WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.520 anxiety, or happiness, and depression, or being a bad husband, or being 2 00:00:07.520 --> 00:00:12.720 money-focused, or whatever the thing is that you claim to have a problem with. 3 00:00:13.760 --> 00:00:17.280 I'm going to give you really the only mental framework that has ever worked for me. 4 00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:20.800 Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more 5 00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:24.000 processing, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned 6 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:30.560 along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. In this video, I'm going to be talking to you about 7 00:00:30.560 --> 00:00:36.640 how to fix the character traits and deficiencies that you have in your life. So whether it be 8 00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:45.280 struggling with anxiety, or happiness, and depression, or being a bad husband, or being 9 00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:50.400 money-focused, or whatever the thing is that you claim to have a problem with. 10 00:00:51.440 --> 00:00:55.280 I'm going to give you really the only mental framework that has ever worked for me. 11 00:00:55.280 --> 00:00:59.600 All right, and so if you're new to the channel, my name's Alex Ramose. I'm an acquisition.com 12 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:03.360 to portfolio companies. This is about $5 million a year, and I have nothing to sell you. 13 00:01:03.360 --> 00:01:08.000 I make these videos because, can't believe I enjoy sharing some of the things that have helped us 14 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.040 kind of get through things as we've grown our companies, and there are a lot of people who are 15 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:14.400 broken. I don't want to be one of them. And so I'm going to probably piss a lot of people off 16 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:17.760 in this video. So I'm going to give you a heads up. Second thing is I will be cussing in this video. 17 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:21.520 So if you have kids around, I would say muted or listened to it another time. 18 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:27.840 Beyond that, let's dive in. So I was talking to an entrepreneur the other day, and they were saying 19 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:32.560 that they were having panic attacks, right? And they were struggling with this issue. And what I 20 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.680 want to do is walk you through the process that I was explaining to them. Now at this point, 21 00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:44.480 the reason the panic attacks started for this entrepreneur ironically is that they were talking 22 00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:50.640 to a therapist, and the therapist was like, let's look at your past and dug up crap about their past, 23 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:55.040 and then they started looking at this thing, and then they started getting anxiety kind of remembering 24 00:01:55.040 --> 00:02:01.200 all these kind of past experiences and whatnot. Now here's the thing. Most therapists, and I say 25 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:07.920 this with zero degree, but I think most people, most therapists are humans, and most humans suck at 26 00:02:07.920 --> 00:02:12.000 most things, especially things they think they're good at. And so most of them are just normal people 27 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:16.720 who did okay in school and now just like talking to people and don't have any fucking clue what 28 00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:23.120 they're doing. Alright, so here's the video. Here's the hot take. What most of them will do is they 29 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:28.000 will try and pull something up and say something to the extent of what do you make that mean? 30 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:33.600 What does that mean to you? Right? And the thought process behind this is, hey, you have this 31 00:02:33.600 --> 00:02:39.360 thing. It's triggering a feeling because you think that having anxiety makes you a bad person, 32 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:44.960 or makes you a bad entrepreneur, or whatever thing that you say it has meaning. Right? What do we 33 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:48.560 make this mean? Alright, that's the question. What are you making this mean? Alright, so if you have 34 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:53.760 problems, and this is especially important with cyclical behavior, or reinforcing behavior, 35 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:59.120 this is also one of the reasons that I actually do not stand for the whole AA concept of standing 36 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:04.400 up in front of people every morning and say, hi, everybody, I am an addict. I fucking hate it. 37 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:09.840 It's literally like owning this deficiency and incorporating it and weaving it to your 38 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:13.920 construct and your identity and you reinforce it every fucking morning. It's insanity to me. 39 00:03:14.480 --> 00:03:19.440 The way to stop being addicted to something