In this episode, we show you why rules suck and they usually just hold you back from becoming successful. Often times we are live our lives based on rules we have been taught by society, friends and or family.
Here we discuss the benefits of breaking out of these rules that don't serve you and keep you from unleashing your inner RockStar!
Transcript: (Read Time: 44 Minutes)
Dr. Dan: Hey, fellow RockStars. Welcome back. Dr. Dan in the house, and I've got my lovely guest, host.
Siri Shakti: Siri Shakti in the house. Hey, everyone.
Dr. Dan: Awesome. Well, I guess you wouldn't be a guest host; you would just be a host.
Siri Shakti: I'm the host with the most. Okay, we should start over.
Dr. Dan: The hostess with the mostess. No, we're staying with this one, sorry.
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: This is sticking around here.
Siri Shakti: All right, let's do it.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. What are we going to be talking about today?
Siri Shakti: Well, today, we're going to be talking about breaking the rules, which is …
Dr. Dan: Break the rules.
Siri Shakti: It's one of our favorite topics because in our life, in our lives, in society, we are taught that there are so many rules that we're supposed to be following. We have rules that are taught to us through images, through media, through how our society is, and rules within families. What we have found is that through our journey and through our growth is that when we talk about being a RockStar in your life, part of that is being able to consciously step outside of all of the rules that you've collected over your lifetime and be able to see which ones are serving you and which ones aren't serving you and which rules …
Dr. Dan: Which rules.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, exactly. I can't talk. Yeah.
Dr. Dan: You're talking like a toddler now.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Which rules. We should do the whole like that.
Siri Shakti: It sounds good. No, no. We want you to step outside of those rules and be able to look at them and say, “Okay. This is the one that I'm going to need to change,” or maybe, “This is a rule that's not serving me anymore.” Oftentimes, these rules that we hold within ourselves are very unconscious and they're also directing our lives. That's what we're going to be going over today.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I mean, there are so many rules that I had to look within myself and just be like, “You know what? That doesn't serve me. Where did I even learn that?” It doesn't even matter where you learn some of these rules that have held you back, having allowed you to be your authentic self, haven't allowed you to just … You might be operating at like 1% of your capacity and it's just holding you back. Imagine being able to … Even if you just increase another 1%, that's 2%. That's double what you were doing before. Imagine your life if you just did double more. Now, obviously, we want you to do a heck of a lot more than just 1% more but that just gives you an idea.
I mean, these are old rules. This could be old rules that were taught to you by … it could be a family member, it could be friends, it could be friends that you had growing up, that you don't really talk to anymore, it could have been society. I mean, it could have been in school, just not even directly somebody telling you you need to be a certain way but you're seeing others or hearing others and you just wanted to mimic them. I mean TVs and movies. Today, more than ever, people, kids … our kids as well. Kids and ourselves growing up, we're completely taught … so many of these rules from movie and TV back then, we didn't have in our day. We didn't have what are some of them today, like the … people call them reality shows but I've always called them unreality shows.
Siri Shakti: Unreality shows, yeah.
Dr. Dan: Because they're not real. It's staged. So many times, they've been either sued or they've been … I don't know what the other word would be like … found out or whatever or exposed that a lot of it was all set up. I mean, I've seen like … What is that show? Is it like Pawn Stars or something? Or one of those shows. I don't want to say which exact one it is because I don't know 100%. I just don't know, it's one of them. They've gotten sued or something or somebody said something that they had planted items inside the garages and stuff and done this on purpose just to add to the effect.
I always tell my kids and others like when you're watching one of those unreality shows, keep a look on their camera angles because if they're showing one side and they're supposed to be something that just happened and they're showing multiple angles of the same shot where somebody is getting surprised. No, you didn't have four cameras or even two cameras lined up with a close-up waiting for the surprise if they didn't see you do that. I mean, no. Come on, come on. Seriously?
Anyway, those are old rules. It doesn't really matter where you were taught them. I mean, yeah, it's fun to remember like, “Where did I learn this rule? You know what? It doesn't serve me anymore, so screw this rule, I'm going to karate chop it and get rid of it and break it.” Right, because there really are no real rules in life. Yeah. I mean, you can argue with people who have said this and people are like, “Well, no, there are rules like you shouldn't kill and do these. You shouldn't …” I'm not saying you should kill but I'm saying there are these … you go to the pool. Don't run around the pool. Well, does that mean you can't run around the pool?
I mean, what happens if you do? Does something … Your legs disappear? No. You might fall or hurt yourself or whatever. You might get kicked out of the pool but those are guidelines. Look, you either follow this or we're going to kick you out of this pool area or we're going to put you on timeout or something like that. In life, it's not as simple. I mean, a lot of these rules are really just … They're just things that don't serve you or something that has been taught by somebody else. You don't have to let them control you anymore.
Siri Shakti: You know what? You just said exactly what I was thinking, control, because when we've … Before we sat down to record we were talking about what to us does it mean, this whole topic of rules. For myself, I tend to go in the direction of what society teaches us just because that's what really resonates with me. When you think of it on a real massive level, so much of the rules that we follow in society are things that have been passed down to us for generations and generations, and if you follow them back to where this different things began, so much of it has to do with control, and having control over a mass large group of people.
I think about that when I'm watching … First of all, I love movies. I love TV shows, things like that, but I do like to dissect and see … okay. Let's say I'm watching the news. Boy, so much-
Dr. Dan: Let's talk about movies, just movies alone. Growing up, you're taught … in our day, back in our day before we have movies on demand and stuff and shows and things like that, you'd watch like a Disney movie. You can still watch them today. We watch them completely different today. We're just like, “Whoa. Look what we're being taught. A prince has to come in and sweep the woman off of her feet and rescue her and then it's this knight in shining armor then it's fade to black and everything is beautiful.”
Siri Shakti: Absolutely. Yes.
Dr. Dan: There are no challenges after that because now they're going to get married, they're going to have kids, and then life is going to be perfect.
Siri Shakti: Perfect.
