Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris and many others have said, “we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with” or something along those lines. In this episode, we have you take a real good look at just how healthy or unhealthy your social diet is. You shouldn’t spend your time or energy hanging around spiritual vampires that don't support or align with your passions and mission in life. Dr. Dan also shares a story about when he was gambling at the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco (Where James Bond hangs out) and almost got kicked out for scaring the employees.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
The Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco
Transcript: (Read Time: 38 Minutes)
Welcome to the RockStar in Life podcast where you learn the secrets to unleashing your inner rockstar, so you can make the world your stage.
Dr. Dan: Hey fellow RockStars in life. Dr. Dan here and I've got with me …
Siri Shakti: Siri Shakti. Hey guys, how y'all doing?
Dr. Dan: Yee-haw.
Siri Shakti: Oh God, now I'm a cowboy. How y'all doing. I think that might be the first time I ever said that.
Dr. Dan: I don't know. I did that once when I was speaking on stage. I think it was like one of the first times, if not like maybe the second time, I was speaking at a hotel in front of, I don't know, like maybe 30 people at one of those events we did like in the beginning, years ago. And I remember I caught myself, I was like, “How y'all doing?” It was like a nervous thing. And I felt so dumb in my head, I'm like, “What am I? A cowboy?” I think I might even have said that out loud, “How y'all doing?”
Siri Shakti: I'm just going to say that from now on because it sounds pretty cool.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Well, when I said it, it wasn't too cool. At least here, the silence just means they can't respond, but at the event, I got to see their faces and no response to the joke that I made of. “Oh, I'm I a cowboy or something?”
Siri Shakti: So you basically saw instantly that you were kind of dumb?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I got that reaction right away, so that was fun.
Siri Shakti: It's OK.
Dr. Dan: All right. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about loving your family and choosing your friends.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: This is a very, very important one. They're all really important, but this is one of those that we're just like, “Wow, we finally get to get to this one because this is important.” Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah. It all has to do with who you surround yourself with, which we'll be getting very deep into today and how important that is.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. We like to call it, How's your social diet? So, how is your social diet? Ask yourself that question, how is your social diet? I've heard this said several different ways and I have no idea, I just did a quick search to see if I could figure out who's the first person that said this, but I've heard it said several different ways and to some people, it might mean something different than when they hear it.
One of them I heard was like if you wanted to find out if somebody's financial wealth or success, all you had to do was take the average income of the five closest people or friends or family that they surround themselves with and you would find out what it was. You took the average of that, and I've heard several different ways. I remember the first time I heard it, I thought it just had to do with money, financial success. And I've heard people say it that way as well.
I went back and I was surprised because I found Jim Rohn quote and that might have been one of the first people we heard it from or the first person. For those you who don't know who Jim Rohn is, he's passed away now but he was an author. Tony has worked for him early on, so when he was first starting out. A lot of the big names attribute a lot of their success to him. He's listed as a motivational speaker, which I don't really like the whole motivational speaker and we can get that to another time. But we prefer self-development. Working on one's development of themself.
Siri Shakti: Right. We're not just trying to be motivated.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And that's another thing, that'll be another lesson, it's not motivation because we'll get into that through it for another episode. It's actually Be Unmotivated. And if you don't want to wait for that episode, you can go over to a rockstarlife.com and download the Rockstar: 45 Lessons to be A Rockstar In Your Life And Make The World Your Stage book. Because I have a short little lesson on that. So you can learn about that. I believe it's also on the Attract The Person In Your Dreams book, I can't remember though, it might be in there as well.
Anyway, so Jim Rohn said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. I also saw that Tim Ferris who wrote the Four Hour Workweek, very popular book, recently said it as well in an interview for his newest book that he has coming out and or came out, I believe it might have came out by now, but it's not just about financial wealth, it's also the wealth or health or your relationships, your spiritual happiness, health, wealth as well. That's all part of the wealth, it's not just financial. How's your spiritual wealth.
Siri Shakti: It's so funny that we're talking about this because as you're bringing this up, I'm reflecting back to even before I learned this because I've heard so many people say this, that the top five people influence you the most that you hang out with. And I remember when I was in high school and towards graduation as well, I said on the other podcast that I used to go to a lot of like raves and things like that. And although I had so much fun, it wasn't really the best and healthiest surroundings for me.
And so before I even knew this lesson, I started to become aware of it because I started to get this feeling like I wanted to make some changes, real positive changes in my life. And I had to take a step back and take a look at who I was surrounding myself with. And although they were friendly, loving people, I knew from myself that if I was going to continue hanging out with that group, I was going to continue doing those things that I was trying to step away from.
And that's exactly what we're talking about right now.
Dr. Dan: Exactly. I'll give some examples and a little bit as well, but one thing I want to kind of point out is if you guys have seen that movie The Cooler, 2003 it was the movie William H Macy plays in it, the guy from Fargo and. And they really have these out there in the casino. So in the movie, if somebody is on a winning streak and they're making money, the house, the casino will actually send this person that just has the worst luck in the world and those who stand at the table and they'll like kill somebody's winning streak.
I know some people, what they'll do as well as if somebody has a winning streak, they'll just randomly like all of a sudden change dealers and that will kill the winning streak as well. There's many instances of this, which is pretty crazy. I don't know, did you ever see that movie?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: I can't remember if you saw that movie.
