07: Breaking Mental Barriers: Overcoming Confirmation Bias for Entrepreneurial Success and Personal Growth

Ever wondered how your own brain could be tricking you, limiting your success and potential growth? Brace yourself as we delve into the subconscious mind and the cognitive tendencies that shape our thought processes. I'm Jeffrey Mort, a certified integrative health practitioner and consulting hypnotist, and today we unpack the concept of confirmation bias - a cognitive bias that might be keeping you from exploring new ideas and perspectives. We'll discuss how it operates, its implications for entrepreneurs, and the powerful tools such as hypnosis, cognitive behavioral therapy, and neurolinguistic programming that can help dismantle this mental barrier.

Our journey doesn't end there; together, we'll uncover how our subconscious mind responds to our conscious thinking and how you can leverage this understanding to break boundaries and reach your goals. I'll share a five-point plan, derived from the NeuroTRUST Method, to help you overcome confirmation bias and reprogram your subconscious mind. Moreover, we'll dive into the importance of believing in yourself and the necessity of taking action. So, gear up for a mind-opening session with me on the Breaking Boundaries podcast. Remember, knowledge is only powerful when it's applied, so get ready to challenge your beliefs and broaden your perspective.

🌟 Love Energy Wellness is excited to partner with EquiLife for an incredible Summer Sale from July 8th-21st! Enjoy 10% off storewide, 25% off community favorites, 10% off single labs, and 30% off first month of new subscriptions.  Use code loveenergywellness for an extra 10% off! Don’t miss out on these amazing deals and surprises! SHOP NOW 🌟 #SummerSale #HealthAndWellness #EquiLife

Join us for the 2024 Reimagining Health Summit, hosted by the Integrative Health Practitioner Institute, from October 23-25 in Orlando, FL. Experience cutting-edge wellness innovations, interactive exhibitions, and inspiring talks from top experts. Network with like-minded individuals and connect with health practitioners. Use code LIVE100 to save $100 on tickets. Secure your spot today!
[Register here]

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:04

Welcome back boundary breakers. Today we delve into the extraordinary rewards awaiting those who dare to challenge their own certainties. Get ready to unlock your hidden potential and witness the awe-inspiring transformation that emerges when we break free from the boundaries that bind our own thoughts. Hello, i'm Jeffrey Mort. If you're like most entrepreneurs, you're busy taking care of business, yet who's taking care of you? As a certified integrative health practitioner and consulting hypnotist, i'm widely considered a leader for naturally improving energy and performance, as I've coached world-renowned entrepreneurs and athletes to higher performance, health and unstoppable confidence. Here you'll find no wasted time as we distill my unique blend of functional medicine, ancient wisdom and subconscious reprogramming into actionable steps to create ultra-healthy and laser-focused super achievers. If you're ready to take your energy and performance to the next level in your life and your business, then this podcast is for you, because today you're going to start breaking boundaries of your mind, body and business with integrative health, and when you do that, your possibilities are limitless. I'm grateful you're here. Welcome to episode seven of the Breaking Boundaries Podcast for Entrepreneurs. Naturally, you want to stay till the end when we bring it all together for you to avoid failure and reach your next level of success, and for all the show notes and links, visit JeffreyMortcom and simply click on podcast.

Speaker 1: 3:41

Today's Mind Your Monday episode, titled Don't Believe Everything That You Think, is about a subconscious habit known as confirmation bias, which refers to the cognitive tendency of individuals to seek, interpret and remember information in a way that confirms their existing beliefs or preconceptions, while disregarding or downplaying contradictory evidence. It can lead to the formation of inaccurate or skewed beliefs, as individuals entrepreneurs in this case actively seek confirmation rather than objective truth. This is confirmation bias. I first learned about this some time ago in training on my journey to becoming an expert in hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming, nlp, and understanding their application to confirmation bias to help clients overcome limiting beliefs and thoughts. Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that affects perception by causing individuals to selectively interpret and remember information in a way that confirms their preexisting beliefs or hypothesis, while disregarding and downplaying contradictory evidence. This bias acts as a filter, you could say shaping our perception of reality and reinforcing our existing viewpoints, potentially leading to the reinforcement of false beliefs and the exclusion of alternative perspectives. This filter is influenced by something that's called the reticular activating system, the RAS, and it's a network of neurons that lies between the brainstem and the thalamus. The RAS is responsible for regulating our levels of consciousness and regulates our behavior by filtering out unnecessary and conflicting information we receive from our environment. This could be why you don't know what you don't know. The RAS is in charge and it has been taking first impressions, downloads and bits of information as the only model of reality since you were a child, as an entrepreneur facing an unknown boundary in life and business due to confirmation bias.

