505:How Small Changes Create Real Transformation Eric Zimmer

In this episode, I’m joined by Eric Zimmer for a grounded and honest conversation about what real change actually looks like and why lasting transformation usually doesn’t happen all at once. Eric shares his powerful recovery story, what finally helped him create lasting change, and why the smallest daily choices often matter more than the big breakthrough moments we tend to chase.

We talk about how to work with the parts of ourselves we’d rather avoid, what to do when we shut down, shrink, or feel overwhelmed, and why true growth comes from learning how to relate to ourselves differently over time. Eric also shares practical tools for changing the meaning we assign to situations, building wise habits, and taking small steps that add up to a meaningful life.

Transcript

So, Eric Zimmer, Welcome to the show. Good to see you. Yes. Hello, Michelle. It's nice to see you. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, It's so nice to see you again. So, You were so kind to have me on your show, And I was like, Yes, Come on, Of course. Tell us who you are. If the audience says, Who the heck is Eric Zimmer, Who are you? And why do people want to tune in today? International man of mystery would be one answer. Another answer might be my, You know, I am God inside. But a real answer, Well, Those are both probably true to some degree. But the more simple answer is I am the host of the One You Feed podcast, Which has been around for a long time and has done fairly well. I also authored this book. I do coaching, I do speaking, I do workshops. I'm, You know, I'm similar to you in that way. We just, You know, We're overlapping in what we do. I think so. But different. Yeah, We were just talking earlier about emotional regulation, Nervous system regulation. I love it. We were definitely speaking the same language. So, You talk about transformation. And something that I wanted to ask you about was overnight transformation. Yeah. And people talk about that. And you say it's a myth. So, Tell us, Like, What actually does work? Because people do want to transform. And our, You know, Our audiences talk a lot about transforming. How do I change? How do I shift? How do I transform? How do I lose this belief? How do I do all these things? And like a magic pill or a fast food restaurant, You know, People want it fast. And you say that overnight transformation is a myth. So, Tell us. So, What actually, What works instead of that? Well, I'll tell a story, Which is where the book starts. And in it, I walk into a treatment center in the winter of, That's a long time ago now. And I'm a homeless heroin addict. I weigh 100 pounds. My skin is yellow and jaundiced from hepatitis C. The prosecutor just told me I'm looking at facing 50 years in jail. And I go into the detox center. And I'm in bad shape, Obviously. Like, That's pretty bad shape. And they said to me, We think you need to go to long-term treatment. And I said, No, Thank you. Went back to my room. And as I was sitting there, I just had a moment where I saw clearly that if I go back out there, I am going to die or go to jail and soon. And so, If we were filming the movie of my life, That would be the pivotal scene, Right? That's the the director would spend a lot of time on that. And it's important, But it only has importance because of the thousands of small choices I made after. The thousands of off-camera moments that wouldn't be interesting enough to put in the movie. But those are the ones that make that big moment actually mean something. And so, It's not that we don't have insight. It's not that we don't reach turning points. But those insights and turning points are nothing unless they are followed by the real work of change, Which unfortunately is just consistent effort in a direction. And so, Yeah, I do believe that overnight transformation is a myth in that way, Because anything that we are transforming takes work to get through. Wow, What a story. That's incredible. I'm curious, When you were asked that question, If you wanted to go to long-term treatment, It sounds like, And I want to ask you this, Like, Was it an immediate no? Or did you sit with it? Like, Where did that, Because to me, That's your intuition, That's your soul talking, Like, What was it that came up for you that said, That's not for me? Like, Interesting. I think it was just denial and confusion, Right? Like, I know you and I talked about this, We've talked about this before, About your intuition or your soul, Right? And how it can be tricky, Because if you are as damaged as I was at that point, What feels instinctive is really not the right thing for you. Using heroin seemed like the most important thing, And I followed that to utter destruction, Because that felt strongly, Intuitively, Instinctively, Like the right thing. And so, I think that intuition can, Is a really powerful thing, And trusting our soul, But there, I always feel like, Even today, You know, All these years later, That, Like, That's a piece of information that I also need to look at in the context of other information. You know, You and I talked before