EP 053 The Manifestation Trap | Why Mindset Coaching Alone Breaks Brains

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You're sitting at your
desk, your body is there.

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Heck, your hands are even on the keyboard.

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But somewhere between your third
affirmation of the day and your fifth

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visualization session, you stop feeling
like you are in your body at all.

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You know the feeling I'm talking about.

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It's like you're watching yourself type
from two feet behind your own eyes.

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Psychologists have a name for this,
depersonalization and derealization.

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And the worst part, everyone
online is telling you this is

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exactly what you're supposed to do.

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Your Success DNA Podcast

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So let's get stuck right in.

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The law of assumption.

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This is the idea that your inner state
becomes your outer reality, that what you

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believe internally manifests externally.

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This has become a near religious
doctrine across all the personal

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development spaces out there, and
trust me, I've been in the personal

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development game either as a customer
or someone who proposes all the great

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techniques inside there since the '80s.

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You know what I'm talking about,
manifestation culture, reality

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shifting, Neville Goddard's
teaching that's been repackaged for

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TikTok, and it's all talking about
ignore the 3D, live in the end.

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Assume you are already
what you want to become.

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The logic is seductive.

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If your internal assumptions create
your external world, then reality

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isn't something that happens to
you, it's something you generate.

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Like the Matrix, right?

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Control the assumption, means
you can control everything.

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But here's where it's gonna get a little
bit clinical, ladies and gentlemen.

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When you take that framework too
literally, when you push the cognitive

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pattern too far, something breaks.

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Not metaphorically, neurologically.

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You start experiencing what's
technically called depersonalization

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and derealization, a dissociative state
where you feel emotionally detached

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from your body and the environment.

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Your hands don't feel like
they belong to you anymore.

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Your voice sounds like it's
coming from someone else's mouth.

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You're present but absent.

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Conscious, but somehow observing your
own consciousness from the outside.

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You're not crazy.

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You're experiencing a measurable
psychiatric symptom triggered

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by a specific cognitive pattern,
and this is the gap that no one

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seems to want to talk about.

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The mechanism is surprisingly
straightforward once you understand it.

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Cognitive psychology has long
established that attention

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does in fact shape perception.

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What you attend to becomes your reality,
not metaphorically, but literally

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in the terms of what your brain
constructs as the world around you.

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Neville Goddard's framework
weaponized this very principle.

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He taught that you must not attend
to the current circumstances.

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Yeah, ignore the 3D.

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Don't look at your bank account.

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Don't acknowledge the problem.

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Instead, mentally assume the end state.

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Feel as if it's already
real, already happening.

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Wear that assumption like clothing.

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But what if the king is naked?

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Goddard's specific technique
for this is what he called SATS,

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S-A-T-S, the state akin to sleep.

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It involves entering this hypogenic
state just before sleep and mentally

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inhabiting your desired reality as
if it was already done, it already

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existed, you already got there.

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It's one of the most practiced and most
discussed techniques in the Neville

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Goddard community, and it's also, for
reasons we're about to get into, one

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of the most neurologically- potent.

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The problem emerges when sustained
intense attention away from your physical

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body and present reality starts to
dysregulate your nervous system's ability

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to anchor inside the here and now.

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Your brain has sensory integration
systems, the interoceptive network.

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It's centered specifically in the insular
cortex and, and the anterior insula.

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Okay?

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All of that is there to literally
keep you grounded in your body.

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This system works partly through
what's called the somatic marker.

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This is a concept developed by
neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.

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It, it's a, a constant low-level awareness
of your physical state that creates this

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felt sense of being embodied, right?

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Of just knowing, "I'm-- Here's where I
am." But when you habitually redirect

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your attention inward towards internal
assumptions and towards internal

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visualizations and away from that
external sensation and the real present

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reality, you're essentially training
your nervous system to disembody itself.

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Look, don't get me wrong here.

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It's not that the law of
assumption is inherently harmful.

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The cognitive shift towards positive
expectation has measurable benefits.

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It, it can reduce anxiety, it can
improve motivation, and yes, it can

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influence behavior patterns that
statistically improve your outcomes.

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That part is 100% real.

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I own it.

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I don't wanna say it doesn't work.

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But there's a dose responsive
curve that personal development

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culture seems to completely ignore,
especially the really motivated ones.

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You, you, you know who I'm
talking about, those, those folks.

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A moderate amount of assumption
shifting is adaptive.

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It creates a psychological flexibility.

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It helps you break old patterns.

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But sustained obsessive practice, it's
like anything else when you overdo

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it, especially when you combine that
with the explicit instruction to not

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acknowledge current reality, that,
my friends, can tip way over into

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maladaptive territory because you're
literally training your brain to

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disassociate from the present moment.

