Rewire Your Reality With Larry Olsen

5 Oct , 2023 podcasts

By mastering the mind’s inner symphony, we compose our reality, finding success and joy in every note. Today’s guest is Larry Olsen, author of Get A Vision and Live It, who dives into neuroscience and how it can be the guiding force towards both success and lasting joy. Larry explores the impact of our subconscious on our actions, reactions, and the choices we make. He emphasizes the importance of cultivating self-awareness and understanding the role of our inner critic. Discover how the power of vision can shape your life, and why gratitude and appreciation are essential tools for rewiring your reality. Larry also shares brain hacks for a more fulfilling life, encouraging us to bring out the best in ourselves and others. It’s not about striving for perfection, but about making progress and bringing joy to every circumstance. Tune in now and rewire your reality.

—

Listen to the podcast here

Rewire Your Reality With Larry Olsen

Neuroscience As The Key To Success And Joy

I hope as you find this show, you are well out there, navigating this crazy adventure we call life. I love this interview because we get into the power of the mind and how we choose to see our world. My guest is Larry Olsen. I met Larry and I can tell you that he is someone who lives everything he teaches and he approaches his work with great passion and great kindness.

He is a performance-driven neurology specialist, CEO of Aperneo, author of Get A Vision and Live It speaker, coach, and podcast host of the MindSet Playbook. I love that name. He’s invested more than 40 years researching, adapting, and teaching developments in the field of performance-driven neurology. You’ll read Larry’s story in our interview, but his expertise is based on his experiences within major corporations and entrepreneurial businesses. As true for all of us, he also has defining moments in his childhood that shaped his trajectory.

I love his purpose statement, fueling individuals and companies with the knowledge and integrity necessary to ignite peak performance while having the time of our lives. That last part is important because we should enjoy the ride. Sit back, relax, and get ready to learn how to rewire your mind for a more beautiful life.

—

Larry, first of all, it is so nice to see you again, as we have had a couple of wonderful opportunities to connect. I want to say thank you upfront for being here on the show with me and for sharing all that you will share.

It’s very you to say that and it’s quite an honor to be on your show. Having followed you and had the opportunity to spend some time with you, I’m looking forward to this.

I am, too. The honor is all mine. We’re going to talk about how we think about our lives and the mindset of our lives, but there are many days I wake up and pinch myself that I get to have a conversation like this with you because I learn from every conversation that I have. That is the essence of podcasting. Anytime humans come together to dance in a conversation, we’re here to learn from each other.

Larry Olsen’s Origin Story

As other people read what we say, hopefully, it will trigger something in them as well. This is a great joy. Let’s start at the beginning because it’s always good to start at the beginning. It’s good for people to understand what brought you to this mission and calling of what you do, and your why in the world. Tell us a little bit about your origin story and how you got to where you are now.

Thank you. That is a question that all of us explore and we don’t understand it until we have the opportunity to look back at it. At a very early age, probably as soon as one can start remembering and have any memory, like 3 to 5 years of age, I noticed that things were different about how people were treating my sister.

We can mess with our family, but when someone outside the family messes with our family, we draw the line. Everybody knows their line in the sand when it comes to who they’ll defend, even if they’re not getting along with their family. That innate insight caused me to be disappointed because we ultimately found out that my sister was born mentally delayed and nobody ever figured out what caused it. Whether it was the umbilical cord wrapping around and not providing enough oxygen to the brain, or she had been dropped.

Yet, what I found out is I needed to take care of her because she couldn’t defend herself. Growing up with that and ultimately recognizing my wish that I had a sibling, I used to envy young people arguing with their siblings. I used to envy the fact that they could argue with them because that was not a connection my sister could make. She was an idiot savant, who had some phenomenal gifts. She had gifts for numbers, birthdays, names of people, and how events unfolded where we have a tendency to bring a little hyperbole or exaggeration to the event as we share it.

Memories are more often than not something we make up, not something that’s a photograph we can go back and look at. As I started to learn, I started to become fascinated by the brain, what it does, and how it allows us to think the way we do, whether it’s good for us or not, I began to realize. I picked this up, too.

I knew when I was in middle school that my sister was a gift. It wasn’t something that I was to judge, be disappointed in, and wish things could be different. She had an attentiveness. She was mindful before mindfulness became fashionable because she paid attention. She observed and could listen for hours without making a statement unless there was no congruence to it.