we got on about, I'm in the book launch process, And that can be a discouraging thing at times, Right? You put out all this effort asking all these people, And you get a little bit of response. So, Yesterday, I felt very discouraged, And I was telling myself a story about what it all meant, And it seemed really true, Right? It wasn't. So, What I needed to do this morning was settle down, Sit down, And then spend time to get quiet enough and write a little bit to get to a deeper intuition. So, What told me to say no in that moment was just denial and confusion, Because we could have asked a hundred people, Should that guy go to long-term treatment? You'd get a hundred percent, Yes, He should. I mean, You can't get a hundred people to agree on anything, But I think they all would have been like, Yeah, I think that's probably a good idea. Yeah. And yet, I was an instinctively no, But that was just because I was confused. So then, What was your journey like from that moment on? Well, I did go to long-term treatment, And from there, I went into a halfway house, But my journey primarily was I essentially got sober in the 12-step tradition. And I just threw myself into it for a number of years. That really became the thing that I devoted myself to, Was my recovery. And in the beginning, I think a lot of it is simply just, I've got to do it to get over this thing, Right? But over time, And it starts to become a blend, There starts to be like, Oh, Wow, This is really amazing. This is really good. Oh, I have hope. I feel better. All these things. So the bad goes away, But we also start to see the good. And so that was the journey. And the thing about 12-step programs is some people don't like them. There are things about them that can be considered objectionable in certain circumstances, But they are everywhere, And they are free. Sorry, Go ahead. No, Go ahead. Go ahead. What do you think, When you're going through your recovery, What was different? Had you not tried that before? Like what made it stick this time? What was different inside of you? Yeah, It's a really good question. And I don't think there are good answers, Unfortunately, Because I had tried to get sober before. I had been in detox. I had gone to 10-day treatments before. Mm-hmm. I believe strongly that change is a skill that we learn. We think it's a character thing. We think it's, Oh, I'm motivated enough, Or I hit the right bottom, Or I hit, Right? But I think it's a skill. And I think that every time that I had been trying over the years to deal with this problem, I learned something. Now, I didn't learn it well, Because I was deeply encased in shame, And shame stops learning. It blocks it. But I did learn. And the basic lesson that I learned, I think, Was I would show up, And they'd say, Like, Do A through G, You know, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, And that'll get you sober. And I'd go, Okay, Great. And I would do A, Right? And then, You know, It might work, And I, For a day or something, I'd go back and get my, You know, Sort of get my rear end handed to me from drug addiction. But at a certain point, I just did enough, Right? I just put enough structure, Enough support, Enough help around me. And that's when I talk with people about their addiction journey, That's often what I'm looking at is just, Like, How do we get you enough structure, Support, Help to make the change? Because the one thing that 12-step programs say, They start with, You're powerless over your addiction. And a lot of people really don't like that language. They find it problematic and difficult. And I understand saying you're powerless over something can send the wrong message. But what it meant to me was, I don't have enough power in this area, In this regard, To overcome it. So where do I get additional sources of power? 12-step programs talk about a higher power, So we could turn spiritually. But the biggest thing about 12-step programs is, To me, It's all the people, Right? It's all the people. That's where I got the power. That's where I got the power. But, You know, My treatment gave me structure that was really important. I needed structure. So I don't know that there was, I mean, Maybe, Yes, I was worse off than I had been before. And actually sitting in a courtroom and hearing you could be facing 50 years in jail can be a fairly motivating thing. But I know lots of people that have hit the bottom I hit and don't get sober. There's lots of people who do end up going to jail, And that isn't enough, Right? They get out and they do it again. So it's not just consequence. Consequence is important. But there's more to it than that. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's powerful. I think about, You made that decision, There was something inside of you that said, This is it, I'm done. Like a really big decision. And then when you align with that, Then you were able to stay on course. It sounds like, I don't know, I'm guessing. I mean, What's interesting is that I feel there was a lot, Many, Many days, Most of the days in the beginning, It was like 51% is like, I'm going to stay sober. 