How to overcome the fear of Judgement and Achieving a $800,000 DAY | Elite Performance Podcast #20

Itamar Marani 0:00
When the person you crave approval from is your future self, it frees you up to do the right things. When you think about it in action, Should I do A or should I do B? And you simply say, You know what, what will my future self be proud that I did.? It's amazing the clarity, you have

Itamar Marani 0:17
Just wanted to let you know that I had the best trading day of my 14 year career study. 70% of it was made in about five seconds after the employment report, I saw the data, I knew how it was going to react and aggressively got my max size on for an amazing trade, then I was able to grind away for the next three hours and solidify Career Day. Thank you for your assistance in achieving this milestone also out of my top five training days of all time for have in the past three weeks since the program started. So today, we're going to break down a case study how somebody can achieve this kind of stuff and how they can get the four best days of their career, a couple decades of a career, because of a couple of different instances that a couple different tools that we're able to use. And we're gonna be doing a case study. So with that said, Emile, welcome today's podcast.

Dr. Emil 1:00
Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to this one. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 1:03
Okay. So here's the deal. Dave is a trader in a hedge fund, okay, he works in the States. And he was doing very well. And he was respected amongst his peers. But he knew he was playing small, you knew he was kind of holding himself back. And that really came to light with him when I held the elder virtual workshop for traders. And I talked about the core fears, and he held his hand up in a q&a. And he asked something, and very quickly, we realized he had a fear on abandonment and possible judgment. And as soon as you brought that up, I could see that he had this kind of look on his face, he was like, Oh, well, that explains a lot of things. And from there on, he joined the arena, and now he's in the Legion. And we're going to cover the results he's gotten what enabled him to get those results and the exact tool I use with him, that basically allows you to plan things and thinks things through even when there actually isn't time to do that, that allowed him to get that kind of result, and get that record breaking $800,000 day. So with that said, too many things to note one, Dave is a fake name. It's anonymously requested to keep his name anonymous, because he works in a big company and to for transparency. Also, just to clarify the numbers we're talking about. He doesn't take home all that 800k that we're mentioning, he only takes home about 20% of that. But again, that's enough to get you GWAC, even though it's extra. That's all good. Aside from that, any questions before we get going?

Dr. Emil 2:22
No, no, 20% of 800 KS is reasonable, we'll explain

Itamar Marani 2:26
these. Alright, so what we're going to be talking about today is on a high level, how so many people, they, what they optimize for is acceptance of others, without even knowing it, and how that actually takes away from their own success. Because instead of just thinking, What should I actually do here to get the highest likelihood of success for me? You think how can I avoid possibly slipping up and having other people judge me? Or possibly abandon me think negatively of me? And while we've talked a lot about the core fears, and a lot of podcasts I want explain the exact process he went through? Because I think that can be very applicable for a lot of guys out there. Sounds good?

Dr. Emil 3:08
Yeah, no, I'm gripping onto my seat looking forward to this for no really

Itamar Marani 3:12
cool. Alright, so first things first, whenever we get somebody to start the program first, like what we said he identified that his primary fear was a fear of abandonment and judgment. So the first thing we got to do, we got to ask them, okay, what do you really want? Why are you here? And instead of asking, Okay, what do you want on a surface level, I want to have, for example, bigger trading days, I want more money, all this kind of jazz, we start from the inside out. Because the reality is, whenever people say I want this external result, it's because they're hoping this external result will cause them to feel a certain way. That if I get the house, if I get the big bonus, if I get the Career Day, if I get the exit, whatever, and it'll make me feel a certain way. So what we do is we start by going inside out, we asked, well, actually, how do you really want to feel? What do you really want to feel about yourself, about your life, and all that kind of jazz? And that's the first thing we did with Dave. So the first thing when we asked him, How do you want to feel is he said, I want to feel proud. I want to feel accomplished, and I want to feel fulfilled. Now, if you notice, all three of those have nothing to do with other people. There are solely about himself, not himself in relation to other people, but himself in regards to himself. Does that make sense?

Dr. Emil 4:29
Yeah, yeah.

Itamar Marani 4:31
Yeah. So we figure that out. And then we said, Okay, what's the standard that you need to hold yourself to, in order to be able to live that out to really get those kinds of feelings that you want to feel? And the standard that he set for himself? This kind of six months standard that he's going to focus on for the next season in his life was, I want to live with courage. And in order to do so I must take chances were a sense opportunity, because this will mean that I'll be proud of myself for going for when I have that opportunity. And that was the step one, because up until then he had never really thought about it. He's kind of just going along with things, you know, he was already doing a lot of the right habits planning all this, but he never thought, How do I want to conduct myself as a human being from an internal perspective? And just that created a shift, and we'll go ahead.

