Ep. 108 MindShifting for Success: How to Escape Survival Mode and Unlock Your True Potential 🚀

Are you feeling stuck in survival mode? Working hard but not moving forward as quickly as you’d like? In this episode, discover practical tools and proven strategies to break free, shift your mindset, and step fully into your power.

My guest is Mitchell Weisburgh, a lifelong entrepreneur, leader, and author of "MindShifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success". Mitch has spent decades building companies, nonprofits, and educational initiatives. Now, he’s helping people of any age shift their mindset and unlock their full potential for growth and success.

Mitch explains how our limbic brain often traps us in fear-based, habitual behaviors that sabotage progress. Through MindShifting, he teaches practical ways to:
• Recognize and manage survival-mode thinking 🧠
• Reframe challenges into opportunities 💡
• Embrace resilience, resourcefulness, and collaboration 🚀

Together, Mitch and I also explore the importance of authentic living and personal power. I share my own journey of transforming pain into strength, and Mitch reminds us that when we own who we truly are, opportunities continually open up. 

Whether you’re a Millennial navigating career growth, a Gen Z professional trying to build confidence, or an experienced leader ready to expand your potential, this episode gives you the tools to rise above fear, shift your thinking, and create the success you want!
 
🔑 3 Action Steps You’ll Take Away:
1.Catch Yourself in Survival Mode — Learn to spot limbic brain reactions that keep you stuck.
2.Shift into Resourceful Thinking — Use self-awareness through proven strategies to move forward.
3.Own Your Authentic Power — Stop trying to be someone else and grow from who you are.

🎙️ Break free from survival mode—listen now to shift your mindset and step into your authentic power!

#MindShifting #SuccessMindset #UnlockYourPotential

Connect with Mitch:
https://www.mindshiftingwithmitch.com

Connect with Vonne:
https://vonnesolis.com

Subscribe to the podcast! Share your favourite episodes! Connect with Vonne on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Transcript

Vonne Solis  0:00  
This is the Grief Talk podcast with Vonne Solis, helping you heal after loss and life's hardest hits.

Vonne Solis  0:06  
My guest today is Mitchell Weisburgh. From 1981 through 2000, Mitch founded and ran Personal Computer Learning Centers of America, training adults in the use of computers and growing the company to over 130 employees. In 2005, he co-founded Academic Business Advisors to help organizations reach and aid more students in US schools, and started non-profit organizations in education, such as Games for Ed and EdChat Interactive. Mitch's book MindShifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success focuses on techniques to help change people's mindsets that hold them back and instead, propel them forward to live happy, productive lives. Since 2018 Mitch has been teaching his mind shifting concepts that focus on resilience, resourcefulness and collaboration in the face of any adversity, and I am grateful to welcome him to my show. 

Vonne Solis  1:03  
Welcome audience today to Mitch Weisburgh. Mitch, pop in and say hi to my audience.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:10  
Hello, everybody and Vonne, thank you for having me on the Grief Talk podcast.

Vonne Solis  1:15  
You are very welcome. So for my audience, some of you might be wondering why I would have a thought leader and mindshift coach come on the Grief Talk podcast. It's very appropriate. And Mitch, I watched a couple of your podcast interviews on YouTube, and so I got a really good sense, did a little bit of research about what you do, and so got a very good sense of the kind of work in mind shifting that you're doing. And I can honestly say, I think it's really, really critical, actually, when we're you know, some of the stuff we're going to talk about today. So no matter if you're bereaved, bereaved. No matter if you're in a horrible, challenging situation, adversity, just stuck in your life. I think all of these concepts that you work with Mitch, that we're going to get into in one minute, are so powerful, and then you have tons of resources, which we're also going to talk about.

Vonne Solis  2:06  
So for the audience, to get you to stick around if you want, and also go to chapters that are of special interest to you, we are going to be starting with Mitch's start in this business. We're going to be talking about brain function and survival strategies. We're going to be talking about resolving conflict, resilience and learning the skills to cope with situations. One of my favorites, our culture of lies. Oh, man. And then we're going to be, you know, rounding this out with support, but in in the sense of collaboration, collaboration that you talk about, Mitch. And I added here a note to myself. You know, it's support and community, but to feel like to embrace it, rather than feel threatened by it. Because often, in our culture, when we look to other people for help or support, where you're starting a business. Whether, whatever you're doing, we have a tendency, especially in survival brain, to look at them as better than us. A threat to us, etc. And then we become, we become very, very hard on ourselves.

Vonne Solis  3:09  
So Mitch, let's dive in. And I'm going to start this off. I'm going to ask you to, for our folks, I saw how you got into this when you were talking about prepping. And I don't know if you want to share that here, but prepping a major sort of course. I think it was five days or something, no, two days, and you had five months, right? And that kind of, if that was your moment, where you went, Hey, this could be something. I'd love for you to share a little bit about that with my audience. But I also want to read your mission statement. And you say that 5 million people have the abilities to be resourceful, resilient and collaborative. And your goal is to certainly help as many of those as possible. I don't know where you got your 5 million number from, if you could tell me about that. But anyway, audience, that is what Mitch's goal is, is to get you out of stuck mentality and thinking and propel you into the life that you really want. So let's start Mitch, and you tell us how this all started for you.

Mitch Weisburgh  4:15  
Yeah, I could. Let me talk about the 5 million, I guess first, okay, because those were two really interesting points that you brought up. So so, you know, I we all look around and we see so many people who are unhappy with their lives. We see this divisiveness. We see major issues that we face in communities, in the nation, in society, in the world, and we're not making any progress towards them. And so through the studies, and I'll go, go through, you know, how I got here, through the studies that I've, I've done, and none of these ideas are mine. You know, if we could get some critical mass of people - there's eight, what, 8 billion people on the planet? If we can get a critical mass of people to be able to be resourceful, so that even when they get stuck, to be able to say, you know something, I realize I'm stuck, but I have a resourcefulness to be able to tap into my own resourcefulness. If we could get those 5 million people also to be resilient. To be able to look at situations and not regard events as success or failure, but as feedback, so that they know they can come up with things of what to do next by themselves and with others and collaborative, so that even when people disagree with them or get in their way or compete with them or try to hurt them, or they just don't like those other people, that they find ways to move forward. So if you can just imagine that if we got a critical mass of people who could be resourceful, resilient and collaborative, then we could change the whole world.

Mitch Weisburgh  5:50  
Now, what's a critical mass - and 5 million people is it's somewhat of an arbitrary number, but one of the things that I've I latched on to is that there's a, I forget the law. It's but it's somebody's law is that if you want to change a system, you need the square root of the number of people in the system to change it. So if you're in part of an organization, and there's, you know, 50 people in the organization. If you can get seven people who are really committed to change, you can change that whole institution. You don't need to start off with everybody. You just need the square root of the number of people. Well, with 8 billion people, it's like a few 100,000 it's the square root of 8 billion people. And that just seemed to be far too small. So I just said, you know something, it's not going to be three 400,000 let's just say we could get 5 million people who could be, who could learn how to mind shift, to be resourceful, resilient and collaborative when they needed to be. Wouldn't that allow them, first of all, to live happier and more productive lives? And wouldn't that change the planet? And so that be, that has become my mission. And that started in really 2018. And and I was doing other things, and slowly, over the course of the next three or four years, I shifted to mind shifting as being my, my total focus.

Vonne Solis  7:14  
 Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  7:15  
And so that's, that's where the 5 million people come from.