49% is like, I'm not. And so the decision I made was to go to long-term treatment. And decisions are valuable. They can point us in a direction. But again, That decision wouldn't have been valuable if I didn't stay in long-term treatment. I mean, For me in the beginning, Every day was just like, Just don't leave. Just don't walk out that front door. Yeah. And you're talking about the actions, The mini micro actions. So that sounds like it played into your decision to stay. Yeah. Because the thing about being in treatment is that you just don't sit in a room all day long. You are being given things to learn and do about changing. And so I was right away given action. There's a phrase in 12-step programs that I still use a lot today. And it's that sometimes you can't think your way into right action. You have to act your way into right thinking. And so in the beginning, In treatment, They said, Do this, Do this. And all I really had to do was show up, Like just show up. And then when I got out, It was like they said, Call your sponsor, Go to a meeting, Do these things. And all I had to do was take the action, Even though a ton of the time I did not want to. But saying I don't want to is a little bit misleading because I did want to. The deepest part of me wanted to be sober, Wanted a different life. So what I was, What we're facing very often is a dilemma that I call between what we want most and what we want now. And so for me, I just, And I think we all need to do this is like, Okay, What, What are the stakes of this thing I'm doing here? Right. Now, Most things in life aren't like mine were like life or death or jam lot. Right. But, But that was the thing I had to be able to bring to mind. Why am I like, I don't want to go to a meeting tonight for crying out loud. Oh, But I do want to be sober. Okay. What, What's important about that? And in my case, Everything is important about that. But I do think that all the things that we try and change in life, There are stakes to. Yeah. Meaning there's, It matters. And it matters, I think in two ways, Like, Let's just say that we are decide that we want to be physically active regularly because we know it'll be good for our emotional health, Our, Our physical health and our longevity. And we go, Okay, That's an important thing to do. So if we don't do it, There's those are the consequences. We're not getting those benefits and that's, That's important, But there's another consequence. And that consequence is that when we keep saying, I'm going to do X, Y, Or Z, And we don't do it, We erode our basic confidence in our ability to influence and direct our lives. And that is almost the biggest cost, Right? That is almost the biggest cost because then we become less effective in everything. Oh, That's good. That's really good. Thank you for that. You talk about, Which I love, You know, Working with parts, But you talk about befriending the parts of yourself you want to avoid. So I'm curious, Did you do that during this process? Or is that something you learn later? Maybe you were doing it, You didn't even know what you were doing. I'm wondering, Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, So in treatment, There was a lot of, You know, There were non-12 step things. There was a, There was a therapeutic approach, Let's say, Which meant, You know, You start looking at that stuff. But even within the context of the 12 steps, There's something called a searching and fearless moral inventory, The fourth step, Which can be taken is, Let me just list everything I did wrong, Which that's part of it, But it doesn't stop there. It says like, You know, What are the, What are the patterns? What are the forces that are acting on me? Right? You know, I'm okay. One of the things you do is you make a list of resentments. I'm resentful at so-and-so. Well, Why am I resentful? Oh, Because it threatens X. We make a list of our fears, Right? The next, You know, The sixth step is, You know, We look at our character defects, Which again can be a phrase that turns people off. I get that the language can feel wrong. But to me, I was able to go, Oh, Look, These are the things in me that are problematic. These are the patterns. These are the desires. These are the things that are causing me trouble. And so, Yeah, I think I was. And then of course, As I went on in recovery, I started going, Okay, Well, I'm not getting everything I need here. I need, You know, And I went into, You know, All kinds of different therapy. You know, You call it the adult chair. I mean, Back in, You know, I've been at this a long time, You know, It was called inner child work. That's what I do. Yeah, That's within it. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. And so, Which is a term I did not love. I like the adult chair as a framework much better than the phrase inner child. I particularly did not like it back then. Yeah, I did it right. And I saw so much. It was like, Oh, Okay. You know, And the trick is for me was. When I came into recovery. It was it was 1994 in Columbus, Ohio was a long time ago and. And there were not all the different approaches to recovery there are today, There is not. We did not. We did not live in a therapeutic culture. I mean, It was none of that. Right. Yeah. And I got I got sober around some people that I would say were fairly pretty, Pretty hard line. They say it doesn't matter why you're an alcoholic. It matters what you do. And that turned out to be beneficial to me in the beginning. But didn't turn out to ultimately be true because I did need to get into why. But but everyone knowing why only becomes helpful, I think, When we can then tether it to, OK, What do I do with that? You know, What do I do? OK, I see it now. The example I always give is I for a long time, I would in my this was in my career. Actually, It was anywhere I would go into a room and if there were men of my father's age in that room and they were somewhat just not overtly warm, I would get nervous and I would shrink around them. So it didn't take me long to figure out why. Right. My dad was an extremely critical, Angry person. I was scared of him all the time. OK, So I know why I'm sitting in the meeting and I can go, I know why, But I'm still shrinking. I'm still. And so then it's like, OK, Well, In the moment, What do I do with that knowledge? It's not enough to know it. It's not enough to have the insight. That's a start. But I need to in the moment then go, OK, How do I regulate myself in this moment? So that I can take the action that aligns with my value so that I don't shrink so that I don't hide, Even though I still feel about it, I can I can work with it enough. You know, I can work with it enough. And I think a lot of times we have. We have a myth that we will get to a point where the emotions go away and then we will be able to take the right actions. And that's not been my experience. My experience has been I can learn to relate to the emotions better, More skillfully so that I can do what I want to do, Even with those things being there. And over time, They lessen. Now it doesn't happen very much. A lot of years later that that dynamic is kind of unwound itself. But it took a while to unwind. It took a while of me going, All right, I'm going to just be, You know, I'm going to be confident here, Even when I don't feel confident. I'm thinking about the example you just gave, And I'm sure there are people that are listening going, Yeah, I've got that. Like, Yeah, When I'm with my mother-in-law, My father-in-law, My parents, My boss, My whomever, I shrink. Yeah. Can you just just give us an example of some ideas on what would we do if we are one of those people that we do shrink or our partner says something or a friend and we just shrink and we don't know, We lose ourselves? Yep. Well, Awareness is obviously the first step to pretty much any kind of change. So I have to recognize it's happening. I have to recognize that, Okay, I am shrinking. Okay, What is happening? Why is it happening? I have to have some degree of awareness of it. And often we don't have that. So then comes the awareness phase. And sometimes this is a painful phase in my experience. It's a phase where I see it happening, But I don't have the skills yet to change it. But that's still an important phase because I at least now am catching it real time versus looking back on it, You know, From the next day and going, Oh, Look what happened. I'm going, Oh, It's happening. So awareness. And then for me, It is, Okay, What, Like, How do I, How do I settle my nervous system enough? Okay, You're safe. You know, You're sitting in a room, You're safe, You're okay. Take a couple deep breaths, Feel your feet on the floor, Like settle a little bit. Not that that makes it go away. It does not, At least in my case, Right? Magic. But now I'm, I'm aware, I'm a little bit more settled and grounded. And then the question to me is, Okay, What's, What's the best version of me doing this situation? Okay. I have an idea about the discussion that's happening here. And I'm feeling anxious about speaking up because I, That guy over there is looking at me. It looks crabby. He looks like my dad. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and have the courage to say it. And sometimes that works. And then after I reflect, Oh, Look, See, You were in a situation, You were uncomfortable, You managed it, You spoke up, It went well. I'm sort of teaching myself. There are other times that I, I can't, Like I said, I can't do it. Like, I know I should speak up. I know I should speak up. I know I should speak up. And I don't. So one of the things that I will do is I often will afterwards replay the situation and imagine myself speaking up. And very importantly, I would imagine exactly what I would say, Because part of the problem is in those situations to, To massively oversimplify complex neurological processes. I am very much in my limbic system. I am stressed. I'm afraid. And the part of my brain that can make up, It can come up with like good judgment and good ideas and good words and all that is not very active. It's kind of shut down. So I need to know the words. I can give you a very practical example in my own life. I went the other day to a, I'm going to call it networking event that makes it sound worse than it was. There was a group of people getting