It was funny. I was in high school, played football, and scored a touchdown. I had a girlfriend over and we were talking. We’d been talking for about an hour in the living room and Carol was in the room. She said, “How many touchdowns did you make in that game?” This is the girlfriend. I said, “Two.” Over in the corner, my sister said, “You did not. You only made one.” I was a little bit humiliated at the time. There was no reason to argue because it would sadden her if you argued with her because she knew it was the truth and yet, we all have our own perception of the truth.

When you get into neuroscience, you realize we’re all fighting for our sanity. Back to the origin story, I got fascinated. I have been interested in studying ever since and have become a specialist in what you call performance-driven neurology, which is a blending of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Sharing why we do what we do, whether it’s good for us or not, and beginning to recognize how we make those changes occur. Unfortunately, most people have to have a traumatic event happen before they realize that, “A doctor told me if I don’t lose weight, I’ll die,” as opposed to, “What would it be like if I showed up in the health that I’ve always imagined?”

That has become now a learned behavior. People have to learn to imagine again when we were born so imaginative. The good news is we already know how to imagine. Now we have to peel the layers of our cynicism, criticism, judgments, and all of the things that we are pretty much indoctrinated in as we start to listen to others and turn on the media.

My thing was brought up as they made fun of my sister. Why do people have to be so mean-spirited? I began to realize it’s not that they’re mean-spirited. It’s that they don’t understand. When we don’t understand, we sometimes lash out at the difference instead of being curious about the difference. That’s another wonderment. Talk about the child as a father of man, meaning that we’re to learn from our children, not so much learn of our children and discover from them.

Create safe parameters, but discover, because the truth is so honest and the questions are so intuitive. I remember a young kid saying, “Why is your sister not able to catch a ball?” You’ve got to explain it as opposed to someone saying, “Your sister’s certainly stupid.” That creates defensiveness. Needless to say, we defend. That was interesting, but it didn’t get me into the profession I’m in until 1983. I had the opportunity to get involved with an organization that was into cognitive psychology and assisting individuals in getting a grip on why they think the way they do.

It was real basic and fundamental. I became the head of facilitation for them because it was video-based and beta was coming out. Most of the companies you were selling to didn’t have equipment. Not only did they have to purchase what you offered, but they also had to put the investment in for the equipment. I taught other facilitators from around the world how to bring this into their organization and how to get people interested in watching a video.

Now we watch videos too much. The pendulum has swung too far.

I got into that professionally. 1995, I decided to start my own company and I started my own company because, at the age of 47, I had to start all over again. I’d gotten fired. I was a Director of Operations for a large restaurant chain in Seattle, Washington, and knew nothing about the restaurant business. I knew that I enjoyed being around people and I knew people enjoyed doing what they’re doing when they were acknowledged and when someone took an interest.

The good news was I couldn’t micromanage because I didn’t know their business, but I helped them get things out of the way that were on their mind and frustrating them. I tried to create an environment where they could be successful. We ended up being very successful. The unfortunate thing is I didn’t realize that when the owner came back from a trip to Europe and I’d been there six months and we were doing quite well, he said I needed to leave by noon.

I came to find out, I was the fifth Director of Operations he’d had in six years. Had I done a little advanced research and found out he was going through all these directors of operations, I would’ve taken the job anyway because I would’ve said, “Yeah, but they’re not me.” Not from an arrogant perspective, but from a perspective we all have, we’re so unique. Anthropologists state that in the history of man, there are a lot of different numbers on this, but roughly 72 billion people have stood upright on this thing called Planet Earth. No one has our fingerprint or blueprint.

We’re not supposed to be like everybody else. We’re not supposed to react like everybody else. When we’re brought up to be more alike than different, fitting in becomes pretty important. Most people don’t want to be rejected. I don’t have a job. Yet I had all of this education. I couldn’t get employed and paid enough money to cover alimony and child support. I’d been divorced.

The unfortunate thing that I didn’t know at the time is when you keep getting rejected from one job after another, you start to have it affect your sense of worthiness. I didn’t realize how depressed I was getting. This went on for about six months. This was during the OJ Simpson trial. I remember staring at the white Bronco running down the freeway and going, “At least he’s going to have something to do for a while.”

I decided at that moment. I’d run out of money. I was short $1,500. After six months of rejection, it dawned on me that maybe you ought to start your own business. I realized, all of a sudden, all the information I already knew was no, don’t start your own business. Act as if. If you want to get in shape, act as if you already are because it’ll change what you put in your mouth immediately rather than waiting on it for a diet or joining a club. All of those things are great, but not if you don’t have the vision.