Dr. Emil 5:17
So yeah, saying just that created a shift, which makes it seem a lot smaller than that actual process was for him. So I recognize that statement that you made, that's from having gone through the your process, right, that's having gone through the arena. And that in itself is, is unique for people to have gone through. So when you ask, what do people want? Most people don't know. Right? Yeah. And when people think they know what they want, then it's usually because they've done countless other programs. And it's about external validation. It's like, oh, my three year goal is to have this many million or whatever crap. And all of these things are kind of externally validated for so they're reinforced and kind of encouraged that people are blinded to actually what they really want. And on top of that, the words you mentioned, fulfills, accomplish that they write, they're vague words that hard to define, whereas 10 million or 800k, or whatever, these are hard numbers. So it's not even laziness. It's just, it's hard to figure out what what you actually want. And it's very easy and validated for to do other things, and lots of other people talk about it. And this is where people get stuck in a hole, and people will be stuck in this hole forever. So what you said, you know, this was just from doing this, or this was just the first step, this first step is huge. And I wanted to highlight that because people will leave this podcast feeling confused, like, Yeah, but this is so high. It is it is hard.

Itamar Marani 6:51
Why do you think it's hard?

Dr. Emil 6:54
It's hard, because everyone, that a lot of the material that we consume on social media and media, in general, is superficial and externally validated for which is a potent, potent, combination. It's abundant. It's it's all over the place. It's superficial, which is not good. And it's very people love it. They're like, Oh my God, that's an amazing goal. That's so powerful. Yes, that's so good. Let's do it all is this gonna share

Itamar Marani 7:20
apostasy that also have to show that you're just speaking? What could be interesting, I wonder if because to me, this makes sense. Like, obviously, the the way we do it, and what you're saying right now, for example, the goal, let's say I get to $10 million. I think that also signifies a finish line, which is very comforting for people, Oh, when I reach the finish line, everything will work out and I'll be great. And then I can finally have the life of my dreams in saying I want to continue. Sorry, I just want to say this. And it was interesting, because we had an we have a group in the arena going on right now. And I don't remember exactly the question or whatnot. But somebody asked me, So when when are you like good? Why don't you feel the feeling proud of yourself? It's like, when are you done eating food? Or working out every day? Because you should do it? Yeah. And that's the truth. Like if you really want to have these feelings, it's a constant process of doing things that you're acting in a way that you're proud of doing things that fulfill you, it's and I think for a lot of people, there's a hope that oh, if I just set a goal, I can get to the end of it, and then I'll be done. Does that

Dr. Emil 8:29
ring 100%. But do you know what else that does? It also delays or puts off the difficult process of having to think about this for real, you say? I'll aim for 10 million, it's you know, super quick, you pulled it out your ass. That's exactly what I did. And then it means that now I no longer need to think about it. Because I have a goal. It's an audacious goal. It's whatever it's five years in the future. I no longer need to think about this. I can have a conversation with myself. Exactly. I don't have to feel those feelings of action and certainly within Yeah, yeah.

Itamar Marani 9:05
Interesting. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Cool. This is definitely not what I expected this podcast to go. But yeah, nobody was very, that was very interesting. For me as well, I just learned something new, I really appreciate that perspective. Just to kind of to clarify that the way we do it is first we get people clear on how they want. And again, this is on a high level, first on how they want to feel. Because I think everything needs to stem from that. Then we ask them what needs to be accomplished in order for that to happen and grow for you to get these feelings. And then what happens to the sea. A lot of these guys, they're extremely ambitious. And they can go over the top of certain things, especially things that are more tangible. So in order to keep them in a certain kind of lane, and make sure they don't go all over the place. We also asked what's the things you don't want to regret. For example, somebody can say I want to feel accomplished, but that means they'll go bananas on their business, but they'll neglect their family life. And I don't think that left you feeling proud of that life. You neglected your family life for your business. So when we do those three things in that order, I hear people get very different level of clarity than they've had so far. So how do I want to feel what's going to take in order for that to happen, but within what boundaries or constraints, we need to be able to pull that off? In order for everything to actually work to have a quote unquote, like aligned life? Does that make sense?

Dr. Emil 10:16
100%? Yeah. Great.

