The Lies We Tell Ourselves with Marisa Peer

In this Episode

• [00:09]Stephan introduces his next guest, Marisa Peer, founder and creator of Rapid Transformational Therapy® (RTT®) and an inspirational speaker—from TEDx and Condé Nast to the Royal Society of Medicine.
• [02:07]Marisa tells about the interesting features of her seventh book called Tell Yourself a Better Lie and further shares about her passion leading to the creation of the I am Enough Movement.
• [05:42]Marissa shares her experience of having a decision, choice and a small decision that leads to a life-changing outcome.
• [10:48]Stephan wants to hear Marisa’s thoughts about the idea of manifesting, creating, and co-creating reality and that we are much more powerful than we believe ourselves to be.
• [20:43]Stephan and Marisa talk about having a vision board in their lives.
• [27:49]Marisa and Stephan talk about neuroplasticity which means that when you think different thoughts, your brain starts to rewire itself, everything changes, and your neural pathways change.
• [34:53]Marisa explains her writing called the Rules of the Mind, which says what you’re saying aligns with the rules of your mind.
• [42:50]Marisa communicates how she avoided negativities, believed in herself and did other things that made her have a child.
• [47:29]Marisa explains confirmation bias and shares how to make great beliefs that will turn around and make you, and then you’ll find proof that what you’re saying is true.
• [55:10]Stephan asks about the biggest takeaway or gem she spoke about during her interview with Orion in her podcast.
• [61:41]Check out Marisa Peer’s website to know her and access free audio about love, health, and wealth. Also, learn how to train with her by visiting Rapid Transformational Therapy’s homepage.

Jump to Links and Resources

Marisa, it’s so great to have you on the show. 

Thank you so much. Seven books actually now, but thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be here. 

Seven books, amazing. 

My seventh just came out this week. 

Congratulations. What’s the title of that book?

It’s called Tell Yourself a Better Lie. All my other books are self-help books, but this book is interesting because it’s ten clients case history and it shows you exactly what I did step by step with ten people with very diverse issues from alcoholism, to OCD, to bulimia, to being numb, to feeling that they weren’t smart, to actual fear of needles. One of them had the inability to orgasm or connect with people.

I picked 10 very different subjects and it’s really their story and how we identify. Early in their life they were telling themselves how it impacted their entire life and changing that. It’s got a chapter in the book RTT and it shows if you identify with Tara, if you identify with Ryan, if you think, I feel like that, this is why I did to them. By the way, you can do the same thing. You can do a lot of things. It doesn’t stop you from going to therapy, but for many people, it’s so real because you go wow.

My passion has always been the simplest thing that changes your life. It’s why I created the I am Enough Movement because I really believe that if you can ingest that, say it, claim it, and affirm it every day, you make it your reality. Your words shape your reality. If you change your words, you change your reality. 

I’ve always been a passionate fan of making therapy better for everyone, simpler and more straightforward. I’ve trained 11,000 therapists and they are amazing people doing extraordinary work all over the world. I wrote this book because I just wanted people to know that you can get better fast. 

Not everybody is going to get better really fast, but for many people who have the offshoots of ‘I’m not enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not lovable enough, I’m not interesting enough, worthy enough, intelligent enough, thin enough, attractive enough, good enough’—you are. You are enough and if you can just start to state that, affirm it, claim it, you can manifest it too. 

Yup, I love that. 

The reason I wrote this was right back and when I saw you talk, I came to see you, or I saw one of your therapists, they did one thing that was a game-changer. Someone else I know already did this thing and it changed my life. I kind of collated the things that clients will say, this was a game-changer, this changed my life on a dime. When I collated the particular things I said to the readers, “Look, you can do this too.” It’s not even hard work. It’s not like I got to go to the gym, I got to do the plan and can do 600 sit-ups. No, you can do things to take minutes of your day, but powerfully change your life.  

Many people get scared of change because it’s so much work.

Many people get scared of change or it’s so much work. I’ve got to write a hundred goals every day, and I have to write all these affirmations and statements and have this diary and this journal. Frankly, I don’t have the time. Who does? We’ve all got partners, children, businesses, homes. I wanted people to do things they could do in minutes that would change their life. That’s why I really wrote that book so that everyone can have access to these things that are very simple, but their strength is actually in their simplicity and indeed their power.

That’s beautiful. When you’re talking about your book, it reminded me of another book that I recently had the author, Perry Marshall, and the book is called Memos from the Head Office. It’s a collection of stories, case studies of people who have had divine intervention in various forms through messages, sometimes through psychics, sometimes through just hearing a voice in their own head, or some sort of intuitive spark, or hit that just followed it and it completely changed their lives. It can be just a simple thing, just a moment, a decision, a choice, a small change that leads to a huge outcome like a life-changing outcome. There are some similarities there.

That happened to me many years ago sitting in a doctor’s office. I think I was only about 23, maybe less, and he said you’ll never have children, you can’t possibly conceive. I didn’t have any periods at all. He said you’ll never have to and even if you get pregnant, you could never carry a child. You got this thyroid issue and you don’t get past that. 

I heard a voice going ‘do not let that in.’ I said to the doctor, “do you know what? I’m just going to stop you now because I’m not even trying to have a baby now and I don’t want to hear that. I’m not going to let that in.” I think he was a bit shocked. I just got up and left because that voice said to not let that in. 

Many, many years later, I was sitting in another doctor’s office. He said to me. “You have cancer and it’ll probably come back.” That voice was being ‘don’t let that in,’ and I said, “Wow. What do you mean probably?” He did this, he went (knocking), “It has your address, it knows where you live, it will probably come back.” I thought, wow. He wasn’t a horrible doctor but what a thing to say, has your address, complete with the knocking, and I heard the voice again that said, ‘don’t let that in’ and I said, “That sounds mean.”

That is awful. 

Not letting in other people’s critical words are so important.

You don’t let that in. All through my life, I remember my daughter when she was at school and she wants to be an artist. She’s never going to be an artist and I said don’t let that in. Her teacher said to her “Do not apply to a good art school, you’ll never get in, apply to the worst one, you might get in.” I said. “Darling, you applied to the best,” and she got into the best. She’s a very successful artist.