Dr. Dan: There is no reason you even show what's going to happen after that. It's the end that's why there's not like Cinderella Part 2, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. That is actually a perfect example because that is such a big rule that-
Dr. Dan: Nobody want to watch that, Cinderella 2. She's all frustrated and-
Siri Shakti: Raising the kids.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. The husband and her are arguing and they've got to make it through their … Yeah, kids wouldn't want to watch that.
Siri Shakti: No, no, no. What you were saying though, that is something I've heard time and time again from men, from women. That's a rule of this whole idea. Men need to be the knight in shining armor. I remember even in our own relationship that was something that I struggled with. I always looked to you in the past to fix all my problems and it was so unconscious, and then eventually, I think really as I started practicing yoga and working with my teacher and stuff, I was able to take a step back and see just how much that idea of the whole knight in shining armor thing influenced me.
That was a rule that I wanted to change so I began to step into the role of empowering myself. That's why I think I love the image of Wonder Woman and stuff like that because she's just like a bad ass, strong, kick butt woman.
Dr. Dan: The new Wonder Woman.
Siri Shakti: The new Wonder Woman, yes. I just think she's so great.
Dr. Dan: Not the old one.
Siri Shakti: Yes. She's so great.
Dr. Dan: No offense. I'm talking about the comics and stuff. There is a really … I don't know if you guys knew this but Google it. Go and look up the old … I don't know. I guess you'd search the most ridiculous Wonder Woman comics. She was a racist.
Siri Shakti: I got to go look. Oh my God.
Dr. Dan: She was a racist, yes. You go back to those original because it's back in the war and stuff, one of the wars.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Well, that's such a great example too since we're on this whole talk about media and movies. Boy, I went back and I watched some old movies recently. I think one of them was Breakfast at Tiffany's. No, no, no. It was Sabrina. It was the older Sabrina.
Siri Shakti: First of all, I love …
Dr. Dan: Sabrina the witch?
Siri Shakti: No, not Sabrina the witch. No, no, no.
Dr. Dan: That's the only one I know.
Siri Shakti: I don't think you've ever seen this, total girl maybe. Love the newer one. The older one, regardless of how much I love Audrey Hepburn, it was so hard to watch because you see the dynamics between the typical male and female role and how he would talk to her and how she responded to them. It drove me nuts. That was a role of rules that had been passed down. I know we've gotten to this whole talk about gender and things like that. This is such a great example of a role that has been passed down that has become deeply rooted within many of us as a role that is affecting our lives.
What we're challenging you to do here as what we teach as being a RockStar in your life is it's time to step outside of that. It's time to really take a good conscious look at your life and see what are the things that you are following that you know that you need to step outside of and change.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. No, totally. My whole life, just like everyone of you listening right now, probably have been told or taught conscious or unconsciously by somebody how to be, what to look like, what you should look like, what to do in your life. Personally, I don't blame anyone. Back then, I get mad and be like, “You can't tell me what to do. I know what I want to do with my life.” I don't blame them. I don't blame them today because they didn't know any better. Still today, now they see a lot of the things that people are still in my life that told me, hey, I should get my head off the clouds. I should do something different. That there's no future in what you're doing and why you keep struggling and just go get a good job and things like that. They see now that they were wrong.
They haven't come to me and said like, “You know, Dan, I really, as you remember, I didn't believe in you but I'm glad you didn't listen to me because now you're doing great.” No, I mean, people don't say that. I don't expect them to say that. They didn't know any better. If I gave up on the things that I wanted to do in my life and the dreams that I had, that I want to make a reality, then I have nobody to blame but myself. Yeah, it sucks having people that don't support you but that will be an upcoming session that we'll do is a podcast topic, which would be love your family, choose your friends. That will be a whole another topic on that. At the time I didn't know that but I stumbled into it. Thank God I did.
I don't blame anyone else for that. You shouldn't as well. I mean, you're responsible for your own life and it makes you stronger. Truly does. You know that saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I don't agree with it every time. Some people use it. It's like in the movie Anchorman, when he didn't understand the meaning of when in Rome and it is like, “When in Rome, what is that?” She's like, “It's just a saying.” He used it in some way that made no sense whatsoever. I thought that was pretty funny.
There are some things that … Oh man, I lost my train of thought what I was going to say on that.
Siri Shakti: That's okay because I actually want to tap in here with something that came to me when you were just saying that.
Dr. Dan: My ADD kicked in. I saw a squirrel.
Siri Shakti: That's okay. It will come back to you. Something that you and I have talked about many times and I think that many of our listeners can relate to is that growing up, I know for myself, and you've also mentioned this, that we felt like we were different than many of our peers in school. I know for myself I always felt like I was the odd one. This also can be about breaking the rules because sometimes, breaking the rules is simply stepping into … We talked a lot about being authentic but I really mean it, being your authentic self. This really resonates with me because there was always this feeling like I was somehow different than everyone.
Many times, it felt very uncomfortable because I would see the cool girls in school, like all the guys liked them and they always had the cool clothes on. There was just that whole image. From the movie Clueless, they're all cool and everything. Part of me yearned so much to be like that. I think it was around high school time when I started going into the rave scene. There was actually some real gifts that came from that. One of them was that it really liberated my creativity and started to bring that out. I started to really trust it.
One of the things I used to do was I would sew and make my own clothes and I'd wear them to the parties, the raves and everything. They were awesome. They were so cool. I felt so good in them that I thought, “I'm going to wear this all the time. I'm going to wear them to school.” I would go into school with my awesome homemade clothes on. I'll never forget this one time. I was at P.E. or we are walking into P.E. and I had this shirt on that had rainbows all over it and it was actually made out of a pillowcase and the straps were little ribbons that I had tied or little bows. I thought this was the best shirt. I mean, I'd wear it all the time. This guy, he was one of the most popular boys in school. He looked at me and he said, “Why can't you ever dress like a normal girl?”A little bit, there was a little bit of feeling of like, “Shoot, I'm being insulted.” There was a little bit of that. That feeling passed pretty quickly. I actually went to this feeling of like, “I feel good like this. I don't care what you think because I feel damn good in this.”