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And for some people, particularly
those with some existing trauma,

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some anxiety sensit-sensitivity, or
latent disassociative vulnerability,

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that practice can trigger a
genuine depersonalization disorder.

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Whoa, wait a minute.

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Yeah.

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Here's the clinical detail I
don't think anybody mentions.

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Depersonalization has a feedback
loop Here's what I mean.

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You start experiencing unreality,
your body feels distant, so you

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get anxious about the unreality.

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What's wrong with me?

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Am I losing my mind, right?

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That anxiety is a distress signal.

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Your brain responds by
deepening the disassociation.

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That's a protective mechanism.

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It's a neurological circuit breaker.

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You get more detached.

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You get more panicked.

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So what do you do?

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You assume harder.

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You tell yourself, "I'm just not believing
hard enough. I... The 3D is trying to

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trick me. I need to believe harder."
You intensify the very practice that's

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causing the problem in the first place.

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And because you're embedded within a
community that frames any perception

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of present reality as focusing on the
negative or not being in the end, you

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can't even name the problem without
being told that you're vibrating lower

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or you're blocking your blessings.

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Yeah, that's what psychologists
call spiritual bypassing.

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It-- That is a, a term coined by
psychologist John Welwood to describe

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the use of spiritual ideas and practices
to sidestep unresolved psychological

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wounds into developmental needs.

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The community becomes a container
for a psychiatric symptom.

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The, the ideology makes
the symptom invisible.

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It's, "I'm not here. Don't pay attention
to me." A 23-year-old sw- software

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developer named Marcus... I don't wanna
use his real name 'cause I didn't get his

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permission, but his pattern is textbook.

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He started exploring the
law of assumption in 2022.

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He was successful by c- all the
conventional metrics out there:

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six-figure salary, startup equity,
a trajectory that anybody out there

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would envy, but he felt hollow.

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So he pivoted into manifestation work.

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Every morning, 45 minutes of affirmations,
visualization of his ideal self as

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wealthy and confident and in control.

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Three meditation sessions where
he practiced feeling in the

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state, he says with air quotes.

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He got into SATS practice specifically,
spending 30 minutes every night

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in the threshold state between
waking and sleep, feeling his ideal

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reality as if it were already real.

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For six months, it felt powerful.

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He felt more motivated.

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He made career moves that all paid off.

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The correlation then, of
course, reinforced the belief.

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But something shifted.

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Around month seven, he started
noticing his hands during meetings.

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It was like they belonged to someone else.

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Maybe like y- if you've played
a video game, you're controlling

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the hands, and you know y-you
are, but disconnected from them.

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But when he spoke, his
voice sounded distant.

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He'd be in a high-stakes call with
investors, and suddenly he felt like

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he was watching a recording of himself
rather than actually being his self.

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The anxiety spiked.

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So what'd he do?

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He doubled down on the practice.

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He read Neville Goddard's
work even more intensively.

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He joined an online community dedicated
to ad- to advanced assumption techniques.

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They told him he was going
through an ascension.

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This is actually common language in
those spaces, so bear with me here.

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They started reframing disassociative
symptoms as spiritual progression.

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It made sense to him in that
moment, but then it got worse.

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He started avoiding his body
intentionally, not eating as much because,

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well, you know, the body is an illusion,
not moving as much because physical

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sensation felt too real and threatened
his carefully maintained inner state.

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He'd go days where he felt like a ghost
watching someone else live out his life.

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The panic attacks became almost constant.

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He finally went to a therapist
who identified it immediately:

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depersonalization-derealization
disorder, classified in the DSM-5

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as the dissociative disorder
diagnostic code F48.1, triggered

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by sustained dissociative practice.

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The treatment wasn't more visualization.

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Nope, it was the opposite:
deliberate, grounded reconnection

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in the present moment.

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Grounding techniques, sensory
awareness, walking barefoot, eating

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food while actually taking the time
to taste it, feeling his heartbeat,

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anxiety exposure to his own body.

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I know some of you are laughing.

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I know when I first started diving into
this, I giggled a little bit, little bit

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by myself, not because I think it's funny
that people are going through this, but

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I think it's funny that we take something
so far to the edge That we hurt ourselves.

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His recovery took nine months, eight
months of slowly convincing his nervous

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system that being in his body was
safe, that the 3D, the physical reality

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he had been trained to ignore, was
actually where his life was to be lived.

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Look, don't get me wrong here.

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This isn't a, a story about the law of
assumption being evil, because it's not.

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But there is a cost structure that
I think gets completely hidden

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or kept away in a dark corner.

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The personal development space thrives
on the narration of transformation, and

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what you're doing today is laying the
groundwork for your ideal self tomorrow.

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That, right, that present moment
reality is essentially irrelevant.

