Rewrite The Script: From Self-Sabotage To Self-Mastery w/ Albert Bramante

What if a few precise words could tilt your future? We sit down with Dr. Albert Bramante to unpack how a growth mindset, lifelong learning, and NLP can turn setbacks into signal and self-doubt into steady momentum. From his improbable start—premature birth, harsh predictions, and a long climb—to his career working with actors, students, and professionals, Dr. Al shows how belief systems, language, and identity quietly drive outcomes.

We dig into the teacher expectancy effect, priming, and why labels become limits. You’ll hear simple but potent reframes: add yet to your goals, swap have to for get to, and rename nerves as excitement to unlock performance under pressure. We also explore mental health as a spectrum, the risks of casual self-diagnosis, and how identity-level change outlasts hacks. Dr. Al’s journey from traditional psychology to hypnosis and NLP offers a practical map for faster, ethical change work that respects complexity while delivering results.

Lifelong learning emerges as cognitive fitness: small daily inputs like reading, podcasts, and skill reps keep the brain adaptive and resilient. We contrast highlight reels with hidden repetitions, challenge the myth of overnight success, and share routines that reduce friction and build evidence for a new self-image. Whether you’re leading teams, auditioning, or navigating career pivots, you’ll leave with tools to reframe failure as feedback, write a better inner script, and take the next right step.

If the conversation resonates, follow Dr. Albert Bramante, check out Rise Above the Script, and share this episode with someone who needs a mindset reset. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us the one reframe you’re trying this week.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Today’s Big Idea
• 1:45 Dr. Al’s Path Beyond Traditional Psychology
• 6:30 From Hypnosis To NLP: Faster Change Work
• 10:50 Working With Actors And Self-Sabotage
• 16:55 Mindset In The Workplace And Complexity
• 21:00 Growth Mindset Origins And Early Adversity
• 27:40 Belief Effects: Expectancy And Priming
• 33:25 Lifelong Learning As Cognitive Fitness
• 39:20 Why We Quit: Messages And Discouragement
• 44:10 NLP Basics: Language, Framing, And “Yet”

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:31

Hi, friends, welcome back to Mind Force, the podcast where we dive into stories and strategies to sharpen your mind, strengthen your purpose, and live life fully charged. I'm your host, Nate Schear. Today you'll be getting into something quite powerful how a growth mindset, a commitment to lifelong learning, and a tool like NLP can completely rewire your path forward. So today we'll be exploring why believing you can grow is the first step to actually doing it, how learning never really stops, and what that means for your career, relationships, and really your life, and how NLP helps reprogram limiting beliefs into empowering actions. Let's jump in, guest introduction. Welcome to the show. Let's start with your story. Who are you? What drives you lately, and what inspired your passion for personal transformation?