together that I knew were my kind of people. But I am always nervous walking into a room full of people that I don't know. It's just, It isn't, It is not my default place to be. And so I was driving there and I was feeling a little bit of, Of that. And so there's a couple things I do in that situation. The first is I, I reorient to like what matters. And I'm like, Okay, I'm not here to compete. I'm not here to compare, Which is what happens normally. I'm here to connect and collaborate, Right? So now I've set what I want. I've set what's important. And then I come up with like, What's my opening phrase? Like I want to know what it is. And in my case, In this situation was simply what brings you here? Other situations, It might be different, But it's good to know, You know, Oh, If I'm at a big networking conference, I might say, Hey, Did you see the keynote speaker this morning? What did you think? I need a line, Right? Because I'm anxious. You know, I'm not overwhelmingly anxious in the way I used to be. I would call it just a very mild, But it's still there. And it helps me to know this is what I'm going to say. And so I think if you're talking about our partners, We shrink with our parents, We shrink. It's oftentimes knowing what to say. When I get into a argument with my partner, And this goes, When I say partner, I mean, My partner now, But I mean, Partners historically for all time. And it doesn't go well. I shut down. And I mean, Quite literally, It's like, I now can observe it happening. And it's like, I just all all the systems just kind of shut down and I go completely blank, And almost dead feeling. So a line that I've learned is to turn to my partner and say, That thing I do where I shut down, It's happening. And I'm working with it right now. I'm not ignoring you. I'm not not responding, But I need a minute. That line is really helpful. I need to know that I can do that. Because what normally happens is I shut down, They think I don't care, They keep coming. Yeah. Right? Yeah, Which just keeps driving, Making the dynamic worse. So by having a line, A phrase, Something I know I will do in that situation, I have a way to start to manage it. Again, It's not like it all vanishes. But it's a it's a starting place. And as I, You know, The whole book is sort of little by little, A little becomes a lot. I learned to do it a little bit better than I learned to do it a little bit better. And over time, It becomes much, Much better. That tendency in me, If my partner is unhappy with me, It's there. It's there. But I watch it and I go, Oh, Look, You're starting to everything's starting to shut down. You don't have to do that. Another way to do this. Okay. But for for a long time, I couldn't necessarily do that. I could, But I became aware. And it's the process we've kind of talked about. Yeah, Yeah. Something you talk about is wise habits. Is that what this is? Is this a wise habit? Or is this is that something different? No, This is a wise habit. Yeah. I mean, Wise habits is a little bit of a different phrase for the marrying of two things. So if I look at my work, It has been there have been two key themes that have run through it. One is all about behavior change. How do people change the science of behavior change, Watching people through addiction and recovery, Coaching hundreds of people, All that. And then the other has been, I'm just going to loosely call it wisdom. Spirituality is part of that, But wisdom. And so if you look at behavior science, It's always focused generally on doing something, Exercising or eating better or public health initiatives or, And that's great. And we know a lot there, But, But I, What I wasn't seeing was people taking that and saying, How do I apply it to becoming wiser, Better, Happier? And so a wise habit to me is something that, That brings something from behavior science over to how we, We get better. So an example of a wise habit would be, I've developed this method I call still points and a still point would be something like this. Behavior science tells us that we need to be reminded often to do something because we just won't remember. Right. So I take, We take an idea from behavior science, Which is, You need a prompt. And then, You know, Then what do I do? So for me, There's, There's different ways to do this, But one is I set, We have an app that does this. You set it to go off on your phone four times randomly throughout the day and it displays a message and it goes off and you just say to yourself, What are five things I can see? What are five things I can hear? What are five things I could feel in my body? You do it just as you're walking down the hall to your next meeting. But if you do that consistently, You will find your ability to be more present increases. And then there's the, The other variation on that would be the, When I feel X, Then I will do Y. Same thing. The prompt is the, The, The event. When I make a mistake, Here's how I will, You know, Here's how I will talk to myself. So those are really the wise habits. It's how do we take behavior change and apply it to becoming more wise. And, And the still point approach is the primary