Itamar Marani 10:21
So we did just that part, as a real said, and that was already big for him, because it completely set the standard of how he wants to conduct himself. And once we set that standard, we figured out okay, what are the gaps here that you have between this is how you say you are and how you need to start behaving? So then we figure out what is his effective mindset needs to be the effective mindset if somebody wants to live this standard? So what values? What does this person need to start valuing? For this to be a reality? And then how can we break down these values into very clear cut rules that make it very simple for him when this action happened, when this thing happens, this is the action you take. Any questions about this so far?

Dr. Emil 11:04
No, this is this is the process. This is how you break down the achievement of the end goals, both the external and internal.

Itamar Marani 11:14
Yep. So his top three values that he decided if I adopt these values for the next six months, it will help me live up to the standard that I set for myself, where perseverance, courage, and one value that was much more concrete was his trading bigger point blank. So from what I get, I don't understand a trading a specific levels in these hedge funds. But basically, they they get a lot of the maximum out, like you're allowed to trade X amount of money per day, each trader gets maximum out. And if you don't hit that max amount, a certain amount of days throughout the week, throughout the month, they say okay, you're not going to get a bigger amount. So what that does is when you see a giant opportunity, you can't really capitalize it, because your maxes have been smaller. And that was an issue for him that he wanted to get bigger lifts. So let's break down these values. First off the perseverance, one, because we talked a lot about this whole standard is about to live with courage, and to take chances with his opportunity and be proud of himself. So he had that perseverance. And the rules that he set for himself is that when I have a short term setback, I stick to my process and look at the big picture. Trading is extremely volatile. And if you don't keep your emotions in check, every time there's a bit of a dip, you're gonna regress. Another one with perseverance is when someone doubts me and I feel the physical discomfort that is a signal to follow through in my initial judgment and trust myself. Now, again, these environments, especially because you have, you have bosses that kind of check you to make sure that the trades you're making are okay, they're in line with the risk portfolio, and so on and so on. It can be very nerve wracking, because basically, if you don't choose to view this person, as an ally, who's trying to read team, your thoughts, so you can make better decisions, you can feel like this person is holding you back constantly, constantly arguing against you. And that's what led to rule number three, that I take some positive nugget from every situation, even if it's painful initially. For example, getting feedback from people or getting feedback from the market selling Hey, this was a mistake. And he figured if I can have more perseverance, I can give myself opportunity with more courage, because I'm not going to be deterred every time there's a downside. Does that make sense? So far?

Dr. Emil 13:28
Two things, they're pretty one those, those last two actions relate to our previous podcast about tough conversations, where it takes two people to have a tough conversation, the person giving it with the right intentions, and the person receiving it with the right mindset. So those last two rules are very much the receiving end having the right mindset, which is awesome. The other thing to mention is, and I want to highlight this, because it's important values are a very overused word. And the way that we use them here, as Itamar explained was that they're the things that are missing in your current mindset that allow you to have an effective mindset, which will allow you to be the person you need to be to reach your goal, right? And

Itamar Marani 14:14
go on. Can I explain that in a bit of a different way, please. So basically, there's a gap between who you currently are and who you want to be. The way I see to bridge that gap is by saying, Why would somebody who is at this place that you want to be what are the main values that they hold? For example, in business, you can say, I admire this person who have achieved this much well, what are they actually valued, they probably value leverage more than you they probably value strategic thinking more than you. Those are some examples. So the same thing to figure out what's the gap? What's the values gap and the thought gap that I need to bridge

Dr. Emil 14:47
and with with once you've identified those, it's not just about putting a word to them because the words for different people might be the same, but they might mean something very, very different. So even though these words like passive variants encourage are very generic. Don't be fooled by that. It's when you get to the rules beneath them the specific actions that you need to take, that's where it becomes unique to you. And these are things that probably happened to Dave, you know, multiple times a day or week where he was taking the wrong choice, the easy choice. And he needs to now change that to take the hard choice. So by date, defining that, and making that a part of the value of perseverance, he can then visualize the path to reaching his goal, and it becomes crystal clear.

Itamar Marani 15:33
Yeah, I really like how you said, the easy choice. So the purpose of these rules are to make it very clear and how you can put yourself on the hook to live up to the values that you want, because they will let you become the man that you want. It's really that it's the How can we how can we put you on the hook and as clear as possible?

Dr. Emil 15:51
That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. It's exactly that it's accountability. Yep.