This is what’s wild. When I’d left the job, I had to sell the Jag and I got an old Mazda pickup. I had lived close to where my children were. My oldest daughter who, about four months before we got separated, moved in with me in a one-bedroom apartment. She had the one bedroom and I’m in the living room. This is quite a change. It didn’t help with the self-esteem because when she’d bring a friend over, I had to go back into the bedroom.

People Change The Wrong Way

This is what’s so amazing. I had all of this education that changes lives and corporate structures, turns cultures around into thriving and prosperous and instead of ones you’re trying to survive in. Yet, I was using it the wrong way. I had a good grip on what wasn’t working in my life instead of what I wanted to have work. Here’s little brain hack. It’s a quick a-ha. Ninety-nine percent of people, when they go to change, Kathy, try to change the wrong way.

Say more about that.

What they attempt to do is they attempt to not have something happen any longer. “I don’t want to be broke anymore. I don’t want to be overweight anymore.” What’s on the mind, it confuses the brain because the brain is open up to whatever conversation you’re having with yourself, whether it’s what you want or not.

You’re focusing on what you don’t want.

Don’t think about the color red. It’s that concept. That’s what I was doing. “If I don’t get some money soon, if I don’t get into a larger dwelling,” all of a sudden, it clicked and I said, “I’m in the business for myself.” If I’d done the research, I’d have seen the chances are slim to none of being successful, at least for the first year.

Good thing you didn’t do the research on that one.

It’s like the Director of Operations job.

Just jump in. Don’t look.

My daughter and I are in the living room. It’s May of 1995 and an hour later, the phone rings. I pick it up and I go, “Hello?” He goes, “Yeah, this is,” I’m not going to mention his name, but he states who he is and he goes, “I’m a general manager of a large automotive dealership in Houston, Texas. I hear you have your own company.”

How did he find out about you?

I don’t have a company. Where’s he getting this information? He named another guy that, when I was with another organization, had worked with and he was a good friend of his. He said, “My buddy told me about you. He said it wasn’t the information. It was you who made the information work. Do you have your own company?” I heard this hesitation. I looked in the room and my daughter was in the room, so I had company. I said, “Yes, I have my own company.”

You spoke it into existence.

He goes, “We’re a pretty successful organization. We have great teams. I’m calling as a courtesy because I don’t know why we want you on our team.” I said, “When you were growing up in your neighborhood and you were picking teams to play, I bet you were the captain.” He goes, “How’d you know?” I said, “Let me ask you this. How’d the kids feel who were picked first?” He’d go, “They felt great.” I go, “How’d the kids feel who were picked last?” There was a pause over the phone and he said, “How do I get you into my company?”

I totally believe in the Law of Attraction. What I believe the attraction is that I wasn’t open to it. I wasn’t open to getting a phone call from somebody I didn’t know. I wasn’t open to having my own company. I wasn’t open to being in good shape. I wasn’t open to enjoying my partner. I wasn’t open to liking what I did at work. I wasn’t open to the fact that I could learn new things. At that moment, I began to recognize where else am I not open in my life. It was my second divorce. To make a long story interesting, what ultimately ended up happening is he said, “How do I get you into my company?” I said, “It’ll cost you first-class airfare and $1,500.”

You should have added a little bit extra to that for fun.

I didn’t think there was a prayer. I was living the vision. I was not waiting for it to happen. What 95% of people are doing is waiting. They’re getting comfortable with waiting. They’re building a home around waiting. It becomes expected. You go to Disneyland. You wait an hour for a three-minute experience. I’ve been getting to recognize that that’s what most people are doing in their lives. They’re waiting. Do you know those moments where you go, “Yes,” because it feels so wonderful? You want to keep it going because it doesn’t happen very often. I added that up. If you live to 85, those moments add up to 33 minutes.

What?

I go, “That’s not enough.” When you’re focused on what you don’t want, you don’t have those moments. Things didn’t change overnight, but they were on the right track. Here’s what he said, “Larry, I don’t even fly first class. Let me see if I understand what you’re saying. You’re expecting me to pay you $1,500 and fly you down first-class, plus put you up in a hotel to pitch me?” I said, “You asked me what it would take.” He said, “I’ll send you a ticket.”

That’s called knowing your own value.

That was the start of the company. I didn’t cash the check. I took the first class and I made coach. I called up some other people I’d known from the past and I set up four other appointments. I felt that if I could sell one of these because I had to, in my mind, figure out what would this look like packaged, I’d be in good shape. I came back and I’d sold five. Two months later, I bought a house to be close to the kids. I got out of the apartment. I went down to downtown Seattle to the Olympic Four Seasons, walked into the concierge at 6:00 at night, and said, “Where’s a guy like me who might meet a quality woman?”