method for doing that because there's a lot out there that teaches us how to think differently and what to think differently, But there's not much that teaches us how to install it. And, And that happens little bit by little bit by little bit. If we assume, Let's just take an example and let's say that your thing is I want to be more patient with my children. If you set a little thing to go off on your phone, Or let's take, Let's use a different prompt. If you say, Every time I go to the bathroom, I will reflect on why being more patient matters to me. And you do that. I mean, I drink a lot of water. I go to the, Let's say four times, Let's say four times a day. I do that every day. When I get home that night and my kids are stressing me out, In which situation am I more likely to not snap? The one where I've reflected four times that day on why patience is important or the, The, The situation in which I, On Sunday night thought, I need to be more patient with my children. And I read a MindBodyGreen article on patience. Yeah. So that's a wise habit. Oh, I love it. I love it. Something else that you talk about is overwhelm. That's something I know well, And I work on that a lot, Actually, And I know I'm not the only one. So you say it's optional. Tell us how that's optional. I question that title a little bit, To be honest, But the idea was this. We all know we should do less. We all know we should spend less time on our phone. We should carve out more time for this. We should be less busy. We should say, No, We should, We all know that. And most of us simply don't do it. And my experience is most people won't do it. Right. Because their life is as full as they want it to be. When they look at their life, There's nothing that they're like, Well, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to cut that out. That matters to me. Oh, I'm not going to cut that out. That matters to me. Right. It all matters. Now, If you look at your life and you're like, I'm spending time doing things that don't matter to me, You should absolutely cut that out. But I guess if I would talk to you and we look at your life, Your life is really full with really good things, But that doesn't mean that you don't feel overwhelmed. Right. And you're not going to, So you're not going to start cutting things out. So if that is the case, The only way to work with overwhelm then is to work with the emotions that come from overwhelm. If we're not going to change the structure and do less, Our only remaining option is to work with it emotionally. And the core idea really is we can be really busy without being stressed. We can move fast without being rushed. There are ways to relate to our experience differently. And so if we're not going to change the experience, Meaning that what we do, Then overwhelm is in a sense, I will say optional. But what I mean is the emotions around it we can control. I even think if you took my ideas and you use them perfectly, Which nobody ever would, I certainly don't do, And you use them perfectly, You would still get overwhelmed from time to time. It's a crazy world, Right? But I am overwhelmed in the emotional sense far less than I used to be because I relate to it differently. And I'm in as busy a season as I have been in a long, Long time. That is a great point because I think so many of us would, When we feel overwhelmed, We think it's because of what's going on out there. It's like my life out there, Whether it be I've got too much work to do, I've got too much going on with the kids, I've got too much going on with my partner, Whatever the heck, I'm invited to go too many places with my friends, All of that is creating overwhelm. So the mind would say, If you could get rid of some of those things, Then overwhelm would be less. But I have to say, I know some people that don't have a heck of a lot going on. And they're telling me, I'm so overwhelmed. And I'm how in the world are you overwhelmed? And so I love this because it's an internal state that has to change. And it has nothing to do with what's out there. And then out there will look different. Your perspective shifts because your internal state changes. Yeah. The thing I would say, And I am a nuanced kind of guy, I would say it's not that it has nothing to do with what's going on. True, True, True. It does. But our reaction is the thing that we can work with, Right? Like, I think we create reality. Definitely. Right? We co create reality, There is things out there, And there are pressures and stressors and all of that stuff. And then we bring all our own stuff, Views, Opinions, Perspectives, Beliefs to it. Yeah. But I think we all know this feeling, You can imagine a day where you're in your car, And you're running a bunch of errands, And you got to get them done. But you got the radio on, And you're kind of bopping along as you go about doing your thing, And you're having a decent time at it. Yeah. And you can imagine the exact same scenario where you're gripping the steering wheel with your eyes like an inch from the windshield. And you're like, Why are these effers not going fast enough? And your your brain is spinning the exact