Itamar Marani 15:56
Yep. Alright, so that was value number one. Value number two is courage. And this was the big one. And his main rules were I prioritize my belief in my judgment over approval from others. So when he notices I can either I believe in this thing, but I want their approval know, if I believe in the same, this is what I do. Or I intentionally put myself in situations where I might fail. Because again, if we're saying that one of his things that held him back wasn't fear of judgment or fear abandonment, then we got to recognize this is a bias that you have that you have to overcompensate for initially. Because you all really shy away from these situations. So what if for the next six months, we overly correct it? Because then you'll probably find a middle ground where you should be. Does that make sense? That part?

Dr. Emil 16:42
Yeah, I'm a huge fan of overcorrecting because people as a knee jerk shy away from overcorrecting because they and I did the same because they don't want to go to that extreme. And that's probably why they've overcorrected in this direction. So but be reassured that even if you overcorrect, you're still only approach the middle approach the middle. Yeah, yes.

Itamar Marani 17:02
Yes. Very well. Exactly.

Dr. Emil 17:03
Play with it. Right.

Itamar Marani 17:06
It's what it's what you think over means, because of where you are. But it's really important to understand it's not. It's, it's not really overcorrecting, it's just because of what your perspective is, and your biases, what you think over it's, but it's still probably in line with where it should be. Unless, like Emil saying, Yep, so that was that. And then we had the third value trading bigger. And that was very clear. Because he said, very clear rules again, to put himself on the hook, he trades his max at least once a week. Because if you can do that, and you can showcase your superiors, hey, I'm doing this at least once a week, give me a bigger Max. On top of that, proactively asking for bigger limits after reaching certain milestones, milestones in his trade. So every time he hits a specific these were, I'm not gonna say these out loud, but specific milestones of earnings every time he does that, instead of waiting, oh, maybe we'll have a quarterly chat about this. And maybe they'll approach me maybe I can approach them. Every time this happens. I go on to talk then hey, man, we just did this. Can we have my limits? Every time to put them on the hog. And it was very uncomfortable for him because he's been avoiding doing that. But having that clear rule made it very clear what he needs to do. And find a third rule he had his if I run things through my framework, and they are I go I go aggressively. Not I wait on this not I think about it not I hope I don't mess this up. I go. And as you can see, this is already starting to add up why he probably had all these big days in such a short span. Because he already had the skill set he was holding himself back from acting on.

Dr. Emil 18:35
Yeah, it's a crystal clear roadmap, when you break it down like this. It's like, okay, I see exactly what I need to do. And you know, this, you know, all these things. This isn't magic, this isn't hidden. And just one more thing to add there, which just occurred to me, but I love it is when people have values, they think that that's enough to then take the actions to live up to them. Whereas when you have the actions, and you do the actions, even when they're difficult, that is what allows you to live up to the values. You see what I mean. Yeah. So that's,

Itamar Marani 19:09
I think, I think whenever there's ambiguity, we naturally try to let ourselves off the hook. Especially if we don't know we're letting ourselves off the hook. So the clearer you can make it. That's what that's what that meaning is behind simple not easy. Yeah, the clearer you can make it, the simpler it'll be for you to do the stuff that's not easy. Yeah. But if it's not clear to say, well, I can actually maybe go through option C or D or E or F, if f is the easiest. And you haven't thought about it ahead of time. When you're in emotional state, you'll choose the easiest path. That's why having these rules preemptively deciding on these rules, deciding and perfectly saying not just creating these will decide how you're going to act on these rules is extremely powerful. Because in a situation that is uncomfortable, you still say you know what, this is my role. This is what I figured out so I got to do this is what I'm gonna do. That's what it is.