is to stop thinking about it. Like, what does it look 40 00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:25.200 like to not be addicted? Right? It looks like you just continuing to live your life not even thinking 41 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:30.480 about it. What does it look like to not have anxiety? It's not you doing your anti-exity routine 42 00:03:30.480 --> 00:03:34.720 in the morning and saying, I suffer from anxiety or I struggle with anxiety. It's not saying that 43 00:03:34.720 --> 00:03:39.920 and saying, I have to do these things. I must, I should, I need to in order to not have anxiety 44 00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:45.440 because then you're thinking about anxiety. You give anxiety power. And so what I'm going to walk 45 00:03:45.440 --> 00:03:52.240 you through is the way to hold the space and own the power that you have in your own mind 46 00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:57.840 outside of the thing that you were projecting the power onto. All right? So the process that these 47 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:02.240 therapists that are fucking retards will do is they will lead you through this thing where they 48 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:07.520 try and transform meaning. They say, instead of saying, it means you're a bad person. What if we 49 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:13.280 just said, this is, you know, it's a good thing or it's not a bad thing, right? So we try and 50 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:19.520 transform meaning. And I think that's like level one elementary, you know, grade school of 51 00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:24.000 cognitive behavioral therapy, right? I think that's grade school, right? But the thing is, and this 52 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.280 is the problem because I've gone through the cycle, which is why I'm speaking about this so 53 00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:32.080 passionately. All right? And I'll tell you a quick story before I dive in. So there was a period 54 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:37.280 of time in my life where I was very unhappy. All right? And so I obsessed about happiness, 55 00:04:37.280 --> 00:04:41.760 right? I read all the positive psychology journals. I read the books. I read the happiness equation. 56 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:46.640 You know, me like, I went through all of these things. And yet, after spending all of this time 57 00:04:46.640 --> 00:04:52.800 trying to obsess about happiness, I was no less, no more happy, right? And so then I thought to myself, 58 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:57.040 well, in one instance, I can spend lots of time and effort and be unhappy where I can spend zero 59 00:04:57.040 --> 00:05:03.520 time and effort and be unhappy. Well, this one cost me less. I might as well start pursuing this. 60 00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:07.520 And this is what happened. I adopted this mentality. And I will share it with you called 61 00:05:07.520 --> 00:05:13.360 fuck happiness. All right? Bear with me. And so what ended up happening is that I thought these 62 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:18.320 thoughts and and whatever the idea of is this making me happy and all of these normal trigger 63 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:23.280 thoughts and be like, oh, I'm not happy. This isn't good. I feel sad. I would literally have this 64 00:05:23.280 --> 00:05:27.360 trunk card that I would just pop in my head and be like, fuck happiness. And I keep moving. 65 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:35.680 Right? And so the difference between fuck happiness and let's think about how we should be grateful 66 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:41.040 for things is that when you say fuck happiness or fuck the thing that you are struggling with, 67 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:46.480 fucking anxiety, fuck whatever, is that it no longer has power because we're not trying to 68 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:52.960 transform the meaning of the behavior we're eliminating the meaning behind it all together. 69 00:05:53.520 --> 00:06:00.880 We're transforming it into nothing, into meaningless. All right? And so hear me out for a second. 70 00:06:00.880 --> 00:06:04.480 And I don't know why this is getting all all-spacey and weird. I've tried to fix this thing a hundred 71 00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:12.320 times. Anyway, so the reason this is so important is that when you enter these vicious reinforcing 72 00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:16.400 cycles. So let's say it's like, oh, God, I'm afraid I'm going to have a panic attack tonight. 