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Go ahead, you can ignore the 3D, but your
nervous system does not ignore the 3D.

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It literally is designed to keep
you embedded in the 3D, and so

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your survival depends on it.

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Your sense of self depends on it.

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There's a concept in neuroscience
called predictive processing.

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It's a framework developed by
neuroscientist Karl Friston, sometimes

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called the free energy principle.

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And we're not talking about
driving your cars here.

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Your brain is constantly generating
predictions about what it's about to

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experience, and it does this based on
old patterns and current context and

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a number of internal models, which are
a little bit different for each of us

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because we go through different lives.

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Perception is the process of matching
these predictions against sensory

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reality and then updating the model.

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So when you actively train yourself to
ignore sensory input and focus instead

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on the internal visualizations, you
are essentially telling your brain,

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"Look, dude, g- check this. Your
predictions are more real than the

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actual sensory data that's out there."

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Right?

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You feel me?

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For a while, that feels like empowerment.

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You're no longer passive to
reality, you're kinda generating it.

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But sustained mismatch between prediction
and reality is, is in fact a predictive

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error that keeps happening, and you're
training yourself not to acknowledge it.

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That generates neurological
dysregulation, right?

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It shows up as depersonalization,
derealization, disassociation.

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You're telling your brain, "Dude, I
know you said that was gonna happen,

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and it happened, but don't pay
attention to that. Here's what I want

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you to focus on." You're disconnecting
from what's actually happening.

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The educational piece here, which I
think is the, the thing worth really

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sharing, is understanding the difference
between healthy assumption shifting

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and pathological disassociation.

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Healthy manifestation practice is
something you do with awareness of your

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present reality, not instead of it.

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Hear me out on that, right?

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You set an intention, you visualize, and
then you come back into the here and now.

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You notice your body.

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You act in alignment with your goal
from a grounded place in the now.

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The assumption then becomes
a lens, not a prison.

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You're not ignoring reality.

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You're actively choosing where to place
your attention while staying present.

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But when the framework becomes ignore the
3D, live in the end, don't acknowledge

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your current circumstances, when
it becomes a binary choice between

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imagination and reality, not an
integration of both, that's when the trap

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begins to close and hold you inside it.

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And h- here's the dangerous part.

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You can't unspell this
with more meditation.

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You can't positive affirm your
way out of depersonalization.

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What you need is re-embodiment.

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You need to practice the
deliberate, sometimes unforgettable

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work of just being here.

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I know sometimes it's not comfortable.

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Sometimes y- the here is shit Uh, right?

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There's probably other words I
could use, but you, you feel me.

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Now, it-- right where you are right
now, in the body that feels real, even

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if it does not feel good, there it is.

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The darkest place of this
isn't the symptom itself.

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It's the community structure around
the manifestation culture that

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makes it almost impossible to reach
out from inside it, to say, "I'm

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experiencing some depersonalization
from this practice," right?

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Something feels wonky here.

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Now, that is to admit that you
weren't vibrating high enough.

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You weren't being good enough.

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That's failure.

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It means you weren't disciplined enough.

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You weren't believing enough.

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You weren't evolving enough.

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You weren't enough.

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This is John Welwood's spiritual
bypassing in its acute form, using the

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language of spiritual progress to avoid
confronting a real psychological crisis.

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So people, what do they do?

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They suffer in silence.

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They intensify the very practice
that's harming them in the first place

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because the ideology tells them the
solution is in deeper surrender, not

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stepping back and looking around and
gauging what the hell's going on.

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They become isolated by the framework
designed to free them, to liberate them.

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Let that one sink in, to get
isolated by the very framework

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they're using to free themselves.

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Huh?

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Look, maybe you came to this video for
some clarity, and the clarity isn't

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that the law of assumption doesn't work,
because let's be honest, it does in

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specific contexts, in specific doses.

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The clarity I wanna make sure you
come away with is that your nervous

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system, it has a breaking point.

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Your body has a voice, and when
the cost of your internal state

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becomes disassociation from your
physical state, when the price of

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your beliefs is unreality, then the
assumption is no longer serving you.

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It's consuming you.

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Yeah, eating you alive.

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The question isn't whether you should
believe or whether you should not believe.

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The question should be: what is the cost?

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What are you willing to lose in the
pursuit of a version of yourself

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that exists only in your imagination?

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Because the gap between the self
you're assuming and the self you're

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actually living as, that's the
gap... where the pathology lives.

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The trap was never the belief.

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It was the belief that the
belief alone was enough.

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Look, if this episode is hitting a little
different, if you recognize yourself maybe

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a little bit in Marcus's story, or you
felt a little uncomfortable recognition

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as I was describing watching yourself
from outside your own body, then perhaps

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you need to get on my newsletter list.

