Why You're Stuck In A Cycle (And the One Step To Break It) with John James Santangelo

John James Santangelo is an expert in NLP and has spent over thirty years helping people get their sparkle back, but he does it in such a grounded and no nonsense way. 

We really dug into the idea that none of us are actually broken. We just have these old mental programs from childhood that keep us playing small and feeling stuck in the same cycles.

In this episode of Thrive After 45™, John explains why happiness is something we do rather than something we just wait for. He shared this great metaphor about being your own travel agent and finally deciding on a destination instead of just complaining about where you have already been. 

It is such a powerful shift from the way most of us look at our lives in midlife.

We also touched on why we stay stuck because we are so worried about what other people think of us. John’s advice on how to stop holding all our stress in like an overstuffed closet was a huge lightbulb moment for me. 

He even walked me through a simple way to override negative self talk using just three little words and a whole lot of heart.

If you have been feeling a bit lost in your own identity lately, this chat is going to feel like a warm hug and a much needed nudge to take the wheel again. 

Grab your coffee and join us for this one.

You can find more about John here:

Website: www.LANLP.com

New Book - www.ControlYourEmotions.com

Thank you for spending time with me today on the Thrive After 45™ podcast! If this episode spoke to you, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss one.

November 2026, I will be hosting a live, in-person experience called IGNITE: The Inner Uprising™.

It is a two-day immersive gathering for 1,200 women in midlife — women who feel the quiet pull toward something more truthful, more embodied, more fully their own.

IGNITE is an extension of these conversations.

It’s where reflection becomes embodiment.

Where insight becomes integration.

Where women who have held so much for others gather to stand fully in their own sovereignty.

If something in today’s conversation stirred you — if your body leaned in — that is NOT accidental.

The waitlist is now open.

If IGNITE feels like something your future self would thank you for, I invite you to add your name here. 

https://ignite2026.lovable.app

There is a place for us to gather.

If you loved this episode, I’d be so grateful if you left a review - it helps more amazing women like you find this show!

Your journey doesn’t stop here - let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with me at denisedrinkwalter.com, and follow ...

