client recently real estate entrepreneur young

35:56

kids and mainly the focus was getting more

36:02

focused the focus was getting more focused less distracted less procrastination but one of the things

36:08

that we worked on was the belief I’m not safe um there was a major trauma in the family at an early age and we worked on

36:16

that trauma and the resulting belief that I’m not safe in the world isn’t safe and what that did was one it made

36:22

it a lot easier to take risks and to make mistakes in the business and make progress so there’s more focus and

36:28

productivity and the other this was an added bonus was it he started sleeping through the night a lot easier he wasn’t

36:35

waking up at 3:00 am. saying oh my gosh uh I forgot that thing on the to-do list

36:41

and I I’m not going to get that done um but instead it was like okay things are okay there’s no survival threat here if

36:48

I forget one task on the list there’s no survival threat here if I didn’t send that email um and so that tends to lead

36:54

to an upward spiral of more safety more relaxation leads to more creativity

37:01

leads to better ideas leads to better execution on projects and then repeat

37:07

the cycle uh and things start to get better quite quickly yeah yeah I found

37:13

similar in my work where it’s like once you untie that one Lynch pin in the knot the whole thing starts to unravel pretty

37:18

fast yeah because I think it also to your point I think it also teaches the brain that it can be flexible and that

37:24

it can be neuroplastic and that these things that we took for granted and we assumed were true could not be and then

37:29

the brain starts to go through this whole like rewriting process of like oh [ __ ] like if that thing wasn’t true what else in my life is not true exactly yeah

37:38

that’s that’s sort of the meta belief that change is difficult and takes a long time sometimes I work on that directly with people because if you make

37:45

That explicit then that process you were just talking about accelerates that it’s like oh yeah okay wait a minute none of

37:51

this was ever true so I can just rewrite it all mhm yeah well that’s a really great story we’re going to move to our

37:56

next commercial break when we come back we’re going to talk to you the listener about ways that you can start taking action now to identify and start working

38:03

through some of your limiting beliefs with Max as your guide so if you’re interested in that hang on in there and we’ll see you on the other

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side

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40:34

welcome back to the show I’m your host Mark and in this seg we talk directly to you the listener so if you’ve been

40:39

listening to this and you’re like oh my God I have so these things I do procrastinate I do self-sabotage I am

40:44

perfectionist what am I going to do about it well Max is here to answer those questions so max where should

40:50

somebody start if they’re interested and starting to understand and breaking through their limiting beliefs yeah uh a good starting place so

40:58

in terms of my work you can go to my website which will be in the show notes coach maximum. comom uh there’s a

41:04

freebie that I give out where someone can do the full process for the belief I’m not good

41:09

enough um so that’s an easy way but in terms of what you can just do on your own would be start to look at what

41:16

patterns of behavior that you have and what are the emotional patterns that repeat themselves and ask yourself

41:23

where’s that coming from what am I believing that’s generating this pattern so if you’re struggling with procrastination just listen what are the

41:29

thoughts in your mind uh become mindful of what is that voice in your heads

41:35

saying is going to happen if you complete this task and that will usually tell you what to work on what beliefs to

41:42

work on if you know the voice might tell you oh people aren’t going to like me or oh I’m going to make a mistake or things

41:47

are going to go poorly um and that will start to point you to those beliefs and

41:53

the home brew version is you then want to look at what early experience ices LED you to forming those beliefs um and

42:01

that can start to help the step-by-step processes uh really will supercharge things working with someone like Mark

42:07

working with someone like me will allow you to go through the targeted sequence that’s going to unlock that

42:13

neuroplasticity um but mindfulness is the first place of noticing what am I

42:18

thinking and believing that’s causing me to do these things um and you can challenge that in real time that can be

42:25

helpful uh what really will make the difference is going deep into what are the roots of the beliefs yeah I I think

42:32

that’s I mean that’s the formula right um I would just add I think especially for the guys out there that maybe are

42:38

more Engineers more mechanically minded or more traditionally masculine like trust the weird thoughts you know so I’m

42:45

I’m training as a psychoanalyst and like it’s all about free association which is basically the process that you are

42:51

outlined right and it’s like yeah the thought is not going to make sense right you might be like oh why do I not want

42:56

to I don’t know submit for that promotion and the thought is like oh because no one will love me you know I

43:02

think as like a mechanically minded person we’re going to be like no that’s stupid like doesn’t make any sense and just dismiss it before we have a chance

43:08

to like investigate the signal you know so I would just say to the guys out there like if it’s weird and if it’s

43:15

emotional and if it doesn’t make sense that’s actually the thing to pay attention to because your brain is

43:20

spitting that up for a reason there is a root there um there’s a great kind of adage in um in AA that I use with my

43:27

clients which is you know if it’s hysterical it’s historical so if you find yourself just having like a crazy

43:32

reaction to something you’re like why do I care this much about you know the way Cindy looked at me you know during my

