Kyle Davis: All right, so with us today on GDA Podcast, we have Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo, and as anybody who listens to the podcast knows, when I do these by myself, I don't do the introduction because who am I to introduce somebody when they can introduce themselves. With that being said, [00:01:00] Dr. Lombardo, how are you doing today?

Elizabeth Lombardo: I am doing very well and I'm honored to be here, so thanks for having me on.

Kyle Davis: Well, thank you for joining us. For those people who maybe have like kind of lived under a rock or aren't familiar with who you are and aren't watching CNN or Steve Harvey or anything else like that, if you could, give our listeners a little bit of your background and what it is that you work on.

Elizabeth Lombardo: So, the short response to that is I'm actually [00:01:30] a physical therapist by training. I was a practicing PT for a couple of years. I went back to school to get my PhD in Clinical Psychology because everything starts in our mind. It's all mindset, whether it's physical health or business success or a good relationship, it all starts in our mind. I got my PhD in Clinical Psychology and loved being a psychologist working one-on-one, but I felt like I was pulled to do something bigger, we could talk more about [00:02:00] that if that's of interest, and so I wrote my first book, which was called A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness. I learned a little statistic as I was writing that, that the average book sells 250 copies or less the first year. Given that I was going to ask my mother and my husband to buy at least a couple dozen, I realized I had to get the message out there. That's when I went on this adventure to do a fair amount of media and speaking with the caveat that I used to be [00:02:30] so fearful to get in front of even a handful of people. Now, I'm on, as you mentioned, TV quite frequently. Today Show, Good Morning America, Dr. Oz, Steve Harvey, as well as, the prints, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, blah, blah, blah.

Kyle Davis: All of it.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, I've been very blessed with media.

Kyle Davis: Well, that's good.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yes.

Kyle Davis: One of the things that you mentioned prior to us going to record is that your whole, I guess you could say, brand or [00:03:00] your approach to life is helping people, and correct me if I'm wrong, to better understand their inner critic and how to work with it. Is that right?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, we all have an inner critic and I work with, you know, some of my clients are literally household names who make 10 million or more a movie or get that much to play a certain sport. It doesn't matter who we are, we all have an inner critic that sometimes says you're not good enough, don't mess [00:03:30] up, you're in way over your head. Sometimes an inner critic is quiet, but when stress levels get higher, that inner critic tends to be louder and louder and tends to take control of our thinking.

Kyle Davis: You mentioned that when you decided to go back and get your PhD in Clinical Psychology that you were almost pulled to do something bigger. Was it because of your inner critic or how did you go that route and what was that thing that pulled you or what [00:04:00] were you being pulled towards?

Elizabeth Lombardo: After I got my PhD, I was actually working at Parkland Hospital ...

Kyle Davis: In Dallas, yeah.

Elizabeth Lombardo: ... down in Dallas. I did my post-doctoral training down there and I had this client, I did. I worked in the emergency room, so when people came in to the emergency room and suffered trauma, I was there to help support them. I had this consult for this guy who had had a bilateral upper extremity amputation, which means both of his arms had been cut [00:04:30] off. He was an electrician and he'd been working on a wire that was supposed to be turned off, but was very active. While he was working on it, this huge bolt of current went through both arms. In order to save his life, they had to amputate his arms.

I distinctly remember, he was already in his room and I remember I had my white coat on because I was trying to look all professional. I was knocking on the door and I was thinking what am I going to do for this guy? I mean, obviously, he's depressed. He's never going to be able to work again. Obviously, he feels hopeless and helpless. How am [00:05:00] I going to help this guy? As a caveat, I respect that's not really what you'd want your shrink thinking, but this was early in my training, so this is where my mindset was. I knocked on the door, opened the door, and there was this gentleman, Roger, who was sitting in a chair. He had big, bushy brown hair, no arms, with a huge smile on his face. I thought, oh my gosh, he's delusional, but he was not delusional. He was actually very happy and he was happy because he was focused [00:05:30] on the fact that his life had been saved, not on the fact that he had lost his arms. It was all about focus, it was all about perspective.