Vonne Solis  7:18  
Yeah, yeah. I just want to point out really quickly that any of us that get here to what we're doing, the work we're doing. You know, it doesn't start like in with one decision, and in very short period of time. Our lives, and particularly those of us who are a little older, you know, we're building on our whole life experiences and what, what has guided us to our well, I'm assuming you'd consider this for sure your purpose work, passion and purpose work, and it's it's phenomenal. I do want to just say I agree with you. However many people on that 5 million, 8 million - 400,000 that start to shift?There is a ripple effect because we affect those around us and start to immediately change our environment simply by the energy change. Would you agree with that

Mitch Weisburgh  8:04  
 I, 100% and I and in listening to the way you counsel people and the way you talk about finding your life mission and living with integrity, it that it all fits together, right?

Vonne Solis  8:17  
Yeah, yeah. Well, in my case, unfortunately, I had to lose a child to, you know, bring this to the forefront, but it was a foundation I had from my early 20s, and I was already starting to understand bigger concepts. But I like how you put stuff more into some physical things, like the brain, that, you know, how it it how we react with a brain and our thoughts that are controlling, I think everything we do. And I almost think thoughts come before anything else. But, you know, I had a psychologist actually say that was possibly true, but I don't know if there's proof for what happens, first thoughts or beliefs or whatever. But they all work together and certainly, certainly which we're now going to talk about - your start and how people I want you, if you're tuned into this, to really think about what you're thinking and anything toxic creates more toxicity.

Mitch Weisburgh  9:19  
 Exactly.

Vonne Solis  9:20  
And blocks us. So take it away, Mitch, what? 

Mitch Weisburgh  9:23  
And the toxicity just builds on each other. And yet we have a choice. And if we can be self-aware and realize, Oh my gosh, this is toxicity, I don't have to react this way. Then that, then, as you said, you know, changes the energy, changes the whole vibration.

Vonne Solis  9:42  
 Right.

Mitch Weisburgh  9:43  
And starts moving us in the direction of, you know, positive, positive movement forward.

Vonne Solis  9:50  
I just want to say, I think a key piece that came to me when you just were saying that, is that I don't know if a lot of people are aware of their toxic thoughts.

Mitch Weisburgh  10:00  
No, they don't, because it's, it's, it's like a fish in water, it's like, it's because that's, it just seems to be reality. And it would and it's when you start to understand how the brain works that you realize that these are lies that the brain is giving you to to keep you in a status quo so that you're at lower risk. Theoretically, you're you're you're not threatened because you're staying in the same place. But actually, over time, you really it's just as threatening, or maybe even more threatening, because you never have a chance to move out of it until you become aware that it's happening.

Vonne Solis  10:39  
Oh, oh, I completely know. Okay, because I want to get to all your points. Let me, let me ask you, if you want to sort of summarize what brought you to this work. You did say a key point, that a lot of what you work in, they're not your ideas, necessarily, but they are principles, ideas. They are, you know, things that you've adapted, which is what we do in the world. There is no original thought anymore. So let's like, what was the key thing? Was it actually preparing that course for those students? Or, like, what came out of that?

Mitch Weisburgh  11:09  
So, so it all started, I was working in education and and I had become disillusioned in the sense that I got into education, because education should be a way to take kids and propel them forward so that they can become fully functional adults, and I was doing that through technology. And and it was like, in 15 years, it's like, yes, we have more technology in schools, but are our kids better prepared to be adults? And no, they weren't being better prepared. And at that moment, in 2017, I'd gotten an email from a university in Niger in Africa saying that they would like me as an ed- tech entrepreneur to talk to their undergraduates about education technology. And two things occurred to me. One, education technology in the US is going to be very different from in Niger, which is about the poorest country in the world. And two, what kids really needed was not what we were giving them in education. They needed to understand how to be how to be successful, how to look at situations the way successful people do. So my response back was, you know, I really don't think that an ed-tech entrepreneur is going to benefit your undergraduates, but I could talk to them about how successful people understand situations and then keep moving forward, even when things don't work out. And so they then got back to me and said, Well, could you come out here for a semester, and can you teach this over, you know, as a course? And I'm like, I don't think I, I don't think I'm going to, you know, move to Niger at this point, but I'll tell you what I'll do is I'll teach a two-day workshop for your students. And they said, Can you teach two of them? So it's like, Sure, I can teach two of them. So I agreed that, you know, this is in July, June ish of 2017. I agree that in February of 2018 I would fly to Niamey, Niger, and I would teach these two, two-day workshops to 60 to 70 undergraduates.

Mitch Weisburgh  13:14  
And then it's like, Mitch, you idiot. How are you going to do this? Like you've never done this before. You know, I, you know. And it's not like I hadn't taken classes and and, you know, I, yes, I had, I'd spent some time in neuro-linguistic programming. I had been through the landmark curriculum. I had done a lot of other reading, but it was just like I didn't know how to teach this in terms of a two-day course. So I went on a reading focus, and I read like 11 books in psychology and teaching and selling, neuroscience, cognitive science, military strategy, economics, all different ways of making decisions. And what I could see is that each one of these had their own slice of how you make sense of things and how you should be making decisions and how you should live your life, but nobody really put it together. And so it occurred to me that there were three parts of this. One part being how you can access your most resourceful parts of your brain, no matter what, and even when you're not how you can recover from that. So that was one. And second, was, how do you approach situations? Because we go into situations and we're sure that we have the right answer, or we'll get the right answer, and then anything else is wrong, and then all we have to do is do that, and it's going to solve our problem. And that never works out. You know, net, if if something is reasonably complicated or complex, uh, nothing we do. The first thing that we do is never going to solve the problem, but it's going to give us information. 

Mitch Weisburgh  14:51  
So, so how do we approach situations prepared that the first thing that we're going to we're going to do isn't going to solve the problem, but to give us great information. So kind of preparing to fail and then recover from that. And and then the third part about it was working with other people that there's always going to be other people, and when we try to steamroll them or or reward them or punish them or ignore them, you know, very often it has no effect. Sometimes it has a short-term positive effect, but nothing long-term, and sometimes it just makes situations worse. But from doing the readings, it's like this 50 60, years worth of research about you know, how you can work with people and move forward even when you disagree or you don't you dislike them, or or or they have some power over you.

Mitch Weisburgh  15:38  
So, so I put together this two-day course on those three legs. Flew out to the Niamey in in February of 2018. Taught the two days. And at that point, I call it sensemaking, not MindShifting. And I said, you know, at the end of the two days, it's like, and that's sensemaking. And they stood up and cheered.

Vonne Solis  16:00  
 Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  16:00  
And it was like, Okay, this is how I realized that these are skills that as soon as people get them, they realize what's been missing in their lives. And yet, we're not giving those skills to people to be able to take control over their lives. And so that, you know, so since 2018 I've migrated and and at this point, well, my mission is, is to reach a critical mass so that we're, you know, so we're not stuck anymore. That that people can live happier lives. And once we get the, you know, once we have some critical mass of people, then it's just going to propagate, you know, like, like, the ripples you talked about earlier.

Mitch Weisburgh  16:00  
Yeah. And so I would say, for the audience. So Mitch, you do have your book, if you'd like to tell folks what it's called, and, and also, I see you're publishing a Volume three in November?