My ex said, “Who’s going to love you?” I went, “Why don’t you sit back and watch who’s going to love me? Someone better than you. You’ll never amount to anything.” “Really?” “I’ll show you.” I think it’s very important to decide ‘I’m not letting that in.’ My ex said something awful like. “Who’s going to take you on with four kids.” Well? Why don’t you just wait and see? I’m sure no one said that to Heidi Klum when she left Seal. Someone took her on with four kids and she’s very happy. It’s very important. 

I love it when someone says to Naomi Campbell, Naomi, black girls don’t get on the cover of Vogue. Really? They said that the door is shut. Shut up and kick it open. I love that when someone said to Meryl Streep, Meryl, you’re just not pretty enough to be an actress. She went that’s one opinion in a sea of opinions. I’m going to find another opinion. 

Actually, what she really found was her own opinion. Who said that you need to be beautiful to be a movie star? By the way, if you see her in Out of Africa with Robert Redford washing her hair, she looks so beautiful. People who’ve made it have always had that thing. I’m not letting that in. I’m not letting that in. Imagine someone saying to Barack Obama, ‘you can’t be the president of America.’ Really? I think I’ll just show you.

Not letting in other people’s critical words are so important. No one managed to do that all the time, but if you can do it most of the time or say, ‘well, that’s your opinion. I’m going to have a better opinion,’ then it really changes. I know when I created my own therapy, I was up against many therapists who didn’t like what I did or said the words rapid therapy should never go together. Who are you? I remember that great poem by Nelson Mandela actually by Marianne Williamson that he spoke, who am I to do this? Who am I not to? You don’t get anywhere by hiding your light. You’re supposed to shine. 

Your words shape your reality. If you change your words, you change your reality. Click To Tweet

We live in a world where there are many critical people who are really invested in being mean, frankly. You have to decide they can say whatever they want to say, but you don’t have to let it in. I read something the other day, the lion isn’t concerned with the opinion of the lamb. I thought that was very funny. 

Don’t let it in, but also fix yourself. I read a beautiful expression that said when you don’t fix your wounds, you bleed over the people that never cut you. I thought that’s so profound, isn’t it? If you don’t fix your wounds, you bleed on people that didn’t cut you. We all have to fix our wounds so we don’t bleed on the people that didn’t inflict them on us.

Yeah. Wow. That is profound. Amazing. When you just ignore the naysayers, the critics, including your own inner critic, which is just a voice of maybe parents, other caregivers, or the bully at school, it’s giving yourself the best shot at creating your own reality. If you could speak a bit about this idea of manifesting, creating, or maybe even co-creating your reality, this idea that we can make real so much more than we give ourselves credit for. We’re so much more powerful than we believe ourselves to be. Can you speak to that for a few minutes? 

Don’t let it in, but also fix yourself.

Just one thing. I don’t ignore all the critics. Sometimes criticism, if it’s constructive, can be very useful. When you speak too fast, sometimes you swallow a word, and I notice I do. I’ve got a lot of feedback on my course, not all good. I can only use that to make it better. Don’t ignore all criticism. Constructive can be very helpful, but destructive, you don’t let that in.

You use what works and you discard the rest?

Yeah, and your own destruction. That’s the worst. Somebody can be mean to you because they’re having a bad day and so you understand. When you’re mean to yourself, there is no understanding. When you’re mean to yourself, the harshest words you’ll ever hear are the words you say, and the most debilitating criticism is your own criticism because your mind doesn’t have any agenda except to put yourself down. It’s very important with criticism to work out which one it is and self-criticism is so soul-destroying. 

The opposite of that is while the worst criticism is criticism that you do, the best praise is your own praise. There is nothing that will build you up like self-praise. If you praise me massively, you might have an agenda. When I praise myself, there isn’t an agenda. The same thing with criticism, if you diminish me, you have an agenda. If I diminish myself, I have no agenda. Minimize praise, maximize criticism of yourself, it will change your life. 

I think you meant the other way around. Maximize praise and minimize criticism.

That’s good constructive feedback. Maximize praise and minimize criticism, it will dramatically change your life, and another thing that will change your manifesting. People get very confused. I read The Secret, I’m just lying on my sofa manifesting a great person when unless you want to get together with the Amazon delivery guy or Uber Eats, that’s probably not going to work. We’ve got very confused that I could just sit like this and manifest. 

Constructive criticism can be very helpful but destructive, and you don’t let that in.

If you want to manifest you have to do three things and none of them can be bypassed. The first is the most profound. Decide you are worth whatever you want. If you want love, if you want wealth, if you want success, even if you want great health, you must say I am worth it. Eighty percent of success is having an I am worth it mindset. Many people rush into creating a great business or a great relationship, but they think I don’t really deserve this and I don’t feel worthy.

I’ve worked with so many rock stars who got rid of all their money because they never felt worth it. Seventy percent of lottery winners will be dead broke in three years. Do you know why? They never felt they earned it. The first thing and 80% of it are to sit down and go, I am worth it. I deserve it. I’m lovable. I’m worthy of love. I’m worthy of success. I’m worthy of wealth. You might go I’m not worthy, yes you are, especially if you decide to do good things with it. 

Once you’ve spent enough time going I am worthy of it, I’m deserving of it, it’s like that L’Oreal ad that You’re Worth It. One of the most successful adverts in the world by the way. It makes you buy more expensive shampoo because if Jennifer Aniston is buying it, I’m worth it too. The first thing is I’m worth it, that’s 80% of it.

The second thing is, what does it look like? I want to be a millionaire, but what does that—I don’t know. I want love, from whom? Do you want love for an hour, an afternoon, the rest of your life? Who do you want to have love with? Some crazy bad boy that’s gonna cheat on you? Let’s be clear about what it looks like. 

For me, I wanted to write a best-selling book, but I had to get clear on that. When I was 25, I was asked to write a book, and I couldn’t do it because I knew it meant sitting out home on my own for weeks on end. What does it look like? Do you really want to have a six-pack? Because that looks like going to the gym every day and not eating many carbs. When you know what it looks like, you go, yeah, I know what it looks like. I just don’t want it enough actually or I know what it looks like and I really want it. We come to step three, which is called doing the work.