It just struck me that if this guy could be so happy, then what was wrong with me? I mean, I was pretty happy, but I wasn't this happy. I wanted more of that and I wanted the world to understand how we all can be happier even if something traumatic, like losing both of your arms, happens to us.

Kyle Davis: How is it that, and I'll even speak [00:06:00] it to myself on this, how is it that some people or even most people, how is it that their focus or their perspective is one that bends more towards the negative rather than the positive and what can people do maybe instantly or over time, to help shift that perspective?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Well, I'm going to start with the second part of that in terms of is it even possible to change. You did not come out of your mother's womb beating yourself up. I'm not good enough. I don't deserve to be in this group, whatever it is. That's all learned, [00:06:30] and anything learned can be unlearned and relearned. The reason why we have a propensity to view things negatively is a couple things. One, it's a defense mechanism in terms of if I think the worst, you know, people often think, if I think the worst, then I'm prepared. I call it umbrella syndrome. Right? If I bring my umbrella, then it's not going to rain. Sometimes people think the worst because they don't want to be disappointed. If I think the best and it doesn't happen, then I'll be disappointed so if I think the worst, then it's okay. I'll be able to better handle [00:07:00] it. Neither of those are true. I've never worked with someone who was worried about her children and then if a child died said, "Not a big deal. I was worrying about it already."

The other reason why people have a propensity to view things negatively is stress. Stress literally changes our brain and so if you think of stress from zero to 10, zero is no stress at all, you just got off the massage table, 10 is the most stressed out you've ever been. When you're in a zero [00:07:30] or one of stress, you can see everything. It's when your frontal lobe, this beautiful part of your brain that makes us human, we can see things, we can solve problems, we have a clear perspective, a really open perspective. As our stress level gets higher, our ability to see things narrows and we go from using our beautiful frontal lobe to our limbic system, which is our emotional reasoning. That tends to be geared towards more, what we call, negative filtering. Focusing almost exclusively [00:08:00] on the negatives. If you ever notice how there can be a situation, a person, an event in your life that when you're stressed out, you view it differently than you do if you're calm and really relaxed.

Kyle Davis: I'm laughing about that because it's funny. When you start new relationships, I'm a single guy and I'm dating here in Dallas, you know, what's funny about it is like this girl that I'm dating, she says this thing to me and in [00:08:30] my head, I'm like why are you thinking it like that and not this other way? I know, and I'm laughing to myself now because I know that there's like four or five just key stressors right now that's going on in her life.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: I'm just like, I would just love to shake her and be like, hey you just tilt your perspective just little bit, like this is a short-term problem and it's not even worth all this angst and cortisol levels through the roof and all that other fun stuff ...

Elizabeth Lombardo: Exactly.

Kyle Davis: ... that kind of goes along with it.

Elizabeth Lombardo: [00:09:00] Yeah, and you know that's so important because it's important to remember not only for ourselves that we see things differently, but when we think about how one reacts when one is stressed. Right? When I'm stressed out, I don't even want to be with me much less my poor children and husband, so when our loved ones, when our friends, when our co-workers act in ways that aren't really consistent with who they are instead of personalizing and getting upset with them, one perspective or one approach is just to take a step back and say, "You know what? Poor dears using their limbic system and not their [00:09:30] frontal lobe. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, get a good night's sleep, and then we're going to have a conversation tomorrow."

Kyle Davis: There are people that I've come across in my life who I just feel that they're just perpetually just stuck in that limbic response that you're talking about. That emotional response that leads them to jump to the very worst of things when in reality, that's not the situation.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: From an outside perspective, how do you interact with those [00:10:00] people in a way that eases tensions or lessens their reliance on that response?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kyle Davis: More importantly, if you are one of those people and like you said, you have to start rethinking things, how can you self-reflect on that as well?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, you know, you literally have to re-wire your brain. If you think about a thought, a thought is just certain nerves firing in a certain pattern.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Lombardo: If your nerves fire kind of off to the right, let's say, not really, but off to the right, [00:10:30] you have one thought. If they fire off to the left, you have another thought. The more you have a thought, the more likely you are to take that path. It's the same thing with behaviors, and one way to demonstrate this is think about the first time you got behind the wheel of a car to drive, you're learning how to drive. If you're anything like me, you're like, I don't know where to put my hands, how much pressure do I put on the gas and the brake, and it's awkward and strange.