He named three places. The first one was at 6:30 at night. Nothing’s happening. The second one was pretty pretentious. That doesn’t appeal to me. The third one I got to was a little restaurant. Ultimately, my wife walked in. When I saw her, everything clicked, except I knew that it wouldn’t happen because she was so everything that resonated with me that I sat out in my league.

I sat there an hour later and a woman came up to me and asked, “Would you like to join me and my friends?” I said, “Where were you sitting?” There was Diane. We were married on September 28th, 1997. None of that would’ve worked. I wouldn’t have been able to meet her if I’d have brought the other guy to that restaurant. What fascinated me years ago was, “Who am I allowing to show up?” That’s how things got started for me from the business perspective.

Our Fight For Sanity

You said so many important things in that story and I want to dig into a couple of them on a deeper level because I know it’s at the heart of so much of what you teach. First of all, a couple of comments and then observations, and then let’s go down some of these trails together. I first want to honor your journey because we are all different. We have our own way of processing the world.

I remember I was in a business course years ago and they talked about the fact that we are all living in our own reality and this whole dynamic of background listening. When you speak to me, I tell myself what you’re saying through my beliefs, filters, and experiences. I remember having a conversation with my cohort about this and thinking, “How do we communicate at all?”

I’m living in my little world in what I think is the way things are and then you’re living in yours. Somehow, we still co-create, but it’s crazy. I want to honor the fact that you actively chose to say yes to a different way of being. You were conscious enough to see that the way you were interpreting the world before was not producing the results that you wanted.

You chose even in a moment when the phone rang, which I think how crazy divine that that call came in, that was a moment of truth that you had to choose. There were a couple of other patterns that came up as you were speaking. One is I think about the statement, our fight for sanity. That’s a powerful statement. It triggers a lot of, “We have to be okay.” People are trying to find out how they can be okay.

I think about the people who bullied your sister and what fear must have been in their minds and hearts to do that to somebody else, maybe because they were afraid of understanding what that is. There are all these layers. This whole idea of rejection. When you had that restaurant job, you were already using all the gifts and tools that you use now, but you were doing it to create an environment for your people.

You didn’t need to know the details of the job but what you did know was how to unlock the way they were thinking and feeling about their moments in their days, which was pretty powerful. You were already doing that. There are two things from all of that I want to go deeper into with you. One is this idea of how these rejections serve us on our path. I know because I follow you on Instagram. Right now, you’ve got a program of life hacks and you talk about the gift of rejection. Can you share more about how we can utilize that in our lives to be better?

Thank you. You’re so insightful. It gives me such a great feeling to hear you and to listen to you and your wisdom. It’s ageless and I appreciate it. When I talk about sanity, sanity is our belief system. As you mentioned, our belief system is developed not by what we experienced but by how we talk to ourselves about what we’ve experienced.

How we talk to ourselves about what we experience is based on what we’ve already experienced or neurologically in the cells of our brain. The amygdala, our reptilian brain, fight, flight, and freeze, as most people are aware, its job is to protect us. Protecting us simply means storing the experience so that when something similar comes up again, we already know how to react. That’s why they say 95% of our day, we’re unconscious. That happens, I react this way. Not often is that reaction in our best interest or the interest of the individual we are blessed to be engaged with.

Get A Vision and Live It by Larry Olsen

We do the Groundhog Day. We kept going through things until the wake-up call where I kept losing jobs. Imagine who I brought to the job. Is it any wonder I didn’t get hired? I brought a depressed guy already making his mind up he wouldn’t get the job. As Emerson said, “Who you are speaks so loud. I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

This is what people don’t understand. They think that if they put on fake it until you make it, that type of mindset, it’s frivolous because we’ve already made the statement with our body language and tone of voice about how we feel and whether or not that lines up with the words that we use. When that doesn’t, we’re considered non-authentic. Something’s wrong with this picture. We’re not trusted or we develop a jury now and people are going to see enough of us to decide whether or not they were right or not.

Getting back to rejection, there are three major innate fears. Some are developed and nurtured by the human race. The number one is rejection. When you think about it, we can’t survive as a species if we don’t co-mingle. That is innate. It’s taken millions and millions of years to understand and be able to build the software and the hardware to make sure that we survive no matter what.

That’s why childhood bullying is so powerful because you mentioned children come into this world and I think about my own kids when they were toddlers. The kindergartners all run up to each other and hug each other and wonderful. Things start to happen, the bullying, and then you mention where were you not open, they start to close down and we start to protect.