Dr. Emil 19:57
Yeah. And I think it hit home even more when it was very much I need to trade on my Mac's once per week, once a week. Yep. And little rules like that means if you're doing this, by definition you have courage. Yeah, yeah. Love it. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 20:12
That's a great way of saying it. So we got that down. But there's obviously still, let's call it emotional weight that can hold you back. And that's why we have this emotional fortitude part. Once you have clear, once you have clarity on what you want, as far as your standard, I want to be more proud of myself, I want to act with courage. And you're clear on how you can actually make that happen, you have the effective mindset to do that. Now, what we got to make sure is that you have the emotional fortitude to act on it. Because in theory, if you were a machine, we just gave you the first two parts, you'd be good to go if you were computer reprogrammed, but we're all human beings, we all have our emotions. So we got to make sure that we have the emotional fortitude to not let those emotions distract us from the truth of what we should be doing. And the best way we do that is by flushing out what are the main blockers you have in your subconscious. And once we did that, with him, things also took an interesting turn. So we realized that some of his main beliefs were that in order to be successful, I have to beat out others. And he had a lot of stuff it was he was a great basketball player in high school. And he had stuff from that environment that he was carrying over to trading. And when he would see his, there was one other star trader and his firm. And when he would see his email reports of how he did this week, he would take it almost as kind of not intimidation. But man, why is he doing so? Well? Why am I not doing so? Well, instead of seeing it? You know what, if he's doing this, well, I can definitely do that well, as well. And the same thing with disappears when they're red teaming his trades, instead of saying, Man, why are they always judging this or not just supporting instead of saying, Well, I got someone really smart here to also help me make better decisions that can make me more money. I'm gonna go ahead.

Dr. Emil 21:57
Can you just clarify what red teaming histories means? Oh, sorry.

Itamar Marani 22:01
So Red Teaming is a general concept. So it's a military thing. So basically, when you create a plan, a plan of attack, strategy, whatever it may be, if you Emil created that, I would then be part of your team and be okay for just for the sake of the exercise to make sure there's no issues with your plan, and flush out any potential dangers, I'm going to read to you. So I'm going to behave like the enemy. And I'm gonna say, Okay, this is what I would do. This is what I would do, this is what to do. And this is how I think I can take your plan apart. And if we do that together, then we can figure out a better plan together. So it's a very, yeah, yes, yes. Very well. Yeah, exactly. That, yeah. So it's a very powerful tool that you learn in the military very early on. And I think it's also what desensitizes you to, to criticism, because you recognize I'm not I'm not being criticized, he's helping me read team, this plan. He's helping me he's not criticizing, he's helping me criticize his plan. And if you're looking at people with always your competition, they're not helping you, you're competing against each other. Yeah. And once we were able to get his mindset around the fact that the belief was in order to be successful, to beat others out, it's not true. Your easiest pathway to success is by utilizing others, especially those whose job is to help your traits, it made a big difference. And that's what enabled him to like, go bigger, trade bigger, because he just felt more comfortable. And he was less concerned that people are going to judge him. See, realize their job is not actually to judge me here. It's to help criticize and read through the trades so I can succeed more. That's literally what that job exists. His manager, for example, that's literally his job. But it's all about understanding that in that way. This makes sense.

Dr. Emil 23:41
Yeah, the red team analogy is great, because the other guy on his team also doesn't want to, you know, die on this plan. So it's in his best interest to, you know, make sure that it's the best plan possible. And I think in that analogy, you can see how they're exactly on the same team. And it's not. It's not criticizing the plan. It's upgrading the plan. It's leveling up the plan. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 24:00
Yeah, that's it. So I'll say this, like, I get what you're doing. But honestly, it is criticizing the plan.

Dr. Emil 24:06
But it is criticizing the plan, but with a goal of leveling it up.

Itamar Marani 24:10
Exactly. And I got an A goal is not just leveling the planet, but helping him out as well.

Dr. Emil 24:15
And yourself. Essentially, same with a manager wants better performance. It's a win win. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 24:21
Yeah. And just sort of see it as a win win. That's the thing. So that was one. Another one was that if I wanted to make make a ton of money, then I want to sacrifice the balance I've cultivated in my life, which is a very common belief. A lot of people hold a lot of entrepreneurs, not just traders, but a lot of entrepreneurs see them hold this belief. And they put the self sabotage their success almost without recognizing it, because they very firmly believe that if they get to the next level of success, the team grows, the business grows, the income grows, whatever it may be, they're going to give up their freedom. Usually that's the big one. I'll give up my freedom if my business grows So without recognizing it, and they're completely unaware that they have this on a conscious level, they hold things back, the purposely play small, they ruin the big proposal in some way, they don't fully go for it, they don't give themselves the the reward the freedom to actually pursue something bigger, because they're worried there'll be having sort of freedoms taken away from them, the lifestyle that they've built the happiness about their relationship with their significant other because they think it's going to up the stress levels, everything. And this is a really, really big belief I see in a lot of entrepreneurs that really aggressively holds them back. Now, the reality is that he he realized that his performance is helped not hindered by him taking care of his body of his relationships. And also, just like he called it his spirituality. And he realized that I won't actually lose balance, if I have more success, but we actually making giving more focus to balance will actually allow you to have more success, to think about any adverse perspective like that.