Siri Shakti: I have to check it out.
Dr. Dan: It's pretty old movie but it's pretty good, if I remember correctly, it's been a long time. But I'll give you an example, in one of my platinum trips that I took in Monaco and we went to the Monte Carlo Casino. If you guys a scene like any of the James Bond movies, in several of the movies, the casinos in there in Monte Carlo as well as Ocean's 12, it was in that movie as well. We have like 15 or 20 of us. It was somewhere around there. And we just got done just having this really positive event that we were in, and we were talking about …
It was actually around the time of the Law of Attraction. It was like 2006 or something like that when The Secret book came out. The book The Secret. And I remember we were like, they were shown like examples and we had one of the people from The Secret, from the movie in there and he was talking about like the quantum physics and stuff like that. And I thought that it was really cool.
They were talking about like vibration, you could change vibration, that they would look under, I guess like a microscope or whatever they used to look at it, and they would see that things would change. So we were like, “Hey let's go in here to this casino and let's play craps and let's like how this positive energy while we're in there. Let's just have this vibrant, positive energy and have this vibration going through us and let's all be like that.” Every time we're going to roll the dice, and I think that was the first time I've ever played, I had never gambled really. I'd played slot machine and stuff like that just here and there.
But we were just like all having fun and they were like, “Play, play.” We were all taken a turn and rolling the dice. And I remember like each role, we would stop and we would sit there just give this positive energy. The place was very busy, I think it was a weekday maybe. But you got to understand that it's really quiet in there, and they were just looking at us really weird because we would all take time before we roll the dice. They were just like checking us out like, “What the heck is going on?”
I saw like the pit boss, or whatever they called him there, he was like talking to the, I don't know if they call him a dealer but the guy that had the dice and then moved them over to you and took the bets and stuff. We put out the vibration and we'd roll the dice and then every time we had when we'd be like, “Yeah.” Also, I don't know, I was told that in Monaco, because it's like this really beautiful, elegant place and you have to be dressed up and you can't wear jeans or stuff like that. I was told that you're not supposed to … it's not like Vegas, you can't go, “Yeah!” You're supposed to be quiet. That's what I was told at least. I don't know if that's still the case.
Siri Shakti: You guys were breaking the rules.
Dr. Dan: We were breaking the rules, butut here's the funny part. We also decided, if we're going to put out this positive vibration, what if every time we roll, we crap out or whatever, they call it, I don't even know what they call it, crap out. Every time we roll like, what is it? Is it a one? Yeah, it is a one and a seven or something like that. I don't know, whatever the thing is that you're not supposed to roll. Snake Eyes or whatever else you're supposed to roll. I think you're supposed to roll a seven and 11 every time if you want to win?
Siri Shakti: I have no clue. I've never played.
Dr. Dan: I've played a couple times with friends and stuff. But as you can tell, I've not committed it to some memory because I don't play often. So anyways, we decided well let's keep this positive energy going, because as soon as you lose, people are always just like all feeling depressed and then you keep that negative energy going. So we're like “Hey,” we told each other like, “Let's celebrate every time we crap out. Every time we lose, let's celebrate. Let's celebrate all of our wins so we keep that positive energy going.”
But man, I wish I had this on video. They don't allow video inside, obviously, but man, as soon as we crapped out for the first time and we rolled that bad roll right, all of a sudden we were like, “Yeah,” even louder than we did when we were winning. And the pit boss guy or whatever you call it and the guy next to him that's rolling, they freaking jumped, they were just scared and startled because they might have been used to people like celebrating when they won, and they tell him to hush down, but to not expect somebody to like go, “Yeah,” when they lost every single time. So they're having a good time.
Siri Shakti: And it wasn't just one of you, it was that group energy. It was all of you together, which made it even more of a shock.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Now, they actually had, and I know some people will be like, “Oh, that was just luck or whatever,” you can call it whatever you want, but we played for, I want to say like an hour. Might have been longer and we all like left with way more money than we went in with. Like every single one of us won, and they had changed dealers, they had switched them out, I don't remember how many times, they had probably like two or three at least changes and they were trying to break our winning streak and we just kept winning. It was pretty damn awesome.
So for us, we were like convinced. We were like, “Yeah, we did it.” You could feel the energy, you could feel the energy and you put out that energy. We had to take a look in our own lives, and I'm talking about us. We had to take a deep look into our own eyes and see … we had to kind of do like our own little housecleaning.
Siri Shakti: Absolutely.
Dr. Dan: So we had a look at like, who are the people that we're hanging out with, and are they a positive influence or are they a negative one? Are they a, what we call a spiritual vampire? Do they help give us energy or do they take it away? It was as simple as that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And we're not talking about … because I know when I took a look at who was in my direct social influence, a lot of these people were, like I said before, they're very kind loving people, we're not talking about that. We're talking about where they're at in their life and what kind of influence are they having or how are they showing up in the friendship with you. Because somebody can be really nice and friendly, but when you're with them, it may not be the healthiest relationship that you need at that moment in your life to bring you to the next level of growth that you need to be growing into.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. If you take a real look inside and you just answer that simple question, do they help give me energy, positive energy? Do I feel good being around person or do I feel worse? Do I feel like the energy being sucked out of me? And again, this is not to be confused with like … I don't think this would be for you guys, but for some people, they hang around us, they will feel exhausted sometimes because they have to be real. And that might be exhausting for them because they're trying to either prove themselves or whatever they're doing internally, which isn't bad, it's internal, it's something they need to work on.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I have seen that happen before where we spent some time with someone and maybe they wanted to go deeply into this like negative place of talking about what they're going through, and we wanted to help them find solutions because that's kind of how our brain works now. It didn't always, being totally honest. But now, when I'm going through something or when Dan's ask me to do something, we automatically go to solution. “Let's figure out how to make it through this.”