Mitch Weisburgh  16:14  
Yes. So, so the first book is "MindShifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success". That came out in November, December of last year. And then I teach three courses, and the second course is on the resilience part of it. But when I was teaching the two courses, the course on conflict last year, and I taught it twice, the reactions from people about, oh my gosh, I had no idea that when I said these things, it was putting people into a fight or flight mode. I had no idea that I myself was going into these fight and flights situations when, when people disagree with me. It was like, you know something? This is the book that has to be written next. So that book should be book three, and when I have everything done, it will make more sense. But book three will be coming out in November this year. November 2025. 

Vonne Solis  16:41  
That's exciting. Let's move next to the resourcefulness. Tapping in to the brain's resourcefulness. I'd like if you could give a more high-level description of brain functioning in survival mode. We are not doctors here. Mitch is not a doctor, nor am I. When we do talk about some of these subjects, we I refer people in trauma and stuff like that. Go to psychiatrists, go to the the professionals, but like you, researching stuff and getting a higher level understanding. I did that in trauma, just for myself, for the brain, because we live in survival mode.

Mitch Weisburgh  16:55  
Yep.

Vonne Solis  17:25  
And I'll be honest, I still live in survival mode a lot of the time, because I want you to explain what you've learned from how the brain, it's very difficult to get out of it, because it's our, our, you know, and, and, and what do they call it an antiquated brain. And it's been this be very hard to get out of it just over millennia. Let's be, be fair, because the brain hasn't really developed that much. That from psychiatrists I got. So most of our brain is reptilian and mammalian. So let's share, if you could share what your understanding is of brain functioning in survival mode, how this impacts our inability to tap into our resourcefulness in dealing with struggle and problem solving.

Mitch Weisburgh  19:15  
So thank you for introducing me that way. I've been in situations where people said, I'm introducing you to Mitch Weisburgh. He's an expert in neuroscience. No, I am not an expert in neuroscience. I'm not a psychologist. You know, I'm just a normal person who's who's had the time and the curiosity to, you know, to read what other people, a lot smarter than me, have put together. It's kind of a simplification, or maybe an oversimplification of the brain, is to talk about it in two different parts. So so the survival brain, which scientists call the limbic system, so that started evolving with the first multi-celled organisms that were capable of movement. And that part of the brain evolved to be able to survive. Because obviously, if the organism died, it wasn't going to reproduce, and, you know, nothing was going to be carried on. So that part of the that, that part of the brain has to be able to take in information really rapidly, come to some decision about what to do, and then focus the entire organism on doing that. And that limbic system, basically, when there's an external stimulus, which could be somebody saying something, or us thinking something, or something happening, you know that part of the brain wakes up in like two one-hundredths of a second, really, really fast. And you can think about, again, an oversimplification of even that limbic system, of having two parts. One part are the things that we can do without having to think, and the other part is the emotions, which is weighing them. So, the emotion part is like, oh my gosh, this could be a threat, or this is a threat, and then what should I do? And then the the, what's called the heuristics, or the things that we could do without thinking. It's like, well, you could do this. No, you could do this, no, eventually Yes. And and in less than a second, that part of the brain generally comes up with something to do. And once it's locked on it, it locks the organism into whatever it is it decides to do, and tends to choose from, really five types of actions.

Mitch Weisburgh  21:29  
And we've, we all know about fight and flight, or fight flight and freeze, okay? You know, fighting against somebody running away, or just freezing like a deer in headlights. And those are really about the first three that that develop in humans. And then a fourth one are things that maybe we've learned, okay or or but that we can do without thinking. So we can walk without thinking. We can have a conversation to somebody when we're walking. We can listen to a podcast. We can drive, for the most part, without thinking. You know, the many of the different ways that we converse with people, like, if I say, How are you? You're going to probably just say fine, without having, you know, you may not be fine, but you'll, you know, you'll say fine. You'll do that without, without thinking. So those are the those are habits that we've, you know, or things that we're fluent in. That's the fourth type. And then the fifth type is doing what the group or the tribe is doing. And we see that not just in humans, but, you know what fish have their schools. Many organisms operate as part of a group, and you know, it's one of the things that has made humans, because it's developed even more from humans, this Apex animal on on the planet, is that, you know, we can, we can see what other people are doing, and we can learn from it. We can pull together as groups. We can build cities, we can build technology and and we're doing that by by by copying the group. And that group has such a hold on us that even if internally, we would never do something, but once become become part of a group, the draw to be part of the group overrides what we would do as individuals, and we and we operate as as part of the group. And and when the limbic brain decides on what to do is it's it's pulling from those five different things and probably coming up with some action in less than a second.

Vonne Solis  23:23  
Yeah, I would say I'm sitting here thinking. So because, to my knowledge, and maybe you can, you know, comment here whether you know about this anything, and I follow quite a bit of work of psychiatrists and psychologists that work in trauma, and they often talk about survival brain. I haven't really heard them refer much to four and five, so your habits and follower mentality. I would think, I think that's important not to skip over here, because, like I said, so I haven't heard that talked about in relation to limbic, limbic system, survival, brain. But I think it's key, because I think that if we even develop a certain amount of awareness, now I'm talking about the person. So, you know, flight, fight, flight, freeze, right? This is definitely trauma-related. But what you're really talking about in the other two parts of the limbic system, I think that's where most people are stuck. In four and five.

Mitch Weisburgh  24:30  
And even fight, flight, freeze. You know, there a lot of that is, is habits also, right? Because, because we've developed this habit that when a certain stimulus comes, we, we, we flee, okay?

Vonne Solis  24:46  
Okay, well, give me an example, Mitch, so audience members might be watching this and going, Yeah, I don't relate to any of that. But if you're saying that the first three, the three Fs are part of habits. So give me just a very basic example, if you could in, say, a work situation. I have a lot of younger people that watch this podcast, and, you know, and the millennial and a little younger, and I would wager a lot of those are still having to work and not very happy at jobs and things like that, not happy where their lives are going. So, their brain in habits are making a snap decision, you know, and not even giving themselves necessarily a chance to think outside the box, to take a risk all of what we're going to talk about in your language. So could you just give me an example so they could think about themselves, Oh yeah. I'm doing this. I'm fighting, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm fighting, I'm fleeing, I'm freezing.

Mitch Weisburgh  25:50  
So when those actions are taken, really from a standpoint of fear, it becomes, you know, your limbic behaviour. As an example, somebody asks you to do something. Like, it could be somebody that you're in a relationship with asks you to do something, and it's and when it when you have the story, like, if I don't do this, this person isn't going to like me, or this person isn't going to respect me. So I better do this. When you when, when, really, if, if you were fully resourceful, you might think of, well, you know, something? Maybe there's something else I could do. Maybe, maybe I need to set boundaries, or that, you know, there's, there's other ways of thinking about it. But when you're doing it, and you're and you're saying, I have to do this, because, you know, if I don't, I lose my job, or if I don't, I might lose my relationship, or this person isn't going to like me. Or, I'm always the one, and you're feeling like, oh, I'm always the one on the doormat. Everybody, I'm always pleasing people. Nobody's ever doing it for me, but I guess I have to do it one more time. Okay? So that's one. Another one is when somebody criticizes us, okay? So, so, you know, they may not phrase it as well as they could have, but when somebody criticizes us, very often, we go into this, they're attacking me, okay? They're saying, I'm not very good. And then, and then we go and attack back.

Vonne Solis  27:13  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  27:14  
When we're when, when we try to help somebody out, and they, they respond in an angry manner, because their, their limbic system is reacted that we're threatening them. And then we, when we respond back to them angry, like, I'm just trying to help, you know, what's, what's, what's the matter with you? Can't you take advice? You know those are, those are all limbic those are all limbic reactions.