Decide you are worth whatever you want.

Many manifesters completely miss that point. I want to write a book. I’m writing that book for 12 hours a day. For me, when I finished the book, I actually had no idea that the next step was doing even more work than I ever worked on writing the book to make it a bestseller. Doing interviews, writing articles for magazines. I met John Gray many times and he said every day, I spent hours keeping Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus a best seller. 

I didn’t understand how much work is going on speaking tours and in people’s blogs. The work is something people have missed. Why should I have to work? I don’t want to work, but anything that you require requires work. Many years ago, I met someone who had a great idea for a book, really great. I took him to my publisher and they went, we can’t sign him. He can’t speak. He’s very shy and nervous. The book’s amazing, but if you can’t be a speaker, you can’t be published because nowadays you got to get on the road, do a TED Talk, go to book signings. Any goal of significance requires you to learn. 

When I taught people my method, I didn’t know what SEO even meant. My husband explained it to me and that’s the same thing. You have to do the work. Decide you’re worthy. That’s the easiest bit and it’s by far the biggest. Get very clear on what it looks like and then decide how you’re going to get it. 

If you want an amazing career, decide what is that. I’m going to have to learn something new and go into interviews. If you want an amazing relationship, you can’t lay on the couch watching Netflix and expecting someone to appear on a white Charger. You have to go out and do it. Many people get really confused with the last bit. Oh, I’ve got to do some work. Yeah, a lot of work. 

The great thing is that when you do what you love and you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. You have to do all of those. That’s a manifester. I know I’m worth it. I know exactly what it looks like, and I’m out there working towards it almost every day. It feels great. It feels exciting. It feels wonderful. 

Your beliefs are yours to change. Your thoughts are yours to upgrade. Your lies are yours to make better. Your stories are yours. Click To Tweet

All of those three things, you can’t say I’ll just do the first one, I just do the last one. You got to do it all three. People who are very successful know exactly what success looks like and they’re prepared to work with it. Imagine if you wanted to be an Olympic athlete, that incorporates a lot of training, you got to go to bed early, get up early, go running in the snow, you can’t go out drinking beer and pizzas. I want an Olympic medal and I know what I got to do. 

I want to find love and I’ve already got two kids, so I don’t want to find some wild crazy guy that’s going to a bar all night. I want to find a family man who’s going to be devoted to me and a good role model. The more clear you are, the easier it is. 

When I wanted to find love, I became very clear about what I wanted. Somebody funny, kind interesting, but also someone who could travel with me because I couldn’t be with someone when you get two weeks holiday a year and I got to be in the office at 7 AM, I don’t come home until 8 PM, and I’m not free because I’m on the road all the time, and so I needed someone who also worked for themselves. Everything I wanted I got except I forgot to add I wanted someone super tidy, but then I figured I could pay someone to do that. 

I knew what I wanted. When it was in front of me, I thought yeah, this is what I want. This is a good guy. He’s kind, he’s funny, he’s compelling, and he’s really a smart marketer. He was the only person I ever would have married because he clicked all the boxes. Before then I was going out with wild crazy people because they were very exciting and dramatic. I realized that doesn’t work. Drama is great when you’re dating some crazy rock star, but no, for long-term, it’s a really, really bad idea. 

Once you get those three things lined up, honestly, you can have whatever you want with bows on but you got to know what it looks like. I worked with her work and she was running the marathon. She said I didn’t know what 25 miles were. I don’t know what that is. I knew I was running 25 miles, but I didn’t know what 25 miles was. It turned out, she never rehearsed, never even broke in her running shoes, you think she could run 25 miles? Of course, she couldn’t because she didn’t know what it looked like. All of it required quite a bit of training too. 

I want to share briefly here my story of finding Orion and Orion finding me because it sounds very similar to what you were describing by writing down all the attributes that you wanted. It just so happened that all the boxes were ticked when you met John. For me, I wrote down on a vision board my relationship vision. I wrote down everything that my partner, my soulmate would be and everything that I would be with her, and what the relationship would be like. It was not just my wish list for the other person, but how I would show up as well. 

I got very specific and then I prayed to God, please bring her to me right away, and 12 hours after I wrote that she was introduced to me by a mutual friend, and 18 hours after that, I said I love you to her. Nine days later, I proposed to her in a hot air balloon and she said no, not yet. I think I shared that story with you previously. But ordering from the universe exactly what you want is so critical and being very precise about it and timing too. I didn’t say someday, I want her to show up. I said right away.

Right now, that’s very important. I have a vision board. I was writing a book. I wanted to get a great book deal and I would have a vision board. I stuck all the things out in recipes from best-selling books. I took out the Sunday Times, I whited out the top one and I put mine in, and I took a picture. I thought, while I’m doing the book deal, I might as well find an amazing guy so I took a picture of a hot air balloon of someone holding an engagement ring behind their hand and the cruise ship. 

I stuck it all on this board. I didn’t even write it. I just looked at it, but I’d write on top of the board. You can be very messy and it isn’t perfect. I wrote on it, this is me, best-selling writer, and blissfully happily married. Within 10 months, I was married to my husband. I put up that vision board because my agent called me and said hey, I know you’re putting on a talk this weekend. I said I’ve canceled, you put it all back on because I hadn’t sold enough tickets, so I put it back on. I knew that HarperCollins and Penguin are all coming and that’s why I made the vision board. I didn’t even prepare my talk.

The very next day on that talk, my publisher offered me a fantastic deal. It was actually an amazing deal and I signed it immediately. Within 10 months, I was married to my husband and we’re still very happy. A vision board is a great idea for looking at what you want. But then if you look at it, we’re not going to get it? If I want a book deal, I better go out and talk to agents. 

If you want it so much, you have to know what you want and go for it.

People say to me, I want to be an actor. What are you doing? Nothing. Are you going to agents? Oh, no, I couldn’t do that and I might get rejected. You might, but if you want it so much, you have to know what you want, why you want it, the roadblocks in my game your way, then you have to go for it.