43:38

workday it’s probably because it’s Tri triggering some historical belief or some historical trauma yeah absolutely I really like

43:45

that yeah so I guess you talked about some of the beliefs that guys tend to um gravitate

43:52

towards and tend to get them stuck I’m wondering and this is you know a lot guys come in and talk about their

43:58

Partners or talk about their children and they say hey now that I’ve learned some of this stuff uh how do I impress

44:04

it onto the people that I love so I’m wondering for you you know maybe father is a good place to start how would you

44:11

how would you have a father teach their kid about this or start to do some of this work to hopefully circumvent the

44:16

process or have them not get stuck in the same trap that that they might have been in yeah that’s a great question

44:24

um the main thing that you can do as a dad is get curious about what are the

44:30

conclusions that your kids are forming as a result of the interactions they’re having so especially if you notice them

44:36

looking sad or angry or frustrated or scared you can ask them you know what

44:41

are you thinking right now what like what does this mean to you and kids are usually more open and emotionally

44:47

available than adults are so they will usually just tell you oh it’s because you don’t love me and instead of arguing

44:53

with them the thing to do is to validate oh wow I it sound it seems like I don’t

44:59

love you I’m so sorry that makes sense that you’re feeling that way once you validate them then encourage them to

45:06

think of other ways of potentially interpreting what’s happening so is it possible that Daddy does love you he’s

45:12

just really busy with work is it possible that he just has a

45:18

different way of sharing love than what you want and he needs to understand better what it is that would really help

45:24

you feel loved and it’s not about contradicting the original conclusion

45:29

it’s not about telling the kid that what they concluded was wrong it’s about giving them other ways of interpreting

45:34

other possibilities because once your brain sees that or your mind sees that there’s other ways to interpret what’s

45:41

happening the black and white of the original conclusion turns to Gray and

45:47

that’s what we really want is that gray of like okay I can be flexible in my thinking um so yeah notice when your

45:53

kids are having some sort of emotion get curious about what’s going on for them validate what’s happening and their

45:59

thoughts and feelings around that and then offer them other ways to think about it without directly contradicting

46:05

the conclusion that they drew yeah I like that a lot and I think that’s a great way like you said start to like train and teach the kid what’s going on

46:12

right and how to like be more flexible and and really I mean our topic just keeps going back to this like black and

46:18

white thinking and hero and villain mindset and like good and bad right and wrong and I just see that as one of the

46:25

most toxic things I think in m masculine culture I mean we so much of our battles and conflicts are on who’s right you

46:30

know who’s Superior or who’s better and like once you open it up to the gray a lot of that stuff just Fades

46:37

away yeah yeah well I mean the gray is such a sign of maturity yeah because

46:42

maturity requires us to be able to hold a bunch of different perspectives simultaneously and maturity comes with

46:48

it a lot of uncertainty a lot of unknown a lot of humbleness of oh I really don’t

46:54

have the answers I don’t have control over this and to feel at peace with a

46:59

lack of control requires trusting yourself and requires trusting the universe or whatever higher power you

47:05

believe in um and that that’s all a part of developing maturity and integrating

47:11

yourself and integrating your world so that you can be more flexible yeah yeah so to talk more about

47:17

the future I’m curious Max like what’s next for you whether as a man or in your

47:23

business or a new Venture like like what’s on the horizon what would you like to do out there in the world yeah

47:29

uh I mean what I’m most excited about right now is the processes the modalities and techniques that I use

47:34

with my clients are very structured very step by step and so I’ve started training and artificial intelligence on

47:41

those steps and have a prototype of that built on that can lead people through

47:46

these processes on their own and that is really exciting because one it’ll scale and a lot of people need this and

47:52

there’s only one of me and there’s only one Mark um and there are other people out there that that do this kind of work

47:57

but not as many as I think we could use on the planet so I’m excited about that AI that technology um and it takes away

48:06

the self-consciousness if I’m just talking to a computer I’m G to be really honest

48:12

about like oh here are my shortcoming and my flaws because you’re a computer you’re not going to judge me whereas I think a lot of people when they start

48:18

the journey they’re afraid that their therapist or their coach is going to judge them and so anything we can do to make it easier for a person to open up

48:24

and just be like okay there’s no there no threat here um so that’s exciting and it kind of gets me back into engineering

48:31

which I haven’t done in past four years and so kind of you know flexing that muscle yeah I I I love that and I’m like

48:37

I’m a big fan of AI and therapy you know like I I think it it can be threatened to a lot of therapists and I’m happy

48:42

that you don’t feel that way right like I think a lot of coaches and therapists are like oh they can’t take our job like

48:48

our job is so human like blah blah blah right and I I just see that as insecurity whereas I love your framework

48:53

of hey how do we integrate it and how do we use it as a tool and kind of get ahead head of that because I I do think