And so, we have spend time with people that we're not prepared for that step yet, and that's perfectly fine. They're entitled to have the experience they need to, just like we had to go through it as well. Don't you agree?
Dr. Dan: Yes. You'll have people that will automatically remove themselves or hit a pause on your friendship or relationship in your life because of you moving forward on your path. And for them, it's too much work to pretend to be able to relate to you or to try and pretend like they're also on that same path. Some people might either remove themselves and you're not friends anymore or you're just not hanging out anymore and some people will just kind of put a pause on it. And when I say pause, they'll kind of disappear for a while.
They maybe in a bad place and they don't want help. That's the big thing. I'm not saying like abandon your friends or family, help them. Help them, and if they're not willing to accept that help then that's a whole different situation. Your job is not to take care of them for the rest of their lives, your job is not to call them every single day and say, “How are you doing today? How are you doing today? How are you doing today? What can I do to support you? What can I do to support you?”
Every single day when they're not accepting your help and support and they just want to talk your ear off about all of the things going on and bad … everything going wrong in their life and how everybody is unjust to them and all the world is going to crap. There's no solution and at some point, everybody's going to die.
Siri Shakti: Yikes.
Dr. Dan: It sucks.
Siri Shakti: I love that you said that because in the title that we chose; Love Your Family, Choose Your Friends, when I first heard that title, the first thing I thought is I wanted people to understand, just like you said Dan, that we're not telling you not to hang out with your family, that's not the point of this. But oftentimes, because we're born into these families and we have this feeling that we're supposed to spend so much time with family members just because we are family, and oftentimes we have relationships within families that are not healthy.
And I can think of one in particular in my own life, I'm not going to name names, but this person, I went through years of dealing with a lot of struggle in our relationship, and I always felt like I had to go back to it because it was someone in my direct family. And I finally came to this point, iI was like a wake up call one day, where I realize that this relationship was causing me more harm and was causing a toxic reaction in my own world. And then it was making me struggle as a woman, as a wife, as a mother. So I had to take a break from that relationship.
Or maybe it's just taking a look at the relationship and saying, “You know, I need to spend a little bit less time, have a little bit more boundaries with this person.”
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And I'd love to touch on that a little bit more too in a little bit. I want to definitely touch on that. I'll even mention work, because fortunately for us we don't work for anybody else, we work for ourselves and I can choose who I want to work with and who I don't want to work with, for some of you, you work at a job or maybe you have like a network or you do something with other people that are pretty damn negative, and you don't really like to be around them. You could limit the amount of time that you're around them, unless you're going to decide to quit.
Here's the thing though, you quit, go to another job, it's going to be the same thing. You're going to find somebody else. This is something you need to work through and get stronger in it. So that way, it won't affect you as much. Obviously, you can go work for yourself, then that's a whole different case. There's things you can do like limit yourself to be being around those kind of people and then you can also cleanse yourself of that negative energy or those fang marks. So it's like putting mosquito repellent for those spiritual vampires, or I guess like spiritual vampire repellent.
You could put that on. And this goes for your family as well, you can do that as well. So take a good look at your family and friends and just keep in mind just because you grew up with somebody as friends or if their family, doesn't mean you need to hang out with them all the time. So remember to love your family and choose your friends. You can't choose your blood family, you can't choose your blood family. But you can choose your friends.
And that's the whole point of that. We're not saying to delete those people from your life, we're not telling you to delete them from Facebook or social media or whatever you're on, but decide who is good for you and who is not, and who doesn't in line with anymore with what your mission, your path, some of the things that you want to do in your life.
Siri Shakti: And when you are spending time with them as well, this is something that I know has helped myself, I tended to in my past be a little bit naive when it came to what I should and shouldn't share with people. And so, when you have to spend time with these people, just be very mindful of what it is that you are choosing to share with them. Maybe there's certain things that are not safe to share with them. Like for instance, if there's like a new goal or something that you're working on, you wouldn't just open up and share everything with them, even though you might be excited about your new endeavor, tread carefully because they may not have the same feedback, the same opinion of it.
And when you're working on something new and it's still in that baby phase, it's fragile, you don't want to get any negative feedback.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Share in a safe place. It's like for us talking about yoga, we wouldn't go into a McDonald's and just start talking to like random people about, “Oh, isn't yoga great?” It's just not the place that you're going to get, most likely you're not going to get any kind of support from that.
Siri Shakti: Like pick and choose your conversations and-
Dr. Dan: And who choose to talk to them with. Now, as far as some of the things, like I mentioned social media and blocking people. That is a good place because that's the challenges. Like in life, you choose who you talk to you like when you get excited about a new venture or new business or yoga or health or whatever it is, you don't just start randomly calling people you know off the top of your head that don't get excited about those kind of things. With social media, it's kind of taken a change because you get excited and you post something on your Facebook or Instagram or somewhere, and all of a sudden your family and old friends that found you on there and friended you, all of a sudden they see it.