SPEAKER_00: 1:26

Well, I want to first thank you, Nate, for having me on the show. I'm really happy to be here. So my name is Dr. Albert Bramati. You can call me Dr. Al. Started off as a traditional psychologist in my training. I was always interested in the human mind, the intricacies of human mind, the brain, and how all of that works. I was always a kind of a nerd, I still am. So that was sort of like my upbringing. I love books, I love reading. And I spent most of my high school years in the library. That was my sanctuary. And I was just really interested just in human relationships, human human nature. I always had some questions. I was always even a child that just had a lot of questions. It would drive my parents mad, but I still had questions about behavior and why. So I think that kind of gravitated my interest towards the sciences and especially the social sciences. And so when I was a end of my sophomore year in high school, I declared that I was going to be a psychology major. And that's where I started. That was a foundation for everything. And it's been kind of, you know, ever since that path of growing. So I've always considered myself to be a student, a lifelong student, and which is we're going to go into a little bit later. And I think that's just an important approach. So you know, over the years, I studied various models in psychology, and and I have a deep appreciation and love for the field. However, having said that, I will add a caveat in that I there's parts of the field I disagree with in a clinical sense. Now, when I was in college, especially during my undergraduate and graduate years, I was really bent on becoming a clinical psychologist. That if you ask me, that was my goal. That was my ultimate goal. I was going to be a PhD clinical psychologist, have my own practice, teach and do research. I it's to this day, I mean, I don't have the PhD and I and I do teach, but I it went on a different path. And I went on a different path. And the reason is I felt that traditional psychology limits people and pathologizes people and kind of keeps people in that negative victim pathology loop, which is I'm always gonna be a victim or I'm always gonna be ill. And for me, that wasn't resonating or sitting well with me. And I kept thinking there has to be another way, there has to be something different. And one day I happened to be reading a psychology today article, and in the classified ads of that issue was a an ad to learn hypnosis. Okay, well, this is interesting, and I've heard about hypnosis before. I've seen some shows, I didn't know what it was about. I was like, this is interesting, and I like to learn. So I I took the video course and I was immediately interested in quick change work, is what they were kind of promoting. So naturally, being the learner that I am, I engrossed myself in a full-on three-month in-person in their city area certification program, first in hypnotherapy. And then in that training, I learned about NLP, which is even more rapid and faster. And so then I try did some more trainings, three to six month trainings in both bat basic and master practitioner levels of neurolinguistic programming. Here I am. So it utilizes most of the principles of traditional psychotherapy just in a faster rate. So that's sort of like where I became very interested in that. So another part of my work that really led me to the path I am today is I work with actors. And so I I'm a talent agent. And I represent which means I represent actors in New York City area for film, TV, theater, commercial print voiceover. Serve as an employment agent. So I my primary day-to-day duties is to find them employment in various disciplines in various areas. I also through my time and many years of working with actors, first of all, I love actors, but the the one thing I noticed they struggle a lot with imposter syndrome and fear of success, mindset issues. And this became really apparent immediately when I went first started 21 years ago in this you know space. And it was also a theme that was popping up with students because while I was also in school and building my company, I was also a college professor. Well, I still am, but I started off in that and I was noticing a lot of talented students, some that were really right and intelligent, were sabotaging themselves, shooting themselves in the foot. And it really between the actors and the students, this is a major problem. This is a major area of concern. And so why does this happen? So being the investigator side, I got approval and I did my doctoral dissertation on self-sabotage in the lens of actors, but also it can be applicable to students. So that's kind of like where what led me today. And in 2024, I published a book called Rise Above the Script, which kind of condensed my doctoral research, my experience into a book about self-doubt, overcoming self-doubt, mastering self-sabotage. The book is really geared towards actors. However, there's other people that can benefit from that because they do have a lot of general strategies in there, too. So that's in in in a long way, that's sort of where I am today.

SPEAKER_03: 7:59

That's perfect. Yeah. Thank you for coming out. I'm excited for a lot of different reasons. Uh, I'm currently a hospital administrator, and what really draws me to this current career field is the different sections of the hospital are massively different. So you have insurance, you have systems that runs computers and internet, logistics that's buying stuff and running contracts. And and I love this idea of like the lifelong learner. I go into a new section every couple of years, and I have to pick up and figure out what that section does, what all the rules for it are. And I may or may not go to go back to that section, or I might, you know, go on to something different. So I love the lifelong learner and uh also the psychology. I resonate a lot with you, which is always being fascinated by that. I got my first degree kind of to check the box. I think it was it's in uh contract management because that's kind of what I was doing at the time. And it's interesting, you get into the next level and you're like, hey, I want to actually dive into something a little bit deeper. And so my master's is in industrial and organizational psychology. Because I was like, I want it something I can pull to work and work on teams and, you know, change management and workplace motivation and things like that. And so it's awesome to be able to take a bunch of psychology classes, but not necessarily go the other route, but still be able to learn a whole lot of different things. And it's interesting you mention people kind of getting stuck in different routes. I was just talking to it. My mom's visiting right now, and my my between my wife and my mom, we were kind of talking. It's interesting how people don't realize that mental health is a spectrum. Like it seems like you're sick or you're not sick. And I'm like, it's check or pass or fail, or one or the other, and there's no, you know, it's just really bizarre to me because if you look at physical strength, you know that you know, some people, you know, can barely lift their weight and some can lift a car. And like we know there's like a spectrum of different people on the, you know, physical side. But for some reason we think like, oh, if you're sick, you're sick. But there's a whole range of, you know, from suicidal ideations to, you know, just having some bad days. Like there's everything, you know, in between. So I'm excited for this one. I think this will be good. Uh quick warm-up question for you. Tell us something you believed in middle school that totally you don't believe anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 10:06

Uh, let's see, let's think about that for a second. I think the idea that adults are perfect, our parents are perfect, and that they have all the answers. And I still believe to some aspect that our parents are wise and obviously have more life experience than our children, but they're not perfect. And no one is. No one is perfect. And I I as as children, we kind of put our parents and even our teachers on pedestals. And when we realize when we become adults, we realize that they're not perfect and they make mistakes. So I think what I would definitely say would be I would probably put parents to teach them the same moral as being perfect in their own.