Speaker 1: 6:08

One's preconceived beliefs and selective perception may hinder the exploration of new ideas and perspectives. The inability to objectively assess information may restrict growth. It may limit innovation and lead to missed opportunities in both personal and professional realms. The exploration of psychological mechanisms behind confirmation bias seeks to understand why individuals tend to favor information that confirms their preexisting beliefs while downplaying the contradictory evidence. Researchers have identified various cognitive processes that contribute to confirmation bias, including selective attention, motivated reasoning and memory biases. So by studying these mechanisms, psychologists aim to develop strategies and interventions that can help individuals overcome confirmation bias and promote more balanced and objective thinking. In the modality of psychology, a common strategy would be cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, which tends to require many sessions, sometimes years of sessions, with little progress compared to other, more effective modalities such as clinical hypnosis. Ultimately, research demonstrates that the brain is designed for keeping you safe, keeping you alive and for being energy efficient through automations such as accepting what we already know as the best way. So confirmation bias in entrepreneurs is often characterized by an excessive attachment to their preconceived ideas. Now, i could go on a whole tangent here about attachment, but we're going to save that for another episode, and also disregarding the contradictory evidence that we spoke about earlier and seeking out information that confirms their existing beliefs, leading to a very narrow perspective and potential missed opportunities for growth and innovation. Additionally, entrepreneurs affected by confirmation bias may display a tendency to surround themselves with other like-minded individuals or seek validation from sources that only align with their viewpoints, reinforcing their bias and hindering critical evaluation of alternative strategies and perspectives. So, in short, confirmation bias can keep you stuck.

Speaker 1: 8:47

Allow me to introduce you to the power of hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming as effective tools to reframe and reprogram the mind and to overcome boundaries such as confirmation bias. Hypnosis has the potential to bypass confirmation bias by inducing a deeply relaxed state and bypassing the critical conscious mind thinking. Imagine that, allowing access to the powerful subconscious mind, in this state, individuals become more receptive to suggestions and are more open to considering alternative perspectives and beliefs. Through repeated exposure to new ideas and suggestions, hypnosis can help create new neural pathways, challenging deeply ingrained biases and facilitating the formation of new, more adaptive thought patterns. Now for NLP. Those techniques can aid in identifying biased beliefs by analyzing patterns of language Now that's what NLP is it's neurolinguistic programming, so it's programming of language patterns and also detecting implicit biases or stereotypes present in text or language. Furthermore, by providing counter examples, alternative perspectives or factual information, nlp can assist in challenging bias beliefs and promoting more balanced and inclusive understanding.

Speaker 1: 10:24

As an illustration of real-life success stories using hypnosis and NLP to overcome confirmation bias, i've personally experienced a deep level of transformation and a higher level of success by exploring these two very powerful tools, and having a trusted and professional coach was important to me. I know that there's many common misconceptions and concerns about hypnosis and NLP, so let's address those right now. Those could be things like stage hypnosis or hypnosis portrayed in Hollywood movies, and of course, nlp has a very dark side as well, and hypnosis can have a dark side too, for unethical persuasion and influence. But rest assured, this is not a concern in a clinical or professional coach setting. So I want to give you today a five-point plan to overcome confirmation bias, and I've covered some of these topics in a previous episode. We'll talk about that in a little bit.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Point one is awareness. Now I encourage you, entrepreneurs, to recognize your own confirmation bias patterns by asking helpful questions like is this thought true or is this belief serving me, or is there evidence that is contrary to what I hold as truth? It's not that often as entrepreneurs or business people or just human beings, that we go through life questioning our own beliefs. But I ask you to have an awareness around your thoughts and around your belief systems to know if these are holding you back. So point number two a mindset shift.

Speaker 1: 12:04

Let me give you some techniques to reframe limiting beliefs. It's awareness, as we talked about in point one, and then interrupt and reframe. So that's A-I-R Awareness. Interrupt and reframe Awareness by self-evaluation questions, like we talked about in point one. Interrupt by stopping the thought pattern Remember you are the thinker of your thoughts, so you have this personal power and then reframe using cognitive flexibility. So what is cognitive flexibility? Well, that brings us to point number three, and that is exploring methods as simple as researching with curiosity, or more in-depth methods such as professionally guided neurolinguistic programming and hypnosis sessions to open up to alternative perspectives that you otherwise could not have imagined.