Now, my guess is when you get into the car, you're not worried about [00:11:00] how much pressure to put on the brake, you're thinking about what song's going to be on the radio. The reason is because you have literally rewired your brain in terms of motor skills of how to drive. Same thing when it comes to our thoughts. Someone who has a real propensity to consistently think negatively, simply needs to rewire their brain and have different thoughts on a consistent basis so that those become the path of least resistance.

Kyle Davis: [00:11:30] That's just something that kind of like is one of my things that I've seen this before with a few people, but they very much appear to be happy and when it comes to anything and everything, they're super stoked. When it comes to just the minimal amount of stress or confrontation or something, it's kind of like defaults back into that. For that moment of agitation or excitement, they just become hyper-emotional when it really doesn't do that. How is it that these individuals can kind of go back and forth [00:12:00] between these two responses?

Elizabeth Lombardo: In general, we're an all or nothing society. Something's either great or it's horrible, it's either perfect or it's a failure, but to these people probably, they have a very low threshold of what's comfortable for being uncomfortable, if you will, and being psychologically uncomfortable so that when everything's good, they're good. When things get a little off kilter, it just throws them for a loop.

Kyle Davis: [00:12:30] I'm asking this because from like a management perspective, because I know that we have a lot of people who listen to this who are sales managers or senior leadership for businesses and whatnot, there comes a time and place where somebody ... [inaudible 00:12:44] the funnest people outside the office, but man, working with them is just [vwoo 00:12:49].

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: Can you manage that or is it like, can you, with HR's approval, shake that person to help them keep their focus or is this something that [00:13:00] has to be self-realized and self-actualized, the relearning process?

Elizabeth Lombardo: I would not encourage any shaking.

Kyle Davis: All right, no shaking.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah. It can be learned. Like I said, we don't come out of our mother's womb with this or anything learned can be unlearned and relearned. You can do it by having someone say, I have this issue and so I have to make changes, but you can also do it just by teaching the new stuff. [00:13:30] For example, I wrote a book on happiness and I created a, for different companies, I have a 21-day program. It's a three-minute audio that people listen to and they don't even know ... We're not saying you're miserable so you need to listen to this, but it's just kind of learning these skills on a consistent basis and if you learn the skill on a consistent basis, you don't actually have to go back to why am I like this, what in my childhood has created this? You can just start to make that change right now. [00:14:00] Whether what I have or listening to [upbeat 00:14:04] podcasts or sharing. As a manager, maybe it's pulling out the positive, so maybe it's focusing what people are doing well and how they're applying their strengths in a certain way that's going to help start to rewire that employee's brain.

Kyle Davis: Yeah, I think they're on to something with that. I mean, I can think of like one business that I was in and it was constant, every day, it's like hey, just very frank discussion, what's going right, what's [00:14:30] going wrong? The what's going wrong part was never a what's wrong with you, it's what's wrong and how can we help?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yes.

Kyle Davis: It just is a shift and I've never had that happen before. It's such a great environment to work in.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Of course, of course. I have this saying, it's not failure, it's data, and so when you have an outcome you don't want, if you can get to a point where you say, you know what? Why didn't we get the outcome we wanted? How can we change things now and in the future so that we get the outcome we want is key? That second part that you mentioned is really [00:15:00] the biggest part, which is not personalizing.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Lombardo: Not personalizing when people give you feedback. Not personalizing when you don't get the outcome that you want because people's egos and sense of worth are so fragile that when they make a mistake or when they're told they did something "wrong," what they hear is you are a failure.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

Elizabeth Lombardo: I'm like, yeah, that's that inner critic.

Kyle Davis: Let's shift lanes, I guess, if you will. I understand [00:15:30] that you have a new book coming out and I want to get this right. I believe it's called Entitlement to Intention: Raising Purpose Driven Children. I understand that you wrote this for a specific type of individuals. It's a organization that we work with, like YPO, WPO, but what is the book concept and everything else? Yeah.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, YPO Gold, I think, [done 00:15:55] that [crosstalk 00:15:56].

