Looking for Evidence

00:00:01 - Andrew Dewar

Welcome to the Five Year You podcast, a show dedicated to helping you become the best version of yourself one day at a time. I'm Andrew.

00:00:09 - Catherine Collins

And I'm Cat. And we promise to keep it raw, real and relatable.

00:00:15 - Andrew Dewar

Are you ready to grow? This podcast is intended to entertain, educate, and inspire you on a personal journey towards your best self. We are in no position to give advice and our hot messes on the best of our days. Clearly, we're in no position to offer health or medical advice or really any life advice, but we want to entertain you. Just a reminder, this is not a replacement for proper medical care or therapy. If you are struggling, please seek help from a qualified health professional. Let's jump in. Is your brain setting you up for failure? Let's dive in. Today's episode is called looking for evidence. Our intention is that you begin to bring awareness to how your brain works. Cat, you brought this up to me before the podcast saying you really wanted to talk about this. So give us a little bit of insight as to looking for evidence, what that means, and all the things I.

00:01:11 - Catherine Collins

Learned about this from a life coach podcast many years ago, and it's such an interesting concept. The idea behind it is that we have to thoughts every day and our brain works like a computer and is scanning our surroundings for evidence that we are right. That is like a natural human state. That's how our brain works, our brain scans to protect and, you know, to confirm our beliefs and sometimes our biases. Like, the best example I can give is, let's say that you go to work every day at an office and you believe that your boss doesn't like you. You just got this feeling, you just kind of have this idea. And so all day long, your brain, unbeknownst to you, is scanning for evidence of that. So maybe your boss, like, gave a big sigh in a meeting after you were done talking, or maybe your boss went out to lunch with a co worker and not you. You're just storing all of these pieces of information in a file because you believe that and you want to confirm that it's true. But there might be moments where the opposite is happening, but you just kind of ignore those because your brain is trying to make you believe that you're right. And the reason this concept is important is because if your brain is always scanning to confirm your thoughts, well, then it can just as easily confirm good, positive, productive thoughts as it does for the bad ones. And so the idea is to learn how to train your mind to constantly be scanning for the good, for the positives for the reasons to keep going.

00:03:03 - Andrew Dewar

That makes perfect sense. I think part of what sticks out when you're saying that is we all have those situations. The word that kept coming up to my. Coming up to my brain, which couldn't find that word easily enough, geez. Was always. And I think there's that generality of, like, this always happens to me, or I always miss the bus. I always get left out. I always this. And it's never something, like, really positive. It's always something in the negatives, like, I'm always the last pick for school activities.

00:03:36 - Catherine Collins

Yeah.

00:03:36 - Andrew Dewar

Mental note. I might need to dive into that one a little personally after the episode, but when we're looking at these things, it. It really is like, the words you say aren't coming out of anywhere. They're coming from, like, you know, your. Your thoughts, your, like, underlined programming, your brain's going like, this person doesn't like me. This person doesn't like me. This person doesn't like me. And this is the craziest thing about that, is that we would way rather not get invited and go, ha, see, I didn't get invited this time. They do not like me. Then the other nine times, it's like, well, yeah, but they invited you nine times before that, and you said no every time. Your brain just isn't registering that.

00:04:15 - Catherine Collins

Yeah, I want to make a clear distinction between finding evidence and following your instincts. This is very different from you getting this gut feeling that someone's a bad person or that there's red flags in a relationship or something like that. We're not talking about your gut instinct. We are talking about the regular thoughts that you have in your head. And if you are having a hard time and if life isn't going the way you want and you want to improve different areas of your life by five years to be the five year you. This is just one technique that we like to use to try to change the story in our head. So I don't want everyone to be like, well, I thought he was a bad guy, but maybe I need to look for evidence that he's a good guy. It's like, no, no, this is not a dating show. But instincts are one thing. Gut feelings are one thing. We're talking about how you relate to yourself. Are you choosing thoughts that serve you, or are you choosing thoughts that hurt you?