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00:15:32,827 --> 00:15:37,271
The Unleash Your Success DNA newsletter
is a weekly reality check for my

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00:15:37,271 --> 00:15:40,819
aspiring entrepreneurs and nine-to-five
escapees and anyone out there who

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00:15:40,853 --> 00:15:44,158
is tired of spiritual bypassing
and ready for a dose of truth.

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00:15:44,349 --> 00:15:47,862
Each issue delivers more mindset
shifts and habit upgrades, all again

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00:15:47,862 --> 00:15:50,479
with a little dose of rebellion, all
designed to help you break through

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00:15:50,479 --> 00:15:54,758
convention so that you can build a life
aligned with your version of success.

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00:15:55,045 --> 00:15:56,827
So wh- who cares, Tracy?

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What, what does this mean?

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Here's what really I
think it comes down to.

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We're living through the largest
uncontrolled psychological

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experiment in human history.

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I, I also do a conspiratory podcast,
and I dive way deep into this even more.

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00:16:11,184 --> 00:16:14,462
But let, let's, let's not go sp-
conspiratorial here because millions

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of people are practicing disassociative
techniques without understanding

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00:16:18,775 --> 00:16:20,314
the neurological consequences.

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00:16:20,471 --> 00:16:24,479
The personal development industry has
weaponized ancient spiritual practices,

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00:16:24,566 --> 00:16:27,819
stripped them of the safeguards,
and packaged them up all neat and

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00:16:27,819 --> 00:16:29,862
nice with a bow as quick fixes.

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00:16:30,027 --> 00:16:31,723
This isn't about manifestation.

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00:16:32,036 --> 00:16:35,419
This is about a culture that's
lost touch with the value of being

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00:16:35,514 --> 00:16:37,619
present in the now with yourself.

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00:16:37,906 --> 00:16:40,584
We've confused spiritual practice
with spiritual bypassing.

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Real transformation doesn't happen
by escaping your current reality.

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00:16:45,210 --> 00:16:49,610
It happens by fully inhabiting it and
then consciously choosing to change it.

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00:16:49,914 --> 00:16:51,271
The trap was never the belief.

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00:16:51,375 --> 00:16:54,140
It was the belief that the
belief alone is enough.

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So here's your whispered wisdom
for this week and your action step.

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For the next seven days, practice what
I'm gonna call reality anchoring Three

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00:17:02,102 --> 00:17:05,754
times a day, in the morning, afternoon,
and before you go to bed, spend two

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00:17:05,754 --> 00:17:08,093
minutes feeling your feet on the ground.

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00:17:08,311 --> 00:17:11,224
Heck, go a little crazy, kick
off your shoes and socks and

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00:17:11,224 --> 00:17:12,789
go step out onto the grass.

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00:17:12,920 --> 00:17:14,667
Or if you don't have grass, onto the dirt.

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Notice the temperature
of the air on your skin.

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00:17:16,954 --> 00:17:18,737
Listen to the sounds around you.

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00:17:18,972 --> 00:17:21,624
Put your hand on your chest
and feel your heartbeat.

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00:17:21,885 --> 00:17:26,772
And then say out loud, "I'm here. This
is now. This is real." No visualization,

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00:17:26,833 --> 00:17:29,293
no affirmations, just presence.

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Because you cannot build a business,
a relationship, or a life of any

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kind from a disassociative state.

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I know this episode might have shattered a
few of your beliefs or made you go, "What

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00:17:39,467 --> 00:17:42,615
the hell is this guy talking about?" And
maybe you've held on a little too tight.

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00:17:42,763 --> 00:17:44,493
And if they have, good.

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00:17:44,546 --> 00:17:46,746
Even if you don't agree
with me, that's okay.

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00:17:46,946 --> 00:17:47,963
Hit me in the DMs.

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00:17:48,172 --> 00:17:49,206
Hit me in the comments.

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00:17:49,380 --> 00:17:50,511
Tell me why you disagree.

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00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:52,824
Let's engage in a little
bit of discourse, right?

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00:17:53,172 --> 00:17:54,415
That's what we do here.

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00:17:54,659 --> 00:17:56,885
We tell the truth even
if it's uncomfortable.

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Your freedom is not gonna be
found by escaping reality.

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00:17:59,946 --> 00:18:02,563
It's found in the
mastering of your reality.

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00:18:03,093 --> 00:18:06,850
The world doesn't need yet another
person lost in their damn imagination.

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00:18:07,050 --> 00:18:07,650
It needs you.

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00:18:08,059 --> 00:18:11,519
It needs you present and grounded
and ready to build something real

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00:18:11,711 --> 00:18:13,459
from where you are right now.

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Think successfully and take action.