That is another element of being a RockStar in your life and breaking your rules because many of us, I feel like we hide our true light. We're just trying to fit in in certain situations or be like what we think we're supposed to be within our family or within social groups. I can tell you firsthand that there are so much liberation when you start to tune in to who it is that you really are and what that's going to look like and have the courage to just do it regardless of how that looks.
Dan, I know that you've experienced that yourself because going back to feeling different, you always told me that you felt like you were different than all of your peers in school. How did you relate to that growing up and breaking your rules?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Well, I wouldn't even call it peers but yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I mean, peers being classmates in school.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, yeah, the popular kids, whatever. Yeah, I didn't conform. Because of that, I would get picked on and they'd say, “Get in line. Get behind me. Get out of the light. You're not a RockStar, I'm the RockStar. I'm the only RockStar in this school. You're behind me. I'm the most popular kid” and then people would fight over who's the most popular. You see that in movies today or you experienced it in your own life. Yeah, I remember actually what I was going to say before, before I saw that squirrel, is that the old saying is what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's similar to, let's say exercise.
I used to body build and lift weights. Imagine if you've never lifted a weight in your life before, right, and all of a sudden, I'm taking you to the gym and I hand you a 500-pound barbell to do a bench press on. Are you going to be able to hold that up? Definitely not.
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: Exactly, yeah. Very few people would be able to hold up that 500-pound or whether it's a squad or barbell press or anything like that. Even today though because I don't train heavy anymore, I would not be able to bench press a 500-pound dumbbell or barbell. I wouldn't be able to squat a 500-pound. I mean, I might be able to do one and then I'm not walking for a couple of months. You have to work yourself up to that. You can't just, all of a sudden, do it.
That's very similar to what we're talking. It's actually exactly what we're talking about here is if it wasn't for all those challenges in your life that came across at the right time that you pushed through, you wouldn't be strong enough to be able to handle what's coming next. You wouldn't be able to get to the next place. You have to have those failures, the so-called failures in order to have the successes that you're going to have in the future.
Just like you hear those stories where people say like, “I invested in … ” I remember a commercial. I don't even know if it's real but I think they said it was real. I remember there's something … was it Apple or was it Bill Gates? I can't remember. It was one of them. It was this commercial they we're in this garage in the '70s or whatever. They're like, “Yeah, you're going to invest in our company. Let's get it off the ground.” They're working in the garage, getting this stuff going and all of a sudden, the dude is like, he's like, “Yeah, I don't think I'm going to do it because I think I'm going to get a car stereo.”
Then, it shows them in the garage building their company. Then, the guy pulls up in his car and he's like, “Yeah, check out my new stereo.” Then the other guys that committed to that company and again like I said, I don't remember if it was Apple or if it was supposed to be Bill Gates with Windows, but it show they missed that opportunity. My point on that is you hear stories from people saying like, “Man, I had the opportunity to invest in this company or be part of this and I chose not to and it became a huge success and I've regretted that every day.”
Instead of being depressed and regretting that, instead, remember that that is preparing you for something even greater or for the next thing that's meant to be. You keep your eye out and you're like, “I'm never going to make that mistake again.” We're constantly saying to ourselves like whenever we make a so-called mistake or something that we might regret or whatever, a failure, we learn from it and we remember it. As long as you don't repeat that failure again and again and again, then it obviously served you. Again, I have an analogy where I say a lot of people that are not willing to break the rules, not willing to stick their neck out, they're like the cows in the herd.
If you ever drive by on the … I know when we … well, now we live in Southern California but when we used to drive from Northern California to Southern California and we go down the five and you would see all these cows just moving along. You see them just sitting there behind this little small fence that they just can't get through for some reason. I mean, they're a big ass cow. They can make a push through that probably. I don't know. I'm sure if they …
Siri Shakti: Together they could, it was like thousands of them.
Dr. Dan: If they really wanted to, they could find a way through there. They're just moving along and they're just sitting there and they just don't know any better. They haven't had a leader come across and say, “You know what? Let's get out of here. Let's see what's on the other side of this fence.” Now, obviously, in the scenario, it probably wouldn't be good for the cows regardless because then the farmers would chase them down or they get hit by a car or something like that. Let's just imagine that they can get through and they find a beautiful thing. These cows are just moving along and they're just sitting there, eating their grass.
They look over to another cow and they're like, “How's your grass?” It's like, “Moo, my grass is good too.” Don't be that cow in the herd. I know some of the things for me and many of you that we were taught was to go to school, get good grades, go to college, get good grades, graduate, get a good secured job. Then buy a house, start a family, and then after … what was it like, 40 years or whatever, you get a $40 gold watch or something, a Timex or something like it or a Pulsar …
Siri Shakti: When you're retired.
Dr. Dan: … or something kind of watch like that and you get to retire. You know what? That doesn't exist anymore. I'm sorry to say but it doesn't exist. You need to break free from that and thank God. I don't even know if people are still teaching that today. We know that people still tell their kids …
Siri Shakti: They still … yeah.
Dr. Dan: … “You need to go to college.” Their kids are 10 years old or something and they're telling them … they're already preparing them for … “You have to go to college.” Now, I have nothing against college. If the job that you want to do would be necessary for you to get a college degree, then yes.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. To be honest though, I remember I was reading … I forgot, I need to find it. There were statistics talking about how many people go to college. The thing is, is what we're talking about is that it's just this common story that parents tell their kids that everyone has to go to college and that you won't be successful unless you go to college. That's exactly what I tell my kids is like, “When you get older, you're going to decide what you want to do if you want to go to college because the profession that you want to do requires that you have to have that type of education, then awesome. We'll totally support you, but know that that's not the only way to go about it.” Perfect example is my husband. You didn't go to college and look at the success that you've created.
Dr. Dan: I took a couple of classes and I don't even remember what I took. I remember a couple of things and it was confusing and I definitely … yeah, nothing I could use today.