Vonne Solis  27:39  
Yeah, I get it now. Okay, I get it. I get it. So interesting. And I'll wager it happens to all of us.

Mitch Weisburgh  27:46  
Oh, can I give one more one more example?

Vonne Solis  27:48  
Yes.

Mitch Weisburgh  27:49  
Okay. And the other example is, and this, this one actually tends to shock people when they first hear about it, but

Vonne Solis  27:56  
Okay.

Mitch Weisburgh  27:56  
The other example is, whenever you are absolutely positive about something? It's almost always a limbic reaction, okay? Because in this world, nothing is ever 100% sure. And so if you're, if you are absolutely sure that, let me take a controversial one. If you are absolutely sure that it's only through gun control that we're going to provide violence, okay?

Vonne Solis  28:23  
Okay.

Mitch Weisburgh  28:24  
That's a limbic reaction. You're not really thinking about it. You know gun control is one of the things that we could do to control violence, but it's not the only thing that we could do. You know, but when you're 100% sure that that's that, that that that's, that's what we need to do, that's a limbic reaction. That doesn't mean that it's wrong, but it just means that it's a limbic reaction. It's not a it's not coming from our prefrontal cortex. It's not coming from our resourceful parts of the brain.

Vonne Solis  28:48  
Okay, I do get it, and I'm thinking that we probably have a limbic reaction to everything. Every moment in our life. Every day, because we're always thinking and always and those in the survival brain, you're always on alert, but we're all in survival brain unless we can refine and tap into what you're referring to here, Mitch as our resourcefulness. Which, if I were to just, you know, like, like, bring it right down would be to have a more thoughtful approach to life in all areas.

Mitch Weisburgh  29:29  
Right. Critical thinking.

Vonne Solis  29:30  
Critical thinking,

Mitch Weisburgh  29:32  
Creative creativity. Empathy. The ability to to align to our values.

Vonne Solis  29:37  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  29:38  
The ability to to work at things without becoming attached to the results to be able to take in feedback. All of those are things that are part of executive function.

Vonne Solis  29:51  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  29:51  
Those are all parts of our resourceful brain. Say, again, for simplicity sake, our prefrontal cortex in the part of the brain that's right up here.

Vonne Solis  29:58  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  29:59  
That part of the brain wakes up in two to three seconds after a stimulus.

Vonne Solis  30:05  
Still slower than the limbic. So this is why, and I don't want to skim over this, but just to sort of, you know again, sort of recapitulate what you've said is that we react all day long, and even if we don't verbally say something to our partner, to our boss, to our teammate, to our friend, you know. And I love the example about you saying, you know, ask, saying, talking about someone asking you to do something. How many of us say yes when we really mean no?

Mitch Weisburgh  30:43  
Or we want to say no, right?

Vonne Solis  30:44  
Or we want to say for even, for even family, because we're pressured, we're busy, we're whatever. So a lot of us live out of, you know, obligation and so on. So it's so important. So to, I don't want to say dumbing the language down but to simplify the language is to just, you know. Not like, I think, if you could take away audience, that the prefrontal cortex, cortex, where you have that that's the gateway to resourcefulness, right? To be thoughtful and intentional about how you're going to do anything in your life, including thinking about yourself, managing your day. Like even breaking it into segments instead of rushing into the limbic response is to give yourself that extra two or three seconds or longer.

Mitch Weisburgh  31:34  
Oh, yeah, yep!

Vonne Solis  31:35  
To tap in. Slow down. Tap in. Because isn't that the only way you can really tap into that resourcefulness is obviously understanding what you're trying to tap into the prefrontal but cortex, but also that you need a little time to do it?

Mitch Weisburgh  31:51  
You need the time and and you can't fight your limbic system. 

Vonne Solis  31:56  
Okay.

Mitch Weisburgh  31:57  
You have to come up with other ways of calming it down or tapping into your resourcefulness. For example, okay, if you go to do something and or you, and you, we see it in others. It's, it's, it's harder to see in ourselves.

Vonne Solis  32:11  
Yeah, yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  32:11  
But when you say, I can't do this. Okay? Then you know some of us, people say, Well, just, just Yes, you can, or show some grit. So show some persistence. You know, that may work a little bit, you know, it may work for a very short period of time, but it takes a tremendous amount of energy, and it doesn't really last. And so what we need to be able to do is kind of trick our brains to to so that the limbic system doesn't fight against the things that we really want to do. And, and there's, you know, I maintain there's three things that we ourselves could do, and then there's a fourth thing that we can do, being able to tap into the resourcefulness.

Mitch Weisburgh  32:11  
The first thing is, is through self-awareness. It's like, oh my gosh. I'm in limbic mode. You know, oh my gosh, I'm in flight mode. Oh my gosh, there I go, saying I can't do something again, you know. And you know, sometimes that's just enough. Like, like, if I'm, you know, if I'm very often disagreeing with somebody, or I'm procrastinating, or I'm, you know, I'm in limbic mode. And I'm just saying, you know something? I'm just in limbic mode. Sometimes it's like, okay, boom. And that's it. It's, it's gone. It's like, that, that's, that's all, that's all that's needed. Sometimes it's through some type of a positive self-talk. And a positive self talk is not like, yes, yes, I can do that. The positive the real positive self-talk that works is positive self-talk that opens up possibilities. So if I say I can't, if I have this voice saying I can't, coming back and saying I can just charge it just causes a fight. But coming back and saying, you know, perhaps I can.

Vonne Solis  32:50  
Perhaps.

Mitch Weisburgh  33:59  
Right, perhaps I can, you know. Or I can't right now, maybe I can, or even, or saying, you know, I know that I can't do this, but if I could do it, what might I, what might I do first? And so you're kind of fooling yourself, and that's just with one example saying I can't. But it also like, you know when, when you you know this person is wrong. You you know similar things for that, or, or I'm feeling, I'm feeling depressed again. It's like, maybe, like, well you know, what saying you know, saying, I'm feeling really depressed, you know, what am I grateful for? Okay?

Vonne Solis  34:39  
Okay.

Mitch Weisburgh  34:39  
Is it's like coming, it's coming at it from a different angle. And sometimes that positive self-talk will will work. What again, you start with self awareness, and then the end the positive self-talk. And the third thing that we can do is some type of distraction, okay? And distraction, there's so many different, you know, meditation is a type of distraction. Or mindfulness is a type of distraction. You had a person on a while back who's talked about dancing.

Vonne Solis  35:05  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  35:06  
Okay. So you know, it's hard to be depressed when you're dancing, right?

Vonne Solis  35:10  
Oh my gosh, that's, that's Megan Bloom, folks, and she was on a couple episodes ago, and I don't think I've met a happier person. And she's genuinely happy because she dances.

Mitch Weisburgh  35:22  
Yep. So dancing, for some people. Itt's art. Taking a walk, especially taking a walk in nature. Thinking of things that you're grateful for. But just distraction will will tend to calm down that limbic system so that then you can have access to your resourcefulness, you know, and and come up with ways of, you know, of being, of the critical thinking, creativity, empathy. Or or just say like you're, you know you're in an argument with with somebody. You you're you're disagreeing with them. And you turn it around and say, You know something? If my purpose right now were only to connect with this person. I don't have to agree with them.

Vonne Solis  36:03  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  36:04  
But, but I just want to connect with them.

Vonne Solis  36:07  
Yes.