SPEAKER_03: 10:53

Yeah, that makes sense. Well, let's uh flip the mic real quick before we dig any deeper. Albert, let's flip the mic. What's one question you'd like to ask me?

SPEAKER_00: 11:01

I guess I would say when you were studying, you said you studied psychology classes and Dickson's psychology classes as part of your studying your work in a hospital. What particularly maybe theory or theorists stood out for you?

SPEAKER_03: 11:20

I don't know a specific name or anything like that, but I think the biggest thing I would mention is like a theory would be that everyone is so complicated. I think that's what I try to remember. I think a lot of times as humans, we want things to be clear. We want it to be a checklist, we want it to be a flow chart. For some reason, we want things to be easy. And we are wildly not easy. We are vastly difficult and complicated. Like one example, I use the personality test. We took some personality tests that weren't, and everyone was like, Oh, this is so me. And then by accident, we mix them up all on the table and it got messy, and we went and I think we ate or we did something else throughout the day, and then we came back, and then people grabbed the sheet that they believed was theirs, and they're like, Oh, this, yeah, this is this is so me. And they all got mixed up, so they weren't theirs at all, but they're written vague enough to try to kind of like a horoscope, it makes you feel like you're connected, but we're all just so different. So if you try to break it down into four colors, you're not gonna be able to break us all down into four colors. And I know they've gone to 16, but I think that would probably be the biggest thing I would say is try to understand people from where they're at. I've heard the platinum rule lately, which I think is pretty cool. I've always grown up on the golden rule, but the platinum takes it that step farther that you know says should treat people the way they need to be treated. Maybe they need something different than you do. I think we look at different things and you're like, oh, I'll give them what I need, but that's not what they need as a person. So that golden, like the way that I want to be treated, but really needs to go another step. So I think trying to understand people and just how vastly complex. It's a little bit of a dodge on the question, but I would say complexity does does that does that fit.

SPEAKER_00: 12:59

I I fully believe that. And you mentioned a good point, especially what you were describing with the descriptions and all that. A lot of is what we what's called called reading. And this is where a lot of people get trapped in the astrology or the fortune telling or the psychic traps. Oh, I went to this fortune teller, they told me everything. And then when you break it down with so general information that I could have used the same script on everybody, and you if I targeted the script right as kind of um captured a human spirit, I would be accurate because I'm describing everybody. And the same thing when people read their horoscopes, and and I don't want to downplay anybody who's into astrology. I mean, that's great if you are, and and and it works for you great. But most people, when you when you open up the horoscopes, whether back in, you know, I was growing up, it was a newspaper, but now it's online. So you read your horoscope and you only really read your zodiac sign. You're not gonna read the other 11. And so you're thinking, wow, this is really neat today. I really identify with this sign. However, I can guarantee if you sat down and read the description of every other sign, it would be the same. It'd be like oh that that that fits. And so there are the fact that we are we have similarities, but we also have differences. And what may work for for me may not work for you, and what might be my truth may not be your truth.

SPEAKER_03: 14:31

Yeah, I think that's an important thing to remember.

SPEAKER_00: 14:33

Mm-hmm. And and that's the thing about an understanding human beings, is we are complex. And this can get even to a whole trippy discussion because even we can even go on the whole tangent of what's reality, because that is subjective. My reality is different than your uh reality, and different than my parents' reality, and my different than my brother's reality. We all have different versions of reality, different versions of the truth. And I think this is an ex kind of a tip that I always tell people like when you're describing its own not rather than be dogmatic and say, this is the way it is, you could soften it by saying, Well, this is what I found, or this is what works for me. Because I think when you we frame it like that, people are more interested in hearing what you have to say rather than saying rather than you being, you know, dogmatic and saying, Well, you need to do this. No. You know, I may not need to. That might not work for me. Well, it worked for you, but it's not may not work for me.

SPEAKER_03: 15:36

Yeah, I think that's an important thing to remember being in the workplace and you know, being in a management role and seeing different interactions between people. I think that's one thing. It's super important. One of my favorite books is Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott, and one of her quotes in there is multiple realities or truths, I guess you could say, exist simultaneously. Because I think sometimes we want it to be like, if I'm right, you're wrong. And it's like we're both right based on the way we've grown up, the way we live, the place we live, the parents we had, you know, the experiences we had at that point. So I think, you know, we'd be a lot better off if we realized that multiple realities can exist at the same time. Two truths can be true, and there maybe there's three truths, something in the middle between the two as well. But yeah, I think that's a very important reminder. Well, let's move into your first pillar, which is a growth mindset. When did you first realize your mindset wasn't fixed that you could grow in areas you once struggled in?