Siri Shakti: I think for so many young adults is college just becomes like this little holding period in their life where they're just taking classes and they don't end up actually even using their degrees or using their education that they got from it. There are all these years of … I don't know if it's right to say wasted time but of time spent on that that perhaps could have been spent on discovering something even more powerful that they could have used.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. If you want to be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer or anything, any kind of position that would require that, then yes, go for it. We're not against college, we're just against the idea of everybody has to go in order to be successful in life. A great example is my partner Ben. He actually went to college and he got a degree. He's got … what did he get? He got a business degree.
Siri Shakti: His masters?
Dr. Dan: I think so. I don't know. Anyway, he got something.
Siri Shakti: Okay. He got one those things.
Dr. Dan: He got one of those things that I didn't commit to memory, but yeah. He did that and he doesn't regret it one bit. He loved college. He got a great experience from it. He doesn't really use his degree but he puts it on a website saying, “Hey, I did get this degree but it's not like he needed it for everything.” It's like a street cred for him, but he learned a lot while he was there. There was a lot of little things that … yeah, he could have learned most everything, if not everything outside of college. For him, it worked, it was great. It was great for him. For me, for you, no. When I say you, I mean my wife, Siri Shakti right in front of me. It was not.
It was something that slowed us down and held us back. It was just like another form of school that told us that we weren't good enough. We weren't smart enough because we didn't learn the average way. We didn't learn everybody else. You heard my story. I don't remember if it was in the episode, in the first episode or second but where I talked about like how my teacher said in third, fourth grade, something like that, a science teacher. She had said, “Hey, today, we're having a quiz, a pop quiz and we're going to be grading on the scale from 100% all the way down to Dan's score.” That was probably one of the worst things I can remember but …
Siri Shakti: Heck, yeah.
Dr. Dan: … there were plenty of other examples where I get sent to the office and I'd be put in the … what are those? What are those called? The basic math and basic this and I would ace. When I get in there, I'd ace it and then they'd throw me back into the regular classes and then I'd go back down.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, like classes where you get extra help and …
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: They also lower the standards in those classes.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. They gave us like the special pencils and stuff. I remember those.
Siri Shakti: I was in those classes too.
Dr. Dan: Yup. Here's the thing though. You couldn't go to college to learn a lot of the stuff that me and my partner, Ben, teach when it comes to online marketing and strategies and things like that because everything from social media to Google, to Facebook, even Instagram and Snapchat, all these platforms and all these strategies and all these things are constantly changing, technology, the software and everything is constantly changing sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly. Heck, we even create training tutorial videos in our courses.
Sometimes we create something and within a day to a week or so or a month … if we're lucky, it's a month where something changes, the interface changes or something changes or something they've changed around, and all of a sudden, we have to make a whole new video. Imagine if you go to college to try and learn these things, it ain't going to happen because they can't teach you. By the time they print the textbook, it's already gone.
Siri Shakti: Well, to print another one a week later.
Dr. Dan: Exactly. I'll give you another example. It's actually a cool thing. I was driving … where was it? It's like a month ago. I had to go to the dentist and I remember I took an Uber home. The Uber driver picked me up and he was one of the … what do they call it? The Uber black I think it is. I always get the Uber black. I don't know. I like having a little bit bigger of a car. It seems a little nicer.
Siri Shakti: You're just having a whole SUV with just you in the backseat.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. A lot of times, they open the door for you and they got water and everything. I think the other ones do as well, the UberX and things like. I don't know. I just like to always make sure I have a nice clean car. They're usually better drivers too. Anyways, yeah, he picked me up and we're driving in and I'm always talking to people and he'd ask me. He's like, “Yeah, so what do you do?” He started talking about things and at somehow had gotten in the topic of self-driving cars and how Ubers moving towards that and Tesla and all these other ways that they're trying to do then. He's saying he's worried because he's going to lose his job and he's not going to have a job for himself anymore.
He also does driving with Lyft, Uber on his own. He's gaming his card. I told him, I said, “Yeah, but I mean it's innovation and things need to move forward.” Nobody that I can think of off the top of my head, nobody is safe to say, “I never have to evolve. I can just keep doing the exact same thing forever and keep making the same … no. Things keep changing. I told him, I said, “The railroad industry or actually let's go back even further like I guess horse and carriage.” Horses and horses and carriage and then you had trains and we also have bicycles. They replace horses I guess. Then, you had trains. Then from trains, you had the airplanes. It just keeps …
Siri Shakti: It keeps evolving.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. For somebody to say like, “I'm going to lose my conductor job because there's not going to be as many people taking the train to go from here to there. Now, they'll take a plane.” There's always going to be something moving forward. I told him, I was like, “Dude, you got to stop thinking that you are in the driving business, you're in the transportation business. You just need to evolve of whatever comes next. Whatever comes next, you need to be part of that and I don't even know what it is.” I remember telling him something but I think I was a little high on my medication.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I think that comes from people having a fear of change when they have something that they're doing that they're comfortable with and fear of having to evolve. Going back to the rules thing, what I thought of when you said that was what many of us have been taught. With my grandparents growing up, they had the same job their whole life. That was so much more typical back then. They would, like you were saying, go to school, get a good job, a steady job, retire at whatever age, get a gold watch and be retired. You had made the comment that that doesn't exist anymore and it really doesn't. I was reading this article once that talked about just how many times people will be changing jobs now currently and in the future. People are just not sticking with careers the same way they were in our grandparents and great grandparents' ages or time.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, the world is different.
Siri Shakti: It's totally different, especially because we're in the thick of the information age. Information is coming and going so quickly. Things are evolving so fast that we can't just sit here like a slug and be unmovable. We need to be flexible. We need to flow with the change and embrace it as well. I think that for those of us, we're going to see over the coming next years as we continue to move forward into this information age that those of us that could be flexible within this are going to experience the joy of the information age and of society evolving and technology evolving. Those of us that want to stick to and not move, those people are going to really struggle and experience a lot of challenges moving forward.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Now, I remember so many rules that people try to tell me I needed calm down. I needed to settle down and thank God they didn't try and drag me. They tried to tell me to focus on just one thing. That's not how my brain works and I didn't realize that until later in life, until I was in my mid-20s, early 30s or something that I realized that it was a gift …
Siri Shakti: Yeah, it is a gift.