Every now and then you might get like one or two people that constantly just like make a negative reply or comment or something that you're just like, “Seriously?” Usually what I'll do is, I'll delete those right away. Sometimes I'll even block that person. In some cases, if they're not constantly doing that, maybe if it's like once a month or once every other month, I might actually sometimes choose that they don't get to see certain things. I have blocked family that are really just a negative influence on my life, and I'm just like, “For right now, I love them, but for now, I'm just going to … I don't want to see any negativity from them, and hopefully later on, they'll change and I can block them.”
It doesn't mean I love them less, it just means I don't want to see that. Another thing I want to mention too is, when you are sharing things that is your passion, like I said, whether it's like, for instance, You want to talk about your passion of like, “I love to paint. I love to draw.” You're not going to share that with people that just don't get that and aren't going to give you that positive reinforcement. You wouldn't talk to somebody, let's say you had an uncle Gary, if you have an uncle Gary.
Siri Shakti: I have an uncle Gavin.
Dr. Dan: Let's say Gary. Shout out to Gavin. Not Gavin, we're talking about Gary. Gary is a fake, fictional person. Let's imagine Gary you talk to him about your painting and all the cool stuff you're doing, and let's say he's the kind of guy that's like, “Well, how much money you making with that? You could be working. You could be working.”
Siri Shakti: I've heard things like that before from certain family members.
Dr. Dan: If you hear that, should you go back and talk to Gary about your artistic nature and the fun things that you're doing?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: Heck no. If somebody in your family or one of your old friends or whatever, on your social network or even at work and you know they're like pro public school and education, that kind, and they think it's important for your child to be in advanced calculus for who knows why, do they even do that anymore? Do you even know what calculus …
Siri Shakti: They do that.
Dr. Dan: I don't know anybody that uses calculus unless, I don't know, unless they're a teacher.
Siri Shakti: Unless they're an engineer or something?
Dr. Dan: I'm sure they use a calculator. I don't know. I don't know. But anyways, what I was going to say was, this is actually a point that kind of came up to me when I was making my notes, was to not trying … In another way, don't try to convince the inconvincible.
Siri Shakti: Amen.
Dr. Dan: So what by that is, and I'll give you an example first, just like if you had let's say two people and they're drowning in a lake and they're kind of on opposite sides, you have enough time to save one person, who would you choose? Let me make it a little bit more simpler. Would you run to save the person that's yelling as they're drowning at you saying, “If you swim to me I'm going to drown you too.” They're saying like, “If you come in here, get near me, I'm going to drown you. I'm going to take you with me on purpose.” You wouldn't want to, right?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: Of course not. No. So my point is, don't waste your time and your energy trying to convince the inconvincible. And that's another way of saying like if you want to share something, your beliefs or your passion or your mission or whatever is you want to do, don't get into a comment war or a talking war or whatever, trying to convince them and prove why you should be doing what you're doing. Because the amount of time you're wasting with that person that's not going to change their point of view, you could have been helping those people that are raising their hand saying, “I need your knowledge, I need your help. I want to see what you're doing. I want to be inspired by you,” or whatever it is. So you don't want to do that. Can we agree on that?
Siri Shakti: We can agree on that.
Dr. Dan: Does that make sense?
Siri Shakti: It makes sense. Yes.
Dr. Dan: Is there anything you want to touch upon that. Because I was going to talk about where to find some of these people, and for me … So I take that as a no, right? Okay. That's fine. Where to find them. For me, I'm sure there's some things that maybe either you can come up with or you listening can probably come up with some other ideas as well, you can look online. There's lots of social media groups, there's local groups. I know meetup was pretty big, I don't know how big it is anymore. I know like Craigslist and some other sites and depending on what country you're in, there's lots of places that you can you can go and look.
You can look at bulletin boards locally, stuff that you enjoy and look for like minded people. Let's say for instance one of your goals or one of the things that you want to do is you want to get into shape. You can join in like hiking groups or healthy eating groups or yoga or meditation. Let's say you want to start getting into athlete. Let's say for you, you're going to become a triathlon, triathlete. It would make sense for you to go to 24-Hour fitness and join a class on rubber band training?
Siri Shakti: No, I'd want to look at groups online because they do have local groups for triathlons and you can meet. Like meetup groups even, and they have an open waters swims and I'd go to one of those.
Dr. Dan: Or a bike shop.
Siri Shakti: Or a bike shop.
Dr. Dan: That's how you met some people too?
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Actually when I got my bike, I met so many people.
Dr. Dan: Or do your first contest. Is it called a contest?
Siri Shakti: A race.
Dr. Dan: A race. So do a race if for you … And heres the thing though, when you do those things, you can find some really cool people that have a lot of the same similar interest as you as well.
Siri Shakti: It is so true. I've heard so many people say, and this goes for even like relationships, they say, “I don't know where to meet people.” Let's say they're like a single person, they want to find someone. I always say to them, “What are you interested in?” “Okay, go sign up for some things, or go to this, go to that.” I guess the way my mind works is that it just makes sense that if you want to meet someone that's interested in the same things that you're interested in, you go to those places where those people will be, it's kind of like makes sense.