thing. Yeah. But we know that we have we relate to it, We can relate to it differently. And so, Yeah, I mean, I that's what I think about a lot, How can I be busy without being rushed, Because I am really busy right now, In a good way, I'm choosing it. Yeah. And, You know, And I think that's the other piece that can be really helpful with overwhelm is, If we're not going to do less of this or do less of that or do less of that, Then we recognize we are choosing to do that. And anytime, In my opinion, I moved back into a position of I am choosing, I am the author and architect here, Is a more empowering place to be. Ooh, That's good. That's really good. I might be stressed because I'm like, I got to take the dog to the vet this morning. Yeah. Well, I technically don't. I mean, There's no law that says that I have to take my dog to the vet if he's, You know, If he's got a cough. I'm choosing to do it, Because I love my dog, And I value my dog. That's a very different thing than I have to do this thing. It's that reframe that can change everything, Right? It's a reframe is so powerful. Yep. And, And my experience with reframes is we need to keep doing them. And we need to recognize they're not magic, But that, You know, Consistently over time, Trying to shift from I have to, I have to, I have to, To I'm choosing. Slowly, That starts to build a little bit better sense of agency. There's a section in the book where I talk about extreme language causes extreme emotions. Yes, Indeed. I agree with that statement right there. Yeah. So true. Oh, That's good. What else? Is there anything else that you want to share before we end today? I'd love I'd love to share one one tool. Yeah, Please. I think would be useful. And I'm going to put it in context of, Of me. And I shared a little while ago, Here on the show. And beforehand, I shared with you, Yesterday was a discouraging day for me with the book. And so I was like, Okay, I'm feeling like what I felt like is this just isn't, This isn't going anywhere. It's not going to, It's not going to do well. It's blood, You know, I'm not going to do well, I'm going to, You know, Like, A lot, You know, You know, How we spin out. Yes, I do. So there's a tool that it's just three questions. And I sat down this morning, And I asked myself the questions. The first is like, What am I making this mean? Hmm. And so what I what I yet to do that we have to look at, Like, What is the fact? And the fact in this case was, I've not been booked on any top 10 podcasts. Good morning, America. I mean, No national broadcast media has picked me up. That's a fact. Yes. What I'm making that mean is that the book won't do well. It's not interesting. I'm not interesting. It's going to fail that. So that's what I'm making it mean. And then then is like, Well, What else could it mean? And I went, Well, It could mean that we're still a month and a half out. You know, We're picking up momentum. We don't know what's going to happen. What else could it mean? It could mean that I don't need to get any of that net huge press in order for this book to be a success. Now, Again, And then even that is like, Well, What am I defining as success? But but all of that. And then the last question is a really important one. And it's like, Which is most useful? And it's really clear to me that when I feel the former, This isn't going to work, Nobody's going to get it. It's not an interesting enough book, All of that. I just feel myself inside deflate. And I feel all the things that I'm doing to market the book. I suddenly feel I just don't really want to do them all of a sudden. When I read when I reframe it and I go, Oh, It could mean this. And, You know, There's lots of ways like, You know, I mean, Like I can look at you and go, Well, Like your book didn't hit a bestseller list, But it's done well and it's it's propelled your career forward. And like there's a lot I mean, I know a lot of people like that. That's the majority of people, The people who hit the bestseller list are few and far between. So when I reflect on that meaning, Like, Oh, Yeah, There's still a way that this is all headed towards something good. I suddenly show up in a totally different mindset. So those three questions, What am I making this mean? What else could it mean? Which of those is most useful? Because we are adding the meaning. Because the future is not written. Yeah. And, You know, It's such a great point. It's very adult chair. I love it. I have to say I love it. And what we forget as humans is that we actually have a choice over our thoughts or the thoughts that we choose to believe in. That's yes. And we. Right. Yeah. We I've meditated enough to know we don't have a choice over our thoughts. They show up. They just show up. Totally. Whether we want them to or not. But yes, We do have a choice about which ones we want to believe, Which ones we want to engage with, Which ones we want to feed. And that takes time. We get better at doing that. Yeah. Get better at doing it. It's not like all of a sudden, Instantly you you wake up and you go, All right, I've got control over my thoughts. I'm not going to believe that. I'm going to