Dr. Dan: … that being able to process. Most people, average people, and the ones that want to drag their kids and everything, when I say their kids, I'm not saying in so much parents but teachers and schools and doctors.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, exactly. I want to touch on that after you're done with that.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. For me, here's an example for those of you that aren't like this or think there's something wrong with you because you are like that. It's a gift. Think of it as like the average person that they're trying to make me be like or make you if you're like that, like me. Imagine like they look at a puzzle and they have to take one piece of the puzzle at a time and put this one down and then look around, take another one, put that down, look around. Take another one, put that down and that's totally fine. That's how their brain is wired. Somebody like me, I come along and before I even touch a piece, I look at every single piece on the board.
I'll see like three or four or five that can go together and I'll grab them all and put them together. I'll just keep doing that. It's one way better than the other. Yeah, for putting puzzles together, but that's it, not for other stuff. If the goal is to study for a test, then definitely not, I would probably venture to say it would not make a very good … I don't know. I don't know if I'd make a good doctor because I'd probably get distracted and start pulling on other stuff if I'm doing an operation or so like, what's that?
Siri Shakti: Yeah. We don't want you doing surgery, okay?
Dr. Dan: Exactly. I wouldn't have the focus for that …
Siri Shakti: Too curious.
Dr. Dan: … but even better, even better. We'll talk about this in an upcoming podcast as well episode. Even better is if you were to team up with one person or two people that can look at the whole puzzle like me, and then one or two people that do won individually and you all work together as a team. That's what makes some of the most successful partnerships, businesses, and ideas and everything in the world is that they partner together, whether it's somebody they partner where it's equity like I own this much and you own that much of the business or it might just be them hiring people that are good at one task.
Whether it'd be the creative or whether it would be focus or the management or whatever it might be. There's a variety of ways to doing it but it's about building a team. I was going to give some quick examples as far as if you look at people like Elon Musk. We talked about him before too. He's just such an amazing person. He created the electric car. Well, he didn't create the first electric car but he created an electric car. He's the first person to really make it go mainstream and to prove something that people were saying for years. When I say people, the people that had the control where they would say … and they were stuck at one way.
They're stuck at this rule of like, electric cars are too slow, nobody will want them, they're weak, and all those other stuff and they're not manly or whatever things they were saying. I remember hearing quite a bit of them but he turned around and said, “No, they don't have to be. You don't need a hybrid. You don't need half and half. Let's get away from the gas, from the fossil fuel. Let's do this.”
Siri Shakti: Heck, yeah.
Dr. Dan: He did that and it's awesome. If you would have listened to the naysayers, if you would have listened to the people that say, “Hey, get back over here with the rest of the cows and eat your grass and shut up, be satisfied.” Then we wouldn't have that today and we wouldn't have this innovation today. If you look at like let's say Facebook, when Facebook came out, there was this thing called Myspace. Some of you are too young to even remember Myspace or you might not even born, I don't know, around that time. I don't know if we asked our kids, “Hey, have you heard of Myspace?”
Siri Shakti: No. Who's space, what?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. They'd be like, “No. What is that? That's just weird.” When Facebook came out, Myspace was the king and people were telling him like, “You don't need another thing,” and look what he did. If it wasn't for that, Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't be one of the richest people in the entire world today. You look at like let's say Snapchat. Snapchat is not that old. It's just … what is it? I don't even know how old it is, like a year or two years old or whatever.
Siri Shakti: I'm not sure.
Dr. Dan: Well, it's more than a year but let's say two or three years old, maybe four. I don't know how old it is.
Siri Shakti: It's not that old.
Dr. Dan: It's not that old. It definitely came way after Facebook and after Instagram. We already had Facebook. We already had Instagram. You know what I mean? If they would have listened to everybody else is saying, “We already have enough of those,” then we wouldn't have that today. He wouldn't be. Again, I know it's worth more than a billion dollars today, some astronomical number, and also Netflix. Look at Netflix. Can we imagine that today, we'd be web streaming, we'd be streaming so many videos and movies online? Before, we used to go to Blockbuster. Before that, Netflix would send you DVDs in the mail. I still remember when it first came out.
The older generation were all saying this won't last. Who wants to wait that long for a DVD or anything like that? We loved it. We love that we didn't have the convenience. We didn't have to go in and rent a movie that we can just select it and it would actually be on in our cue for when it was released. Hopefully, we would be one of the first to get it. That wouldn't be around if they listened to other people. The Apple iPad, the iPad wasn't the first MP3 player. I know there was the Zune and there were some other stuff. I think they made fun of that in the Guardians of the Galaxy. Do you remember that at the end of part two spoiler? At the end of … it think it was part two, he hand him because he'd been using a cassette player and the guy is like, “Hey, this is … we found this, this the new technology from earth.”
Siri Shakti: The new technology from earth.
Dr. Dan: It's like, “Whoa, it can hold 100 songs? What?! Oh my God!” Today, the iPad or iPhone … I don't even know how many holes. I haven't filled it up yet. It's like 128 gigabytes.
Siri Shakti: Wait, wait, speaking of that, I just have to add something to this. My son picked up a DVD yesterday at my mother and father-in-law's house because we were going to watch some old DVDs at our wedding videos and stuff like that. He goes, “What do I do with this disc? Does it go in this thing?” I'm like, “Oh my God!”
Dr. Dan: Well, no, he had it in the case.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, in the case.
Dr. Dan: Because in one of those jewel cases. It was a printed DVD that I'd made years ago of home videos. It was in this jewel case where you can see through and everything. He's like, “Do I just put the whole thing?”
Siri Shakti: “Do I put the whole case in?”