What I just thought of, the two places that I went to that inspired me the most and I met so many people that are now in my direct circle of influence or friendship is when I went through my Kundalini yoga teachers training and also my triathlons. With teachers training, you're talking like, I think it was like 60 or 70 people in my class. It was a pretty good sized class at Yoga West. And every day, you felt so uplifted, that collective group, because you knew you could feel in the room that you were surrounded by people that had this common thread of purpose.
That was one of my first times of really getting the sense of like, “Okay, these are the types of people that I want to hang out with. These are the people I want to handpick to spend a lot of time with,” because I felt so inspired around them. And then the same thing when I went to my races, the energy … Of course on race there is going to be an awesome energy because everyone's like hyped up and just focused and ready to go. But the people that I met there, they had that common thread of like wanting to better themselves physically and mentally. And I met some great friends there that I talked to all the time and we've even are going to be doing some training together this season to get prepared for this triathlon.
So this is exactly what we're talking about, is getting out there and going to places that you are going to find those people that have the similarities or that are doing the things that you're interested in.
Dr. Dan: I met a lot the people that you were doing teachers training with as well. That was really, really some great, great people. And actually you remember you came home one night one day and you're just like, “Hey, guess who I just partnered up with at teachers training, Kundalini teachers training at Yoga West?” And I was like, “Who?” And you're like, “Trinity from the Matrix.” Kerry Ann Moss, right?
Siri Shakti: It was so funny too because I was talking to her for like an hour and it didn't even hit me who she was until all of a sudden we were sitting there in this small group and we were sharing things and all of a sudden the little light bulb went off, I'm like, “I know this woman. I have seen her.”
Dr. Dan: That's crazy because you always watch like chocolate a lot.
Siri Shakti: Choco-latte.
Dr. Dan: Choco-latte, and you didn't even recognize her. But that was pretty funny. She was in there as well and there was just a lot of amazing people in there.I thought that was cool. I wanted to mention as well that you can go to like events too. If your thing is like marketing or entrepreneurship or something like that, there are events like all over the world going on. You can find one of those and you can meet some really cool people there. I remember there was some events that I had been to for entrepreneurs and startups and things like that, and I met some really cool people that were also into bettering themselves as well.
And that's really cool. And then there's also self development events, seminars. You can always go to one of those and you can meet some people as well. Now, I will give you a little warning here, we kind of mentioned this a little bit ago, but just be careful just because someone is at an event or has a similar interest or whatever that you're doing, it doesn't necessarily mean, especially like in self development events and stuff like that, seminars, it doesn't mean that they're all in the exact same path as you.
They might be just starting their path, they might be tipping their toe, just their toe in, and they're not fully committed yet to actually jump in. So all of a sudden, you're thinking like, “Oh, this person also has the same values and beliefs and they also want to better themselves,” and all of sudden, it can go negative real quick. We met some people that were kind of like, “Ooh, get away from them, they're a little crazy.”
Siri Shakti: I've heard many stories even like in a yoga community. Most times when you meet people in the yoga community, its a great experience, but you have you remember, everyone is going to be at different levels of development, so to try to pay attention to what you are picking up from the person. I guess it's that that subtle awareness that you start to get better. I can tell you mine has improved quite a bit. It used to be pretty nonexistent. And I think oftentimes I was maybe a little too trusting, right Dan?
Dr. Dan: I always like sense. It's funny, before they even talk, I can just feel it, and I'll just like walk away or tell you to be like …
Siri Shakti: We've had to even create a little pact between the two of us because I know that we all have strengths and weaknesses and one of Dan's strengths is he is so good at picking up on people's real intentions and their character. And me, I just love everyone. So oftentimes I think in that spirit of loving everyone, you take people at face value. And I know so many women and men, but I know a lot of women that have told me the same thing.
Dr. Dan: Well, you want to …
Siri Shakti: Expect the best out of people.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. You expect the best out of people, and I do as well, but I look at their true intentions.
Siri Shakti: Absolutely.
Dr. Dan: Like they say one thing but they really intend on something else. And I can kind of sense that, like where they're going with it or I just will cut through the crap and not … And I'm not doing this like a mean or a bad way, I'll just ask them, “What exactly are you saying? Are you saying that the world is going to end and that we have no hope and we should just give up now?” And this is actually from true conversation at a … Was it a …
Siri Shakti: Thanksgiving event?
Dr. Dan: Thanksgiving party that we were at. They got frustrated, they got angry and they just didn't want to really talk to me anymore. It was fun, I wasn't being mean. I just said, “So, what are you saying?' I was like, “We have no faith. What's going on?” And that's how it is. I'll politely excuse myself.
Siri Shakti: Which you did.
Dr. Dan: Or what he did or they just won't want to talk to me anymore.
Siri Shakti: Which they did.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And I'm not mean about it. I don't need to defend me not wanting to be around that negativity. And I'm not going to do it rudely but I'm also not going to pretend. So, unless there's something else that you want to cover on that, I was going to jump into about the family.
Siri Shakti: Oh no. Go ahead. That was what I was thinking about.
Dr. Dan: This is actually really important, that's why I saved this for last, was, what do we mean about loving your family.? Because it can mean a lot of different things. It means that if you have like a family member, like a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a cousin or whatever they are to you, that constantly tries to make you feel like crap.