think about this is important for me. What would not have worked for me this morning would be to say, What else could it mean? It could mean that, You know, It's, You know, That it's going to be I'm going to, You know, The top 10 podcasts are all going to call me in a week and I'm you know, And I just I just believe enough, You know, That to me, That would be like BS. Yeah. So what can I believe? Oh, I can and do believe that if I keep doing what I'm doing, Good things are going to occur. I believe that that's something I can build off of. And so I think as we work with changing our thoughts and beliefs, We have to start in places that we can believe. Right. And a lot of people flip the thoughts so extreme, They're not believable, And then they drop it and then they go back to the original thought, Which was deflating, Degrading and doesn't feel good. Yeah. But pick the thought that feels best, Period. It's classic Abraham Hicks asterisk. You know, It's like, Which thought feels better? You actually get to choose. And like you said, To say things like, Well, In a week, You know, GMA is going to call me and I'm going to be no, But going just a little bit softer and saying, You know, I'm having so much fun with this book and I am getting on podcast and this feels so good and that that's like, I can I can reach for that. And that actually feels real to me. Go for that thought. And then and make that your dominant thought. And that's where I think so many of us suffer because we don't realize we get to choose our thoughts. Yeah. Well, Because we believe that what we're seeing is the truth. Right. Right. Like my brain for a period of time believed the story it was telling. It seemed really true. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, The you know, I know what the facts are. But I'm telling myself stories like, Well, And I bet my publisher is getting discouraged, So they're not going to support the book. And that's why I mean, Just telling myself all kinds of stories that I have no idea if they're true. And so, Yeah, I think we get to choose and and and then we just have to do it again and again and again and again. It's not like we do it one time like this worked really well for me today. I am certain I will go through this exercise again. Yeah, Exactly. Maybe it may be tomorrow. It might be in two weeks. But I am certain that I will do this exercise again where I get discouraged. My brain starts telling me, See, This is what it means. And I have to regroup. It's like going to the gym. You're not going to go to the gym once and walk out like a bodybuilder. Like you've got to you've got to continue and you just keep it up over time and things start changing and it becomes easier, Too. And it does become easier. I know the more we do this work of just flipping those thoughts and then believing something else that could be true, It does get easier and it gets faster. Would you not agree? It's like, Oh, Wait, I just got this. Bam. There it is. Yeah. So can I tell a final story? Yes, Please. All right. So. I had been picking them up for months without really even thinking about it. I stood in line at the pharmacy and I would get the paper sack with a prescription stapled to it and the receipt that was obviously always way too long, A few sprinkles, Dirt and drugstore, You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. And I would take them up to my mom's apartment and give them to her after she had a fall. And what I'm talking about are opiates. I'm talking about the good stuff. Oxycontin, Like the, You know, Top shelf stuff, Stuff that I would have potentially robbed you at gunpoint for. Wow. Stuff that caused me to burn down my life and give up everything that mattered to me to get it. And now I'm driving in the car with them sitting next to me and I'm not even thinking about them. They are no more emotionally significant to me than like a loaf of bread. Wow. That's insane. If you had told me when I started that that was possible, I would have said that is impossible. Maybe, Maybe I could stay sober. Maybe. But that, That it like wouldn't even be hard, Seemed impossible. But that story is 100% true. And I'm not saying it to brag or say, I'm saying we really can change. And the point you made is a really important one. It gets easier. The striking thing about that story for me is not that I didn't use them. It's that it was easy. And that's amazing. So the, The, The things that seem unsurmountable to us often can become it almost nothing in the rear view mirror, Or they, They transform in such a way that they, They become second nature. It is second nature for me not to use drugs or alcohol. I just don't do it. And I, The times I have to consciously make that choice are vanishingly few today. Cause I just don't think about it. Fascinating. I just love it. I'd end with that story as a, The point of like, You know, Real change is possible. Little by little, A little can become a lot. That's a beautiful story to end. Really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. We really can rewire ourselves. It's about the reprogramming. I always say that. So that's fascinating story.