Dr. Dan; “Shove the case inside there and it just plays?” That was pretty fun, definitely pretty funny. One last example I want to give that I was thinking about and thought it was really cool, Spotify. I'm not saying it's actually Spotify but streaming music services. I like Spotify. I've tried a couple of other ones but Spotify is pretty bad ass. I think I still pay the other ones like Pandora and some other ones out there. The point I was going to make with that is the reason why Apple was so late to streaming music, they've just started recently.
The reason why is because … well, one of the reasons is because Steve Jobs, he didn't believe … I think they'd said he was presented with it or something, one of his people or somebody like pitched it to him or something. He could have been the first mover on that, but he didn't believe himself. He had the rule in his own head, whether he made it or learned it from somebody else. It's that people wanted to own their music. People didn't want to rent for service and not own the music. Man, I think we pay like, I don't know, 10, 20 bucks a month for Spotify and we have five accounts for the family account thing.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, love it.
Dr. Dan: The fact that you're able to not only download onto your device, it's not like you're putting in iTunes or anything but you're downloading it so you can listen to it offline. If you're in the airplane or whatever, you can still listen to it. It's on your device and you're just paying a monthly fee in order to not own the music but be able to listen to it whenever you want.
Siri Shakti: Whenever you want, yeah.
Dr. Dan: You can create playlist. You can create everything. Who the hell wants to freaking buy music now? I remember when I had have to buy music and it was a big pain in the ass because I would have to put it on my computer and have to download it on my computer or reap it onto my computer, I should say, and then I had have to put it on iTunes. Then back then, iTunes would actually make it really difficult to actually … if you didn't … I forgot if you didn't buy it from iTunes or something, it was like something that costs to not always be allowed to be on your thing and say, sorry, we couldn't find the authorization. No, no. I think it was like you can only have this on so many devices or something.
It was something that kept messing me up and I'm like, this sucks and I can't wait for somebody to fix this issue. Spotify came along and whatever other streaming services came along and they could have done it themselves. They could have been the first and probably one of the only ones that would have been ahead of everybody else. They had their own rules in their head that, obviously, did not serve them.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I know we were talking about examples of breaking the rules with technology and innovation like that. There's one story that comes to mind and I don't remember the first time I heard it, maybe from Tony Robbins or something. Remember the story about Sylvester Stallone, how he wrote the script of Rocky? He went to hundreds of … I don't know what you call it … producers or … what do you call it where you present your story? Well, anyways …
Dr. Dan: Studios or whatever.
Siri Shakti: Studio, yeah, to present his script. They'd read the script and some of them just turned him down. A few times, he actually got gray offers for a lot of money saying, “We love this script but we don't want you to … ”
Dr. Dan: I think it was only one time he got an offer.
Siri Shakti: Was it one time?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, it was only one time and he was broke and he actually ended up selling his dog.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. He sold his dog just to be able to pay rent or whatever he was paying for.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. The thing was he wanted to be in his own movie if we're allowed to say that.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. They said, “Hey, we'll go and give you money for this but you can't be in this movie.”
Siri Shakti: Yes. Here, he was totally broke, could barely afford to eat and he knew in his heart that he was Rocky and he wanted to be Rocky. He moved on, and eventually found someone that was willing to make the movie and let him be Rocky. I feel like that's such a good story of breaking the rules because he was being told by so many people that, “You aren't good for this part. We don't like your script.” He decided to keep going because he knew that that was something that he wanted for his life. Look, it was such a great success. Rocky is awesome. Who doesn't love Rocky?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. He's making movies and movies and he's just bringing back old '80s and '90s like action hero stars and making the Expendables movies and stuff, which is really cool.
Siri Shakti: I was about to just yell out something, Adrian!
Dr. Dan: Yow, Adrian.
Siri Shakti: Yow, Adrian. Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Nice. Now, there was something you want to mention about a school? You said you want to cover something on that too?
Siri Shakti: Well, I did have something to talk about. Before we sat down today, I was thinking, what is an example for my own life of maybe the biggest experience of breaking the rules? The first thing that came to mind was my daughter, Kayleen. She's now 16 years old. When she was going through preschool, we started to be told by teachers, “Your daughter needs testing done.” We were already getting told by certain family members that … first different milestones were not happening at the so-called standard time that they're supposed to be happened like talking and things like that. We already knew Kayleen was a little bit … I don't even like to use the word different, but for the sake of … I'm trying to find …
Dr. Dan: We call it Kaylee pace.
Siri Shakti: Okay, Kaylee pace, yeah. We always knew that she went at Kaylee pace. In preschool, we started to be told she needs to get testing done before she enters kindergarten. Reluctantly, believe me it was reluctantly, we decided to go and do that. We went through the whole testing and really the only thing they could tell us at the time was there was speech delay and that she was somewhere on the spectrum. They had her go to speech therapy.
Dr. Dan: Which really helped us though because we didn't know that she was talking a little later than normal from all those tests.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, having that diagnosis really helps.
Dr. Dan: Sarcasm.
Siri Shakti: Nuts.
Dr. Dan: Insert sarcasm.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Insert sarcasm.
Dr. Dan: Because of that, I always like … whenever we talk to a doctor or anything, I always ask like, “Okay. If we do this test or we do this, whether it's for our kids or for ourselves, what is it going to tell us and what can we do about it?” So many times that I've asked that question, they said like, “Well, then you'll know.” I'm like, “What can I do about it?” “I don't know.” “Geez, thanks. Yeah, let me spend some money, some time, some energy and be all stressed out about something you can't even do anything about.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah, and go through that experience.
Dr. Dan: “Thank … yeah, let's do that. Let's do that.” Sarcasm.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. We did the speech therapy and then here comes kindergarten. She was going to be in a special education. She had an IEP. I don't even remember how long she stayed in the actual public school, maybe a month or two or something like that, but I'll never forget when I took her. You know that experience that I think every parent has experienced before where your intuition is just itching at you, telling you this isn't right, this isn't right. Mine was actually screaming at me. My internal voice was saying, this is not a good choice for Kayleen.