SPEAKER_00: 16:35

Well, I would say I I think I've learned this more on an unconscious level first. And I'll tell you why. I was when I was a ch uh when I was an infant, this is going back to way back, you know, at as early as could be. I was born, I was a premature baby, and I had a lot of respiratory health and other physical challenges. For the first year of my life, I was in and out of the hospital. In and out of NICU and and and other forms of uh you know intensive care. So I I I really didn't start walking or even talking until I was like three or four. As a matter of fact, um they thought I might have had several palsy or even mildly on on the autistic scale. This is back again, uh late 70s, early 80s, so we didn't really have the knowledge that we have now. So and it was through my parents' belief in me that you know I overcame a lot. One of my pediatricians had told my parents to be prepared that I would never pass the mentality of a 10-year-old and to be totally prepared to be for me to be institutionalized. So and again, I'm not I don't blame them on a whole resentment. I I look at it like at that time we didn't know about plasticity and neuroplasticity in the brain healing and regenerating and growing. So I might have been showing the signs of that. And so that it was through my encouragement, a lot of my tea guys, some teachers, and of course my family never gave up on me. My parents never gave up on me, and so I learned to overcome and to become and to work hard, and so I overcame a lot of challenges to a point where I was getting A's in school, where I was making the honor in high school, even though again I was told by reputable people, my parents are told, but reputable people that I wouldn't I would have a really hard life. So, and I attribute that to the mindset now, particularly that was reflected to me, but it was my parents and my teacher's mindset of not giving up on me and not believing in me. So I think and not you know, not not uh giving up on me, I should say. So I think that can be attributed to us too, because when you believe that you can achieve something, you're more likely to do that. And it it may take a little bit harder work. Now, I'm not saying it's a it's a magic pill that you know I'm not gonna go out tomorrow and shoot up as a and be a football player just because I want to be one. You know, I get uploaded really fast. However, if I really want something, I'm gonna work towards it and and I'm not gonna give up. So we all have a growth mindset, and and this is an example of of and I'll use an example that I've said before I'd even heard today someone else say if you have children or being around children, especially when they're when they're infants and The first major motor task they have to do is learn to walk. And if you've ever been around, you know, an infant learning to walk, they struggle. They fall down, they bat you know, they find challenges in balancing, and that can take many, many times. I've I I mean uh over two or three hundred times that you're gonna fall down, and then they're going to you know, even maybe get slightly hurt when they fall down, embarrassed. And but they never give up. You never see someone say, you know, walking was never for me. They just kept doing it, they kept getting back up and doing that. We somehow forgot that tenacity when it comes to other stuff. So what the ports of a growth mindset is that we we can persevere through that, through the hard times and work harder. So if you don't get the grade that you want, for example, or you don't get the promotion you want, or you don't get the job you want, rather than giving up on it, what person with a growth mindset is going to sit take a step back and assess the situation. What can I learn from this? What can I do better next time? Rather than saying or play rather than playing the victim role by saying the world isn't fair, the world doesn't like me. When you have that growth mindset, you just keep going, no matter what life throws at you. And that is so important, you know, like going back to the whole child child learning to walk. If they're learning to walk and they keep going, and eventually they become expert walkers, just like we all have become. Why do they keep going and we stop, you know, when we're trying to learn something new and we or we get a little bit of frustration or just something doesn't go away and we we want to pack it in and quit.

SPEAKER_03: 22:01

Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, you are not gonna reach uh anything above the age of 10 and and now you have a PhD. It's interesting. I saw a study recently, um, or maybe not study is the right word, but experiment maybe is a better word. But it was interesting. They pulled uh teachers and then students from a school, and they told the students that they were um like good students and they were being pulled into this thing where they could, you know, achieve great things and do great. And they told the teachers that they were amazing teachers, they were the top five percent, and they were going to teach these kids to get like the highest test scores and these things like that. And they had it go for a year, and then they did, I guess, achieve like, you know, leaps and bounds, like these big score increases and whatnot. And then come to find out they were average teachers and average students, but they were told that they were good, they were told they could believe, they they had that ability to believe in themselves. And so just that, you know, like you said, you can't go and become an NBA basketball player tomorrow. But like there is something super powerful about believing in yourself instead of like someone telling you you're stupid and dumb and you're never going to amount to anything. Like that can have the exact opposite effect. But I thought that was so wild. They were just a random polling of people they grabbed and they're like, You're awesome. And they're like, Okay, I am awesome. And they taught and didn't did amazing. So that's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 23:23