Mitch Weisburgh  36:08  
Person to person. What would I say to connect with them? Now, chances are the first thing that you try isn't going to be successful, because they're they're riled up already. And your tendency was when they, when they come back to you and attack you, even though you've made an effort, your your tendency is going to go back to fight or flight. But if you could say to yourself, let me, let me make a game of it. Let me see if I could come up with ten empathetic things to say to them before I get angry. I'll bet you I can wear I can wear them down.

Vonne Solis  36:41  
And if ten's too many, just try three to five.

Mitch Weisburgh  36:45  
Five, right. And because, because we have, you know, I said that we have this tremendous pressure to be part of a group, that works both ways. Part of the group is when they're angry at us, we're going to get angry at them. But the other side of it is they're angry with us, we've decided that we're going to be empathetic. Eventually, their mirror neurons are going to become empathetic also.

Vonne Solis  37:05  
Yeah, yeah. Because the brain, the brain, I'm thinking of people in relationships right now. That's all, all of us, because we're in relationships in some way, shape or form, all day long. So we're going to talk about conflict next but I just wanted to point out two things. I must remember, relationships, but the self-talk piece? That's really important, and I'm taking that away of one of many things in this conversation, Mitch. But when you talked about staying away from to counter the limbic system that's, you know, trying to fight us changing our mind about thinking, mind shifting. And so you gave the example, I can't, I can't. And then you said, and to say I can, I can, isn't going to work. I guess that feels too threatening. But the minute you said, Try, perhaps I can, I felt my own system just calm right down.

Mitch Weisburgh  38:06  
That that's the first exercise that I do in the classes. Before I go into the brain or anything, one of the one of the very first exercises is to have first a volunteer, and then I have people pair up in twos and try it is, you know, the person comes up on and on Zoom or whatever. And it's like, Well, okay, come up with something that you know that you can't do, that you really want to do. And is it like that you is it like you have a voice inside of you saying, I can't? Or is it a feeling, or what is it like? And eventually it comes out that there's, it's just like a voice saying, I can't. And then it's like, when you hear that voice this time, just answer it, Perhaps I can. And what happens? And I would say more than three quarters of the people, it's like, you can see their whole body just relax after that. It's like, what? I just feel lighter. Because your brain, your brain can't help at that point to start coming up with ways that perhaps you can. Maybe you have to ask somebody else. Maybe you have to open a book. Maybe it's going to take a while, but, and it may be, you know, certain things that we, you know, we'll never be able to do, but the pressure of I can't just goes away for most people.

Vonne Solis  39:23  
And I would invite the audience right now, because I just did it. Think about something you think you cannot do, or have. Right? Anything, but it's I can't, whatever. And then and sit with that for a second and then say, Perhaps I can. Sit with that. I invite you. That is like I just felt my whole body change because I think that when we are in a "I can't" mode for even one thing through our day. But most of us who are living for anyone who's living with something they haven't yet achieved and really want? I think that don't well, I'll ask you, does that sort of stay humming in the background of the limbic system kind of remembers and feeds that? Yeah, I remember. They say they can't do this, or can't have this, or whatever the toxic toxicity is. You you say you want to change the thinking that holds people back. So I guess my question is, is anything holding us back is an "I can't" automatically. So does our limbic system keep us in that conscious and subconscious state of thinking all the time? You think so?

Mitch Weisburgh  40:50  
Absolutely, absolutely. And and it's always going to come back, and no matter how many times you you defeat it, it'll always be the next thing that it comes back to haunt you. But when you when you do defeat it, it feels so good. It's like, oh my gosh. I was in limbic mode and I and I was able to overcome it this time, you know. And you know, there's, I help people, there's, you know, there's really two ways that we can improve our reactions. One, is to build up our ability to be self-aware.

Vonne Solis  41:26  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  41:26  
And to recognize we're in limbic. And the other is that you know that that fourth area of the of the limbic system is habits. So the more good habits we learn that we can draw on, the better we become at making these fast decisions. So that if we become really good at asking ourselves or saying to ourselves, perhaps I can. Then the next time we can't do something, it's like, perhaps I can. Or an alternative is when we start thinking about, you know, something? If I think about the things I am most proud of that I've done in my life, every single one let's can I think of, let's say five things. Every single one of them at some point I felt anxious. I felt afraid. I felt I couldn't do it. And in each time, I was able to overcome that and still do it, and look what happened. And when we can think about that, then the next time we get into a situation where we start getting, ah never be able to do this. I'm, you know, I, you know, I knew I shouldn't have tried it. It's like, well, wait a minute. You know something? Let me, let me go back to my, personally I use an emotional cookie jar chart and let me think back to these five things, you know, something? I felt this before. And this feeling of being anxious, all it is, is letting me know that I'm in a position where I'm starting to grow, and all I have to do is persist. And you know, something? I'm gonna I'm gonna be successful, and then I'm gonna have a sixth thing that I'm really proud of, that I was able to accomplish.

Vonne Solis  43:02  
That's amazing, awesome, awesome, awesome. You know, we could end the episode right there and you've given, you know, the audience, so much positivity, positivity to think about.

Mitch Weisburgh  43:14  
And we all have that within us. It's not like, I didn't, think, you know it's not like, oh geez. This is coming from me. No, this is not coming from me. This is power that we all have in ourselves, in our brain and in our body.

Vonne Solis  43:27  
So I'm going to suggest here, then the key, I'm going to ask you. Is the key to getting to that "perhaps I can" tapping into the limbic system in everything we've just talked about. Being able to recognize you're in limbic mode. You're in limbic system mode number one. And I need to, and I want to change this, so perhaps I can. Is it that simple?

Mitch Weisburgh  43:55  
It really, well.

Vonne Solis  43:57  
When I say that you know what I mean. There's not a bunch of complicated steps to tap into recognizing, i.e. being self- aware folks, that you're in limbic system mode in one of the five ways.

Mitch Weisburgh  44:12  
I will say also that I said that there's three things that we could do ourselves. One is the self-awareness. Two, is the positive the self-talk that opens us up. And three, is the distraction, whether it's meditation or dancing or or athletics or or, you know, something that allows us to decrease the stress hormones that are raging in our brains so that we could tap into our resourceful brain . But the fourth thing is that sometimes you just need somebody else. Needs somebody else who also understands these things to be able to talk to. Not somebody who tells you "yes you can", or somebody who mansplains something to you, you know? Like you don't need that. You just need somebody who can help you camp down your limbic reactions, so that you can be resourceful. And like just it happened with me fairly recently, where, you know, I I realized I was in limbic mode. I tried safe talking to myself. I tried, like, meditation. Nothing was working. And so, you know, my, your kids are adults. My, my, kids are adults. So, I called my son, you know. And it was just like, so Herbie, I just, I'm really upset. He said dad! You wrote the book, come on. Okay, fine. And he opens up the book, and he says, I'm just going to go through one of the things in the book. And you just sometimes need somebody else to to to, you know that that voice in your ear to just calm you down so that you can be resourceful.

Vonne Solis  45:45  
Yeah. I love what I remember you talking a little bit about that and, you know. So I was just gonna say there are maybe sometimes calling our adult children isn't what we want to do. When they're like, Dad, you wrote the book instead of, I'm listening, tell me more.

Vonne Solis  46:02  
 Right, Right. Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  46:03  
Tell me more, Mitch. Okay, so for that I call my sister.

Mitch Weisburgh  46:08  
Yeah, it does, you're right. I just, you know.

Vonne Solis  46:10  
I just had to point that out. It's so funny. It's so how old's your son?

Mitch Weisburgh  46:15  
He's 39.