Siri Shakti: I think everyone, most people can relate to that in some way.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. They're a spiritual vampire and they're always trying to get their fangs into you and make you feel that way. First off, and in the past, you used to hate when I'd say this to you. You'd say to me, “You're making me …” Should I do a voice or no voice?
Siri Shakti: You can do the voice.
Dr. Dan: Okay. Because you still don't like it. Here's the voice. “You're making me feel like I'm dumb,” or something like that.
Siri Shakti: Is that what I sound like?
Dr. Dan: A little bit.
Siri Shakti: Really?
Dr. Dan: I can't do your voice, sorry.
Siri Shakti: Shoot. I better work on my voice.
Dr. Dan: You're making me feel dumb.
Siri Shakti: I have never said that, I don't know what you're talking about.
Dr. Dan: What would I respond with?
Siri Shakti: I don't remember.
Dr. Dan: Because you're on the spot.
Siri Shakti: Yes. Don't do that to me.
Dr. Dan: That'd be better to say you're on the spot.
Siri Shakti: I'm on the spot.
Dr. Dan: I would say, I'll help you out here. I would say to you, “No one ca-”
Siri Shakti: Oh yes. No one can make you feel dumb except for youreself.
Dr. Dan: Well, I wouldn't say dumb but yourself.
Siri Shakti: No one can make you feel anything but yourself.
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: And you know what, let me say right here so I can be totally open. that in the moment when I would be frustrated with him, I'd be like, “That's not true. That's so not true. You're the one that caused it,” that's what I'm thinking. But truth be told, it is so freaking true.
Dr. Dan: A good example of that I was thinking about is, we used to we used to talk about a gift. Yeah. Think of it as a gift. So if somebody hands you a gift and says, “Here's your gift.” And then you say, “No thanks, I don't want this gift,” and you hand it back to them, who does that gift belong to?
Siri Shakti: I'm I supposed to answer this question?
Dr. Dan: Yes.
Siri Shakti: It belongs to the person that tried to give the gift.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. And you didn't accept the gift. So it's the same thing as somebody like saying something or whatever, whether it be negative, positive or anything. If you don't accept that gift, if you don't accept that negativity or whatever it is, that it belongs to the other person. And another way of saying that is something that we're all taught probably, at least I think we all are unless they have changed it since we were growing up, but I'm rubber you're glue, anything you say bounces off me and sticks to you. It's kind of like the same thing. And then you end like with a, “Na, na, na, na, na”
Siri Shakti: I actually just said that to the kids a few days ago when they were being butt heads.
Dr. Dan: So, it works in parenting as well.
Siri Shakti: It does. It works.
Dr. Dan: So in other words, don't hold on to that anger, that toxicity or anything like that. It's going to take some getting used to. It took you a good amount of time to finally accept that, and everybody different. Some people might be able to get it like that, in a snap, and then some people might take several years.
Siri Shakti: I'll tell you. Even now, I have to stop myself, if I'm feeling upset about something, let's just say you and I, if there's something you're doing or have said that bothers me, what I've learned to do now for the most part, I'm sure I had moments where I forget this, but it has to stop, pause and really consciously take responsibility for my own feelings and for. Because oftentimes too, it's I'm making it means something …
Dr. Dan: The best thing you can do is actually do a little meditation or something or a breathing exercise to get yourself out of it. Another thing that we had learned was change of state, but that's temporary. So I do recommend the meditation or a breathing exercise or something that you can do to get through it. But if you're somewhere and you can't, I'm trying to think of a place here, If you are like in a, I don't know, somewhere you can … a funeral or something, and you can change your state o-
Siri Shakti: You're not going like yell out, I don't know, whatever you yell out.
Dr. Dan: And you're also not going to be like breathing really like [inaudible 00:42:17] in front of everybody.
Siri Shakti: Meditating in front of everyone, like eyes closed.
Dr. Dan: You could. If you're feeling a certain way, maybe that wasn't the best example, I was trying to look for example that you needed to be kind of quiet and you couldn't really do anything, even closing your eyes. I did this in the car when we were driving, I was a little stressed out with the kids.
Siri Shakti: So you were driving when you closed your eyes, right?
Dr. Dan: I was driving, yeah.
Siri Shakti: U used your powers?
Dr. Dan: I used my third eye to drive. I closed my eyes, and you were driving. I close my eyes … before anybody calls the police on me or anything. So I closed my eyes and I did some deep breaths, and it wasn't loud or anything like that. And I felt better after doing that. I was feeling at peace. So, that's something you can do. What I was getting to is that, and this is something that we learned a little bit, I don't really think anybody like told us this, we just kind of …
Siri Shakti: Figured it out.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Figured it out. It was, with your family or even a friend or anybody that you feel has done you wrong, whether it's somebody you work with or anything like that, anything that's that you're holding onto, this grudge, and it can be just. They said something to you or they did something to you. We'll stick to family member right now because it kind of fits with this but you can use us in all parts of your life, when it comes to forgiving somebody. Because you don't want to hold onto that toxicity. So you don't want to hold on toxicity.
You can forgive them, but it doesn't mean that you need to call them to forgive them, you don't have to call them or do lunch or something like that and be like, “You know what, my ex husband or my ex wife or my ex boyfriend or girlfriend or my dad or mom or brother or sister did me wrong and I'm going to call them up and meet them for lunch so we can bury the hatchet.”
Siri Shakti: And proclaim my forgiveness.