We don’t have much education at that level. We hear, “Be careful what you think about, but there’s no real explanation that a child understands.” If you say, “Can you think of a skunk?” They go, “I can think of a skunk.” “Has anyone ever said anything that you didn’t feel good about? Have you ever continued to say that to yourself?” Have a conversation with this individual to find out not to cure them. Not to, “You shouldn’t feel that way.” Don’t take people’s feelings away from them, for crying out loud. We do need to find out what’s going on. What’s going on with our children? What’s going on with our employees? What’s going on with our spouse?

Here’s the challenge with sanity. We hang around with them long enough to think we know them now. A death sentence to the growth of any relationship is when we say, “I know you now,” and then we anticipate. We even finish sentences for people. If we don’t do it out loud, we do it in our own minds. We look for right or wrong like my sister did. She brought it up as soon as it was incongruent. That’s what we do. What’s incongruent about it? Is it because it doesn’t match how we want them to be or how we’ve seen them before?

Neuroscience: Here’s the challenge with sanity. We hang around with them long enough to think we know them now. That’s a death sentence to the growth of any relationship.

To challenge and find the value, to find the gifts and rejection is basically saying, “If you’re a football team and you only have a few plays, it isn’t going to take long before those plays aren’t working any longer.” You don’t try harder at them. You don’t go on the other side and say, “Could you please let us get a few yards on this one?’ You don’t cheat. You develop another play. Most people don’t get that. They get enough plays that they then play those plays for the rest of their life and wonder why they’re not having the time of their life.

We did a video and we got 40 people that watched it. “I guess we’re not doing very well so let’s stop.” Instead, we said, “They didn’t like that one. Let’s figure it out. What is something that would be interesting? What is something that people are interested in?” There are now 3.7 million views. It’s not because I changed. It’s because I showed up differently. I was awkward with it. I was uncomfortable with it because it was the first time I’d driven it. I didn’t quite understand how everything worked. I thought I was turning on the right turn signal and the wipers went on. Instead of going, “You’re a stupid idiot.”

That is what we do. It’s like, “How come you can’t do this?” It’s like the inner voice is so harsh.

When we got back the first papers in school and everything was circled in red, we did wrong. We are brought up to focus on falling short to the point where we don’t want to try because we’re tired of falling short, so we settle.

I was having this conversation and it’s so sad. There’s a teacher at my boys’ school and the boys come home and they’re like, “If we ask a question, he sighs an annoyance.” This is probably a lovely man. I haven’t met him, but I want to go, “Do you know how that feels to the students when they’re trying to learn and you roll your eyes and shut them down?” I don’t know why that’s happening, but we do. It’s amazing. It makes us realize when we are on the receiving end of that and that internal voice, how do we choose differently? How do we choose another way?

We first have to ask ourselves a question, don’t we? We have to have the awareness. We have a blended family. There are five children. Years ago, we were on a road trip and the kids were making so much noise in the backseat. I turned around and I yelled at them to stop yelling. My wife, Diane, turns her head around and she goes, “Could we please speak in a quieter voice?” The energy drops. I’m going, “Why didn’t I do that?”

I wasn’t aware of it. I’ve got to behave differently now. One of the quickest ways for people to become aware and not lower self-esteem, because what we want to learn is how to correct behavior by raising self-esteem. A leader corrects behavior, morale goes down, and profitability goes down just because the leader didn’t like what they saw.

Neuroscience: One of the quickest ways for people to become aware is not to lower self-esteem.

Instead of finding out why they saw what they saw with a tone of voice coming from love, not judgment, “Kathy, what were you thinking when you did that?” Instead of, “Kathy, I was curious about this project we’re working on. You were doing this and this. Tell me more about that.” 9 times out of 10, I’m going to learn something from you instead of you’re here to learn from me.

I got the vision. I know what we’re all about. I know what makes us popular. When 95% of corporations are operating based on fear, their motivation is fear, you can see what you and I were talking about here is still a rarity. Your children are in a school you selected, and there was a reason why you put them there. That was to get the finest education within your means. There’s somebody there who is behaving that way.

Some people would go in and have a crummy conversation about it and others would come in from love and say, “I was curious, you’ve been at this a long time. What is it about teaching that you enjoy the most? What makes this worthwhile to you?” “I don’t. I hate it.” “Is there anything that could be changed for you to feel better about it?” “No.” “Why don’t we have a talk with the superintendent? Unfortunately, you not wanting to be here is not positively impacting these children that you once loved.”