73 00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:19.520 I don't want to have a panic attack. You start thinking about having a panic attack. And then, 74 00:06:19.520 --> 00:06:25.360 of course, you have a panic attack, right? Because the fear of the thing is what reinforces the 75 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:29.360 cycle. And you can do this with anything, right? It could be it could be a guy with a reptile 76 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:33.200 dysfunction. Like, I hope it doesn't happen. I hope it doesn't happen. And then it happens, 77 00:06:33.200 --> 00:06:37.280 right? Because you're worried about it happening, not because the happening itself is the thing, 78 00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:42.560 right? And I'm trying to use examples that purposefully people derive shame from, right? Because 79 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:49.760 the thing is that the shame of the occurrence is the thing that gives it power. And so if you remove 80 00:06:49.760 --> 00:06:54.800 the shame, and by the way, the way to remove shame is to shed light on it. So nothing can give you 81 00:06:54.800 --> 00:07:02.480 shame if you admit it openly. Think about it. If everyone knows the thing and you accept the 82 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:09.360 thing or deemed the thing meaningless, they didn't no longer has power for review. So let me give 83 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:14.240 you an example. So the such wonder that I was talking about earlier, they were telling me 84 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:18.560 that they're having, you know, they're having anxiety attacks and it was preventing them from 85 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:24.960 sleeping, etc. Right? And I was like, so they're like, well, you know, I'm really working on it. 86 00:07:24.960 --> 00:07:29.920 And I was like, why? And they're like looked at me cross-eyed. And I was like, how long have you 87 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:34.480 been working this? You know, like, you know, eight months. And I was like, are you less anxious 88 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:37.680 than you were before? They're like, well, I think a little bit. And I was like, do you think you 89 00:07:37.680 --> 00:07:40.960 would be a little bit less anxious if you just did jack shit and waited eight months from when you 90 00:07:40.960 --> 00:07:44.880 went from when you were bad until now? They're like, well, maybe. I was like, time does see a 91 00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:49.680 lots of wounds. I was like, so you set spent all this time to get this little outcome. And you could 92 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:54.960 have just let time happen and probably had the same outcome, right? Right? I was like, but let's 93 00:07:54.960 --> 00:07:59.360 take it one step further. Why didn't you tell me how many bowel movements you had yesterday? 94 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:05.120 I mean, I didn't think it was relevant. Exactly. So why are you sharing with me that you have 95 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:12.480 panic attacks? Because you think it's meaningful. You derive meaning. Your brain is telling you that 96 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:19.120 this is something that is a problem. So the thing is, is that the deeming of the thing a problem 97 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:26.480 is the problem. And trying to change it or transform the meaning into something else is, in my 98 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:33.600 opinion, just as bad, because the way that you created the mess that you are in in a vicious cycle 99 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:38.640 of reinforcement is that you found a thing. And then you said, I will give this meaning. And then 100 00:08:38.640 --> 00:08:43.360 you spent the rest of your time trying to transform the meaning. When if you want to solve the problem, 101 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:47.360 the experience of having the problem solved is to not think about the problem at all. 102 00:08:47.360 --> 00:08:54.400 And so what it is is actually reversing the process that created meaning to begin with, which is 103 00:08:54.400 --> 00:09:00.720 removing meaning altogether. Real quick guys, you guys already know that I don't run any ads on 104 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:04.800 this and I don't sell anything. And so the only ask that I can ever have are you guys that you 105 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:08.800 help me spread the words we can out more entrepreneurs, make more money, feed their families, 106 00:09:08.800 --> 00:09:13.200 make better products, and have better experiences for their employees and customers. And the only 107 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:18.240 way we do that is if you can rate and review and share this podcast. So the single thing that I 108 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:21.760 asked you to do is you can just leave a review, take 10 seconds or one type of the thumb, 109 00:09:21.760 --> 00:09:25.600 it would mean the absolute world to me, and more importantly, it may change the world for someone else. 110 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:32.000 I'm saying this because I've had so many things that I've struggled with in my life that I 111 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:35.760 would consistently obsess about over and over and over and over and I don't want to have that 112 00:09:35.760 --> 00:09:39.120 happening again. I don't want to have that happening again. And then it would happen, right? 