Speaker 1: 12:58

So, moving on to point four, always be seeking diverse information. I highly advise entrepreneurs to actively seek contradictory evidence. Make it a habit to question your beliefs. And then, point number five, accountability. It's clear that emphasizing the importance of holding oneself accountable for biased thinking will help lead to success. And this is between you and you, my friend. Hold yourself accountable, so you call the action. As you already know, today I am 100% committed to your success And therefore I encourage you to implement that five-point plan in your lives and in your business. And you can go to the show notes to catch that five-point plan, but again to cover it it's. Point one is awareness, point two was the mindset shift, point three was the cognitive flexibility. Point four is to always be seeking diverse information, and point five is self-accountability.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Some practical steps and resources to get you started with hypnosis and NLP techniques would be, of course, books, maybe on Amazon. Now, if you look up NLP books on Amazon, most likely the first ones that pop up are going to be referenced to the dark side of neuro-linguistic programming and persuasion and influence, and you certainly don't want to follow those. Now, there is a light side to everything. Everything has a yin and a yang, a light and a dark. You know plus and a minus. Neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis are no different. Just be sure that you're delving into information that's going to be helpful to you and not going to be used. You know in any kind of dark way. Podcasts, of course, so you can go back and listen to Breaking Boundaries podcast, episode three. That was on self-sabotage and that's where we dove a little bit more into that air technique, the awareness, and interrupt and reframe or reprogram technique. And yes, even on YouTube you can find some great resources on neuro-linguistic programming techniques and hypnosis audios as well. And then, if you're serious about hypnosis, you can go to the National Guild of Hypnotists website, that's nghnet, and you can go to their link that's Find Hypnotists and you can look in their directory there. And of course, i offer support or guidance for those who may need additional assistance by way of a free 90-minute consultation to confirm that we're a good fit to work and explore our transformational reprogramming for unlimited success technique of hypnosis. If you're interested in that, we'll link that up in the show notes as well.

Speaker 1: 15:44

So what are the consequences of inaction? You're probably thinking there's potential negative impact of continuing to operate under confirmation bias, and you are correct. Impact such as missed opportunities, stagnation in life and business potential, business failures. Keep in mind the statistics are businesses fail at a rate of 20% in year one, 50% by year five and 70% of businesses fail by year 10. And you don't want to be in that statistic group and I certainly don't want you to be there either. There can be consequences on personal relationships and really overall fulfillment in life. It's no surprise that taking zero action will bring you zero results, but, as a matter of fact, it's not going to be zero results. It's going to put you further behind because time has passed where you did nothing, so the results are going to be less than zero.

Speaker 1: 16:43

I'd like to take this opportunity, though, to reinforce the importance of taking immediate steps to overcome confirmation bias, and that first step could just be going through that five point plan. So overcoming confirmation bias leads to personal and professional growth by opening up new perspectives and expanding our understanding of the world. Really, by actively seeking out diverse opinions and challenging our own beliefs, we gain a deeper appreciation for different viewpoints and develop stronger critical thinking skills. This growth allows us to make more informed decisions, collaborate more effectively with others and foster a culture of inclusivity, innovation and progress. Ultimately, transcending confirmation bias empowers us to reach our full potential and create positive change in both our personal lives and our professional endeavors.

Speaker 1: 17:43

Talk about breaking a boundary. So by now, you're probably thinking of the potential for improved decision making and problem solving skills by overcoming your own limiting beliefs. And, of course, as an entrepreneur, you are interested in the positive impact on business outcomes and entrepreneurial success. The feedback I get from my NeuroTrust Hypnosis clients. It's really fulfilling, especially when they share inspiring stories of overcoming limiting beliefs, resistant thought patterns and, yes, even confirmation bias, and finally achieving their goals that they were looking for.

Speaker 1: 18:21

I can't emphasize enough the long-term benefits and reward that came from breaking free from my own confirmation bias and limitations.

Speaker 1: 18:31

So to wrap things up here recap the key points discussed throughout the episode Confirmation bias is a personal and professional growth boundary.

Speaker 1: 18:42

You have the personal power to overcome your limitations and it's clear that you know the proven strategy to do so and where to turn for support.

Speaker 1: 18:52

So I encourage you to reflect on your own confirmation bias tendencies and to take action to course correct. And my final thought here the fact that you're still listening means that you found value in this episode and in my confidence in the effectiveness of hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming and the five-point plan of our NeuroTrust method to overcome boundaries like confirmation bias that you may be unaware of. So I'd like to ask a favor in exchange for my commitment to your success and you simply taking one minute to leave a positive review to the Breaking Boundaries podcast right now, if you would, so we can reach and serve more people with these free, educational episodes and for that I appreciate you And to end with a positive and motivational message to inspire change and growth. If we want to reach our goals, we must upgrade our belief system and remember you have the personal power within you to break boundaries by believing that your subconscious mind respond accordingly to your conscious mind thinking. I'll see you next time.