Dr. Dan: In some cases, that would fit. If it was something like some kind of misunderstanding or it's time to move on and they weren't necessarily like a repeat offender of negativity, but if it's somebody that constantly made you feel like crap and just constantly try to make you feel like crap, it's just so hard to have a relationship with them and you're working on yourself and you can't waste your energy and your time on all that negativity …
Siri Shakti: It's maybe not time to bring them back into your actual life because you're working on yourself, it's not going to better the situation.
Dr. Dan: Don't expect them to … Like if you go to them and say, “Hey mom or dad or … I forgive you.” Don't expect them to say exactly what you want to hear, which is, “Oh thank you so much. I know I did some wrong stuff and it was all me, I want to do better and let's continue our relationsh …” No. That's what I'm saying, you can do that, but don't get upset, don't allow it to continue if they say anything else that you didn't want to hear, it might start again. “Okay. Well, thank you. But it's not only me, you admit it's you too, right?” And it is like, “Seriously. Seriously.”
So you can let that happen, but that's the whole thing, is like after that you can end the conversation and just say, “You know, for now, I just need my space or whatever.” And internally forgive them, whether you decide to call them or not or meet with them or not. The most important thing is that you forgive them within yourself. That's the only important thing.
Siri Shakti: Forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself. I'm sure we've all had experiences of this because oftentimes, we're looking for someone to actually say to you, say back to you, “I accept your forgiveness.” Or you want them to say, “Forgive me,” and take responsibility for their part. But a lot of times in these fractured relationships, it's not going to happen. All right. And so, the best thing to do is to go within yourself and I know for myself, how I've addressed this is, I'm really big into meditating so I've taken time to sit down and close my eyes and focus on the person.
Focus on what went down and the energy and all the elements surrounding it. And piece by piece, consciously seeing it and releasing it and this may take some time. I know from me, there's this one relationship in my family that I talked about earlier, that was always very challenging, and that relationship doesn't feel challenging anymore, even though we don't communicate, because I have forgiven them, I have released them of any of the things that I felt they did to harm me.
And I've actually forgiven myself because it takes two to tango. I know that I've had my own part in this as well. And it is so freeing when you can step back and do that, because you just feel like a weight is lifted from you. And you see, that's the gift, that's the weight being lifted. Because when you lift that weight off, it's like you're bringing back the energy that you gave them, and you're bringing it back to yourself so that you can use that energy in your life.
And something I just wanted to mention, recently, I learned about something, I went to a Craniosacral therapist, which is like light massage of the head and everything, it's like energy healing, really beautiful. And she told me about cord cutting, this was my first time, and this makes so much sense. Whenever you meet someone, you instantly create an energetic cord with them, and for relationships that are really intense, or that you've had a real intense experience with, the cord is really energetic, there's a lot of vibration there. And so, what you can also do, is you can imagine this cord going between the two of you. And I've done this myself and you imagine it, you giving their energy back, and you taking your part of the cord back.
And there's even beautiful guided meditations that work with this, I've done a few of them and I can tell you that they work, because you can feel the difference afterwards.
Dr. Dan: I do remember years ago, when I had one of my coaches, they actually had me go through that exercise when I was trying to get [inaudible 00:49:34] activity, like “Close your eyes and imagine you're chopping these cables that are around you and all around you.”
Siri Shakti: And not only people, it's like experiences too, that you can do that with.
Dr. Dan: Exactly. I want to dive in real quick of what you were saying. You kind of mention, it takes two to tango, what did you mean by, it takes two to tango?
Siri Shakti: What I mean is that, in every relationship, there's two people, so there's always going to be two parts to the experience.
Dr. Dan: Yes. So, we're not saying, so just to be clear, because I don't want anybody to think like, “Oh, that means that you're at fault.” Well, for-
Siri Shakti: No. Thank you for saying that, that's not what I meant. I just meant that there's going to be two parts to the experience. And even if you have done nothing, there's still that forgiveness that you can grace yourself with, of allowing yourself to be affected by that other person, to soften that.
Dr. Dan: Well, usually in their mind, there is something you did, and for them, it's real and that's one thing to understand is that, I can't even say in most cases, but I would like to hope in most cases, that would be true, that their intent wasn't to … They didn't like go out saying like, “Oh, I'm going to like make my daughter cry on purpose.” That's not their intent.
Siri Shakti: It's usually unconscious.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. You know what it is, it's like if you try to convince somebody that what they're doing is wrong or whatever, is like having somebody with red sunglasses on and looking up at the sky and you ask them, what color is the sky. They're not going to say blue, they're going to say red. They are going to be like, “It's red.” And no matter what you say, “But you've got glasses on.” “No I don't.” “You've got glasses on.” It might turn into a big argument and that's the argument you have. And again, it goes back to stop trying to convince the inconvincible.
That's what I'm saying, it's not as important for you to go to them and say, “I forgive you. Now, sell your piece, so I could feel better too.” Because in most cases, they're wearing red glasses and it's not going to work. In some cases it doesn't, it's worth a try depending on … each situation is a little differently. And again, that's another thing is, here's a good important point, if it's a family member or somebody that like really did something horrific, and I don't want to give an example, let's say, they did something horrific and they would not be a good part of your life, there's nothing to gain from it.