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Thrive after 45. I'm Denise Drink Walter heart whisperer, midlife mirror and mentor. Every week I am honored to share energy and space with inspiring guests whose stories reflect so many possibilities of thriving. Beyond 45. Together we'll uncover the whispers of the heart, the power of midlife transformation, and the wisdom that fuels expansion. Have you ever had a moment when you quietly realized I can't keep going on like this? These moments have a way of shifting us softly, deeply, and. Often without warning, today's guests, John James Sanje PhD, knows that turning point. Well, there was a time when he felt stuck, overwhelmed, and moving through a depression with no one. Who could help guide him out. So he did what some or many of us eventually learned to do. He began helping himself one honest step at a time, and that journey led him to NLP, and it changed the entire direction of his life. John is now an NLP trainer, PhD Clinical High. Hypnotherapist and results coach with 35 years of experience and for more than 25 years, he has led an NLP training center that has supported thousands of individuals to rebuild self-worth. Clarify goals and reconnect with their true direction. John has written numerous powerful books. His latest authored book is Control Your Emotions Master Your Life, and I am honored to share this space with you today. John, thank you for coming on the show. Yay. Thanks, Denise. Oh my God. You know what's so funny, honey? Every time somebody reads something like that, I go, that's not me. I didn't, I didn't do all that. You know what you imagine what 10 years can do? 25 years is amazing. It really is. You know, and, and what's great about what you're doing, Denise, you're giving people the roadmap and that's truly what we need as adults. Yeah. Because as children, we never learned it. Right. Absolutely. As children, we followed what we were told to do, what we were guided to do, and the women that I work with are in the throes of understanding their identity is totally lost because they've been, yeah. Steering the steering, the ship from others' viewpoints instead of their own. Yeah. Yeah. That, that is so true. Especially I think nowadays with women it's, it's expanding a little bit. Yeah. Because you know, back when my parents, my dad, grandfather came from Italy and my dad is all about respect and the Italian thing, and you, the wife stays home and does that. Yeah. And my mom was the same thing. I mean, thank God she loved her job as raising her five kids. Mm-hmm. You know, it gave her that identity. But what happens when the relationship failed like it did where my mom after 30 years and she had to go look for that. Right. You know, who am I now? Right. And that's the real question that everybody asked people. I don't care who you're listening to this, it's the question of. Who am I and what's my purpose here? Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly what I am finding. People are dying, quote unquote, literally for, and what you do share with us how the work that you do helps with that. In terms of understanding themselves as individuals. Well, that's, that is the million dollar question, right?'cause if you can, if you can figure that out, yeah. Right. If you can figure out, not that in, in neurolinguistic programming or NLP, we say this, no one's broken. We're not, and that's what a lot of people think, I need to be fixed, I'm broken. No, you're not. The challenge is that you just have the wrong strategies or mental programs that we've learned, as we were just saying. Right. Most of them from childhood. Right. And by the time we were eight or 10 years old, the, the unconscious mind really doesn't develop so that that small infant literally, I mean literally believes. Everything it sees and hears and feels. And so if your parent just says to you one time, well, my dad said this when I was eight. I know he didn't mean it, but he goes, God, you're so damn lazy. Mm-hmm. Right. And you, so we, we own that, right? That becomes our identity because we go, oh, well it's dad. And you know, he's just amazing. He's powerful. He must be right. Or your, your, your teacher in school says, you're so bad at speaking. Which is really what happens to a lot of people. They get up in class, they do a thing, and, oh, that's wrong. Oh, really? It's wrong. That becomes their identity and it's such a shame because now to answer your question really is this, yeah. What is the real question that ultimately we want every single person wants? That's my, that's gonna be the new title of my book. Right? I just wanna be happy. Mm-hmm. I just wanna be happy. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. Right. Right. So we were just talking that about that off camera. Right. I just wanna be happy in what I do and if I'm, if I'm doing it, sometimes, sometimes the money's not that important and usually the money's attracted to people that have that kind of energy. Yes. Yeah. And, and people, people wanna gravitate towards that. Right.'cause it's infectious. Yeah. Right. And if you can, and, and here's the, and here really is the answer. What do you want? That's the first question I ask my, my clients. I, I put it like this, and this is almost funny. I said, pretend I'm your travel agent. Mm-hmm. What's the first question I'm gonna ask you? Where do you wanna go? Where do you wanna go? Because it doesn't matter if we go, oh, well we could take a skateboard, a bike, a plane, a car, a bus. It doesn't matter. The vehicle. Yeah. If we don't know the destination right, is like one of the quotes says, and then any place will do. Right. Right. So that's one of the first things I do with people is really, you know, of course they come in like this, I all my life and then this, I'm not getting this and I'm my job and the kids, and I kick the dog when I get home and Right. Life is just so hard. I go, okay, I get that. Right. And where do you want to go? Right. Well, you know, here's what, here's what they, this is almost every time Denise. Yeah. It's almost, it's almost hysterical. Well, you know. Give you an example about the travel agent. Yeah. Where do you wanna go? Well, you know, I've been to New York. I don't wanna go there. I just, yeah, I'm, I'm just tired of that weather. Yeah. I've been to Hawaii so many times. I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. But where do you wanna go? Oh, well, I was thinking about Europe, but you know, Europe's just so expensive nowadays and, and it's all of that. Yeah.'cause it's, it's the, like we were saying, it's the mind clutter. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's one of the things that we don't learn from our primary caretakers is decision making. Mm. Mm-hmm. Making prominent, healthy decisions about what truly makes us happy mm-hmm. And what we want. Mm-hmm. So question is, is what's the cause of that? Uh, it, it's not just one thing. Okay.'cause think about this. I love giving metaphors. We're, we're in school. Mm-hmm. And usually by the time, well, let me back up a bit. You already know this. I'm gonna ask your listeners what are the three biggest problems that we have in life? There's only three. Only three. And every other problem you think of falls under one of these categories. The first one is relationships. Mm-hmm. And we learn that by the time we're 13 and the hormones kick in and we, we get into relationships and we get out and we mess'em up and we get, you know, we get screwed somehow, like I did when I was 13 in my first relationship. That sets the precedence for a lot of'em after that. Mm-hmm. The second one, the second issue is money. Right. We get outta school, we're going to college, we realize I gotta get a job. Mm-hmm. Right. Money becomes important. Right. And then the third one usually doesn't happen till way down the line. By the time you're 30, 40, 50, 60 years old sometimes is your health. Health. Yep. Yep. The Dai Alma was a great quote. He says, I'm paraphrasing. We spend all our time making money, and then we spend all our money trying to recoup our health down the road. Totally. And it's so sad, you know? Yeah. Because we're not. We're not conditioned, and I guess this is the answer to your question. We're not conditioned to find happiness. Right, right, right. Look at, I can ask anyone. I don't care who it is. Can you get unhappy right now? Like you can make yourself unhappy? Mm-hmm. It's pretty easy to do. Just think about some negative things that happen. They don't have to be dramatic. Yeah. But when I ask, do you know how to make yourself happy? That's a whole nother realm because most people go, no. Mm-hmm. I don't. And that's, as I was saying before, that's the next title of my book, is it's gonna be, happiness is a verb because it's in the doing. It's in the doing. Sitting around thinking about happiness, right? Thinking about your problems ruminating in negative emotions, don't help us. Right. Yeah, so, so when and, and tell me what resonates when I ask this question.'cause I'm very curious when people think about happiness, is the default outside in? Well, you really can't see anything other than your perspective through your own eyes. Right. We call that associated. You're associated. You're seeing your life through your own eyes. You can't step out of yourself and look back at you. Now, there's an exercise, it's called perceptual positions. There's three positions in, in fact, NLP started from Fritz Pearls, Virginia Satir, and Milton Erickson. Fritz did some what he called gestalt therapy, where you'd have other people sit in another chair. Mm-hmm. Right? And you go pretend that's your dad over there. Become your dad. Right. And then look back at yourself over here and talk to you as your dad would. Of course. Usually if they're having issues with their dad, it's never good. Right? Right. But you're such a lazy boy. Your your husband pain, you never work hard, you know, you can't do anything. You sit around all day, blah, blah, blah. Well, okay, then you become the silent observer. Mm-hmm. Sit and watch these two actors you and your dad perform. What kind of perception do you get? It's a completely different perspective. So coming back to the question really is you can't see anything other than yourself. Mm-hmm. And so everything outside of ourselves, as I say, life, remember, I think this is the most important quote I'm gonna tell you people today. Life is nothing more than a mirrored reflection of what you see inside. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What you see and tell yourself inside, you get outside. It shows up, and you can call that manifesting abundance, whatever you want to call it. Right? Because we can all do it. We all, my God, I, I thought about a parking lot and it showed up, right? Or a parking space, or, I was thinking about a friend and he, and he called, that's called manifesting. But it really is the art of deciding what you want.'cause the universe is a wonderful thing. It gives you exactly what you ask for. And most people, like you were just saying, Denise, spend so much time looking outside of themselves. Exactly. Hoping, hoping that, oh, you know, happiness is gonna show up at their door. Like, Don, Don, Don, Don. Oh, there, it's now I finally can be happy. Mm-hmm. Right. I got that job or that relationship. My kid did this, or you know, I achieved that certain amount of income, or I'm healthy now. Whatever that is. No, it's not. It's not never outside of you. It's always within you. And you always have the power because I believe this, I'm a godly man. I believe that our creator gave us two things. Free will to choose anything we want in life, and ultimate power to create it. Love that, ultimate power to create it. The challenge is, as you were just saying, we're not taught Right. That that's possible. Yeah, because what do, what's the first word we learn as children? The first, I mean the, what is it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right. Well, if that's the very first word, and that's your parameters of your life, the world that you live in, don't go there. Don't step outside, don't touch the dog. Don't, don't hit mommy. What do you think you're gonna be like when you grow up? Mm-hmm. The world then just expands, right? It doesn't change. Right? Right. It just expands. So, oh, I can't have that kind of relationship. I'll never make that kind of money. And that's the next step in, in the evolution of when I work with people is what are your limiting beliefs? Right? What do you believe about yourself? I can tell you this, Denise. You guys are listening to this'cause she's a brilliant woman. Every single person I've ever worked with over the last 25 years, and we, we call it this, it's the onion of your life. Right. People talk in surface level language. Yeah. It's okay. You start peeling it away. Oh man, it's not okay because this happened. Or then you start getting the deeper feelings. Every single person. Right? Every single person. The core is self-worth. Mm-hmm. Self-worth, how I feel about myself determines the decisions I make, therefore, shapes the quality of life I ultimately have. So. Tagging into that self-worth part at the beginning. You mentioned your dad when you were eight said you were lazy. Is that a pivotal piece that eats your self-worth and then you play that track on repeat until you come into the other two pieces? You talked about free will and choice and decision, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So think about like your, think about your life like a giant building a wall. And everything that has been said you've done is a brick in that wall. Yeah. And it's being constructed throughout your years. Yeah. Everything you believe about yourself, most importantly, everything that has been said to you. Right. Everything you've done because of the things you believe about yourself constructs this life. Yeah. Right. NLP Neurolinguistic programming, these two gentlemen in Santa Cruz in 1970. Deciphered what the three best therapists in the world were doing at the time, and they extracted out mm-hmm. Their techniques and attitude, because if you could sit with like, let's say three billionaires and learn what they do, and they could teach you, you'd become a billionaire too. Well, these guys develop neurolinguistic programming and the basis of it really is, as we were talking about, it's the owner's manual of how the brain operates, and that's what was fascinating to me. I'm like, I never knew I did that before. Right. Because if you ha you, everybody's got a computer or a phone or some, a tablet or something. Mm-hmm. If it goes on the rye, if it goes wacky, right? And you could go, oh, I know how to do that. Take off the back and plug in a different, you know, motherboard or change the software, close it back up and it worked, done perfectly. That should be the way your life operates. But we're not taught how to work the owner's manual of the mind. And so therefore we choose to go back in our past and look at our past and go, it was their fault that happened to me. Therefore, I feel this way. Or, so the first, the first secret. Really is about awareness, right? It's about, that's everything, right? And ab, you've heard this a billion time, I'm sure. Absolutely. AA is all about that, right? I'm an alcoholic. Hi, I'm John, I'm alcoholic. That's awareness. You've gotta take ownership. As Dr. Wayne Dyer said, it's being responsible. He called it responsibility, responding with ability, right? And most people, we don't wanna do that because why? The unconscious brain mind. Mm-hmm. That runs 90% of us. It's number one prime directive. This is all it does. 90% of it is there to keep us safe. Right, of course. Yeah. And new, new and something we want is not safe. Right.'cause it takes risk. Right. It, we wanna be comfortable and what they, what do they say? Life exists outside your comfort zone. Sure, sure. Yeah. Absolutely. And so if you want anything different folks than you have. Number one awareness. Mm-hmm. Is what you're doing working right? If not, you don't have to go inside of it and do therapy for a hundred years. I don't do that. Yeah. I just ask them, where do you wanna go instead? Right. Where would you rather be? Let's go there. The second process,'cause there's four