Now if the other side comes in and it’s like, “I love to see young people learn.” “Why?” “It’s what it’s all about.” “If you had an opportunity to have them learn even more than they’re learning now, would that be of value to you?” “Yeah.” I wanted to share a little insight. I’m sure it was misunderstood. My children, when they were growing up and would do something and I’d be in the other room, I’d get this comment, “I heard that sigh, Dad.”

Our tone says it all.

Kathy, what we’re talking about is not perfection.

Breaking Out Of Perfection

Perfection is the problem. Perfection is where we hold that standard and then when we don’t meet it, we berate ourselves. I’m always amazed in the conversations we have in the lab of the inner critic, how prevalent imposter syndrome is. We all tell ourselves we’re not that or we’re not worthy of that when it’s a crazy lie.

As I listen to what you’re saying, and even as I’ve been in this discourse with other people in the lab or on the show and in my own observation of myself, I know that when I slow down enough, first set the intention of how I want to show up, which takes a minute to be like, “How do I want to show up in this interaction to be the observer of my own life?”

It’s like I turned around, yelled at my kids, and told them not to yell. I have to have the ability to see that and be like, “I realized what I did.” To reflect on it, to change. One of the challenges in our society right now is we are so overwhelmed. We are so busy. We are so in our phones, in our technology that we’re living in an unconscious pattern state. How would you guide to break out of that?

I’m all about vision. That’s the most misunderstood concept there is because most times you say vision, people think goal because we’re brought up with goals. We’re brought up knowing what a goal is. It’s something to accomplish. There’s generally a timeframe involved. That ends up, as we get older, we’re checking boxes off now.

A goal is you decide to have a party at your house on Saturday. As you think about, “Who do we want to invite?” “Let’s bring the Collins.” “Not the Collins, he knows everything. He’s annoying.” “How about Cynthia?” “Cynthia’s so much fun.” “What are we going to serve?” Now we’ve taken that goal and turned it into what? A vision. A vision has emotion. It has color. It has action. It’s a movie. We can see it. Now, in order to pull that off, there are some goals that need to be accomplished. We need to make phone calls. We need to decide what we’re going to eat. Here’s the mistake some people make. They call their son. “Can you go to the store for us?” “Why?” as they’re gaming or whatever.

Neuroscience: A vision has emotion. It has color. It has action. It’s a movie we can see, and to pull that off, some goals need to be accomplished.

“We’re having a party on Saturday.” “That’s your party, not mine. You go to the store.” That’s what they would like to say. That happens in a corporation. “We need to get this done.” “You’re the one that wants to get that done. I see no value in it,” but we don’t want to lose our job. What we do is swallow it. That’s where the billions of dollars we’re losing a year at people staring at screens or thinking about things that have nothing to do with why they’re there because they’re not connected to the bigger picture.

You asked how people shift. First off, what kind of a parent do you want to be? To answer that, what ultimate outcomes would you like to see in the lives of your children that would cause you to say, “I did the best I could do?” That becomes your vision. When you’re making corrections, it’s relative to something greater than self, isn’t it? It’s not because you didn’t get your way as a parent. How many times when we were growing up, we said, “If I ever have children, I will never say that to my kids?”

Why do children become like their parents? It’s because we perpetuate patterns all the time.

We get uptight and the same verbiage comes out of our mouth because it’s stored neurologically in the cell of our brain. Never to be lost, never to be forgotten. Without age regression, hypnosis, or sodium pentothal, the only time our past comes up is when it’s needed in this moment. How often is that? Every moment. What does that mean? Ninety-five percent of our decisions are made from the past, not for the vision.

Don’t stop asking yourself what you want. That is such a misnomer that if you ask yourself what you want, you’ll end up getting it. No, you won’t get it because when you ask yourself what you want, you’re in a state of want and want is without. What the brain does is make sure you don’t get it. Instead of, what we’ve learned, this concept of faith is not asking a higher power. It’s thanking.

It’s already here.

You already got it. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what I’d done. First, I went to the old-school mentality and said, “Maybe I should get my own business.” The problem with that is you trigger the how. How do you do that? If I’d done the research, I’d probably talk myself out of it. The brain, as you know, doesn’t need to know how. It needs to know what and it’ll figure out how.

Now, everybody in their life has an experience that affirms that. They had an imagining. They saw the kitchen looking like this, and then he next thing they knew, they’re married. The next thing they knew, they’re driving it. The next thing they knew, they’re on the street. It can be good. It can be whatever. It’s imagining. It’s that old adage, “Thinking makes it so.”