Kyle Davis: YPO Gold now. It's not WPO?

Elizabeth Lombardo: [crosstalk 00:15:58] yes.

Kyle Davis: It's all the same. YPO.

Elizabeth Lombardo: [00:16:00] I live in a suburb in Chicago, a rather affluent suburb in Chicago, and I grew up in a similar suburb in Connecticut, in Greenwich, Connecticut and I was always as a ... Growing up and now as a parent and as a clinician, I was always struck by how money and wealth can be such an instigator. I always say, wealth brings out the best in people, but it can also bring out the worst [00:16:30] in people. Especially in my private practice, one of the biggest challenges that my clients share with me, in addition to when I'm coaching them in terms of their business, kind of business life, how their personal life is actually their business life, one of the biggest challenges that I have heard is their children and being so fearful of, as I think Mark Cuban eloquently said, of raising a brat.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Lombardo: How can you use your money for good? How [00:17:00] can you use your wealth as an advantage for your children, as opposed to becoming a statistic because the statistics are pretty grim? Children of families with wealth have significant increased rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, eating disorders, relationship strain. I mean, it's statistically very sad and when you look at some of the research ... There's a researcher out of University of California, [00:17:30] I think he's out of Davis, who looks at when, kind of, putting people in a wealthy bracket, telling them that they're wealthy, those people are more likely to lie, cheat, and steal, basically.

My whole premise is it's not the wealth, per se, that's causing these negative effects that we see in affluent individuals and affluent children, it's actually a sense of entitlement. Entitlement is I deserve it because. [00:18:00] I deserve special privileges because. I deserve for people to act a certain way to me just because of who I am. The problem with that is it create ... I always say the best way to make someone miserable is to create entitlement. It really creates this false sense of self, which is I only believe in myself, I only feel good about myself when I'm getting those special privileges. That's a lot of stress to put on yourself and the world [00:18:30] because the world doesn't always act the way that you want them to.

Kyle Davis: Would you say that it's a difference between like pedigree versus legitimate experience? I mean, there's some people who, in all honesty, just based off of what they've accomplished, that kind of like, I don't want to say entitlement, but they deserve a level of respect versus somebody who it's just the kid. Does that make [00:19:00] sense? I know kids that have come back who've done legitimate work and I know that in doing so that there's some people who view that kid when they come back from college or whatever, as oh, this kid's just a brat, but in reality, they know what they're doing.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kyle Davis: There's this perception issue. I'm just curious if you've ...

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah. Well, I think everyone deserves respect whether you have money, create money, or have no money at all. An entitlement isn't really about [00:19:30] respect. Entitlement is really about bowing down and having people really react in the perfect way that you think they should. They should only serve you, you know, nuts that are in a bowl or else [inaudible 00:19:44].

Kyle Davis: No blue M&M's.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Entitlement is really, it's not so much deserving respect on a heartfelt level, it's thinking that you deserve privileges and people to [00:20:00] react to you in a certain way. I say the goal is to go from entitlement, how is the world here to serve me, and move it to intention, how am I here to serve the world. Not in terms of giving everything away and having no money, but in terms of what are your gifts that you're here to share with the world? When we look at happiness, when we look at true success, it is not about having wealth and just sitting in a box. It's about sharing your gifts. Whether it's your finances, your [00:20:30] values, your strengths that are important to you. That's when we have true happiness, that's when we have true success.

Kyle Davis: For a lot of these, and I've seen them. I've been to Greenwich, Connecticut, I've been to Westchester County and all of these, kind of like, crazy, affluent areas where people point to it and they say, hey, these kids, you know, they just get, life's handed on a silver platter. How can you get these kids when they're growing up to be more [00:21:00] intentioned, rather than having to learn the hard way, post-college when dad says, "Hey, you're not working here right away," or mom says the same thing?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, I just take a step back even for that. I think for some people there's this notion of oh, you have money so you have no problems. I've actually, as a Clinical Psychologist, had clients who've come in and said that they were hesitant to even speak with me because they're kind of embarrassed about their problems.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Lombardo: They feel like they shouldn't. We all have problems. That's [00:21:30] human nature. It's not something to be embarrassed about, it's just someone to say okay, this is not working for me, let's figure out what we can do. When it comes to helping raise purpose-driven children, one of the key things to do and this is my platform, whether we're talking about kids or adults, is help them cultivate what I call unconditional self-worth. Unconditional self-worth means you believe in yourself regardless, and it's in contrast to conditional self-worth, which is what most of our society [00:22:00] is. I believe in myself if, and it may be I believe in myself if I look a certain way, I believe in myself if I make a certain amount of money, I believe in myself if people bow down to me, I believe in myself if people acknowledge who I am, but when you have that if, unconditional self-worth, it impacts every single interaction that you have. How you view yourself impacts how you view other people.