You also have to learn to not take no for an answer. I work with many successful billionaires and they actually all share five things in common. They do what they don’t want to do to get to where they want to be. They tend to do the things they hate first in the day. They take action every day in the direction of their goals when they’re on the way. It doesn’t mean they work 12 hours a day, but even on a Sunday, they might make one phone call, look at one YouTube video. They just don’t take no for an answer. They see something as a delay, not a denial. 

They are super good at praising themselves. I’m doing great, this is amazing, I did it fantastically. Many of us now work for ourselves and if you don’t praise yourself a lot, this book is amazing. This person’s idea is amazing. Oh my God, the words coming out of my mouth when I speak are just phenomenal. If you don’t do it and you don’t have a boss to do it, that praise muscle is going to wither. You have to build it up as if you’re working out in a gym. 

Do what you don’t want to do to get to where you want. Do it first. Take action every day. Do not take no for an answer. See denial as a delay. Praise yourself a lot, and also delay gratification. If you do those things, it’s almost impossible not to succeed because that’s what every successful person does. It’s what I do and I love my success. I enjoy every minute, but I know I earned it because I saw it, decided I was worth it, and then did all the work to make it happen. No one did it for me. I did it myself.

Do all the preliminary work. Some people don’t even get out of bed until they feel like they are aligned with their mission, who they truly are, and feel worthy enough and everything. They’re just not going to stay in bed until they are up to that peak state. I love that.

Learn not to take no for an answer.

Yeah, they also have a very strange belief that if it’s going to be hard, I met someone recently that had an amazing idea for a food product and I said wow. I don’t want to work hard. If I have to work hard, it’s not meant to be. I said, “You need to go to a farmers market,” “Oh no.” I said, “Why not?” She said, “Because that’s work. If this is divinely aligned, the idea of going to a farmers market and selling my amazing product, I don’t want to do that.” I said, “But you got to start somewhere.“

What she created was so amazing, but she just didn’t have that concept that yeah, you got to do some hard work now. I see so many people being brought up manifesting. One of my friends said I don’t want my kids to work hard, why should they? Why should they do what they don’t want to do? 

My daughter is an artist and I say, “Darling, you’re such a talented girl but you have got to go and walk into galleries with your staff and that’s not easy. If you want to be a famous artist, you got to do what makes your toes curl. Go out and say ‘hey, here’s my iPad, this is my work, would you like to show it?’” She doesn’t like that. 

I say, “Here’s the choice, give it up. That’s what you hate. Do what you hate or give up your dream.” Many people will give up their dream before they do what they hate. That’s not easy for an artist, a writer, a performer, or anyone to say, hey, do you like my product? If you want to make it, you have to get over that part and just do it anyway because otherwise, how can you be a success?

Many people will give up their dream before they do what they hate.

That reminds me of something I learned from Dr. Joe Dispenza, which is that you have these well-worn grooves in your brain and these are personality traits. It’s just that you’re on autopilot, essentially. I’m totally paraphrasing this. If you want to be different and get a better outcome, you have to change. It’s basically rewiring your brain so that when you’re about to do the same thing that you’ve always done, you say to yourself, change, and boom, you do something different because that’s the prompt. Yelling out the word change, you do something different.

Yeah, that’s neuroplasticity, which means that when you think different thoughts, your brain starts to almost rewire itself, everything changes, your neural pathways change. If you think a thought over and over again, you create a new neural pathway. When you think a new thought, you create a new neural pathway. One of the most vexing things about the mind is that we are hardwired and super-coded to go back to what we know. The brain loves to return to what is familiar while avoiding what’s unfamiliar. 

You have a two-year-old child, a beautiful boy, he is extraordinary. I had the joy of meeting him. Two-year-old says, ‘I don’t want that yogurt, it’s pink yogurt. I only like black-colored yogurt’ or ‘I don’t like that cup. I only like my blue cup.’ What they’re actually saying is ‘I don’t know that, it’s unfamiliar.’

By the way, 500 years ago, that could have killed me. A child on the prairie will only know the berries they already know. This avoiding unfamiliarity kept us alive for so long. Now we see people say, oh, my dad was mean, cold, and critical. I love mean, cold, and critical men. They’re my type. They seem to do it for me. My mother was diminishing and aloof and I love aloof diminishing women. What you’re doing is running back to what you know and running away from what you don’t know because the mind likes what’s familiar. 

The brain loves to return to what is familiar while avoiding what’s unfamiliar.

Here’s something even more helpful. You can choose to make anything you’d like. You can put a bit of silicone on your finger and put it on your eyelid every day and then even often it becomes the most normal thing in the world. Flossing your teeth is familiar, but not for everyone.

Look at your life and this is what you do. Look at all the stuff you don’t like. I’m going to make that unfamiliar. Sugar in my coffee, staying in bed too long, wasting time looking at videos, I’m going to make all that unfamiliar and what I’m going to make familiar is coffee without sugar, doing some stretches when I wake up, doing what I don’t want to do like first. Although the mind likes what’s familiar, that’s a fact.

Another fact is you get to make anything you like familiar and anything you don’t like unfamiliar. The best way to do this is to make praising yourself super familiar and criticizing yourself so unfamiliar that it feels weird when you do it.

When neurons fire together, they wire together, and conversely, when neurons stop firing together because you stopped the bad habits, you’ve stopped the negative self-talk, then those neuron pathways stop firing together and they just wither and go away.

If you start to play with your eyelashes like that every day and look in your mind, you’ll see that you’re forming a neuron as you start to fiddle with your eyelashes. If you suddenly tie your hands behind your backs and can’t fiddle with your eyelashes anymore, that neural pathway will actually start to diminish. It starts with a little piece of thread, it becomes a rope, and then it just unravels itself because it can’t continue because you stopped the behavior. 

When you say things like I’m an idiot, I’m a loser, that’s never going to work. Everything I touched falls apart. You’re creating a neural pathway that becomes familiar, and when you say no, never again and you create a different one. I did that when I decided one day, you know what, I’m a therapist. It is not acceptable to date wild, crazy people. I just decided one day that I was going to make the kind of person I wanted to spend my life with the familiar. I had to say to myself, I am making that attraction unfamiliar.