It's what you're kind of um explaining is something called the teacher expectancy effect, which is if you believe, and they've done this too, study after study, not just one, it was multiple, where if the teacher believed that the students were amazing, like they were told you're gonna have some, you're gonna have some really bright students this year. And the teachers walked in there and believed it. Um they even did this on the on the student end too. They had they did this on the college level. They and this is a very interesting study. One one of my psych mentors in psychology did this did a study. It wasn't his study, but he just replicated, repeated the study. He was teaching four classes in one semester, and the first day of class, for each one of them, he had a grad grad student as an actor come in and say, You have Professor So and So, you know, and then Gon wanted to describe the class. Now two of the classes were told, you know, this professor is a bit of a hard ass, he's tough, he's a little cold. But if you work hard, you'll get an A. Uh the other two classes were told he's easy, he's kind, he's he's nice, and you're gonna love it. Now he came in and taught the class the exact same way, used the exact same exams. At the end of the the the semester when they did the student evaluations, what they found was that most of the evaluations were met with the same thing that they were told. It's called they were prime. So this is why we gotta be very careful about the language we use around people.

SPEAKER_01: 25:09

Yeah, it's powerful.

SPEAKER_00: 25:11

Because language is extremely powerful. So one powerful lesson that I've learned, which is another lie, I guess you could say, going back to your question. There was a uh rhyme that we kind of were were taught as children where sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. And I think that's a complete lie. And I and accurate because I think that names and language can hurt much more than those sticks and stones can, because you can heal physically from being hit with a stick or a stone. It's harder to be healed from an emotional wound.

SPEAKER_03: 25:47

Yeah, you you carry it all the time. Another quote from that book I mentioned earlier, she said, we're having conversations all the time, and sometimes they involve other people. It's one of my all-time favorite. And she's talking about the inner mo monologue. You are talking to yourself all day, and a lot of times in a negative way, unfortunately, not good enough for different things. So, you know, I think your point's perfect because you get a bruise, the bruise goes away. But these things, like, yeah, you know, if you were told you're dumb and stupid for a few years, the beginning of your life, you're just carrying that maybe for forever. So a bruise goes away in a couple weeks. But yeah, some of those are a long time, which I think is a good transition to your next pillar, which is lifetime learner. Can you share a story where learning something new unlocked a completely unexpected opportunity?

SPEAKER_00: 26:39

Well, going back to what I was saying earlier in my introduction, learning about hypnosis and NLP was a game changer for me. When I was in high school, I kind of thought I saw these shows on TV, comedy clubs, and the hypnotists would swing a watch and people would start cooking like a chicken. So I really didn't put any mind to it. I was like, hey, you know, it wasn't until my late twenties and early 30s when I started really doing a deeper dive into hypnosis of NLP that really changed my thinking of it and really started opening my mind. So I think the important thing is that we never stop learning, and that's one of my strong strongest belief systems. And that kind of even dives into the Rose mindset because we need to constantly keep learning. I have a PhD now by educational standards, that's term that's a terminal degree. My that's not that doesn't mean my educational is terminal. That just means a terminal degree. But I can still I'm still learning every day that I that I'm gonna be alive. And so I make it my mission to read books, listen to podcasts, consume content because it's important for me to keep learning. And there's been a lot of research, and I'm gonna go into the research thing again. Our brain stays active if we keep learning. But one way to kind of guard against dementia or brain decay or Alzheimer's is to keep the brain active. Now, again, I'm not saying it's gonna completely you know prevent it from happening, but the more likely you keep your brain active by making connections, by reading and learning new things, the more likely you're going to at least delay that, the onset of that. So a lot of times, especially older adults, the biggest thing that I biggest mistake I see is they retire and all they do is sit at home and and watch TV and they don't interact with people, and that can lead to brain decay, atrophy, and and and and a whole host of issues. When I say being a lifelong, that's in anything now. Of course, I'm gonna read books on psychology and help help and personal growth, and that's a passion of mine. So focus on your passion. What is your passion? And just commit to 15 minutes a day reading, listening to different podcasts, leo books on your way to work, on your walk. Instead of listening to music, maybe listen to an audiobook. Just do something that keeps your mind active.