00:05:16 - Andrew Dewar

That's exactly it. And it's a little bit of an eye opener when you start to do it, because you've kind of have to. You got to take off the blinders and look at yourself and go, okay, how am I really seeing this situation? Is it really the truth, or is it the truth that I need to see? There is a great expression that I want our listeners to hear, and it's served me for 20 years. So from the day I was born, I'm 45, people. Just for sake of the reference to that terrible joke I just made, the statement is, would you rather be right or would you rather be happy? And sadly enough, most of us would rather be right, because it does something in our brains that makes us feel validated, vindicated, whatever, and it makes us miserable. It's so weird. But, yeah, setting yourself up for failure, looking at all these things is easier, and it makes us kind of get trapped in that loop, even though part of ourselves is going like, well, no, I'd rather be happy. Well, yeah, you would, probably. But your thoughts that are underlying all this are not supporting that you have to make a shift, and it doesn't happen overnight, but it just becomes that. I think one of the statements is, I can choose happiness over this. And that is a really powerful statement. But those are the little things that you start to do where you're like, right, I'm just looking for validation here. This isn't actually what's happening. I'm going to choose happiness.

00:06:43 - Catherine Collins

And you get to choose the words that you use to describe yourself in your own head, too, right? You get to choose between feast and famine. You get to choose between victim, survivor. Just to give, like, another example from my own life. One thing I always joke about, and this is me being self reflective. And this is what we are encouraging you to do as listeners. I always say, like, oh, I'm the worst at housework. I'm a mess because I put it last, right? I put work first, and, you know, the babies first. And, like. And I get to the end of the day and I'm like, ah, whatever. Sleep over dishes, you know? And so I kind of perpetuate this thing. Like, I'm a mess, I'm a mess, I'm a mess. But what happens? I keep being a mess. I create my own evidence to support the fact that I have trouble keeping my house up. And if I look really deep within me, I can say, well, Catherine, are you being a little victimy? Are you being like, poor me, I'm a single mom. I don't have any help. These kids need to learn how to help me with the laundry. Oh, my gosh. No one helps me in this house. What am I doing to perpetuate this thought. So not only do we look for evidence, sometimes we create our own evidence because we want that to be true. Because it serves some sort of need, it provides some type of excuse. I see that in a lot of different categories for me.

00:08:05 - Andrew Dewar

I see it in myself, too. I mean, when we are doing those things, a lot of this stuff is decades and decades long. Sometimes it's generational stuff, too, that we're not even consciously aware of until a conversation like this happens or somebody points out and goes, do you know that you always say that? And you. And you go, do you know that you always say your house is a mess? And you're like, no, I never noticed that. And, like, you know, like, your house is actually pretty clean. Like, you haven't seen a messy. A truly messy house. You think yours is messy because you have a vision of what it should be, but it's actually a really clean place. And when you make that little shift, then you start to look for more evidence on that, and it's like, yeah, my countertops are really clean. Oh, my gosh. Clean countertops are, like, 90% a clean house. That is a great stat, by the way. It's not accurate, but it's a great.

00:08:58 - Catherine Collins

That you just completely made up. Beautiful.

00:09:00 - Andrew Dewar

That I just completely. You know, Catherine, 98.6% of stats are made up on the spot, and that is something you can take to the bank. But if you're looking for all the things that reinforce something and, you know, your brain is doing this, this is fantastic news. I mean, you start to come out of it and go, okay, I can.

00:09:21 - Catherine Collins

Think whatever I want.

00:09:22 - Andrew Dewar

I can think whatever I want. I can look for this. I can look for that. I used to have a terrible. And I mean absolutely terrible. I don't even know what the right word is. Ouch. Well, there's a complex that just got. And this is how complexes are formed in people. That's all it takes. You just need to pause. Yeah, it was a very long, long pause, and I'm very regretting it right now. I'm going to need to shower so many more times today.