Dr. Emil 26:01
Entrepreneurs have that belief. Yes, they have to sacrifice, balance and health, for success. And they play this out all the time, relationships, balance, health, all these all these little things that they think they can't do until XYZ happens.

Itamar Marani 26:20
Yes. So first off, yes, there's two camps. I see. There's some people who think they have to wait for those until they get to a certain level of success. And there's also the other camp that already has those. You know what I mean? They already have a great relationship. Exactly. And that's where they're afraid to scale their business to the next level.

Dr. Emil 26:40
I see. A subtle difference. Yeah. Yeah, it's

Itamar Marani 26:43
a subtle but important difference, because you can find yourself in either camp. If you already have great relationships, great health, great friendships, great freedoms in life, and you find yourself the business has plateaued, I will check and ask yourself, do I hold this belief? Have I never thought about it before, but is there a belief inside of me a fear that if I go, if the business grows to the next level, it's going to take what I've worked so hard to gain, all this freedom, this amazing lifestyle, this amazing relationship, being able to see my kids, all these kinds of things. And the reality is, that might not be true, there might be a way for you to have your cake. and eat it too, so to speak.

Dr. Emil 27:18
Or even the more ominous version of that is, if you have already sacrificed all those things, and your business has plateaued. And you feel that you can't include them. Because to get more business, you need to work harder, you need to push more, you need to do more, and I see a lot of entrepreneurs in that position of seems to be the baseline.

Itamar Marani 27:41
Then again, you probably have something your beliefs, there's other ways 100% other people have done it. And again, it's something to recognize. Cool. So those were the two primary ones I wanted to go after, does this make sense how even if you have this clear standard that I want to live with Kurds, in order to do so I must take chances where I sense opportunity, because this will mean I'll be proud of myself. And you boil those down into an effective mindset of very clear values, and very, very clear rules of what I must do. But if those beliefs keep pulling you in different directions, you won't have the emotional fortitude to actually act out on them. So I'll come together.

Dr. Emil 28:16
Yeah, I just want to just can I just repeat it once just for clarity. So essentially, step one, define the goal, both internal and external, and then define the person that you need to become to reach that goal.

Itamar Marani 28:32
And that both first, as soon as an order first internal than external? Yeah, yeah, this is really important first to find, what do you want? How do you want to feel? And then what's going to be necessary in order for that to become a reality?

Dr. Emil 28:43
Yeah, yeah. And then define the person that you need to become to achieve that goal, or define someone who has achieved that goal and what they what they have, which you do not. So then the second step is to find that effective mindset that that person has, which would allow them to reach that goal and break it down into values, and then actions or rules. Yeah, and those actions or rules are those three specific things which go with each value. So by the end of step two, you have nine different very specific actions like trade at my max once per week. And this is the bit that I just want to clarify and repeat it, you have these nine things. And if you just did those nine things, you would exhibit an effective mindset, you would become this person who needs to who you need to be to reach this goal, both internal and external. But people you can't necessarily just magic sorry. People are people, people or people or people. So it's not like just because you've got this awareness that you can suddenly start taking these hard choices every time they come up. You're still going to be pulled towards these easy choices. And this is where emotional fortitude comes in.

Itamar Marani 29:55
I want to say something interesting here that I just, I don't think I've ever clarify this on the pot. cast. So here's the deal, that you have these nine things you're supposed to do now, I absolutely believe that even without the emotional fortitude, people will be able to to actually start actioning these nine things for a while, they'll get super motivated. And that motivation will overcome the internal resistance they have. And people will actually take action on these nine rules. But after a certain level of time, that motivation is going to be too much to uphold consistently, to stay at a level 10 motivation to overcome your level tenants or resistance. And that's why we say we don't want to bank on this and say, Okay, we clarify these rules now get after it and do it. We don't want to bank on motivation. So what we do is they go, okay, how can we create a system, we don't have friction against doing these things, or as little as possible. And that's why we then work on the evolution of emotional fortitude. Because if you're going to create an internal system in yourself, where you don't have to get yourself amped up, because there's not a lot of internal resistance you have to fight through in order to do these nine things. That's when it can become really, really sustainable. It's not just a sprint, but this is just okay. This is what I do. This is fine. This I just get going.

Dr. Emil 31:09
Yeah, yeah, I love that eat the the internal resistance is like you trying to do those things with a handbrake on? Yes. And if you've ever done a motivational course, or a mindset course, in the past, where you were super pumped and started doing the things and then stopped after a while that was because it was purely based on amping up drive and motivation. And then it slowly ran out. And you still ended up failing, right?