SPEAKER_03: 29:29

Yeah, I love that. It's funny you mentioned that because one of my fears is my my mind breaking down. For some reason, I feel okay with my body breaking down. It feels, for whatever reason, natural. Like I know I'm supposed to have the walker at some point and the cane and things like that. And that feels okay. Uh, but getting lost in my own mind is definitely pretty terrifying for me. So it's interesting. I move for work every, you know, two or three years, depending on when they tell me to move. And so I've started a new thing. Uh, it goes back to Guam, I guess. I pick a thing and I learn about a certain thing. So I work through different levels of scuba diving when I was in Guam, and then I got my skydiving license after that, and then I got my PMP, project management professional at a at the next location. And so it's funny and awesome to hear you, you know, reconfirm it, I guess. I I always believed if I kept working on something, using my hands, using my mind, thinking about different things and techniques and earning like certificates, not for the thing on the wall or whatever, you know, a thing in my record, but really just to keep the mind active. I hope that just kind of pushes that further down the road. So it's good to hear. Um hopefully keep it going. I don't know I'm gonna get it this location, but we'll we'll have to see what it what it turns out to be.

SPEAKER_00: 30:44

And it's just even for the sake of doing of just learning and keeping yourself active and not necessarily being attached to an outcome. You know, it's not, you know, it defeats the purpose if you're doing it like to arrays or broad at certificate of the extra plaque. Because at the end of the day, those are meaningless. What's meaning what's more meaningful than knowledge that you have and how you can use that to serve others. So I have a lot of certifications on my, you know, in my person in my wall and all that for my hypnosis work. That doesn't mean, you know, anything. It's great, but it's it's what do I do with that and what can we do with that that's more important than that. So that's where again learning comes in. And we need to keep ourselves active. And again, just learning new new things. And now with the internet and all this, there's so many, there's no excuse not to be learning.

SPEAKER_03: 31:41

I know. You can go on Udemy, Khan Academy, fill in the blank on some free academy university.

SPEAKER_00: 31:47

YouTube, yeah, YouTube. I'm curious.

SPEAKER_03: 31:51

Anything. Albert, you were mentioning earlier about being a baby and falling down and having, you know, kind of that growth mindset of getting back up and you know, continuing to learn until you're perfected the walk and things like that. So why do you think we stop learning or we lose that grit to get back up?

SPEAKER_00: 32:10

I think it's because of discouragement. Like we don't our uh like our family when when when you see an infant learning to walk and and they keep falling down, usually your parents will be encouraging, laughing, and and applauding. We don't say, Oh look, you know, walking isn't for you. Stop walking. You know, look look at you, look at you being being foolish down there, falling down. We don't do that. I at least I hope not. But we do that a lot of times when we're trying, you know, and our parents sometimes if they're living through their own failure, they may tell a child, you know, we're not that smart, we're not that athletically gifted. So maybe this isn't for you. The kid hears that because the brain is is like, especially for young children, is open in the sponge, and they hear this and think, okay, well, maybe it isn't for me.

SPEAKER_03: 33:09

Yeah, that's interesting. Kind of reminds me, as as silly as it sounds, like, you know, kind of like Santa or something. You kind of have hope, you have fun, as Christmas time approaches, and then you realize it's not real, and then, you know, you kind of lose that little glimmer in your eye.

SPEAKER_00: 33:24

And you know, I look back one of my experiences when I when I was in high school. I I I think if I could go back, this is one of those things, if I can go back to my younger self, I would definitely do things a lot differently. So when I was in high school, I I I did very well in chemistry. My first day I went into physics and thought, well, if I can do chemistry, I I didn't believe I could, and I didn't know much I was gonna love it. And I had my first quiz in physics. For some reason, I was having I was struggling. And I walked up to my teacher, and rather than the teacher really helping me, kind of looked at me point blank and said, you know what, Albert, physics is not for everybody. And being the 17-year-old kid that I was, him being the teacher for 30 years and I over 30 years in high school, what did I do? I went, okay, sir, I believe you, and I flip dropped out of the glass. Now, many years later, I was like, that was not good advice at all. You know, what I felt like either that teacher, maybe he just was frustrated with everybody not getting it, frustrated with me, or frustrated in a job, or that I don't I'm not sure. But that was not good advice to tell a student because what should have been the okay, let's work harder. And what me what I might have needed was a little bit more extra help than maybe uh uh the other average student.

SPEAKER_03: 35:02

But he just kind of wrote you off.

SPEAKER_00: 35:05

Wrote me off, and but I think that's it's messages like that that we just say, okay, I'm gonna give up. Except because we hear this from other people. You know, or sometimes if your parents tell their children, you know, we're we're not the bet we're not the smartest bunch. And sometimes I want to push the parents aside and say, speak for yourself. You know, I would never say that. But that would be what I was thinking, because what you're doing is you're sending those messages to that child, that impressionable child, who again is looking up at you as being the all-knowing. Well, maybe I am not that intelligent.