People with conditional self-worth are the ones I talked about before. They don't want to get feedback, because any feedback they hear, [00:22:30] what they really hear is you're a failure. People with conditional self-worth operate from a win/lose. If I win, then you lose. If you win, then I lose and I don't want to lose, so I'm going to put you down. I'm going to push you down. I'm going to somehow feel better than you so I can feel better about myself. As a society, this is where we are. We're making fun of celebrities for doing something or we see the bullying that goes on, all of that is conditional self-worth. The [00:23:00] biggest gift you can give your children, and frankly yourself, is unconditional self-worth, which is based not on external events, but on internal. Your values, applying your values, your strengths, what's important to you.

It's a sense where you believe in yourself, not like you're better than other people because that's conditional self-worth. Narcissism is conditional self-worth, but it's that sense of I believe in myself and I'm going to follow what's important to me, my purpose, I'm going to follow that [00:23:30] regardless of what other people say or do. When we do that on a consistent basis, not only are we happier, but our relationships are better, we're much better leaders. I mean, I'm sure we all know leaders who either yell and scream to get their demands met or they're micro managers, because everything has to be perfect, all of that is conditional self-worth. But, [someone 00:23:52] with a leader with unconditional self-worth, really brings out the strengths in other people, listens to other people's ideas, is going to have the ultimate say, but is [00:24:00] very much collaborative in pulling out the strengths of those around them. Whether it's a leader in terms of a business, or a leader in terms of a family.

Kyle Davis: I like that you said that there's, like, when it comes to conditional, there's like narcissism and then when it's unconditional self-worth, that there's this peak. I can think of a few examples where I know some people who are like, I know that it's unconditional. They really, they value themselves at a certain level and I've seen people who are in this deep, dark hole of whatever it is [00:24:30] and they're just like so jealous and envious. They say that that person's a narcissist or I'm like, and I'm just ... Again, it's a perspective [shit 00:24:37]. It's like, just because you're not happy doesn't mean you have to label somebody this or that or kind of whatever.

Elizabeth Lombardo: That's so important because that's exactly it. What goes on inside of us is reflected on the people around us. If you have conditional self-worth, you're going to see other people differently and you're going to interact with them differently than someone [00:25:00] with unconditional self-worth will because how you view yourself is the lens through which you see the world. If you have conditional self-worth, then if someone walks by you, let's say, someone you know walks by you, the interpretation, that inner voice is saying, oh, they think they're better than you or you're no good. You're not good enough to talk to right now. Someone with unconditional self-worth is going to be like, maybe they didn't see me, maybe they're busy, maybe they don't like me, that's okay, but they're not going to personalize it.

Kyle Davis: I like the, maybe they don't like me and that's okay.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Maybe they don't.

Kyle Davis: [00:25:30] I'm one of those people. I'm like, I'm an acquired taste. You like me or you don't, and I don't really care. When I say that to people, they're like that's shocking. Why would you, but I'm like, I don't bend over backwards. I'm not going to change who I am. I'm not trying to fit your narrative or your little box. I am who I am. Take it or leave it. That just blows peoples' minds sometimes.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Because they have such conditional self-worth. People pleasers are a great example of conditional self-worth. I need everyone around to like me so [00:26:00] I can feel good about myself.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Lombardo: As opposed to just, you know what? I'm going to be ethical and moral and who I am, and if you like me, great. If not, that's great, too.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love being able to take little snippets I feel good with. One of the things that we talked about prior to recording was that you have a foundation coming up. Not coming up, but it's one of the important things for you. Could you talk about that for a bit?