The thing that was a little scary for me is that I didn't know what other option there was for us because at the time, we weren't making that much money at that time. A private school wasn't really an option. I looked at that and those were rather expensive. I thought, well, homeschooling. I know nothing about homeschooling. I didn't feel like I was that educated. I didn't like her coming home. She was picking up some interesting behavior from some of the other kids. One of the things that really bothered me was there was so much constant talk amongst the parents and teachers. “What diagnosis does your child have? What are they?” My child is autistic. My child has Asperger's.
My child has Down syndrome. You name it, so on and so on. I'm not trying to insult these diagnoses. Believe me, I understand that they can have value. What I noticed is that it became more about the title than this is my daughter. This is Kayleen. Anyways, long story short …
Dr. Dan: It was a limiting. It was like a limit. They're saying, “Your child is this so they can never do any of these things.”
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Opposed to just saying like what we would tell our child … well, actually, I think have told her now she's older. She's not a little kid anymore, and she's a teenager. Today, we say like, “Look, this is what some doctors and people would diagnose you and they would say you are this but that doesn't mean anything. It just means that you're not like every single other person out there, the average person, the average.” If you took like everybody and tested everybody or not like a certain percentage, and that's it. That's all it means. It doesn't mean anything. Again, we can get political end of that into why.
Siri Shakti: We also have a whole other talk about that.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Let's save that.
Siri Shakti: I decided that I was going to homeschool. I set out on this journey and I had so many family members looking at me like I was crazy. I heard a whole lot. Believe me, I got many words of negativity and discouragement. Not to name names but there was one person in my life that said, “You're not even a good speller, so who do you think you are? Do you think that you could possibly homeschool your daughter?”
Dr. Dan: Well, that person also gave you one of those spelling … what do you call, the spelling checker device.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, for Christmas.
Dr. Dan: For Christmas that you can carry around with you before we had iPhones?
Siri Shakti: Oh my God, okay, yes. Now, I embrace that spelling.
Dr. Dan: That spells unite.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: That's spelled U-N-I-T-E.
Siri Shakti: T-E?
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: This is fun. Here, I set out on this homeschooling journey and this was definitely that break the rule moments. Because regardless of what everyone was telling me, I knew that this was the only choice. I had to lock myself into it because school was not going to be happening. I'll have to admit it was pretty rocky for quite a while and I had to figure out how to do this. I knew nothing about teaching and here we are. She's 16 years old. She's this amazing girl, young woman. Sometimes I think to myself, if I could go back and have a little conversation with myself and have seen how things turned out, I would have saved myself a whole lot of stress and tears because there were a lot of stressful moments day after day and a lot of tears.
Dr. Dan: What do you know, it was just all easy.
Siri Shakti: Totally, oh my God.
Dr. Dan: Now, Kayleen is 16, Mayleena is 13, and then Bodhi is 8. We've been homeschooling from the beginning and that was the start of it. We'll save that for a whole another session.
Siri Shakti: That's going to be a good one.
Dr. Dan: We'll just go deep into that one of why we chose to do that. Do you have to do that as well? No, it's your life, your choice. You do what you feel is best for your family. There are other options out there as well. We don't really believe in sending your child to public school though. I just throw them in the system. Again, we don't want to get on that topic where … again, I've heard there are some better …
Siri Shakti: Great schools and … yeah.
Dr. Dan: … public schools, but still I'm pretty against the US at least. I can't speak for … I heard Canada has some cool schools and stuff and a better ratio. Anytime you throw 30, 40, 50 kids, with the ratio of one teacher or even two, that's just too much. You need like a 1 on 5 or 1 on 10 at the most.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Also, being … like we've said, we'll get into this another one, but also being delivered information that … who decides where this information comes from? That's one big thing for me is that …
Dr. Dan: When you say information, are you talking about what they're going to teach them?
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah. Some group of people decided what information was valuable. That's one thing that I have found in learning how to teach my kids is that, wow, there's so much information that's left out.
Dr. Dan: Or even better like we go through stuff that we're teaching them. Before, we're about to teach them something, we do our own research. Then we're just like, “I was taught something different.”
Siri Shakti: Like Christopher Columbus?
Dr. Dan: They lied to me. I mean, wow, wow!
Siri Shakti: Actually, I was having a conversation on Thanksgiving with a few people about this how us growing up we're taught that Christopher Columbus was this great American hero and he discovered America. Come to find out … and I don't even know, I know that many states don't celebrate Columbus anymore, maybe the whole U.S. doesn't. I'm not quite sure. I need to check on that. Now, it's become to light the true story that … oh my goodness, that he was a murderer, him and his group of his posy and …
Dr. Dan: We'll save that for a whole another topic.
Siri Shakti: Here we go. Anyways, we'll change that [inaudible 00:57:11], okay.
Dr. Dan: Let's keep this light. Let's not get dark. Let's go back to …
Siri Shakti: Breaking the rules.
Dr. Dan: … breaking the rules. Again, I mean, get out there. Whenever somebody gives you a rule that you feel like you need to question, then do question it. Do your own research. Even things that we're telling you to do, do your own research. Test things out.
Siri Shakti: Please, yes.
Dr. Dan: Try some things and figure things out for yourself, for your own truth. You need to do that. We're telling you to think for yourself and get out there and do these things. Don't just sit back and not do it. One thing we wanted to do, we'll want to make this a regular thing is where we give you a mission, a RockStar mission …
Siri Shakti: Rock star mission.
Dr. Dan: … to complete each time. Before I do that, I also wanted to mention that I decided to put … I actually have two books that I wrote a few years back and I decided I'm going to put them in a PDF format. Well, actually, I already have a PDF. Then you can go to the website rockstarinlife.com and you can download both of those for free. If you don't already own those …
Siri Shakti: Beautiful.
Dr. Dan: … go in there and just download them and you can have both books, The Little Book Of Secrets, How To Attract The Person In Your Dreams And Keep Them, and Rock Star: 45 Lessons To Be A Rock Star In Life And Make The World Your Stage!
Siri Shakti: Awesome.