113 00:09:39.920 --> 00:09:47.760 And so in my opinion, the only way to overcome these issues is to you can you can slap the 114 00:09:47.760 --> 00:09:53.840 fuck happiness concept on it but is to destroy the meaning of the thing itself and let it shrink 115 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:59.520 into a relevance. Most of my opinion, most of the psychological problems that we deal with 116 00:10:00.640 --> 00:10:07.920 are better dealt with, not by trying to directly combat them but by not giving them the power of 117 00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:12.640 our attention. And there's a big difference here. I'm not saying the thought of anxiety comes up, 118 00:10:12.640 --> 00:10:16.560 you say, oh, I don't want to think about it because then it's fear. Fear gives it power, 119 00:10:17.280 --> 00:10:23.200 shame gives it power. It's not that. It's looking at it and saying, why are you bringing this up? This 120 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:28.800 is a problem. This is a non-issue. And so for the same reason that you can have noise in the 121 00:10:28.800 --> 00:10:34.000 background and you don't think about it is that it's just noise. And so what we do is we shrink 122 00:10:34.560 --> 00:10:40.400 the thing from being a signal that our brain deems meaningful to noise that is in the background 123 00:10:40.400 --> 00:10:45.440 that we no longer ascribe meaning to altogether. And that is how it eventually shrinks 124 00:10:46.160 --> 00:10:50.480 into a relevance and then we only choose to allocate our attention towards the thing that we find 125 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:56.400 meaningful, right? And so what happened in my little fuck happiness story is that I said, 126 00:10:56.400 --> 00:11:01.200 this is no longer a productive conversation. I'd be like, I'm unhappy, I'm like fuck happiness, 127 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:06.160 whatever, I'm going to keep moving. And a funny thing happened. A few years later I looked up and 128 00:11:06.160 --> 00:11:11.440 I realized that I was significantly more happy than I was before. Or as I prefer to say, I was 129 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:17.920 significantly less unhappy, which also gives less power to the thing altogether, right? Now, 130 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:22.960 a different point that I want to bring up because I think it's equally important around this topic 131 00:11:23.680 --> 00:11:30.560 is that a lot of this is a lot of the fear and the shame comes from perceived judgment that we have 132 00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:37.200 from an anonymous outside society, right? We have a voice or a series of voices that we believe 133 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:42.400 exist, that only exist in our mind, that are judging us based on this behavior that we are suffering 134 00:11:42.400 --> 00:11:52.240 from, right? One of the reasons that I like to own the deficiencies publicly is not because of you 135 00:11:52.240 --> 00:12:00.240 guys, it's for me. I own, like for example, when we were running and growing our first big 136 00:12:00.240 --> 00:12:04.000 business, which was the licensing business, I was always up front. I said, I'm here to make money. 137 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:11.600 And the reason I said that was so that I would have no shame in making money because then if 138 00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:17.040 people in the future, we're going to say something like, Alex is only here to make money. I would 139 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:25.040 then look at them and say, and so here, here me out, listen to this dialogue. Let's say I was attacked 140 00:12:25.040 --> 00:12:29.520 because the attacks that I'm saying I'm going to portray as though it's outside, but it's inside of 141 00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:35.680 our minds that we attack ourselves, right? So let's say somebody comes up to me, a woman and says, 142 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:42.640 you're a terrible husband, right? Most people say that there are two forms of defense against this. 143 00:12:42.640 --> 00:12:46.800 Number one is saying, no, no, no, I'm not a bad, bad husband, right? And then giving all the 144 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:52.560 reasons why I'm a good husband, right? The other way to defending against that would be to say, well, 145 00:12:52.560 --> 00:12:57.920 you know, being a husband is not necessarily such a bad thing, right? And so one is to dispute, 146 00:12:57.920 --> 00:13:03.040 the other is to alter, right? We're altering the meaning behind the thing, the first is we're combating 147 00:13:03.040 --> 00:13:07.280 and we're saying that we're not the thing, but still allowing the thing to have meaning, 148 00:13:07.280 --> 00:13:12.240 allowing a bad husband to be a negative connotation that we ascribe meaning to. I think this is 149 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:17.200 meaningful and it's negative, but meaningful. And so I will say I am not that thing. Or, 150 00:13:17.920 --> 00:13:23.440 version two is this thing is meaningful, but I understand it in interpretively, right? 