Elizabeth Lombardo: That unconditional [00:26:30] self-worth.

Kyle Davis: Oh, that's what we're talking about?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah.

Kyle Davis: I thought you were talking like an actual foundation, foundation. That's what I took my notes. Like a charity.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, no, that's a foundation, everything [crosstalk 00:26:40]. A true [crosstalk 00:26:40].

Kyle Davis: Wow, I feel so bad about that. Well, we'll figure out something. We'll put a link for a good foundation in the bio or something like that.

Elizabeth Lombardo: We call that better than perfect, hashtag better than perfect.

Kyle Davis: Hashtag better than perfect.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, no, but if you think about it. If we could as a society create unconditional self-worth, there would be no wars.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Lombardo: Right, because I [00:27:00] don't have to be better than you. There would be no bullying. Divorce rates would go down. All tension at work would completely change. Openness to diversity would completely change if we could just change how we view ourselves.

Kyle Davis: Do you think that some components of the society that we live in today, this interconnected society with these different social networks and the new iPhone 7 came out, if you still have a six ... I mean, not iPhone 7, the 10 comes out and if you still have the six you're a [nobot 00:27:30]? [00:27:30] All of this stuff, it can't help. Right?

Elizabeth Lombardo: It can't help, you're correct. That comparison, comparing yourself to other people is creating that conditional self-worth. The difference is, are you at a place where you can say, oh my gosh. I have to get the next one so that all people like me or so that it matters or I'm cool? Are you like, oh, yeah. I'd like to get the next one because it'd be cool, you know, I want to see what it's like. It doesn't affect my sense of worth, of [00:28:00] who I am, to get it or not. That's the difference.

Kyle Davis: Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking on Instagram for instance. I have a lot of friends who they travel, I mean, not like some. They travel far more than the average American, but they don't travel so much. Every single photo on their feed is curated, and it's just strictly like beach pics for like the next six weeks, even though they were only there for four or five days, they just managed to squeeze so many pictures that that's what they're putting out in the world is this false image [00:28:30] of who they are or what they're about.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Which is a great example of their conditional self-worth, I have to look better than other people, I have to look, you know, great, but the other thing is how do you view it? If you view it as, oh my gosh, they're better than me or they're trying to be better than me and I'm going to put them down, that's conditional self-worth, too, as opposed to, that's what they are. They're trying to feel better about themselves by having six weeks of pictures. Great. I hope they had a great time.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative). One of the things that I do want to wrap on our [inaudible 00:28:58], which is funny. When we were [00:29:00] talking prior, we were talking about hey, where did I go to school? I was like, and this name thing that I have and I don't really want to get into it, but I go by my middle name on this podcast, not my first name. You asked me, "What name is it?" I said, "Well, you know, there's this name and then there's that name," and I made the switch in college to go back to my first name because I was in these lecture halls of 300 people and I didn't want to be that guy to raise their hand because I was in a classroom with [pe 00:29:25], like I didn't feel like I deserved to be there. You said, like, it just sparked in your head. [00:29:30] Let's look at what I'm doing right now. What does that say about me that I would even just do a self-deprecating joke like that?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Well, I mean, I think it offers some strong awareness and it's really important to realize, if we want to call it something and I'm not big on labels, but just for fun because I wrote another book on [inaudible 00:29:48]. This notion of imposter syndrome, I'm in way over my head and people are going to figure it out. The majority, over 70% of people admit to experiencing imposter syndrome [00:30:00] at some point in their life. The higher up you go, the more likely you are to experience it. This notion, again, I'm in way over my head. People are going to realize I'm a fraud or not as smart, or I don't really deserve to be here, that goes back to that inner critic and it goes back to that conditional self-worth of comparing yourself to others and finding that you're falling short.