Vonne Solis  46:16  
Okay, okay. Anyway, so, but, but someone who will listen and just be there for us, because you've made a key point there, too. I don't want to just skim over. These four methods: the self-awareness, positive self-talk, distraction - make that really good distraction, not your phone, folks and support. You know, sometimes, like you just said, Mitch, the first three just don't work. And if we're in such a state of anxiousness, or, you know, we've really convinced ourselves, the limbic system has won, let's just put it that way. I am going to remember to remind myself when that happens, I am in limbic system mode, and that for me, that's enough to make me self-aware. So to so we don't have time today Mitch to talk about becoming self-aware, but I would point folks at this stage to go to Mitch's website. Mitch, what's the name of your website?

Mitch Weisburgh  47:18  
mindshiftingwithmitch.com, and there's a link from there also to my newsletter, which is mindshiftingwithmitch.blog, but 

Vonne Solis  47:24  
Yeah. 

Mitch Weisburgh  47:25  
mindshiftingwithmitch.com and there's a link to the book. There's a description of some of these techniques.

Vonne Solis  47:31  
Yeah. Because you've got so much stuff that you specifically work in this area, but get some help. Surround yourself with positive resources. Do something positive every day. Try and, you know, calm yourself down somehow, and over time, you learn how to become self-aware. And but it's really great that you're mentioning. You can have decades of being self-aware, but you're still not going to win over the limbic system entirely. You know?

Mitch Weisburgh  47:59  
 Never, you 

Vonne Solis  48:00  
Never will, right? 

Mitch Weisburgh  48:01  
It's always temporary. Right.

Vonne Solis  48:03  
Yeah, okay, good. Thank you. I'm going to take that away. Okay, Mitch, let's go quickly to, I wanted to talk about the at least one or two different styles of dealing with conflict, because a lot of people do that and and sort of tie in solution- oriented thinking. If you could give a couple of tips about that, that'd be awesome.

Mitch Weisburgh  48:29  
I think one of, one of the things about conflict is that when we're in conflict, very often we're in limbic fight or flight mode. And so if we expect to be able to constructively deal with conflict, the first thing that we have to do is understand that we need to be in resourceful mode. And so to be able to be again self-aware and that's why the the the resourceful course, or the resourceful book, comes first is we have to be aware of how to first calm ourselves down and be in resourceful mode, and then we can deal with the conflict. Because as long as we're in fight or flight mode, the mirror neurons of the other person are just going to escalate, and it's going to eventually be that it's a win lose situation. And even if we win, the other person is going to have resentment and and they're going to find ways to sabotage the results, if, if they can. But when we're in in resourceful mode, we can also, very often get them into resourceful mode as well. So that's first is to get into resourceful mode.

Mitch Weisburgh  49:43  
Second, I would say, is to understand that there are five different ways of dealing with conflict. And so when you understand and you can look them up on the internet. These aren't from me okay?

Vonne Solis  49:58  
Okay.

Mitch Weisburgh  49:58  
You know, just the five ways of dealing with conflict. And there's an instrument that you can take that will, it takes, it's, well, there's two. The original one, it costs, I think, $50. It takes five minutes. And then there's, there's an organization called Institute of Peace, or instituteofpeace.org and they have virtually the same instrument, and it's free which and it also takes about five minutes. And it tells you, it gives you background into these five different modes, and I can summarize them in a second. And it also tells you which one, which ones you tend to go to most often. And one of the keys to being in conflict, to resolving conflicts, is to first of all, understand the five and use them when appropriate. And second of all, using them in resourceful mode, not using them in fight or flight mode. So.

Vonne Solis  50:58  
Oh yeah, that's key. Say that again, Mitch, that's key.

Mitch Weisburgh  51:02  
So to use them in resourceful mode.

Vonne Solis  51:04  
Yes.

Mitch Weisburgh  51:05  
Okay, so that you yourself are like you're curious, you're not angry, okay? You're inquisitive, you're not judgmental, okay? So when you're inquisitive and you're exploratory, instead of being judgmental and angry, you're going to be able to use those five styles a lot more effectively for much better long-term results.

Vonne Solis  51:28  
Right. Without going into detail in each one, do can you itemize them?

Mitch Weisburgh  51:34  
Yeah. So there's there's compete, which is basically, I'm going to tell you what to do. And I don't really care what your response is. I'm expecting you to just do it. And you know, so first is compete. Second is accommodate, okay? So compete always wants the other person to be accommodating. So accommodate means I'm going to I'm going to do whatever you tell me to do, I'm gonna do. And it's not like accommodate is bad, or it's not necessarily that compete is bad. There's times to use both, but to accommodate, you're doing what the other person or the other side is telling you to do.

Vonne Solis  52:15  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  52:16  
A third one is avoid, okay? You know, just not dealing with it, procrastinating. It's like, you know, whatever, and you walking away or something like that. And there's times to do that as well. Like, like, you know, well, I could go into these for hours, but so that's the third one.

Vonne Solis  52:37  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  52:37  
And then the fourth and the fifth one are words that in English, we very often think of as synonyms, but they're not okay? There's there's collaborate and there's compromise, compromise.

Vonne Solis  52:53  
Compromise, yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  52:53  
So compromise and collaborate, and we think we sometimes think of them as similarities, but compromise means that neither one of us is fully satisfied, but I'll give you these points, and you give me those points, so we're splitting the pie up. Collaborate is, you know, something? You want this and I want this. Let's see if we can come up with something that meets both of our needs.

Vonne Solis  53:17  
Yes, okay, I love that. Right.

Mitch Weisburgh  53:21  
So collaborate is the one that it's impossible to do when you're in fight or flight mode, you know, but, but the other four, you could either use from your limbic mode, or you could use from from your resourceful mode. And I'll give it an example with compete. I mean dealing with with a child, and it's the child's bedtime, and you say it's your bedtime, go to bed right now. And the child gets angry, and it's like, don't give me any lip, just I told you to go to bed. You go to bed right now. Come on.

Vonne Solis  53:50  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  53:50  
I'm you know, like, and so you're in limbic mode as you're doing that, but you're, you know, you're you're making your ideas, your your demands known, and you're expecting the other person to do it. Whereas, in using compete mode, from a resourceful standpoint, it's like, you know, it's your bedtime. You have to go to bed. And of course, the child is going to protest. They're watching TV. They're doing something that they really like. And from a, from a resourceful standpoint, it's, you know, something? You have every right to be angry. And whether you're angry you're not, I still love you. And if I were in your position and I really wanted to do this, I would be angry too. It happens to be, as your parent, it's my job to do what's what I think is healthy for you. So it is your bedtime and and you do have to go to bed. Now the child is probably still going to be angry with you. Okay? Is that saying that is not going to necessarily calm them down, but over time, as the child becomes more respectful and the and at one, at a deep level, they're understanding that this is not coming from anger but but sometimes you you have to lay the law down. And they have to obey.

Vonne Solis  55:01  
=Yeah, yeah. You know, I was just, I want to move on to culture of lies quickly here, but I did want to point out and just clarify. Earlier you said that, and actually I felt I understood it in the sense of good competition. But you we were talking a little earlier about these mechanisms and and self-awareness, and also, like, you can't do a lot of this stuff without self awareness, certainly not collaborate without self-awareness. And you were talking about what we do in self- awareness, you know, sort of mirrors the neurons for the person we might be in conflict with, or, you know, whatever we're trying to do. But my que, I thought then, and my question now is, what would trigger a person to become self- aware, who doesn't ever really think about it?