Itamar Marani 31:40
Yeah, or, or kind of going back or just having a little micro improvement? It's yeah, I think there is. It's extremely, it's necessary to figure out this future version of yourself who you want to become and the pathway to get there. What's also necessary that I think most programs miss out on is just figuring out what could be holding you back from doing that. Yeah, because it's not, it's never just the clarity on doing what you should be doing. Oh, I didn't know I needed to do this thing. It's never just that there's also an internal components holding you back. So if you can lock on those two pieces, and that was the belief that we just went over afterwards. That's when you fly. And that's when you get these kind of results. To clear out of it. And also, just to clarify, because the media keeps saying how tangible This is. We literally have the guys, they have a tracker where everything's kind of populates for them. And they have their values, their rules and their main beliefs or insecurities that hold them back. And they give us a score of how well I've been performing on these values in these rules this past week, every week, they score themselves. And then they can see an average of how this is trending. And next to that we also have, how much are your primary insecurities or fears or doubts holding you back. And then they can also see oh, this is still affecting me a lot. This actually isn't affecting me anymore. So maybe there's something else there because I'm still not getting the result. And it's a very interesting way we can see like, if everything's green, but you're not getting the results. Something's wrong with the system, what we're actually trying to optimize for. If things are going up, we can keep tracking this. It's a very interesting way. Because, again, it's very, very tangible. Everything's supposed to be tangible, trackable, it's not just put it out into the ether. Have you values, and that's kind of that. Cool. Yeah. Is that part clear?

Dr. Emil 33:24
Yeah. All right.

Itamar Marani 33:27
So what we did, then we really started getting very tangible and said, Okay, what do you really need to start doing for this for this stuff to go to the next level. And we figured out, he had three really big opportunities in front of him. And there was a some big things in the markets that I don't really understand how they impact them, for example, like midterm elections, how they impact the markets, unemployment reports, and something called a CPI, which I've I don't even know what that means. But the initials mean, I'm just like, get the worksheet we did. But basically, we figured out, okay, how can we make sure that in the high impact situations, all this stuff comes together in a really potent way, and you can take the actions that will really serve you, you record highs and so on. And we created a bunch of mental models. And this is how you can compress time in a way where there's, let's say, five seconds, where a big report comes out, and there's a million traders trying to figure out what to do with it. But if you've created that you took the time ahead of time spent an hour on this, figuring out what to do in this situation, what to do if a situation comes out as x or y or z, how will I feel about it? How will I process that emotion in the moment and what should I do? You can make a decision in five seconds that for most people will take an hour and when it's a time sensitive thing like getting ahead of the market that can be extremely valuable. So we created three mental models for models sorry for the unemployment report, the midterm elections and the CPI thing and Basically, the whole model around this was how to put myself in a position to be proud of being more courageous and trading bigger. So that's the goal here with these things. And we created simple models. We said, Okay, what would an elite trader do in the moment? Then, we said, What fear would stop me from doing so this is really crucial. Because sometimes people stop when they create these mental models, what should I do there in the moment? But they also anticipate, how am I going to feel it's possibly going to cause me to self sabotage that hold myself back. So they have this plan, but then their emotion catches them off guard, so they don't actually act on it. And then we figured out the if, then, and because which I'll get into. So for example, the Friday unemployment report, what would an elite trader do in that moment, he'll be fully prepared for multiple scenarios. Whichever way the report goes, have you prepared with what traits to execute in accordance with what figures get released, and he'll act with no hesitation, once he has the data. That's what an elite trader would do. And then we asked what fear could possibly stop you from doing that. And said, well, the market will move before me and the market might overshoot, it could expose me to a bigger loss, I'll be out there with a lot of exposure, you realize those will be the initial insecurities that could stop him from taking the actions that would really serve. And as soon as we did that, he's like, Man, this is really powerful. Because I recognize this now. And when I see it, I'm not going to be afraid that I miscalculated something, I just recognize that this is just a fear that's going to be there. It's not it's not an indicator, or a stop sign, so to speak. It's just something that's there. And it's present, it's an uncomfortable thing going really big. But it doesn't mean that I should be cautious, because something's wrong here. So then we kind of moved on to a very clear, tangible thing that if I feel a pinch of fear on the market movement, or being exposed to a bigger loss, then I will remind myself that it's not going to change my life either way, and take aggressive action. This is just one that I'm doing to keep progressing. And why should I do this, because then I'll be proud of myself for doing the right thing, regardless of how it goes. And we did two more mental models like this. And this is what led to that one of those 800k days. And again, four out of the five best days of your career within three days of doing the program. Because he figured this stuff out both about how he wants to behave, what he needs to do in order for that to be a reality, got rid of the stuff that was holding him back. And then also had the discipline to do these specific mental models for big opportunities. Any questions about this mental model stuff? No?