Kyle Davis: I'm saying this for myself, but I know there's probably a lot of people listening that do this as well. I'm a huge fan personally [00:30:30] of self-deprecating humor because I feel like it puts people at ease sometimes, but then I've been told before and recently as well, that hey, you know, it's a little much. You need to maybe pull it back a little bit. I guess my question for you is two-fold. When is it too much or two, when does that self-deprecation become like self-talk and self-actualization, when you start to believe it.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah. [00:31:00] Yeah. The more you hear something, whether it comes out of your mouth or it's in your head or someone else's, the more you hear something, the more likely you are to believe it ...

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Elizabeth Lombardo: ... and to internalize it. Right? We've all had that experience when you listen to a song on the radio and if you listen to it long enough, even if you can't stand it, you start singing it yourself because you've internalized it. We do that with music, but we also do that with our thoughts. Some people may view consistent self-deprecation as a coping mechanism to try to feel better about themselves [00:31:30] because really their inner critic is beating themselves up about it. Again, it goes to what's going on in you and that's one thing, but also what's going on in someone else because for how much is too much? Well, it really depends on the person with whom you're interacting.

Kyle Davis: I guess I'm going to have to cut that out then.

Elizabeth Lombardo: No, I don't think you do have to cut that. I think it's part of who you are.

Kyle Davis: On the flip side, so someone's self-deprecating and whatever. You keep saying these things and maybe [00:32:00] at some point in time you start to believe those things. What about words of affirmation and say hey, today's the day that I'm going to do this or I am this or that? What are your thoughts on those?

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, so it goes back to what we were talking about in terms of rewiring your brain. We've probably all experienced affirmation or trying to, you know, I believe in myself. Today, I'm getting the sale. I'm not going to lose it on my child today, whatever it is.

Kyle Davis: Right.

Elizabeth Lombardo: The issue with that is, think about this. Scientists think we [00:32:30] have about 60,000 thoughts a day and about 90,000 are the same as yesterday and about 35,000 are negative. Okay? If you consistently without even realize it have a thought that's negative, I'm no good, I'm not worthy, and you have that thought, I don't know, a thousand times in a day. Then, you have an affirmation, I believe in myself, once or twice, then you've got two thoughts versus a thousand thoughts a day. If you think of a tug of war on those, who's going to win?

Kyle Davis: Right.

Elizabeth Lombardo: [00:33:00] Affirmations can be great when you couple them with other strategies to really rewire your brain. One way to do that is through repetition. Another way to do that is to change your state, to change your physiology while you're saying it. Whether you're in a kind of a hypnotic ... Not necessarily a hypnotic state, but kind of in a meditative state because when we get into the deeper level of brain waves, our inner critic goes away and so we can absorb new information better. There's a whole host of ways [00:33:30] to use affirmations in a way that really will allow you to rewire your brain for good.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think that, and this is a good place for us to wrap up, but kind of one of those things that I've learned recently, I think this comes from like Tim Ferriss or somebody like that, but it's like getting out of your mind and into your body. Whether it's like yoga or hypnosis or just physical exertion, it's just a good way, you just rattle the brain and then create a new slate. At least it has been for me.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Yeah, to change your state. I have in my home office, [00:34:00] I have a personal, like one of those mini trampolines.

Kyle Davis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Lombardo: When I am stressed or when I can't think straight if I'm writing or something, I will jump on that. I will tell you, there are times when I'm in my office in the afternoon, I look over and one of my kids who's stressed out about a math problem or something is over there jumping on the trampoline, goes back to the math problem and can figure it out. So, changing your state can be very powerful.

Kyle Davis: Change your states people and if you want to learn more, then give GDA Speakers a call so that you can have Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo [00:34:30] come speak for you. You can do so by calling 214-420-1999, I almost gave my cell phone, that was kind of funny, or you can go to GDASpeakers.com for the podcast transcripts, books ... When does the new book come out, by the way, and what's the full title again?

Elizabeth Lombardo: The new book comes out ... It's going to the editor this week, so hopefully in the next month or so it will be out. The title is From Entitlement to Intention: Raising Purpose Driven Children.

Kyle Davis: There we go. Cool. We'll put a link there once the book's available [00:35:00] via Amazon or something like that so people can buy that or pre-order it or whatnot. Again, you can go to GDA Podcast for that. Thanks again, Dr. Lombardo.

Elizabeth Lombardo: Thank you.