Live With Abundance

Let me ask you this, Larry. It’s so interesting. I’m keeping track of our time and I told you before we started, I have all these various areas that I’d love to get. I’m like, “I have at least two hours more of things.” No, because there’s so much richness to dig into with this. One of the reasons I love the approach that you take on neuroscience is sometimes when I try to explain or dig in with people on what the Compassion Lab is and what we do, people who aren’t involved might be like, “Is that some touchy-feely thing?”

My answer always is, “This is the hardest work you’ll ever do,” because you have to be conscious and aware, choose, be accountable, and go on a path for a greater life. That takes intention and work. It’s not work that’s negative. It’s a work of joy. There are two things I wanted to ask you next. They both involve things that I’ve heard from social or different inputs in life that I got. One of them was this meme, this little video that said, “We spend all this time working to go on two weeks of vacation and we do all this to have that.”

I understood what it was saying. It was like, “Are you living your life? Are you having a great life?” I totally get that. The thought that came to me after I heard it was that there’s nothing wrong with working. No one wants to live a life of vacation the whole time. Some people might and more power to you, until they try. There’s a great amount of meaning and purpose to our work. I knew what the intent was of that little motivational video. What was missing from me is you are defining in this video that work is a bad thing. That all this time we spend working is not in freedom, not in choice.

If you’re working in a way that you choose it not out of fear, you choose it and you love it, there’s an unbelievable power in that. That’s one aspect. Part two of the question, and then take it wherever you want to go from here, was as you think about brain hacks, we think about affirmations. You hear about people putting affirmations on their mirrors. This individual said, “Instead of saying to yourself, ‘I am abundant,’” because there’s a lot of stuff out there to say I am to declare it to be so. They said, “Instead, ask yourself the question, ‘What would it feel like to live abundantly, to be abundant? How would that feel?’”

Their take was it’s a little bit of an end around on the ego because when we say, “I’m abundant,” immediately, the voice comes in, “No, you’re not. You’re poor. You have no money in your bank account,” versus I wonder, “What it would be like to live with abundance?” Your brain’s like, “What would that feel like?” I would love your thoughts on either or both of those things.

The whole affirmation thing has gotten a bad rap. Years ago, Saturday Night Live did a total number on it.

Was that Stuart Smalley?

“I’m a good person and I like myself.” Here’s the interesting thing. The more the emotion, the faster the change. The more excited we are about something, the more likely we are to do it. What this individual is saying by how would it make me feel, I have in my work what is called a vision statement and it’s a statement of fact or belief accepted literally by the subconscious. I feel loved, valued, and inspired because I look for and bring out the best in each other.

What I’m doing is I’m giving myself direction. I’m creating the image of how I want to show up. I only need to say it to myself long enough to where I can have it in my memory. When I remember, which means going back to the memory, here’s an opportunity to look for the best in others. If I don’t remind myself about that and it hasn’t gotten into the memory yet, then here’s what happens to people without knowing it.

The next time the opportunity presents itself and it doesn’t happen, later on, they realize, “I screwed that up. I failed.” The reason a lot of people don’t want to do this and I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you said that work is hard. I don’t know how many people want to sign up for something that’s hard. I’ll stay shallow and naive.

Ignorance is bliss. Go back to bliss.

I know that’s not what you meant. It means you’ve got to do it on purpose. There’s no better time to start than right now because all of us, when this episode is over, are going to be interacting either with ourselves or with someone else. Real simple. We make decisions based on 1 or 2 things, what’s already happened or what we want to take place. When we don’t know that, 95% of our decisions are based on what’s already happened. That’s why a lot of people aren’t wandering around with big smiles on their faces, pinching themselves that they’re actually alive. Some people won’t even look at you when you pass them on the street.

Don’t you love it? You’re like, “How are you?” They’re like living the dream with that whole tone of like, “Just trying to survive.”

“The angels would be jealous.” I always tell people, “Don’t try this stuff at home,” because try implies doubt. Doubt leads to hesitation. Hesitation leads to failure. Whenever you try something, you already know what your chances are. Instead of exploring, be on the adventure. Find out. Ask questions. Rejection isn’t rejection at all. It’s information. Another thing, when I start a program, I always have everybody write this sentence down, “All my brain receives is information.”

Neuroscience: Rejection isn’t rejection at all—it’s information.

People are trying to understand is through an auditory experience, there are sound waves going into their auditory cortex. If they’re watching this, it’s a visual experience made from light waves. All we’re receiving is information. What do we do? As with Spielberg, we make a movie out of it. If we’re not careful, we add it to the movie that’s already running. Make sure the movie that’s running is the life that you choose to be living and not trying to get other characters to read your script, but realize the way most people are behaving around you is because of what you are bringing to them.