Dr. Dan: All right, back to the RockStar mission. If you choose to take this mission and it will not self-distract.
Siri Shakti: Or will it.
Dr. Dan: Or will it, yeah. We don't know yet. We'll find out. Hopefully, it doesn't … no, I don't say that because you joke around about that and then their phone breaks or dies and they're like it's our fault.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, that's true. Okay.
Dr. Dan: You got to be careful, all right. The mission we want to give you, the RockStar mission, is we wanted you to list 10 to 20 rules. You could list more if you want, but at least 10, between 10 and 20 rules that don't serve you anymore, Some of those can be any of the things that we talked about. Somebody is saying like, you need to go to school for this or you need to do that or you need to behave a certain way or you can't do this because of this. You can't be a basketball player because you're four feet tall or whatever, I mean, a professional basketball player. Whatever it is, you can't write a book because you can't spell good, because you failed English. I'm talking about me. I wrote two books. Take that. You're not a good speller and how many books did you write, two?
Siri Shakti: I wrote two books, yeah, children's book and the inspirational book for women.
Dr. Dan: Published. I should say published because …
Siri Shakti: Published, yeah.
Dr. Dan: … we've written more that we haven't published. I had two. Real quick, what's funny is I had two … what does it called, editors go through my book and proofread it. Both of them have masters and stuff and they're both excellent. I still found a spelling mistake in my book which is funny because I remember reading or hearing somebody say, even New York Times bestselling books that have a lot of money behind them that you're always going to find some kind of a mistake in there.
Siri Shakti: It's just being a human, huh?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I thought that was pretty funny. Any of those rules that don't serve you anymore that people are saying you can't do this because … you can't be a model because you're not as attractive as other people or because you're a little heavier or you can't get into shape because you've got big bones. You can't be a body builder because you got small muscles or you're really thin. Again, I was a skinny, skinny kid myself. I was told that I … people said to me like, “Why are you so skinny?” I got like, we had comments like that but I was body building. I got myself to 250 pounds, so that wasn't skinny anymore.
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: My point is that we want you to write down 10 to 20 or more rules that don't serve you anymore, that are old, that aren't helping you anymore to be your authentic self, the RockStar you're born to be. Then from that, I want you to take the top three and circle the top three, the three ones that you want to do right now. From there, now, take those three and take some action on them immediately right now, not later. Obviously, if you're driving in your car right now listening to this, then pull over, pull over. Or if it's something that you can take action on right now or actually, more than likely you're not going to write down your top 10 to 20 things, why you're driving anyways so I guess it doesn't matter.
Write those down. From those top three, take some action on right now. That can be sending an email out. It can be making a phone call. It can be signing up for something. Maybe you're saying like, “Hey, I want to learn to play the guitar.” Well, you know what? Your action on that can be, I'm going to go online. I'm going to look for somebody that does it. I'm going to ask on Face book who knows somebody that can teach us on my area or I'm going to Google it or I'm going to go on Yelp and I'm going to find one.
Siri Shakti: Find the online program even.
Dr. Dan: Yup. If it's later in the evening, you can call and leave a message or you can email them and say, “Hey, I'm interested.” You're going to take action on that right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, not someday. You're going to do something, something right now with that. Like I said, it can be an email, call or anything. I'll give you an example. I want to write a book and I tried doing it on my own and it wasn't very fun. I was talking to one of my buddies and he was saying, “Hey, I had actually hired this author's coach and she's amazing and you should contact her and write a book.” Well, the problem was that I was having lunch with them and we're about to hop on a plane.
We were in LA. We're about to hop in on plane and go to Fiji for two weeks. We're going to an event out there. We're about to be all blissed out and stuff because we're doing meditations and yoga and cool stuff like that. I was going actually with Tony. It was at Tony's resort in the Mali in Fiji. I remember thinking like, you know what? I was listening to my own rules. This is the time that I developed these rules for myself or rules or these rocks or lessons, these things that I was doing that we're teaching you today. I remember I was like, you know what, when will be a good time to do this? Right now. What did I do? I picked up my phone and I called her.
I left a message, because I think it was like six o'clock or seven o'clock at night, so she didn't pick up the phone. I left her a message and said, “Hey, I'm about to hop on a plane to Fiji and I just want to connect with you real quick and let you know that I'm going to sign up for this and I want to ask a couple of questions. If you can get back to me either tonight or we could just talk right when I get back. Shoot me an email and let's get this rolling. Here's my email.” I gave her my email. I ended up signing up with her on my way to Fiji. I took action on it and then I wrote a book. I wrote two books. I'm just saying that you need to do something right now.
Write down those top 10 to 20 things or more. Choose the top three, circle them, and then take some action on today. Just like Siri Shakti said, if you want to learn to play guitar and you don't want to hire somebody, then buy a course on some online course or something for 5, 10 bucks.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe you have this moment you can't afford to go out and get expensive lessons or something, so do something online.
Dr. Dan: Go on YouTube. YouTube has free lessons.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Don't give yourself an excuse like I can't afford this or I can't do this because … I hear that I can't afford it type of things. There are always options out there.
Dr. Dan: Yup. The action could be, it could be like, hey, if I'm going to learn to play guitar but I can't afford to hire somebody for lessons, well, then go on YouTube, find some videos that look cool and copy the URL on there and put them on the Notepad or Google Drive or Evernote or whatever you used to keep notes and that's your action. That's what you did. You set that up. I'm not saying you have to go grab your guitar right now and start playing. That would be great but I'm just saying do something. Do something towards that action. That is the RockStar lesson or RockStar mission if you choose to take it on, which we hope you do.
Siri Shakti: We hope you do, yup. Wonderful.
Dr. Dan: All right, anything else you want to add before we …
Siri Shakti: I think that's it. This was so awesome. Rock stars, just get out there and go break those rules, all right.
Dr. Dan: Yup, break those rules and we will see you next week.
Siri Shakti: Be a RockStar in your life and make the world your stage.
Dr. Dan: Be a RockStar in your life and make the world your stage.
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