You are enough, and if you can start to state that, affirm it, claim it, you can manifest it too. Click To Tweet

I was in the green room of a studio. I’ve just done a show and this guy came. He was very much my type—damaged, compelling. As he came to speak to me, I just said, I’m so sorry, I got to go. I just got my coat and went home. I’m making that unfamiliar. It was a little tiny bit of work but didn’t take long.

Then, when I met my husband, I thought, I’m making this familiar. Here’s a guy that adores me and puts me first. I decided because it was a decision to make that familiar. You do get to decide. Make praise familiar. If you were never praised and someone says, ‘hey, oh, I love your voice,’ you go, ‘oh, I hate my voice.’ ‘I love this product’ or I love whatever, you go, ‘no, I’m terrible at that. That wasn’t very good.’

Because if praise is unfamiliar, what’s so sad is when someone praises someone who doesn’t get praised, they actually reject it and add in criticism because that is familiar. You got to make what is comfortable uncomfortable, and what’s comfortable uncomfortable. It’s a choice that will change your entire life. It actually is quite easy once you get used to it. I really recommend that you do that because it’s so life-changing but so incredibly simple.

To get a little bit woo-woo here, when you have this picture in your mind of your life, how amazing it’s going to be, how you’re going to show up and everything, and you’ve got the desire to bring that to fruition, that thing, event, experience, or beingness shows up in your vortex and then it’s just a simple matter of having it manifest in your life. 

What you’re saying aligns with the rules of your mind.

It’s like you have the quantum fields of all possibilities. You believe something untrue that’s not helpful, some self-criticism, and then you collapse all possibilities into that one negative outcome. Whereas you could do the opposite and collapse all possibilities into the ideal outcome that you visualized and rehearsed in your brain over and over again.

I wrote something called the Rules of the Mind. I wrote 26 rules of your mind and they’re all in this book. What you’re saying actually aligns with the rules of your mind. Here are some of them that will help you. Whatever you focus on, you move towards. Whatever you focus on, you get more of. Focusing on having a headache or an injection hurting will make it hurt more. But if you don’t focus on it, it doesn’t. Whatever you focus on, you move towards.

The mind learns by repetition is another rule of your mind. Every thought you think is a blueprint that your mind, body, and psyche work to move towards. The strongest forcing you and me is that we act in a way that lines up with how we have already defined ourselves, and yet we can change the definition. When dealing with the subconscious mind, the greater the conscious effort, the less the subconscious response. There are so many great rules of your mind. They’re all listed in this book.

When you think, oh, I see. I didn’t know that every thought I think—I’m going to mess this up. I’m going to be late, I ruined everything, it’s going to be terrible—make it real. In fact, many years ago, I was in a taxi going across London to the station to go work with a very famous footballer in Manchester. There was some protest going on. I thought, now I’m going to miss the train. In my mind, I said, I’m going to miss the train and I’m going to be there late. This is a super important footballer. He’s going to be furious. I’ve messed this up. I should have gotten to the station earlier. I began to feel terrible.

Then I thought, you know what, this is crazy. He’s a footballer. They finish practicing at 2 PM. He’s got the whole day free. It doesn’t matter if I’m late, there’s a train every 20 minutes. He really won’t care at all.

I began to change my thinking. This is all fine. I got a mobile phone, and I’ll ring him. He’s so delighted and honored that I’m going up to Manchester to see him. I could have made him come to see me. As it happened, I got to the station on time. I still caught the original train, but he wouldn’t have minded. I had to do that thing. I’m talking myself into how awful this is, but I can talk myself out of it.

I had a client who couldn’t get into a scanning machine. He had cancer, and he could not get in the scanner. I said, what’s going on? He said, “Well, I just feel like it’s a metaphor for the coffin I’m going to be in one day.” 

I said, “Here’s a rule of your mind, the way you feel about everything is down to the pictures you make in your head and the words you say to yourself. You’re telling yourself that the scanner is a reminder of the coffin you’re going to be in. He said, also the drawer in the mortuary. I’m like, how does that even help you? When I go to a scanner, this is so cool, I’ve got 20 minutes to myself. I’m just lying and pretending I’m in my bed at night, and I’m so chilled. He said, “Oh, I can choose to leave the scanner. I’m lying on a beach. I’m having a wonderful time or just imagine I’m lying in my bed.”

If the way you feel about everything is down to the pictures you make and the words you say—and it absolutely is—you have the joy of changing those pictures and changing those words because it will change your life. First, it’s what you do, but then it kind of becomes who you are.

First, it’s what you do, but then it becomes who you are.

For me, when I was told I had cancer, that was an enormous shock. But then I had one. I thought, well, that’s a stroke of luck, isn’t it? I don’t need a womb. It gave me the most amazing child. I thought, well, my womb has done its job. I can let it go.

It probably sounds a bit woo-woo and Pollyanna, but I said to my womb, I’m really sorry, but I have to dispense you because I am staying alive for this great kid. I’m not going anywhere. But you see, because I’ve done that so much, I didn’t even do it. It did it for me. I began to think this was a stroke of luck. I don’t need a womb. It could have been an eye, a leg, or a bone. It’s a womb that I don’t need, and it’s very easy to take it out too. It’s not even invasive surgery.

I went home the next day, I was on stage a week later, and I was in Costa Rica three weeks later teaching a whole course because I thought it was just a blip. I had it, now I don’t have it. My friend says, isn’t that funny? You had cancer on Monday and you didn’t have it on Tuesday. I said, I know. It’s great, isn’t it? It’s a choice. I could have chosen to go, oh my God, this is so unfair. It could be everywhere. What if it comes back?

But what’s so great about choosing how you think is it starts off being what you do, but it really becomes who you are. It kicks in in the most awful moments and says, oh, you’re going to be fine. This is just a blip. I didn’t even have to do that. It did it for me. It kicks in when you miss a flight or something goes on. You go, it’s all fine. It’s all good.