SPEAKER_03: 35:47

Yeah, that makes sense. Words are powerful, which leads us into the third pillar is neurolingistic programming. So, Albert, for everyone unfamiliar, how do you explain NLP in simple terms?

SPEAKER_00: 36:02

That stands for neurolinguistic programming. So, kind of like what we were related to discussions we had earlier, it's kind of a methodology or my or system to become excellent humans to improve on our skills. So we use language, we also use our imagination and the power of our brain. So, one of the things that we were talking about earlier is looking at us, you know, adopting a whole growth mindset, which is more of looking at failure as feedback. So, one of the golden rules of NLP is there's no such thing as failure, only feedback. Which means that every failure is a learning experience for us. Every setback is an opportunity for growth. And when we take that opportunity for growth and adapt from that, and that's what I really hope we can learn. You know, my whole the way I look at NLP is it's about modeling human excellence and using it as a system. So again, if we take failure as feedback and as learning experiences, number one, it helps us become more resilient. It also uses the power of language. So again, rather than saying I failed, I learned.

SPEAKER_02: 37:26

Words matter.

SPEAKER_00: 37:28

Words matter, the power of language is extremely important. Another technique that I would kind of say is to use the word yet. You know, every time you say something like almost like a negative statement, say the word yet. No, I haven't made six figures yet. I haven't written a book yet. Rather than because when you say something like as a statement, like I haven't done that, I can't, I haven't did that yet. Because those three words, three letter word, one word, three letters, extremely powerful. So just everyone try that. Every time you want to say, I haven't done something, use the word yet.

SPEAKER_03: 38:13

Yeah, that's interesting. It reminds me of a couple things. I saw one where they were looking at tribes, you know, that were out in the middle of nowhere, and uh, I guess they were having that point at a color wheel, it sounded like, and they didn't they were not able to identify the color blue because they didn't have a word for blue. So it's so powerful where like your body can't even recognize certain things because you don't have a word to associate with it. Or there was one with Simon Sinique where he was interviewing people that were going to a board meeting and he asked them how they were, and he's like, Oh, my heart's racing, I have sweaty palms, and he's like, Well, how do you feel? They said, I feel nervous. But he did the same thing at the Olympics. He's like, Oh, how do you guys feel? They're like, Well, my heart's racing a little bit, I got the sweaty palms, but how do you feel? I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00: 38:58

And that that's an MLP process too, because if people have anxiety, you know, like, because we we attribute the heart rating, the heart racing and sweaty palms being b negative, at least in the Western world in the Americas. So if you transfer that as excitement, your performance is going to increase ten almost tenfold in whatever you do. So this is what I tell people, like, especially when you're about to give a speech, reframe that. No, you're excited. Your your heart is beating faster because you're excited to be up there, you're excited to share your knowledge. And when you're able to transform or reframe, that's a big thing about NLPs, reframe it. Using language to reframe the thoughts and reframe the the language that you use. Because it's important as language. Now, you mentioned a point earlier when it comes to language of the mind, because the language that we use is important, obviously, to other people and we communicate outwardly, but what's also Also important is the communication we we use inwardly, internally, or intra communication. So another thing that another word that you can substitute is the word have to to get to. So a lot of people say, well, I have to go to work tomorrow. No, you get to go to work tomorrow. Or I have to go to the gym. No, you get to go to the gym. That three-letter word, get, now makes it more exciting.

SPEAKER_03: 40:27

That's interesting. I just saw one. I think I mentioned another episode too. It was someone that was saying they were a parent, and they're like, I have to make food. I have to get you ready to go to school. I have to do these things. And then if you reframe that, like you said, people that have not been able to have a baby or have, you know, lost a baby or, you know, things like that, they would love to make food. So they would get, you know, get to make that food or be so excited to prepare your stuff and get the kids out the door. So that is powerful.

SPEAKER_00: 40:57

How many people looking for jobs? Do you know how many people would be happy to go to get to go to work? Or people who are immobile would love to go get to go to the gym. So you have these opportunities. And you know, and every thing I would hear people even who are like, you know, out of a job. Oh, I got I have to go to this job interview. How lucky you are to go on a job interview now in this economy. You get to go on a job interview. You get to that simple shift in language pattern is important. So it's also how you identify because also part of how you function is your identity. And and a lot of NLP work is changing our identity. So if you identify yourself as a struggling or someone who's who's a failure or who's not you're gonna every situation you find yourself in, you're gonna find you're running up against that identity. So one of the things I've learned even going back to my my clinical days, a lot of people unfortunately like to stick with the illness identity or the victim mentality because of the attention or the secondary gain. So interesting. What I found which is surprising and not not surprising anymore at the time it was that a lot of people did not want to get better, did not want to be healed because it meant a change of identity. You're no longer gonna be that depressed person anymore. You're no longer be gonna be that you know anxious person. Because what happens very often is people start identifying themselves as like they don't make it out to say in this way, but it's like, hi, I'm I'm anxiety or hi, I'm depressed.