00:09:51 - Catherine Collins

I was just.

00:09:52 - Andrew Dewar

And just so everybody's clear who's listening, Catherine and I are in different countries. And for her to say this is like. I'm like, dang, she can smell that from here. All right, okay.

00:10:04 - Catherine Collins

I thought I was in my place by myself.

00:10:06 - Andrew Dewar

I'm like, okay, gotta. Gotta burn more candles or air freshener or deodorant or something.

00:10:11 - Catherine Collins

You can do, like, my son and just spray axe all over yourself.

00:10:15 - Andrew Dewar

Perfect. Actually, what I was gonna say was I continuously told myself I was unlucky. You know, like people would be like, do you want to buy a 50 50 ticket? Which are like, you know, half goes to the club, half goes to the winner. And I was always like, why bother doing this? I may as well just give like the $10 to the club rather than even try to get five back myself. And you and I have talked about this offset, but I did some work around that with theta healing work and energy work, and then everything started to change. Suddenly I was winning the 50 fifties. And I told you, I recently won a trip, like, to anywhere in the world. And I'm like, so cool. Part of me wants to say, this doesn't happen to me because I know.

00:10:56 - Catherine Collins

See, that's, that's the pattern. That's the trench.

00:10:59 - Andrew Dewar

Exactly. But now when I'm buying stuff, you know, I mean, I don't do lottery or anything like that. If I do, maybe it's once a year. And now I'm like, I always win these things. And I'm just telling myself this more and more because I'm trying to look for more proof for it. But I'm saying this too, to, to make people realize that it's not like a switch, it's more of like a dimmer. You start looking for proof for other things you start finding. And as you do that, you're going to see a lot of proof. As more proof comes in, it's going to expand and you're going to feel better and better and better. And that's what we want for you. We want you to start seeing the little successes. Because five years can feel like a long time in the day to day. And if you aren't looking for those little micro changes, those little things, you're not going to progress as fast as you might want to. But when you start to look for those things and you see them, you're just shifting one degree at a time and suddenly you're going 180 degrees from the way you were. And it didn't take you that long. It just took a few little switches one day at a time. And that's a big, big difference in your life.

00:12:06 - Catherine Collins

This is really a mindset exercise. You can apply this to so many different areas of your life. We talk about money mindset a lot, and one of the first things that we ask people is, well, what do you think about rich people? And if you have the thought and the belief that rich people are evil and they, you know, steal from greedy. They're greedy. Well, then you're going to look for evidence of that. You're going to be cut off by a really nice car while you're driving. You're going to be like, rich jerk or whatever. But there's an equal amount of evidence of very wealthy people being incredibly generous, doing all sorts of things with their money. I mean, you could pull up just as many examples. Right. So it's sort of your choice how you want to see it and your brain doesn't want to become the things that you don't like. So if you are always saying, oh, rich people are jerks, well, you're going to actively take steps subconsciously to not become that. Because why would you want to become somebody who's a jerk? We're inviting you to think very carefully about who you want to become. Five, within the next five years. What process do you want to go through, what do you want to look like, how do you want to act and behave and then continuously monitor your thoughts anytime you think something that is contrary to that, because that's a block to the person you want to be.

00:13:38 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah. And your language is going to tip you off, too. I mentioned the always statement, but you don't even need to say stuff. You can just be around someone. Like when you said rich person, I had like a, just a little switch.

00:13:54 - Catherine Collins

Yeah.