151 00:13:23.520 --> 00:13:28.240 Those are the two ways. The second way is how most therapy works. And I also think that it's 152 00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:33.840 bullshit. And so here's door number three is that you look at the thing in the face and you say, 153 00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:49.360 and I think you're a bad husband and you're up and watch them shrivel. They will be paralyzed 154 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:55.280 because everything that they have exists to have a counter force. But if there is no counter force 155 00:13:55.280 --> 00:14:03.040 for it to react to, the thought process stops. And so if you struggle with these vicious recurring, 156 00:14:03.040 --> 00:14:09.200 consistent dialogues and arguments in your head about what's good and why should change and why 157 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:15.920 you need to be different and why this shouldn't be this way, just look at it in the eyes and say, 158 00:14:15.920 --> 00:14:21.200 and I'm going to give you a really controversial example of what I think should have happened in a 159 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:29.040 public scenario. Tiger Woods, he was out in, you know what I mean or asked it or whatever it is, 160 00:14:29.040 --> 00:14:35.360 you know what I mean, he was publicly shamed for the cheating thing, right? And mind you, 161 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:40.640 this is not me condoning cheating. This is me to illustrate a position of power. And this is 162 00:14:40.640 --> 00:14:47.280 a public demonstration of power, but you can take it in terms of how you can internally project that 163 00:14:47.280 --> 00:14:52.640 power onto the idea that you want to vanquish, all right? And we don't vanquish it by transforming it, 164 00:14:52.640 --> 00:14:57.120 we vanquish it by eliminating the meaning altogether and letting it shrink into irrelevance. 165 00:14:57.760 --> 00:15:01.840 So what Tiger in my opinion should have done in that situation when they said, you banged all 166 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:07.360 these barrels and you were lying and blah blah blah, he should have said, yes, I'm a wife and a 167 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:17.520 cheater, but I'm the best fucking golfer there is. Next question. What do they say when you accept it, 168 00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:24.320 there is no conversation. And so try this in the next argument you have with someone, 169 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:28.800 A, but more importantly with yourself is that someone says, I think your x, y and z and you're 170 00:15:28.800 --> 00:15:34.800 said, you're right. Just give the power, just just say, sure, you're right. Now what? 171 00:15:36.640 --> 00:15:46.880 And so your point, when your brain tells you something that you don't like or that you don't want 172 00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:57.680 to look at, instead of trying to make it into something else, liking it to an irrelevant observation. 173 00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:01.840 Brain, why didn't you bring up that I've ground here? Because it doesn't matter. 174 00:16:02.800 --> 00:16:06.080 Brain, why didn't you bring up how many bomb wounds I'd yesterday? This doesn't matter. 175 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:11.680 Brain, why didn't you say, tell me how many, how many stairs I wound up yesterday? 176 00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:17.760 Because it doesn't matter. You don't find it meaningful. And so why am I now deemed this thing 177 00:16:17.760 --> 00:16:25.760 to be meaningful? It's irrelevant to me. It's, it, it helps the conversation and it stops the cycle. 178 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:31.680 I say this, and I know that I got passionate about this, but I say this to someone who struggled with 179 00:16:31.680 --> 00:16:37.520 this for a very long time. And so the only psychotherapy that I was able to do was on myself, 180 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:41.920 and it was not through talking out all of these things. And I know that a lot of people are 181 00:16:41.920 --> 00:16:45.280 getting triggered, a lot of people are going to say, hey, I have a therapist, they change my life. 182 00:16:45.280 --> 00:16:50.480 Good for you. That's awesome. Keep doing it. I don't care. What I'm doing is I'm trying to talk 183 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:54.240 to the people who have not had that or have done that and it, and it did not work for them. 184 00:16:54.400 --> 00:16:59.600 Right. And so I'm sharing the single most powerful mental model that has worked for me, 185 00:16:59.600 --> 00:17:05.200 which is purposefully staring at the problem and saying, so what? 186 00:17:07.520 --> 00:17:15.760 Your move. And watch it struggle. And then moving on the fuck with your life. So anyways, 187 00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:21.600 I love you all. Mousy Nation. Appreciate you. Thank you for giving me the attention that you did today. 188 00:17:21.600 --> 00:17:28.640 I make these videos because I just, I hope that some of the lessons that have served me 189 00:17:29.280 --> 00:17:32.480 conserved some other people at least. And if you're in a darker place or you're struggling with 190 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:36.800 something like anxiety or struggling with shame around some sort of activity that you have done, 191 00:17:37.360 --> 00:17:41.840 I can tell you the only way to struggle to deal with shame is to shed light on it. 192 00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:49.120 Shade shame only exists in darkness. And the only way something has power is when we fight it. 193 00:17:50.080 --> 00:17:57.280 Because we deem it meaningful or worth combating. And so I think the only way to truly fight it 194 00:17:57.280 --> 00:18:02.880 is to not fight it at all and say it is not a fight worth having. And then it will evaporate. 195 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:16.160 And so anyways, my friends, keeping awesome, lots of love. I'll see you guys in the back.