SPEAKER_02: 42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 42:44

And it becomes part of your identity. And who wants to shed our, you know, change our identity? Nobody does. So that can be inducing anxiety enough, even on a subconscious level, which we're not even aware of.

SPEAKER_03: 42:58

Yeah, sometimes I think it gets overused sometimes as well, too. It seems like it's a little too casual from time to time. I know on TikTok, or you know, you see videos, and somebody will say, Oh, I'm so OCD, I'm so ADD, and that just means they forgot something, or they like to line up their hangers. I'm like, You're kind of using that like, you know, a little too casually.

SPEAKER_00: 43:18

Or, you know, I I have depression because I'm upset today. Welcome to the human right. You're gonna experience a whole variety of emotions that are gonna come up. I mean, we have you know, it's estimated we have about 70,000 thoughts a day that enter our mind. A lot.

SPEAKER_03: 43:33

Jeez, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:35

Well there there's gonna be moments that they're not gonna that they're they may be a little depressing thought momentarily, um on a fleeting moment. But that doesn't mean you have depression, and that doesn't mean you have anxiety just because you have a moment of fear.

SPEAKER_03: 43:50

Yeah, that's definitely true.

SPEAKER_00: 43:52

And and that leads me to the whole nother thing about social media, you know, uh um dependent. And and a lot of studies have found that the more people that spend on social media, especially Gen Zers and and young youngsters, when they're spending time on social media, they're more likely to be depressed, they're more likely to have anxiety because that's all they're seeing, and that's all they're hearing is this. And it's the whole idea of social comparison.

SPEAKER_03: 44:21

Yeah, it's tough. That was something I wanted to mention earlier, and I kind of lost the train of thought, but social media is so rough, I think, for that grit and growth mindset going back to like the baby falling it down, because social media only shows the highs. You don't show anything negative, you show the good days, the family vacations. I mean, we look at shows like Shark Tank where they pitch an idea and it gets picked up, and but that that person's probably had 50 businesses before that. They've failed a bunch of businesses. And all we see is the one win.

SPEAKER_00: 44:52

And not only that, okay, so let's say they got a deal. There's so many times, and I've heard this over the years with Shark Tank when they made these deals that they fell flat soon after, or that the business went down. And one thing that and going back to the whole idea of a different perspective, I I I I like the show, and I I think the the investors up there, you know, are brilliant people, but that's only a person's opinion. Because I've seen so many times with Shartech or other times where people were shot down by investors and now are mo mo you know making seven or eight figures from their business because they didn't give up. Maybe it had to revive the re re you know, re-shape a few things, but they they never gave up. Because it's just coming in opinion. That's all it is. It's the same thing going to see a movie that well, the critics loved it. Well, now who the heck are the critics? That's just one person's point of view.

SPEAKER_03: 45:52

I'd rather see the the popular opinion over the critics most of the time. Well, Albert, let's try to bring all this together. If someone's listening right now and they're really curious about growth mindset, lifelong learning, and NLP that we talked about today, what would be your final takeaway?

SPEAKER_00: 46:10

Well, I would say definitely the the growth mind I would tie it all together, just being a lifelong learner. There's so many stuff. If you're interested in NLP and growth mindset, there's a lot of free stuff on YouTube, on Udemy, so you can learn all about it about these topics. You can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. I'm also working on developing a Substack right now, too, which I'll be posting a lot of articles and short form content. So relating to these topics. And again, so follow me on LinkedIn as Albert Bramati. I'd also recommend checking out my book, Rise Above the Script. It's on Amazon, a Kindle and audiobook. And yeah, just keep in touch.

SPEAKER_03: 46:50

Awesome. Well, Albert, this conversation was packed with practical wisdom and deep insight. Thank you for sharing your story and energy with us. I'll post the links or whatever you send over. We'll try to get that posted, the book included to all of our listeners. If this episode sparks something in you, pass it on, send it to a friend, maybe drop a review and let us know what resonated the most. As always, I love you all. See ya.