00:13:54 - Andrew Dewar

And I noticed it because I definitely, I've had to do work on this area. I'm way better than I ever have been before. But sometimes these things, they are in there from childhood and generational things and you have to look at them and go like, oh, why did I feel like that? Why did I feel like that when this person came towards me? Why did I feel like this when this other person won? And I think that's another big one when you see somebody winning something. So everybody, like for listener that's hearing. When I said I want a trip, what was your thought there? Did you think, must be nice, or did you think, wow, that is so good, I'm so happy for you? Or did you think, that never happens to me? What was the thought there? Because there was one. There always is. We're always thinking that one statement could tell you so much about your abundance mindset if you're looking for success, if you're looking for failure, because the reality is, if you looked at that and you thought, must be nice, jerk. Well, it's a little hurtful, but that's okay. A little bit harsh. But here's the kicker. You will never get to experience those things and enjoy them because you are having that experience. You are thinking, people who win things are jerks. That's it. And if you thought, man, I really just love you because, like, you're such a lucky and fantastic person, well, that means you're a lovely and fantastic person has nothing to do with me.

00:15:27 - Catherine Collins

My experience that you thought the same thing as me.

00:15:34 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah. I'm gonna get a whole bunch of emails, like, can I come on the trip? And I don't know, you know, but thanks. Thanks for reaching out. We always like to hear from you. My point in saying this is we always talk about getting out of the painting. Right? Like stepping out of. Out of your head and kind of looking like. And going, okay, look at what Andrew's thinking. Look what Cat's thinking. What am I thinking about this topic? And it can be anything. If you are wanting to be this person that five years from now is massively abundant, success focused, and you're not that way today, that's great because that means you've noticed it. And once you bring awareness to something, you can begin to change. And there's over a million different ways to get there. We're not going to get into those today, but the biggest thing is going, okay, I want to be successful. I want to be happy. I don't want to be. Right. Okay, great. Next conversation you have with someone where you're arguing to the bone about how this thing has to be this way, step back and go, you know, I'd rather be happy. I'm just going to stand back and let this person believe what they believe because they're going to do it anyway. You don't have to convince the world of anything. You just have to be your best version of yourself, your true self, your authentic self.

00:16:50 - Catherine Collins

Our hope for you is that maybe we encouraged you to have a little bit more self reflection. And your homework, should you choose to accept your mission, is to simply monitor your thoughts at first and try to find what types of evidence you're collecting for different things in your life and challenge yourself to find a different version of your story.

00:17:20 - Andrew Dewar

Cat, what are you going to examine for yourself?

00:17:23 - Catherine Collins

I'm definitely working on money mindset issues. I wouldn't say issues. You know, I've definitely run the full gamut. And so I'm getting ready to move. I'm getting ready to, like, shift around some priorities, and I am going to look for evidence that I'm great with money, that I am on the path to wealth. I'm looking for evidence that I am somebody who can be wealthy. I'm on the path to wealth. I'm excellent with money. And maybe I will also tackle my good with laundry thoughts. Maybe I will be the best laundry folder on the planet. You never know.

00:18:07 - Andrew Dewar

Wow. I've known you a long time, and I think that's a great. The money thing. I'm like, yeah, you got that. But the laundry thing, I want us to report back on this.

00:18:17 - Catherine Collins

You're like, she wrote a money book. Easy laundry.

00:18:20 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah, that's good. I like that.

00:18:24 - Catherine Collins

How about you? What are you gonna work on?

00:18:26 - Andrew Dewar

I think what I'm gonna work on is that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. You've known me a long time, and I feel like I always want to be further ahead. I think a lot of us feel that way. But when I am feeling further ahead, I feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be in this moment. And the truth is, I'm supposed to be here. I should be present. I shouldn't be thinking about whatever I have to do later or what I can do to get to where I want to be. I understand that the energy I have in being present is going to be the most important thing. And so I am a present person, and that's the thing that I'm definitely not. And I really want to bring that into my reality because I think by being present with myself and with others, that's really the best gift. That's why they call it the present.

00:19:19 - Catherine Collins

Actually, that is a very good segue to my glimmer for this week. Is it okay if I shift to the Glimmer stone?

00:19:25 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah, I was going to google what a segue is, but you go ahead.