steps in what they call the NLP Success formula is number one, outcome. Knowing what you want. Mm-hmm. Number two is taking some form of action. Yeah, exactly. You gotta that. In fact, in thinking Grow Rich in the book, that was the secret he kept alluding to. He never told you. It's, it's taking action. Because if you don't take action, I don't care how much you wanna go to New York on a plane, you're stuck. Right? Yeah, exactly. You gotta do something. The third piece is awareness, which mm-hmm is called, we say, is it working? Is what you're doing working right. Action. Excuse me. Outcome action awareness. Fourth piece to the secret is flexibility. Mm-hmm. You've gotta do something different other than what you just did if it didn't work. Right, right. Totally. Here's here, here's an example. Denise. Oh my God, all my relationships don't work out well. Here's outcome, action, awareness. They don't get the flexibility. They go, well, outcome, I want to be in a relationship. I take action. I go meet'em. I do all the wonderful things. Awareness. Is it working? No, it's not working. And they go back up to outcome again. Well, I'll go to the next relationship, outcome action. And they never get to the fourth piece of going, Hey, maybe I'm the common denominator that's not working right. Maybe it's me, right? Maybe if I grow, I'll attract a different kind of energy into my life. Absolutely. Yeah. I, I love what you're saying because that fourth piece I think, gets missed. That's why the cycle continues, right? That's the only reason the cycle continues. Yeah, that's right. Because as, as Einstein, literally, Einstein said this, the definition of insanity Yeah. Is doing the same thing over and over again and again and again expecting different results. Yeah. Well, that's where you're right, that's where the flexibility comes in. Yeah. I think another piece, and I, and I know it's woven into the four steps, but, um, the, the honest reflection that's required. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's in the beginning. That comes from the very onset. You can't, you can't decide on where you want to go if you're stuck in the past. And that's where most people, their mindset is, oh, it's not working. It's not. You've gotta be honest. And I say this, and here's the thing that some my clients don't like. I say, look, I need permission to be brutally honest with you. Sure. Brutally honest. Yeah.'cause you are not. You are not. Yeah. Yeah. And if I am and I can help you see that, then maybe together we can say, Ooh, I'm stuck in quicksand, or Right. You know, you could have a wonderful life, but here's the thing, even millionaires want to want more in their life. Mm-hmm. If I'm, because that's money's measurable or the most fittest individual, and I was in the fitness industry for 25 years. Mm-hmm. Even the fittest individual wants better more. Mm-hmm. We always want, you can have a great relationship with your, your house, spice, whatever, whatever. You always want more. That's just natural progression of the unconscious mind. We want to keep moving forward. Mm-hmm. Well, and that's growth. Yeah. Yeah. And we should, and we should want growth. Absolutely.'cause otherwise we're stagnant. So thank you for that.'cause I think that's absolutely imperative. My, absolutely. My whole lifespan, my goal is to never stop learning. When I stop learning, it'll be my last breath. That's how I see life. Right? Yeah. The number one thing you could do for yourself. Yeah, because even if you don't wanna learn something, that thing may trigger another thought of, Hey, I never thought of that. What if I did that instead? Absolutely. Yeah. Doors open up as a result, and it's the whole premise of our conversation for you by you, because of you, the ball is in your court. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to set it down and walk away? Are you going to pick it up and try and play it? Or are you going to even do more than just that? Learn how to play it really, really well and try a new sport because that rolls into a new one. Right? So many options. You never know something. You know, people have always said this, I never thought I was gonna do this for the rest of my life. And I love it. Yeah. Well, how'd you, how'd you come across that? Well, it was a total accident. It was a fluke, Uhhuh, right? Or, or, here's the great thing about relationships. I never, I never, and I hear this a lot, I, I, I, I've been divorced twice. I don't wanna get in another relationship. It's never gonna happen. And then someone shows up that just Yep. Melts them. Yep. I never would've thought that. Yeah. That's just not the way the brain works People. We want what we want, want. Sometimes we don't even know what we want Exactly. But to be open and available to those possibilities is what Yep. Is absolutely life changing. Absolutely. You know that, that, that really is the secret, right?'cause if I could say anything to anyone about. Their life itself. Again, I don't care how, where you're at in your life, whether you're 13 or you're 73 years old, what do you want? Mm-hmm. What do you want? Yeah.'cause you're over 45 doesn't mean you stopped learning and you stop growing and you stop achieving. Heck, you know, I'm 65 and I, I think this is the best part of my life right now because I'm actually, I'm actually settled into who I'm, yeah. Yeah. I, I know now. And here's the, here's really. Wow. And this took me a