We were flying to Austin on the 23rd of December. I got woken up at 3 AM from London with some serious issues and they had to cancel our flight. Everything was a bit of a challenge, but then we found another flight and we got on the plane later. We arrived late and we missed this party we were going to, but it didn’t matter. 

The challenging ones are the ones you learn from.

I could have thought, oh my God, this is a disaster. This is a nightmare. I thought, well, it’s a challenge. When you have a big company, things go wrong. You could have been able to think I’ve got this company and it’s all perfect. It is amazing, but things happen. I can’t choose to stop things, but I can certainly choose how I react. I can choose how I feel about it and how I think about it.

I’ve trained 11,000 people in my method, and most of them have now got that same ability to say, wow, this is the best job in the world. There are challenges. Some clients are challenging, but they’re the best teachers of all, the challenging ones are the ones you learn from.

Remember, it’s how you look at it. Events affect you, but the way you look at them affects you so much more. You have the power to change how you look at it. That’s why I call this book Tell Yourself a Better Lie because honestly, your greatest problems in life, a lot of them stem from the lies that you are telling yourself.

My kid is driving me insane. I’m going mental with tiredness. I could jump out the window with fatigue. My partner makes me want to die. My boss is a boss from hell. You got to stop saying that. My kids are a challenge, but they keep me up all night. They won’t sleep in 15 years. I won’t even know where they are when they’re 18. They won’t even be coming home until 5 AM. If at all, they’re often out all night. I can’t get my kids to feed themselves. That’s not going to be going on when they’re eight, nine, or even six.

It can’t hurt you if it isn’t permanent, personal, and all-pervasive.

For something to get you, it has to be what I call PPP. It must be personal—it’s all about you—permanent, and all-pervasive. Your kid at 14 doesn’t like you. That’s not personal. Most 14-year-old kids have issues with their parents and say, they’re super boring and stupid. It’s not permanent because by the time they’re 20, they’ll be just lovely again or maybe 25. It’s not all-pervasive because it’s not going on when you’re having a lovely dinner with your partner, having sex with your partner, or out at the cinema. If it isn’t permanent, personal, and all-pervasive, it can’t hurt you. I always found that’s helped me a great deal.

When you had the issues with your thyroid, you weren’t getting periods, and you hadn’t had a child yet, I know you didn’t let in what the doctor was trying to tell you and you just stopped him. What else did you do that made this an eventuality and inevitable for you to have a child?

I never believed I wouldn’t have a child. I never let that in. I would not allow myself that. I have a saying, you cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought. I see every day with my clients what negative thinking does to the body, or inflammation, so I never believed that. I believed I would have a child. I thought it might take me a while to conceive that child, but I got pregnant immediately. 

That was the beginning. But then I was told, well, this baby is not going to go to full term. This baby is not going to be healthy. This baby is going to have all kinds of problems, and you probably will lose the baby. I had to talk to that baby every day and tell her how much I loved her. I knew it was going to be a girl. I didn’t know why, but I knew. I just had to decide not to let that in.

I would talk to my body and go, listen, your job is to raise a baby. That’s what I got a womb for. My job is to grow the baby emotionally and your job is to grow her physically. I tell my body, grow this baby. A few times, a doctor says, oh, you’re losing the baby according to the scan. The baby is not growing.

I would come home, put my hands on my pregnant tummy, and tell her how much I loved her and wanted her. I remember one day my doctor saying, well, this baby is going to be very underweight, and she was born at almost eight pounds. She was perfect. 

That was such a lesson for me. Wow, if I’d have allowed it, I would have been terrified during that pregnancy which is very bad for the baby. All the stuff they told me, none of it was true. That was a real lesson.

Shortly after that, I wrote my book, Trying to Get Pregnant (and Succeeding). So many babies have been born because of that book saying, you have power. When that baby’s in your body, you get the chance to influence it.

I have a friend who had a donor sperm. When she is older and her eyes shut, it’s really weird. When the baby was two, her eyes shut. She goes, I’m so thrilled because it’s a donor sperm, but I’ve given him my allergy. I couldn’t be happier. Of course, because even though it was a donor embryo, your body grew him. Your cells, blood, and body grew him and he’s just like you. She loves that.

I think so often we’re told such conflicting stuff. Here’s the thing you’re told, well, you’re 35, your fertility dropped off a cliff. You’re 39, who are you kidding? You can’t get pregnant at 39. They also say, your husband doesn’t have enough sperm. You need 500 million sperm. You only need one actually. Of course, when you’re at school, don’t go in for that heavy petting because one sperm can leak out without penetration, get up there, and get you pregnant. But I also heard that my husband needs millions and millions of sperm to get me pregnant. He does. Well, how can one do it then?

You got to weigh out these very conflicting beliefs we hear. If you go for an X-ray, it says on 14 and 52, check, they’re not pregnant—52, not 35. Women have had babies in their late 30s forever. There’s a very famous poet called Elizabeth Browning who had a baby at 44, having had tuberculosis in the 1800s. 

It’s not that doctors aren’t wonderful, caring people. They are. Therapists are wonderful caring people, and parents, but they tell you the craziest things. That’s never going to work. You’re too old to have a baby. Who’s going to want you with five kids? You got fat thighs so you’re never going to find love. You got to have thin thighs and fat hair. If you’ve got fat thighs and thin hair, then that’s not right. But I have breasts up here like two grapefruits. 

It’s such a shame that they tell us all this stuff. You’re more likely to get abducted by an alien than get married in your 50s. I got married when I was 50. I went to get my wedding dress. They said, oh, you know what, our highest demographic now is women in their 50s. I got pregnant when I was 47. I remember someone saying that to me too. That’s so weird because the highest rate for terminations now is teenagers and women in their late 40s who just didn’t think that could happen.

I have a family member, her mom got pregnant with her at age 57. She was surprised.

That’s what’s so interesting. Before you make a belief, find proof. Before you think, who’s going to want me, I’m 50, look at all these women—Michelle Pfeiffer—who look amazing in their 50s, 60s, and sometimes their 70s. It’s called confirmation bias. You make a belief, your belief makes you, and then you start to look for proof that this belief is real. Once you have confirmation bias, you go, I knew it. But you can make that good.