Mitch Weisburgh  55:56  
Right. So one caveat that I'll say is we can never change another person, and another person can't change us. So change comes from within. Period. Now we can make conditions so it's more likely that the other person can access their abilities to change. But it's not like a cause, like we're going to do this, and this other person is going to change. We're going to do this so, so the other person has a greater possibility of change, but if they're not ready to make the change, they're not they're just not going to be ready to make the change. Now, having said that, when we become self-aware and we're able to get into resourceful state, we're self-regulating.

Vonne Solis  56:40  
Yes.

Mitch Weisburgh  56:41  
When we look at another person and we understand that they're not able to self-regulate, we can be a co-regulator with them.

Vonne Solis  56:50  
Okay.

Mitch Weisburgh  56:51  
Now it still isn't 100 you know, they they end up having to change if they're going to change, but we can help them by prompting them with, with with questions, with curiosity, and probably

Vonne Solis  57:07  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  57:07  
one of the best mechanisms for doing that is a, I'm gonna say, technique, but it's not really a technique. It's, it's a methodology called motivational interviewing that was developed by social workers to help people get over really risky behavior, like, you know, drugs, self-harm. And so that's now been, I can't say expanded, because the core of it is always the same, but the uses of it had been expanded, and it's used with adults. It's used with teens. It's used with kids as young as, say, eight years old. Before then, their brains probably aren't developed enough to be able to have it done to them. You can use some of the techniques, and you can water them down a little bit. But, you know, motivational interviewing, you can look at, you can, you know, another thing you can look up on the internet. It's going to be, it's in, it's, there's a whole chapter on it in the conflict and collaboration book that that's coming out in in November.

Vonne Solis  58:15  
It sounds like it's kind of rooted in intentional behavior.

Mitch Weisburgh  58:19  
Yep.

Vonne Solis  58:20  
To the extent that someone can understand their intentions. But maybe a kid as young as eight knows right from wrong, or, you know, I'm just in black and white, intentions. Yeah, that's it. That's super interesting. We're not covering that here, but that is super interesting.

Mitch Weisburgh  58:38  
It really is, because the the whole purpose of motivational interviewing is not to change another person, but having another person be able to walk through themselves where they're ambivalent about something. Because probably what they're doing is they're getting some type of a short-term reward, but not meeting their long-term rewards and getting them to talk about what they really want to do and come and come to their own decisions.

Vonne Solis  59:03  
Yeah. You know because I'm thinking here of relationships. I'm thinking here where one partner grows and another doesn't. I'm thinking here of people who feel stagnant in their life and using that to question their own motivation and intentions. What you want out of life, things like that. So that is definitely something worth thinking about folks and applying to your life you know, in many, many, many ways, What's your intention? What do you want out of this? And you know, I hate to say this, but I do believe a majority of the billions in the world are followers. And, you know, in their like, let me rephrase that, give in to their limbic system in one way or another. But following was one of the things, you know, group mentality. And that segues beautifully into what I want to actually talk about briefly here is the culture of lives we live in, and hence tell ourselves and keep us in this prisoner state of the I'm just going to say the limbic state, the limbic system mode. I love that. I mean, I knew about that, but it's fun to think about it that I'm in limbic system mode. It's kind of red alert. Red alert, red alert.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:00:31  
Could be.

Vonne Solis  1:00:32  
Have fun with it, folks. And because it lightens it, and we don't have to be so hard on ourselves that we're not perfect yet, or whatever we're telling ourselves we need to be, all of which we don't believe, by the way. So let's talk briefly about culture of lies. And you did have a little story I know that you tell about your son, I believe, giving notice from a job and an international student you had. And I love that story, and it stuck with me. If you want to share it briefly with our audience, because this is such a good example. Okay?

Mitch Weisburgh  1:01:11  
Sure. And so this occurred, first of all, we've had a lot of exchange students. We've had over 12 exchange students who've lived with us for somewhere between six months and a year. But a year, plus another dozen or so who've lived this for shorter term. And so our second exchange student was from China, and she's now living in the US, and she was now back in the US going to college when my son graduated from college. And we picked him up, went to his graduation, picked him up, and we're in the car, coming back, and I'm like, so Herbie, now that you're finished with college, what are you thinking of doing? So he says, I think I'll be really good in international business. And so from the back seat, Eva, who's the Chinese exchange Chinese exchange student, yeah? Says, Well, what makes you think that you'll be good in international business? And he says, Oh yeah, I've, I've gone to school in Mexico. I've gone to school in the United Kingdom. I've gone to school in Israel. I speak, I speak a couple languages. I think I would be really good, you know, I could work for an international firm. So she says, Well, okay, let me, let me, let me check with you.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:02:27  
Just, let's say that you were working in China, and you got a great job offer and you decided to take it. What would you tell your boss? Is, ahh, I would say, you know, thank you for everything you've done with me. I've really learned a lot at this job. You've been a fantastic boss. I had this opportunity that I can't turn down. I wasn't looking for anything. It just came to me and what kind of notice do you do you need? So he said, So Eva, what would you tell your boss? And she says, Oh, I would go to my boss and I'd say, I'm sorry. My mother is really sick. I have to quit my job, and I have to, I have to take care of my mother. And and so and Herbie says, but that's a lie. And so Eva says, but what you told is a lie. Also, you're not always going to remember what this boss did for you. This boss didn't do everything you know, go out of her way to trade to train you. You were actually looking for a job, something that just didn't fall in. She says, What if you're going to be you know, in Chinese culture, your boss is basically your parent. And if you're saying you have a better offer, it's saying you didn't do a good enough job as a parent.

Vonne Solis  1:03:36  
Oh, interesting.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:03:38  
And and so Herbie says, but they know that you're lying. Yes, they know that I'm lying, but they know that I'm playing into what they what they need to hear. And your boss knows that you're lying also. They know that they didn't do a great job mentoring you. They know that they didn't give you these promotions. That they could have done what you know that you were probably looking for a job. They know, but if you're going to be an international business, you have to understand the lies of the culture of where you're working.

Vonne Solis  1:04:07  
And that!

Mitch Weisburgh  1:04:09  
If you're going to work in China you have to understand our life.

Vonne Solis  1:04:11  
That's exactly what this this would be an episode all on its own, Mitch, understand the lies of the culture you're living in. And why that hit me was because, with my nod to the grief audience here, holy smoley, do we have to live a life of lies from certain types of bereavement. But you actually bring it out. We live, we're living lies in every area of our life, culturally, pretty much. So I don't have to feel so bad. It's just another area that we all lie to ourselves and to each other. And your very first, you know, example of, you know, our automatic responses. And you said, I might ask you, how are you, Vonne? And I'll respond, Fine. I might have been respond great, because I'm not going to tell you how I really am. That's reserved for just my inner, inner, you know, circle of family, or, you know, just myself even. And so I'm using that as an example. I am doing fairly well. Thank you. But, but, you know, I just, how do we and this and this as we come to the top of the hour, Mitch ties into failure and what we, so I really want to tap into just any sort of wisdoms you want to share on, you know, they throw this word around authentic, and it used to be a wonderful word 10, five years ago. Now it's not worth the paper it's written on. So I call it genuineness, because, you know that one they're not using really too much yet. But this idea of actually being true to ourselves, and and I think that that will impact or influence how we think about an alternative to our failures. If you just want to speak to that a little bit.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:06:15  
Very often, when we're regarding something as a failure and we're internalizing it as a failure, and that we're a failure, you know, that really means that we are in limbic mode. So the so I would say the first thing to do is to realize that you're in limbic mode. Maybe open yourself up, but probably you need to do something like a distraction. Like a, you know, breath work. You know mindfulness around your breath, go for a walk so that you're you, you, you, your limbic system is calmed down. Once your limbic system is calmed down, I think you, you kind of ask yourself, you ask your kind of your intuition, like, what do I really want here? Here's my situation right now. What do I, given that, what do I want to happen next? And then given what I want to happen next, the next thing that I say that people should ask themselves is, now, go to your heart and your gut.