00:19:32 - Catherine Collins

Every day, folks. Yes. Good segue. So here are the glimmers. So glimmers. Glimmers are the sparkly, happy things that we want to share with you. It could be a book that we're reading, an app that we're trying, or just something that made us smile, something want to share with you. And my glimmer really relates to what you just said. So every night before dinner with my twins, we always say what we're grateful for that day. That's, like, our form of grace. That's our thing to just. I thought I was doing good. We've been doing. What are you grateful for? For years and years and years. But I have noticed that all of us could use a little bit of exercising the contentment muscle. I'm really glad I brought this up to my kids, because I said, okay in addition to what are you grateful for? I also want you to say, what are you content with? And my son said, well, what does that mean? And I realized, like, being content, the concept of contentment might actually be something that has to be taught. And so I explained that it's when you're happy with what you have and you're not constantly wanting something else. And so I said, so I'll give the example. I'm content with my car. I have an old car. It is eleven years old. It's completely paid for. Could I go out and buy a new car? Yes. Could I go out and buy a really nice new car?

00:20:53 - Andrew Dewar

Yep.

00:20:54 - Catherine Collins

With a nice big car note. And I don't want to do that. So I'm content with my car. Is.

00:20:59 - Andrew Dewar

She got issues?

00:21:00 - Catherine Collins

But, you know, she's great. She works. I maintain her all as well. And so I got the kids to say something that they were content with. It was really good exercise. I'm gonna try it. I don't know of every single day, you know, but it really is different from gratitude. Contentment is like a whole different ballgame. So that is my glimmer, something I'm really happy I tried and would recommend.

00:21:22 - Andrew Dewar

That is awesome. First of all, it's awesome that you get to explain that to your children. And they're getting to explore that concept when they haven't discovered it yet. It's amazing. I think, as a parent, we forget how much our kids don't know. And I think, you know, like, they go off to school and they do all their things, and we just assume that they're learning sometimes that they just know the things that we've known forever or that we learned. And again, they're just running subconsciously. But that contentment, one is a big thing. So, like, good on you to see it and to now give your kids. Again, this ties into it, looking for evidence as to what to be content for, because it's a mindset shift of being like, look, I want lots of things, but I'm also. If I don't get any of those things, I'm still really good. I'm great. I'm happy where I am. So I absolutely love that my glimmer is super shallow. I went and bought myself an infrared sauna, like a little pop up tent.

00:22:24 - Catherine Collins

That's not shallow. That's cool.

00:22:26 - Andrew Dewar

It is. But, I mean, like, you just. You always do this where. See, I'm using the word always, folks. You see how I'm not bringing these things full circle, but you have, like, one of us usually has, like, this really, really nice, heartfelt one. The other one's like, I got a thing. I like stuff. I like stuff. But I'm really into making sure my health is optimal in the last couple of months.

00:22:50 - Catherine Collins

It's good for your health. I don't think that's.

00:22:52 - Andrew Dewar

It is. And I've been enjoying it. There's a whole bunch of benefits to farm for red saunas and whatnot. And I like that. It's, like, collapsible. So, I mean, in theory, I could travel with it. I'm not going to, but I like that, you know, if I need to make the space, it's not like this permanent structure that I have to adjust in the condo by any means. So really, really grateful for that. It's been part of my nighttime routine. I go in, I have a nice sauna, shower, get ready for bed, and it's just like this new part of my nighttime routine because sleep is the most important thing for me. So I've been really enjoying that the last few weeks since I got it to the point where I didn't get around to doing it the last few days, and I really, really missed it. And then last night I had it, and, like, my. My deep sleep was like 2 hours. My rem was 2 hours. It just really, really, really helps for me. Nice.

00:23:44 - Catherine Collins

I like that. I think that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. We are rooting for you, and we hope that you enjoyed this episode.

00:23:55 - Andrew Dewar

Well, thank you for listening. Remember, it doesn't matter where you've started from or where you're coming from. It matters where you're going.

00:24:02 - Catherine Collins

And we are rooting for.