I’ve made a belief that I’m magnetically lovable. Someone’s going to just worship me, and I’m going to find proof. Or I can be like, I’m not lovable. I don’t look right. I’ve got nothing to offer the world. Fate is making me and I’m not looking for proof. You can do it anywhere you go in the world. You make your beliefs, your beliefs make you, and then you look for confirmation bias that those beliefs are real. 

While the worst criticism is criticism that you do, the best praise is your own praise. Click To Tweet

Use that for your benefit. Make great beliefs. They will turn around and make you, and then you’ll find proof of what you’re saying is true. Your beliefs are yours to change. Your thoughts are yours to upgrade. Your stories are yours. Your lies are yours to make better. Instead of going, I got a terrible memory, go, I have a fantastic memory. I’m always sick. My body is a wellness-making machine. 

I’m terrified of getting COVID. I get that, but how about saying I’ve got a fantastic immune system. Where’s the defense? It’s in you. Your first line of defense is your immune system. You can be exposed to a virus and never get it. That doesn’t mean I have particular opinions about COVID or indeed any other illness, but I do know that to be sick, if you are physically, mentally, and emotionally out, you’re more likely to get sick.

Never say I always get sick on planes. I always get sick in the winter. I always get my sinus headaches when the seasons change. I always break out with hay fever in the summer. Don’t allow yourself to say that. Say my body is a wellness-making machine. My immune system is amazing. I recover in a super-fast time. That’s what I did. That’s why when I had surgery, I was at home the next day having a wonderful time because I said to my body, your job is to get better. 

If you talk to your body like you talk to your 10-year-old kid, hey, body, digest this food. Hey, body, I’m on a plane. Send sleep to me because I’m going to wake up in a different timezone. I tell my body what to do all the time and I really appreciate it. It’s wonderful because it pretty much does what I tell it to. It sometimes has moments of rebelling, but on the whole, I give it instructions that are very clear and it responds.

That’s another thing that is super helpful. When you talk to your mind, here’s how to do it—very clearly. You must speak in the present tense. You can’t go, next year I’m going to lose weight. Next year I’m going to make money. Next year I’m going to find love. As you said, it has to be right now. Talk in the present tense, use the words right now and this minute, and make the pictures exciting. 

Use words like I’m phenomenally amazing. I’m magnetically lovable. I’m super-duper amazingly impressively healthy. Turn your mind over with exciting words and make pictures. Present tense, really exciting, and use relevant up-to-date words. Even if you say, I’ve broken my leg, say, my leg is healing now, this minute. You can’t say in six months. You have to say now because the mind only works in the present tense. It only responds to words that make a picture. 

It’s like saying, I’m not thinking of a snowman when you have to think of a snowman. I’m not thinking of chocolate cake. What are you thinking about them? Instead of going, I mustn’t eat cake, you say, I love eating healthy food. My favorite dessert is berries. I find them so satisfying. My body uses those berries. I’ve got an amazing metabolic rate. I feel so healthy, lean, and healthy. But don’t do this for weight. Do it for health, vitality, and energy. 

If you make the pictures and the words exciting, make it relevant, and make it now, you can have whatever you want. You really can. I could never imagine as a kid the life and the marriage I have, the relationship with my daughter, the career, the 11,000 people I’ve trained who are all just amazing, the books I’ve written, and the talks I’ve given. I couldn’t even fathom that as a young kid that would be my life, but I got all of that by changing my thinking. You can do it too.

It’s a choice. I can praise myself or diminish it. Why would I diminish myself?

It seems like there are a lot of similarities between these affirmations of the inevitable gaping future or the best version of yourself and the self-praise. You’re using those very expressive, flowery, and compelling adjectives both in your affirmations and your self-praise.

Yeah. I think there is nothing that will build you up like self-praise and nothing that will pull you down like self-criticism. It’s a choice. I can praise myself or diminish it. Why would I diminish myself? I could go, ‘oh my God, Marisa, you’re such an idiot today. You didn’t leave in time. You didn’t plan the room. You spoke too fast. You messed it all up.’ I can say, ‘yeah, today I didn’t leave on time and I’ll never do that again.’ I did speak too quickly, but I’m really working on that. I was really silly not to have a satnav, but now I know better.

In fact, many years ago, I was going to a very important meeting. I got in the car and had a satnav. I just got there and I could either turn left or go into this tunnel. That minute, my satnav died. I hadn’t got any glasses so I couldn’t read the map. I went in the tunnel and it was a tunnel that went on for miles under the River Thames. I was so late for that meeting. I was so cross with myself, but when I came home, I put 10 pairs of these really cheap glasses in my car and I put an extra charger. I’m like, I’ll never let that happen again. I could beat myself up or learn from that mistake, charge the satnav, have a charger in the car, and have extra pairs of glasses.

To err is human, to forgive yourself is divine. You’re allowed to make tons of mistakes. You are not allowed to beat yourself up and invite cortisol, inflammation, and stress hormones because you’re a human who made mistakes.

As you said, it’s just a blip. If your feathers get all ruffled over the small things, then you’re creating a reality of big things that you’re going to have to ruffle feathers with. I love all the stuff that you’ve shared. I know we’re out of time, but I was hoping that you could just share one nugget. I know you were on my wife Orion’s podcast, Stellar Life. You just had that interview. What would be the biggest nugget, takeaway, gem that you spoke about in that interview with Orion?

To err is human; to forgive yourself is divine.

It would be your wife’s story about how she loves being an RTT therapist, how it’s giving her so much, and how she’s changing people’s lives. But of course, when you change people’s lives, you cannot do that without changing your own. When you give other people meaning and purpose, you give yourself meaning. When you help other people to grow and you give them meaning and purpose, you grow. You have meaning and purpose.

For me, people think I give them so much when I teach them how to be therapists or do a YouTube video, but actually, they give me so much. It’s a real win-win. I always feel every client I’ve ever seen has given me every bit as much as I’ve ever given them. I give and receive, and they receive and give. That for me was just so wonderful to hear, her telling me how much she loves this career, how much as a mother she can really fit it around raising an incredible person. I love that. It is all a story. Everything is a story.