Vonne Solis  1:07:17  
Yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:07:17  
How does that feel? And when that, when what you want to hear happen next comes together with what your heart and your gut are telling you, that's your path. And and from there, I think things become clearer, but it's like first calm down your limbic reactions. Then use your your intuition, your your your your mind, like, what do I really want to happen here? How does that feel? What does my heart say? What does my gut say? And then that's your and if and if the your your heart, your gut say, you know, something that doesn't feel right, it's like so I wonder what I could change about that to make it so it would feel right, and you'll come up with something, and then you come back to your heart and your gut, well, how does that feel? So you eventually, through some iterative process, come up with whatever that thing happens to be.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:08:12  
And I think kind of a story about that was this friend of mine who's a grief counselor, and she, you know, and that's that can be really rough work. And so she formed a group with two other grief counselors for them to support each other. And that group did great for a year or two, but she stopped come, you know, she stopped. She missed the meeting, she didn't prepare for the next meeting. And, you know, and internally, she was going through this like, well, I should come to the meetings. And then, like, internally, it was like, yeah, that's just that that's that's why you'll never succeed. Because you whenever you know, you stick with things, even when they're not working. You don't, you never know when to change. So it's like, Well, okay, well, maybe I'll just stop the group. And then internally, it's like, no, no, no. Of course, you never stick with things. That's why you'll never be successful. Nobody likes you because you they can't rely on you. It's like, well, maybe I should tell them that I'm feeling this way. And then it comes back and say, yeah, yeah, you never make a decision. That's you all over again. Come on, just make it. You know, whatever she came up with her internal voices were just beating her up, right? And that's what we all do, right? So then she said, You know something, this is my limbic system really attacking me. And she just, she quieted down, and she did she happened to be using breath work, like being very conscious of her breath for about 10 minutes. And that calmed down. And then she asked herself what she really wanted to do, and what came up with, what she was going to tell the group, that this group really helped her for a time period, but now it seems like it had played out and it was time to end. And now she was really sure of it. And when her limbic system started attacking her again, as it always does, she says, Nope, you know, I know what I want to do. You warned me. I don't have to listen to you anymore. We're done, okay, and kind of stop, stop bothering me limbic system. I don't, I don't. I don't need this anymore. And then it turns out, when she talked to her friends about it, they were like, you know, something? We had the same feeling, and we didn't know what to do about it. But you're really right that, you know, the group was great for a year and a half. Now it's played out, and we and we can, you know, we don't, if we need each other again, we know who to call. So it's just like the thinking.

Vonne Solis  1:10:24  
It's so important. So the culture of lies feeds into everything Mitch that you've just talked about, what we tell ourselves. What we, you know, prevent ourselves from doing, believing that we can do. What we tell ourselves that we should be doing, you know. And right now, you know, there's so much pressure and crap coming from AI generated stuff, and you know how to succeed. And let me help you do this, and let me help you do that. And it's like, stop. You have to stop the noise around us. We all have to stop and as you say, I also believe in heart gut instinct. And I've always said the heart never lies. And I would just say one last thing, for those of us that try and maybe Mitch, you do this too, put something on the list that we want to go after, and we're not ready for it, or we truly don't want to do it, but we think we should do it for whatever reason, and just to stop, take a beat and do what you're saying. Mitch, distract. You know, often when you use the word distraction, a lot of us can think of it in terms of negative terms, but these are beautiful distractions, so walk in nature and things like that. But more to the point, calm your limbic system, folks, and take some time to really tap into your own truth. And I've always believed that if we can just be truthful about who we are, our stories and then be brave enough to share them, that can start to displace some of this, you know, cultural lying that is shaping so much of what we think we need to do and how we need to behave, and our lack of connection. Mitch

Mitch Weisburgh  1:12:12  
And Vonne, I will say you said you said it beautifully on another one of your sessions. You know, so the three things. You know, understanding ourselves at a deeply personal level, okay? Having the skills to maneuver in this world as a deeply emotional creature, and staying committed to nailing down what we came here to do. Those are the three things.

Vonne Solis  1:12:31  
Yeah, that's nice. And

Mitch Weisburgh  1:12:32  
Well it's from you!

Vonne Solis  1:12:33  
Well, well.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:12:34  
It was absolutely beautiful. That's why it's like, wow!

Vonne Solis  1:12:38  
That's funny. I'll write that down that I said that because, you know, often when I write stuff or do a coaching session, a lot of my stuff comes from the angels and whatever, and I write it, record it, and then, you know, and I do live it. But what you've made very helpful for me to understand today, Mitch, is that we do live in our limbic system. We do live in this brain that's always telling us that may or may not have been, probably is conditioned from our earliest years too, right, right? And so we have a lot of crap people that we have to overcome in our life, depending what we've been through, but certainly what we're subjected to on a near daily basis. And you have to have the courage to weed it out and say no and stop following. How can you tell that's where I am at in my life?

Mitch Weisburgh  1:13:33  
We all are, we all are.

Vonne Solis  1:13:35  
And I'm just, I don't mind saying it. I don't want to be the biggest, best podcast or business person or anything. I just want to do what I do comfortably and with my life balanced and as fulfilled and content as I can be. So all the things that you want in your 5 million critical mass. I'm one, and so you got me, Mitch! Is there anything else that you'd like to leave the audience with that I may not have addressed?

Mitch Weisburgh  1:14:06  
Well, I like another thing that you said on another episode, which is, own your power.

Vonne Solis  1:14:13  
Oh, yeah.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:14:13  
And that's what I'd like to leave people with is like, own your power.

Vonne Solis  1:14:17  
Yeah, because I live my life like that. My first book was, was all about transforming pain into personal power, Dvine Healing. And it did well for a while, and then it just kind of, you know, was sitting on the on the back shelves. And, you know, here's a little story. I had that book I'm in Canada, all across Canada in bookstores. In in the major it would be like your Barnes and Noble, called Chapters. And do you know that scared the bejesus out of me. And and eventually it left the bookstore. I just wasn't ready. I was not ready, and I did not know what I wanted to become in my bereavement. And I'm now bereaved 20 years, and I have to be honest, I still don't know kind of what I want to become. So I'm just sort of happy with who I am today. And take all the pressure off who we want to become, folks and just embrace who you are today. And all the doors just keep opening, don't they Mitch?

Mitch Weisburgh  1:15:13  
They really do. Yes.

Vonne Solis  1:15:15  
You know. All right, so please say your website once again. I know you have tons of resources. What, where, where people can find you Mitch, and I and I am going to have the link, the link in the show notes.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:15:24  
Oh, thank you, mindshiftingwithmitch.com.

Vonne Solis  1:15:27  
mindshiftingwithmitch.com. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and the work that you do, Mitch. I'm going to follow what you're what you're up to, and you've been just so helpful for me on a personal note today.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:15:41  
Thank you.

Vonne Solis  1:15:41  
Yes, absolutely. So thank you for coming on and sharing with my audience as well. Thank you.

Mitch Weisburgh  1:15:48  
And goodbye.