48:59

it’s going to like it’s going to cut out the middle right it’s going to cut out like kind of everyone that’s below 50%

49:05

because the AI should be about 50% of a therapist you know should be about half as good as most of us uh so I think it

49:12

does create also some really good evolutionary pressure for the industry yeah yeah I think that’s true

49:21

yeah how about with uh with Rocky Mountain right where do you envision that project going

49:27

yeah this is our third year running a young men’s right of passage our fourth year running programming um the weekend

49:35

is June 19th through the 23rd for men this year so if there’s any man listening that’s curious uh that website

49:41

will also be in the show not it’s Rocky mountains.com I’m I’m open to seeing what happens

49:47

every year during the weekend I get a lot more clarity on what wants to happen next the leadup the months like right

49:54

now I’m in the middle of planning and producing and it’s just Logistics and enrollment and all of the you know

50:01

nitty-gritty of running a nonprofit and then during that weekend during that container everybody just gets ripped to

50:08

shreds and rebuilt and so I’m trusting that when that happens it’ll be clear to me that okay this is what’s next um but

50:17

the main goal is for it to spread and so we have a bunch of guys that drive in from Kansas every year and they’re

50:24

planning to run an event in their hometown uh coming up next year so

50:29

that’s that’s what I have on the horizon is getting to Mentor those guys and teach them how to run this event that

50:34

I’ve been running for the past three years and spread the work um because it’s a lot to start from scratch and if

50:41

we can replicate the model that we have and share it then people can get a a leg

50:47

up yeah yeah I want to talk to you more about that right because I I I wonder right if you had whatever president of

50:53

America right and you could like Institute mandatory iation for boys what

50:58

would that look like or or or what would that do what would that look like I mean I

51:05

would probably start with just the Wilderness component and then for the

51:11

the young men for the teenagers that love that they come back and maybe in that Wilderness component we do a little

51:17

bit of the emotional intelligence piece because I think young people are more quick to open up to it because they

51:23

their role models are different than the ones that we had 30 years ago um start there just get more people

51:30

outdoors and then the next level and frame it as a challenge like are you up

51:35

for it are you up for this new adventure and it’s going to be harder and it’s going to be cooler and we’re going to go deeper into the woods uh and I mean

51:44

something that comes to me right now that would be really cool is if it was the same weekend in all parts of the

51:49

country and then the rest of society would notice a difference if every young

51:55

man in the country went into the woods into the mountains on the same

52:00

weekend that would make a profound uh statement that people would notice

52:05

they’d be like oh things are different and when they come back they tend to be fired up and they tend to be open and

52:13

softened that like okay I’m not going to be the Brady teenager anymore I’m going to be an empowered young person who’s

52:19

starting to become a man uh I’m going to take out the trash I’m going to clean my room not because Mom says so but because

52:27

like I want to be a strong person um and that difference from before and after

52:33

can be really Stark for some of the young men and it would be so cool if every household in America experienced

52:38

that on the same day I think that’s really cool and I think of like yeah more indigenous or traditional cultures

52:44

were like they basically had that right I mean there would be like a village initiation where all the boys of a certain age would just go out and do it

52:51

and then they’d all come back and it would be a different village in some ways right when they returned mhm yeah and everybody would

52:58

treat them differently yeah and that’s that’s a critical component is that if you go and have a a profound experience

53:04

at any age whether it’s teenage or adult if you have a profound experience and you come back and your community treats

53:10

you as if you’re the same there’s a cognitive different dissonance you’re like I’m different I’m new I’m better

53:17

but why is nobody reflecting that to me so it’s really important that the community reflects like yeah you’ve

53:22

grown you’re stepping into a new chapter of Life 100% yeah so yeah that integration piece is critical

53:28

we do have to wrap up here but it’s been a great conversation I’d love to have you back on I think to dig into more of this like you know ritualization of of

53:36

life right or or how does community and integration really work in the modern era I think that’d be a great topic but

53:41

for now we have to say goodbye So Max uh where can people find you online if they want to work with you or get to know

53:47

more of your stuff yeah the main place is coach maxim.com you can also find me

53:52

on Instagram coach maximum those are the two primary marone’s Instagram uh building that page

53:58

up just giving bite-sized nuggets to people so follow follow that page and you’ll get more details on the things

54:04

that we talked about today fantastic well thank you all for tuning in Max thanks for coming on the show and if you

54:11

like what he has to say please like and share this podcast and to somebody who needs to hear this U there’s someone

54:16

that’s stuck in some of these limiting beliefs you know someone that’s procrastinating or self-sabotaging or as a perfectionist and just needs a shakeup

54:23

and to know that there can be something different coach Max is the way to go so all that stuff will be in the show notes

54:30

uh like share subscribe do all this stuff Max again thank you so much for being on the show yeah thanks for having

54:35

me Mark it’s been great and thanks listeners we will see you next week on another episode of the men’s therapy

54:55

podcast