Dr. Emil 37:39
No, I mean, when you put it like this, it's almost I mean, it's inevitable. To succeed, right?

Itamar Marani 37:47
That's, that's all we're trying to do. That's the goal. Yeah, yeah. But I will say this, one interesting thing was that we did this together mean him with the mental models, we did the first one. And we first figured out the three big opportunities, and then we flushed out a mental model for the first one. And then I was there we got, let's go to number two and three. I think I'm good, man. I think I can do it by myself. And I'm not to be sick. No, actually not. I think I don't need to do them. I think I figured this thing out. Okay. I was like, let's, let's do them. Let's just do. And it was an interesting process for him to realize that even if we went through them, he needed to do them. You still have to do the legwork. You can't just expect yourself to be able to okay, I learned this trick. So I can pull it off at well, you do have to have the discipline to do the legwork to create these mental models ahead of time. And he did that he created number two and number three, and he did the legwork. That's why he's held that success.

Dr. Emil 38:38
And look, this applies to this whole process because I can imagine people will listen to this podcast gained some clarity, and awareness and be like, Okay, I've got this, I figured this out. This is amazing. I feel great. But you actually have to do the legwork and go through the steps and take the time. And it takes time to go through each of these steps to gain the benefits. It can't just be a nebulous abstract. Oh, this this feels good, because I've done a random little piece of it. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 39:10
Yeah. Do you have any closing notes or questions or things you feel like we should harp in

Dr. Emil 39:15
on now I've been jumping in throughout. So I think it's this great

Itamar Marani 39:21
call. I want to say two things to wrap up. One. The reason he was able to see all this success when you boil it down to what was the first action that allowed to start going through all this is that during a q&a session with a lot of other people on the call, he raised his hand. And he asked a question. And it's such an interesting thing. I was giving a talk in in Bangkok there was 120 people in the room, at the end of it asked, okay, who has a question and they all came just for that specific talk. It wasn't a part of another event. And only one person raised his hand it was okay guys. We have time who wants to literally hear that hurts you guys, I'm here to give as much as possible when people didn't raise their hands, and they deny themselves the opportunity to be helped. That's the first thing a closed mouth doesn't get fed. And it's really that simple when you have the opportunity to be helped get help. That was the first thing. I think that was really the main reason why I was able to do all this, because he had the courage, whatever you want to call it, during that call to say, hey, this doesn't feel fully comfortable. But I think I have this thing, I want to ask a question about it in front of other people. And that's why he won. So that's the first thing. The second to kind of encapsulate all this, he already had all this skill set. To trade. If you guys can see, I don't know, basically anything about trading, I have a couple index funds. And that's as much as my is my knowledge there goes. But when you boil it down again, mindset is an access issue. And to kind of ask, the question I asked him for you guys, is worth optimizing for external approval, causing you to contract to perhaps live in fear and play small and only access a little bit of your potential, because you're afraid of possibly being judged, possibly losing. And how it's more free would you be if you access all of your abilities. If you really optimize for feeling proud of yourself, instead of seeking approval from others. It's such a big thing. And I've told this, the guys in the in this specific arena called a couple of them really latched on to it. When the person you crave approval from is your future self. It frees you up to do the right things. When you think about it in action, Should I do a or should I do B and you simply say, You know what would my future self be proud that I did? It's amazing the clarity you have. And even as Emile said, when there's an easy choice and a hard choice. You just forget about easy hard, you just take the choice that will serve you regardless if it's easy or hard.

Dr. Emil 41:54
Yeah, and even tying the two together. Trying to avoid judgments of others, like not asking a question in a room of people is fear of judgment of what how you might come across and how people might think that's making the easy choices not asking that question. So it's just how they tied together was just very entertaining for me. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 42:14
Cool. All right. So I think we'll wrap it at that. Aside from that. Thank you MIA for being on and we will see you guys in the next episode.

Dr. Emil 42:21
Thank you. Thank you. See you next time.