Then don't even attempt … I wouldn't even attempt to have a conversation and forgive them or whatever, because in all likeliness, it's going to be bad or whatever. But it's just getting rid of that toxicity and internally saying to yourself or you could even say it out loud, “I forgive you.” Whatever you want.
Siri Shakti: There's so many things you can do, I've seen people and I've done it myself. Not for a while, but where you actually write down things on paper, the things that you want to forgive, and then you actually go outside and you burn it and watch it dissipate and feel that release as you do it.
Dr. Dan: You got that from the movie.
Siri Shakti: Which one?
Dr. Dan: The one with the …
Siri Shakti: I didn't get that from a movie. I got that from myself.
Dr. Dan: What is the Christmas movie, burn your grievances or whatever.
Siri Shakti: Surviving Christmas, Ben Affleck.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, Ben Affleck. He is in, and then he goes out there and burns it and …
Siri Shakti: Burns his grievances he says…
Dr. Dan: In front of his childhood home and spoiler alert, he gets hit in the head from a shovel from …
Siri Shakti: The owner of the House.
Dr. Dan: Tony Soprano.
Siri Shakti: He even said, he was trying to burn down his house.
Dr. Dan: Spoiler, sorry.
Siri Shakti: So, maybe don't go out in front of some buddy's house and burn a piece of paper.
Dr. Dan: Exactly. Make sure you do it in a place that's not flammable.
Siri Shakti: Not in an open dry field in California.
Dr. Dan: Not in a wastebasket, don't throw it out on your car window, do it in a fireplace.
Siri Shakti: Yes, disclaimer.
Dr. Dan: Do it there in a fire pit of some sort. And one thing I want to mention about, that just because you put somebody out of your paws on a relationship or anything like that for now, doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be forever thing. It can be a temporary thing and hopefully in the future things will change for them, or maybe you become stronger and you're able to have a limited relationship with them or they turn around their life. And I've had that happen several times with friends and family, that I'm like, “Wow, they're doing a lot better and they contact me and I'm a lot stronger myself and I can handle that now.” And it's been pretty awesome. Right?
Siri Shakti: Beautiful. Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Before we get into today's RockStar mission, is there anything else you want to touch on th?
Siri Shakti: I think that's it.
Dr. Dan: Awesome. All right, before we get to the RockStar our mission, don't forget to download a free books, yoga, meditation videos, and a lot more. And to join the RockStar In Life revolution today. Go to …
Siri Shakti: Rockstarinlife.com.
Dr. Dan: Good job. You remembered it this week. All right. So, onto the RockStar our mission, if you choose to take it., and we hope you do
Siri Shakti: Do it.
Dr. Dan: Write down at least three things and you can write more if you like, that you want in the perfect friend, support buddy, whatever you want to call it. And also, take a close look, a serious look, at your current friends and family, and see which ones are supporting you and support your path, your mission. All the things that you want to achieve in your life, that you've got the right kind of people in your life that will be there for you. And if they're not the ones that will, then it's time to go out and love your family and choose your friends
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: So one thing I will recommend though, is be careful, don't write down on your list, people that don't support you, they're negative and stuff like that. I probably wouldn't put like family member or friends names on the list, unless you're going to make sure you throw it away right away.
Siri Shakti: Oh God.
Dr. Dan: Because you don't want that to get out, because that could really hurt somebody's feelings, so be careful, and don't write your kids on there. Like, “Oh, I don't like my kid, I don't like my son Bodey.” And then he's going to see and he'll be like, “What?”
Siri Shakti: It's very negative.
Dr. Dan: We do tell him when he's being negative, we say, “You know what, you are being a spiritual vampire, you're not supporting our dream, our goals and our path.”
Siri Shakti: I love that, “You're not supporting us.”
Dr. Dan: “And you're sucking the life and energy from us.” And he's just like losing, “No, I'm not.”
Siri Shakti: Believe me in this moment, oh yes.
Dr. Dan: “I love you, but you are really bothering us, you're sucking the energy out of us.”
Siri Shakti: Get your act together.
Dr. Dan: Go do some deep breathing exercise or whatever you need to do.
Siri Shakti: Go outside and play and then feel better.
Dr. Dan: Everything an 8 year old needs to hear.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: That's today's RockStar Our Mission, write down at least three things that you want, that perfect friend and this will also give you the the opportunity of where to look for those kind of people.
Siri Shakti: Maybe also they could write down after that. Here I'm going to add more to your RockStar Mission. Once you get that clear, you can even write down a few ideas of where you can meet these people, where could you meet people like this. Just like examples that we gave, there's meetup groups. There's all sorts of things, it depends on what it is that you're looking for.
Dr. Dan: Yep, exactly. That's all I got for you. Don't forget to go to Rockstarinlife.com to download the books, to join the RockStar In Life revolution today.
Siri Shakti: And to do some awesome yoga videos that we've put on there. And keep checking back because there's going to be more added on. I'm going to try to get on there each week and add something new.
Dr. Dan: Love it. All right, that's all we got for you today. Remember to be a RockStar in your life.
Siri Shakti: And make the world your stage.
Thanks for listening to RockStar In Life, your source for unleashing your inner rock star. For more tips, training and free stuff, be sure to go to Rockstarinlife.com, and join the RockStar live revolution today. Thanks again. And don't forget to make the world your stage.
Be a RockStar In Your Life.
& Make The World Your Stage!
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