I remember playing golf once, and they were sarcastic like, “Do you have a skirt on?” The guy’s putt was 2 feet short and then most females would’ve killed this guy in golf. After about eight holes of this, the guy putted and I said, “I liked your follow-through.” Another guy got up to the tee box and I said, “Your warmup was spot on.” By the time we were on the tenth hole, people were talking about what others were doing right.

That’s how influential we are even in the lives of strangers. The next time you pick up your dry cleaning, you’re at the grocery store, say something positive to the individual that has served you like, “You got that packaging down. I would’ve never thought to put those.” Sometimes, there’s a personality behind there and I like to say, “I want to tell you that you made this experience for me.” They will repeat that in their mind all the way home. It will affect how they interact with children. Let’s take responsibility for the impact that we make on this thing called life. If we’re not bringing out the best in others, then what are we doing?

Larry, what you’re saying is so wise and important because we’re living in a world right now of lots of divides and lots of stone-throwing of, “You’re wrong.” We want to be right more than anything versus seeking to understand each other. We also get very caught up in it being a big thing. One of my sons is a teenager. He is going through trying to figure out who he is. He was down on himself. He has this great gift of direction. He knows where you are. Go this way. I’m like, “I’m lost.” He is like, “It’s here.” You might think, “That’s a little thing, so I know how to get around, whatever.”

A friend of mine sent a text and said, “I’m so grateful for his sense of direction because remember when we did this and he found our way back here. I got to find this bracelet and I love it so much.” It was this little comet. I went back to him and I said, “Do you understand that this thing of one day you helping us find our way back somewhere created joy for someone else.” Did I invent a cure for cancer? I’m a speaker and I have now affected thousands of people. It’s one interaction at a time in which you show up in love and not in fear, going back to the bullying.

Find Larry

How do I seek to understand this other human being right in front of me and what they might be going through, even if things aren’t going right? What could be happening behind the scenes? You live it. In all of our interactions, you show up in loving kindness to seek, learn, and understand. Everything you’re sharing in our conversation, you walk that talk completely. I’m grateful for that. Tell me, how can people find you? You’re sharing this wisdom all the time on Instagram and other places. I want to make sure everyone knows how to keep the conversation going with you.

Thank you. @LarryOlsenLive is the Instagram. The website, which we’re constantly working on, is LarryOlsen.com. Also, LinkedIn. Any time we have the opportunity to interact with someone or find out what they’d like to learn more about, that floats the boat. That’s what it’s all about because that’s what brings meaning. If you have something of value that other people are interested in, don’t wait until you find somebody who has something of value. Look for the value and share it with them.

I was writing a post one time and I had to look up Ken Blanchard and his One Minute Manager because I wanted to get the quote right. That was many years ago that he came up with, “Catch your people in the act of doing something right and tell them about it.” That applies in every situation we find ourselves in. If you want to be happy and enjoy your life regardless of the circumstances, remember, it’s not waiting for the circumstances to be right. You can enjoy yourself. It’s bringing your joy to the circumstance.

It’s something that you’ll get good at over time and you’ll have fun along the way because you won’t be perfect at it. Remember, it’s not perfection, it’s progress. That’s what allows us to say, “I did that. I got some nice feedback from Kathy on this show. I must be doing something right.” I’m not like that person all the time. You have to ask my wife.

We’re never that person all the time.

It’s important for all of us to understand that’s not what we’re striving towards. We’re striving to be conscious now and then while we are, what are we bringing?

Such a perfect way to end. There is no perfection, but that was pretty close, Larry. Bringing joy to the circumstance. You have brought joy into this conversation and into my life since we’ve been engaging. I appreciate all that you offer and how you so openly give your gifts to other people. I’d love to do a part two. There’s a lot more we haven’t discussed. If you’re open to it, I’d love to have you back on another episode. Thank you so much for what you do in the world and for this time. I’m very grateful.

Thank you very much. It was quite a privilege.

Important Links

• Larry Olsen
• One Minute Manager
• Get A Vision and Live It
• MindSet Playbook
• @LarryOlsenLive – Instagram
• LinkedIn – Larry Olsen

About Larry Olsen

Performance Driven Neurology Specialist

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

Join The Coca-Cola CMO Leadership Summit Podcast community today:

• cokecmosummit.com
• Facebook
• Twitter

Change, childhood bullying, law of attraction, neuroscience, sanity, vision