long time to learn. You wanna know the one thing that keeps people stuck Yes. Is worrying about, is worrying about what other people think. That's it. I used to laugh. Denise. I used to laugh. My grandfather, he came over from Italy, couldn't speak English. He did really well. My, my dad was very famous and rich. Yeah, of course he was never home'cause he worked right for, I mean, not seven days a week. Literally. Yeah. Um, I, I learned that. I watched my grandfather and my grandmother communicate. They just didn't care about who was around them. Right. They didn't care if they were talking to a merchant. They didn't care. If they were talking to somebody else, they didn't care. Mm-hmm. And that's kind of the secret. I don't mean don't care about people's feelings. Of course. Yeah. But don't care about what other people think about you. Because if you do, then you're always Yeah. Well I know if I say that, then somebody's, I'm gonna hurt somebody's and you know, what am I gonna think about me?'cause that's not, it's really not about them. It's really about you and rejection and ridicule. That's really what it's about. Absolutely. I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be looked at like, you know, I'm some horrible person if I speak my mind. Yeah. Yeah. And it circle back and that's the key. And it circles back to what you were saying before, John, about your reflection of people coming back to you are a reflection of your soul. Absolutely. So, absolutely. If you're not releasing your soul into its truest form, all the stuff you're getting back, yeah. It's gonna be, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I, I love, I love NLP because it's technical. It gives you formulas and techniques. Okay. Yeah. Of things to do. It's not just the what to do because I, I attended millions of seminars. Sure. It was always the what to do, but never the how to do it. Right? Yeah. Well, NLP wears formulas and techniques you could actually do. I'm like, wow, this is, I like this. I can gravitate towards, I can grasp these things and see if it works. I'm gonna teach you guys be gimme five minutes before we end because I wanna teach you guys something. Yep. Um. The word from the book, from my book, controlling Emotions Master Your Life. Yep. And some people does don't know this. Doesn't know this. What? Good grammar. I'm just, so I'm talking so fast. So I'm trying to get everything. Um, sorry folks. Um, the word emotions, if you look it up, it means to emote. Mm-hmm. It means to get things out. Yeah. So the one thing, if you do learn anything from this podcast that mm-hmm. Denise is posting, learn to express yourself. Mm-hmm. Learn to express yourself. I can tell you I've written, again, one of the first books I wrote was Stress Reduction. It's one of the things that a lot of people, I don't care how good or bad your life is, we all deal with stress. Some people more than others. Sure. But do you know stress is only because we don't emote, we don't give our feelings credence. We push'em down, we, we push'em in the back. I kind of equate it to this Denise in my, in my courses, my live courses, say, imagine you have this closet in your house and every time you feel something bad, you throw it in the closet and shut the door. Mm-hmm. Well, imagine if that closet was like your, your sports equipment closet. And every time you learned a new sport, you put all this equipment in there and after a while, the door's not gonna close. And you try and try and try with all this energy. To hold that door closed, but one right time, once like the volcano, it comes exploding open. And that's what happens with our feelings. Mm-hmm. You, you subside them, you push'em away, you hide them, sweep'em under the rug, shut'em down. After a while they come exploding out and usually it's in divorce. Mm-hmm. Bankruptcy. Mm-hmm. Suicide. Right. Mm-hmm. Bad friendships, whatever those are, rather than saying, God, I don't like the way this feels. Mm-hmm. Yep. I'm just gonna go find somebody to talk about it or talk to God, talk to the mirror. Right. You know, get it out of your body because the body. Holds the cortisol in your body. Yes. And creates stress. And after a long period of time, I can tell you this folks, because I studied cancer for 10 years, I can ask any cancer patient what happened three to five years ago. Mm-hmm. Before you were diagnosed. And they will always come up with something traumatic in their life. Mm-hmm. Every single person. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I had a divorce. I lost a child. I, I, you know, I lost all my money. Um, you know, I broke a leg and I couldn't work for months and something happened where it shook their world up to cancer because cancer's always in us. Mm-hmm. Then it just thrives. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, thank you for that. Yep. Um, I would love to hear what you were gonna share. Five minutes. Yeah, give me your five minutes. It's gonna take, it's gonna take only one, but I wanna explain why because Absolutely. Yeah. Remember this folks. Your brain and your system. That's part of the neurolinguistic. The language that we use to our talk, to ourselves and to other people is the programming part. We literally program our minds by the words we use and we program other people, right? Neuro meaning mind, body. Mm-hmm. The mind body is gonna hold these emotions. It holds these belief systems in literally inside different parts of our body. Right. Different chakra points, right? Different meridian points if you're into that, into reiki and all this, right? And so what you wanna do is you wanna override those systems. You wanna override those feelings. And how you do it is you've gotta talk to yourself. More empowering than that negative belief, okay? Mm-hmm. That's, it's that simple folks. But I'm gonna give you the words to use to actually change your life. Brilliant. Literally, because it changed mine within a couple of months, and I mean a couple, it probably would've done it sooner if I was more serious. Okay. There's two things that create patterns in our lives. Mm-hmm. One is emotion. The intensity of the emotion. Yes. Because you never forget stuff that's really intense. For sure. Like if I asked you, what were you doing two weeks ago, Tuesday? Brushing your teeth, you'd be like, I, I don't even know what was going on. Right. But if I said, somebody called and said, you just hit the lotto, you'd never forget that. Yeah. Right. So emotion and repetition, those are the two things that create programs in our lives, right? Yeah. Yeah. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna recite to ourselves mm-hmm. Three simple words. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna say'em three times. That's one round. And then we're gonna do it again. We're gonna do it again. And each time you say it, you're gonna get more intense, more loud, and more confident. You ready guys? You ready? People ready? We're ready. We're ready. The word is, because this hits your core of what we're talking about. Self-worth. Ready? Yes. I like myself. Mm-hmm. I like myself. I like myself. And the more emotion that you put behind it, your brain. Your unconscious program, which runs 90% of us will eventually go, wow. Hey, I like myself, love that. And it overrides the negative self worth. Now here's the, here's the deal folks. You can't go like this. I like myself. Yeah. I, I like myself. I like myself. You gotta mean it. If you look, don't, don't bother. Do not bother doing this if you're gonna do it half-ass. Can I say that? Absolutely. Absolutely. It'll, it'll work. It'll make it actually make it even worse, right? Yeah. So pick a time to start like, I'm gonna, this Monday, I'm gonna clear all the cobwebs. I'm gonna clear my mind and I'm gonna start, and I'm gonna do this three times in a row. And maybe I might do it 10 times a day. I did it literally as much if I wasn't with people. And sometimes I did it once in the, in the, I did it once in the bank, in the line at the bank. People thought I was crazy. Who cares? They care more towards me. Exactly right. Working on me. Hey. And they probably went, wow, that guy's really powerful. I don't know. Maybe I like myself, I like myself, I like myself. Mm-hmm. You do that enough. I promise you, with the motion and repetition, you'll override your negative program and your life will start changing because now you start looking at other people going, I don't care what they think, because I think myself. And because now you don't care about what people think. And again, we talk about not their feelings, but what they think about you. You'll start taking better risks, bigger risks, more empowering risks. Mm-hmm. And then the result will be you'll start achieving more. You'll step into yourself. Right. Your identity. Yeah, totally. Yeah. For you, by you because of you. I love that. I love that. So do I. You're You're awesome. You're like one of the best podcast hosts I've ever. You're so happy, you're so loving. You're so cheery, and you know a lot. Thank you. Well, you know what? Every day I get to. Have opportunities to speak with individuals like yourself and what a gift for me in my life. So thank you. Yeah, so much, John, for your time. Absolutely. Your passion, your commitment, you rising above and creating something so empowering that you are changing the world with your work and we are forever grateful. Let give, let me give your listeners a gift, a free gift. Mm-hmm. I have a seven day NLP mini course and it really is about what we talked about using language and doing certain things to shift and I just uploaded on the Apple and the Google Play Store right now is, is still in review, but I uploaded a new app and it's real simple. It's nlp. Yep. Guru app. Oh, okay. NLP guru app. Just go to that. It's part of my website, but it has the two links to Apple and the Google Play Store. Yeah, they can download the app for free and they can listen and do the exercises in the free mini course. It's free. It's all free. If you guys wanna, I've got books on there, I've got other programs. You wanna learn something? Sure. But go check out the free seven day course. It's, it's awesome. You'll love it. Beautiful. Thank you. And we will have that information in the show notes for those who are listening that you, you know how we do it here at Thrive after 45. We give you everything we possibly can from our incredible guests. John, what an honor to share time and space with you never long enough, but that just means we get to meet again. Absolutely. Thank you, Denise. Denise. Thank you and for those listening and or watching on YouTube, make sure that you follow, like subscribe if it's the channel and make sure you put reviews'cause we want to know how this resonates with for, for you, by you and because of you. Have a great day. Absolutely. Have a great day. God bless.