One of the things I love in this book is the story of a girl called Jasmine whose father when she was a little girl found a new person. She and her mother moved out, and the girlfriend with her child moved in. She felt permanently replaced, but her father would visit her and would always give her this particular type of candy. As a grown-up woman, whenever she was sad, she’d eat that candy because she confused that candy with her father’s love.

She said, the next session, I went to, I looked at the candy and thought, oh, bless me for thinking that could ever make me happy. I love that because she didn’t go, oh, what an idiot. I’ve been eating this stuff for years. She went, bless me for thinking that could ever make me feel my father loving. My father is not good at expressing it, but that’s not my problem. His story is not my story.

I know we’re out of time, but it’s so important to understand that your story is your story. Your mother’s story is that you should have been a boy. You should have been a musician. Don’t make someone else’s story your story. You have the joy, honor, and freedom to write and edit your own story.

My story is that my mother wanted a different baby to me completely. I was the wrong baby. But that was her story. It wasn’t my story. My story is that I was meant to be me. I’ve got something amazing to offer the world. We all have the choice to go, my mother said don’t trust a soul and you can’t even trust your shadow. My dad said all people are out to get you. Whatever they say—you’ll never make money in this world, everyone’s out to con you—don’t let someone else’s story define you or shape you. Write your own, create your own story. Edit it, shape it, change it, and rewrite it. In doing that, it changed.

I think it says in my book, edit your story and rewrite your life. We all have the ability to do that. It is never too late. When I edited my story and rewrote my life, my life became amazing. But anyone can do that. I wasn’t that special. I just realized I didn’t have to listen to my mother’s story or my father’s story. Other kids are better than you. They’re more compliant. They’re so easy. You’re so difficult.

I just decided my story is mine to edit and update and I rewrote it. If you get this book, you can do exactly the same actually in a matter of hours, and it will stay with you forever.

That’s beautiful. I got angel bumps when you were sharing Jasmine’s story because I pulled up the table of contents for the book and that was the name that I was drawn to. I wrote it down in my agenda because I wanted to talk to you about Jasmine’s story, but we ran out of time. I put it in the we didn’t get to it list, and then you brought it up. I’m like, amazing.

What was so amazing is that when I was working with her, there was someone in my audience. I was teaching doctors how to work with eating disorders. This woman said, hey, I work with these. I can fix bulimics in 40 sessions. I’m like, oh, that’s lovely. But Jasmine came up and she was bulimic. In an hour and a half, she’s never had that issue again ever because she realized that she just had the wrong story and that food isn’t love and she doesn’t need that. If her father sent her massive shipping trunks full of that same candy every day, that would never be love.

You can do talk therapy for five years or you can cure or heal a wound from childhood in an hour.

Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with talk therapy. It’s just long. If you’re in immense pain, you don’t have time for that. When I see people in pain because they have headaches, a nervous stomach, irritable bowel, phobia, fears, or addictions, they don’t have five weeks. Some of them don’t have five weeks because they’re really up against the wire or being sick and tired of being sick and tired. 

It’s no different from turning up in A & E or a chiropractor. If you’re in pain, the person you’re seeing should be aiming to get you out of that pain as fast as they possibly can using the tools they have. All RTT therapists are no different from going to a dentist, a doctor, or a chiropractor. They’re going to get you out of pain as fast as they can using the best tools they have, and it really, really works.

It does work. It’s amazing. Our listeners probably want to learn more and find an RTT therapist in their area or maybe even hopefully get trained and certified in Rapid Transformational Therapy themselves. Where do they go to do any or all of those things?

If you go to rtt.com, you can find out how to train with me. I do live training all over but also online. If you want to find someone who does what I do in your area, go to rtt.com. Most of our clients do both live sessions and online. They don’t have to be in your area. You can find someone doing what I do at rtt.com.

If you want to train with me and do what I do—and again, the training is both live and online all over the world—go to rtt.com. If you want lots of these I Am Enough bracelets, go to iamenough.com. If you want some free audios on health blocks, love blocks, money blocks, and success blocks, go to marisapeer.com.

If you want to get this great book that could change your life by the time you finish even reading it, it’s going to be on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It has four downloads, and each one of those would cost $35. The book costs about $12. For the first week, we’re doing a special offer of just $1 for the ebook, but it still comes with the four downloads including Installing the Cheerleader, having phenomenal confidence, and everything else you need to feel great. Get it, and if you don’t like it, I’ll personally give you a refund because I know it would change your life.

That’s Tell Yourself a Better Lie, your newest book. What a gift you are giving to the world through your training, books, and the interviews that you do including this one. You’re a real light in the world lighting other people up. As Yanik Silver says, a sun lighting up a thousand other suns. Thank you for doing that.

Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you for listening. It’s been a joy and an honor. Thank you.

That was Marisa Peer, and I’m Stephan Spencer, your host. Make it a great week, get out there, and do some good in the world. We’ll catch you in the next episode. I’m Stephan Spencer, signing off.

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About Marisa Peer

Marisa Peer is the founder and creator of Rapid Transformational Therapy® (RTT®)—a new and exciting, multi-award-winning therapy. Marisa has spent over three decades treating a client list that includes international superstars, CEOs, Royalty, and Olympic athletes. Marisa has been seen on many high-profile US and UK television networks, Marisa is also an acknowledged and inspirational speaker—from TEDx and Condé Nast to the Royal Society of Medicine.

Disclaimer: The medical, fitness, psychological, mindset, lifestyle, and nutritional information provided on this website and through any materials, downloads, videos, webinars, podcasts, or emails is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical/fitness/nutritional advice, diagnoses, or treatment. Always seek the help of your physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, certified trainer, or dietitian with any questions regarding starting any new programs or treatments, or stopping any current programs or treatments. This website is for information purposes only, and the creators and editors, including Stephan Spencer, accept no liability for any injury or illness arising out of the use of the material contained herein, and make no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the contents of this website and affiliated materials.