 So in this video, you'll be learning how to overcome regret. I got my good friend, Clayton Elliott. What's up, brother? How you doing? Good, buddy. Good to be here. Hey, thanks for dropping by. We're kind of doing the whole Jerry Seinfeld thing, commuting in cars. Yeah. We're like just two random people in cars. We're not as cool as Jerry Seinfeld yet. Not yet. Yeah, right, that's yet. And the reason why I have Clayton over here is Clayton for the last couple of years has been studying human psychology, has been studying regret, and has been studying fear a lot. And him and I just had a cappuccino. We're talking about regret. I'm like, man, we've got to make a video right now. So why don't we first start off with a major question, is what in the world is regret? Regret is an emotion that we feel that it's a negative emotion. It's a fear-based emotion. And everybody has an experience of it. Very few people have the awareness of why we feel it. Where it comes from. Why is it so powerful in shaping our decisions and or lack thereof, you know, actions and lack thereof? And like I said, it ties back to fear. Fear is that other four letter F word that no one really wants to speak and utter because it's taboo and we have all different words for it like, you know, I'm stressed or I'm anxious or I'm worried or I'm concerned. Really they're just saying I'm scared. And no one wants to admit that. But how regret ties into that is humans, the part of your brain, the fear center of your brain is the most primitive part of your brain. It is the bottom lower back part of your brain. It is the fight, flight, fight, fight or fright response. And how it ties into regret is humans are risk-aversive. We don't want to do things and we'll be resistant to doing things and hesitate all the time in taking any action that might result in pain, discomfort or loss of any kind. So when you think it to yourself, what are the things that make you feel regret? What are the things you really want to do that you feel pulled towards but there's this feeling of, if I do this and it doesn't work, what am I out? What am I gonna lose? How will I feel regret? So to really zero in and narrow in on regret, there's two specific types of experience of regret. People, when it might explain them to you, they'll understand but most people are not unaware of the distinction and the very important difference in how you experience it and how you can overcome it. So there's regrets of omission and regrets of commission. Regrets of regrettable action and regrettable inaction. The difference is I wanna, let's say, make a video posted on YouTube. I have something I wanna share. I got information I think is gonna be a value to people and so I have this idea I wanna make a video and there's two choices now. Either the regret that I'm feeling in the beginning, anticipation of what if this doesn't work, what if no one likes it, what if I fail, what if they laugh at me, what if they criticize me, what if they mock me? All these feelings will make you feel, oh, well then I'm gonna regret doing this. I feel like I might regret doing this. There's a fear that comes up and so you don't do it. Down the road, you keep thinking to yourself, keeps coming up. Why didn't I do that video? I really wanna do that video. I have something of value to share people. Why am I not doing this video? Why am I avoiding this? Now you have regrettable inaction, a regret of omission, something you've opted out of. And let's say I do the video and I actually make the video and let's say people mock me and they hate the video and they laugh at me and they ridicule me. Now I'm sitting here in the aftermath of doing the video feeling regret, feeling the regret of man, I wish I didn't do that video. You know, people didn't like it. People were laughing at me. The difference is the regrettable action doesn't last long. The regret you feel after doing something, there's all the, I'll spare you the details. There's a whole lot of research been put into this. So it's more of a pain for the regrets out of things, for the one that you take no action in. So let's say I have two scenarios. One is like, let me go build this business, let me go put all my heart and soul into it, let me sink all my money and like fuck it, let's just do it. You do what you feel, whatever. That regret will peak after that peak it drops down. Yeah, it drops. However, let's say I do that again, but I don't take action. I don't actually go towards my dream. That regrets things more. It lasts longer. And so the whole concept is, is the temporal perspective of confidence, meaning to some of what that means, the closer you get to an action, the moment of truth, where you gotta act. You have lots of confidence. Closer you get to it, the confidence starts to diminish. You start to doubt, you start to hesitate, you start to resist. If you take action in that moment and you get the result you want, you're not gonna feel regret. You're gonna feel the bliss and the joy of success, of actually taking action and reaping the benefits of action. If that moment comes and you don't take it and you don't take action, the further you get away from that moment of truth when you could have acted, the more confident you're gonna start feeling again and the more regret you're gonna feel. It stays with you and it does not end. It only gets worse and worse and worse with time. Regrettable action, you do something, it doesn't work, you fail, you lose everything. It peaks right after that moment, but as time goes by, thanks to a number of cognitive processes, one being the silver lining effect. You take action, you fail, it doesn't work. You learn, you have an experience. You're able to say, well, I did it, it didn't work, but I learned this, this, this and this that I could not have known unless I took the action. So you find ways to turn a negative into a positive and there's closure, there's an end result and there's something you can actually point towards as this happened, it's not in your imagination. But when you don't take action, your imagination starts, well, what if I had done that? It could have worked. Imagine I had taken that action. I could have been rich and famous. I could be happy and successful. I could have all the things I've ever wanted in my life had I just taken action. Because there's no closure and because you have no actual experience, your imagination will continue to play tricks with you. It will never stop. And in this research to sum it all up, the people they interviewed, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands that they interviewed, all the most painful regrets they had were not regrets of action. They were all regrets of inaction in all the survey participants. Every one of them said, I wish I had tried this. I wish I had given this a try. I wish I could have. What a should have could have. I wish I had tried. And that's the only things they can remember are these things they really wanted to do that they didn't. These are the things that haunt them on their deathbed. These are the things that haunt them as they age and get older that they have to wrestle with. But because they could have, they would have, they probably should have, but they didn't. And the ones who, the things they did do that didn't work out for them, they don't even remember. They don't even recall these things. Because... So what are some like simple things people can do on a day-to-day basis to kind of overcome this whole, it's kind of like paralysis by analysis dealing with regret. They're frozen before they're gonna act. Yeah. Little, little steps. I always say, you know, so to do anything that where you might have regret, where you might encounter a really intense experience of regret. Yeah. You need courage. The part of your mind that's activating, that's being stimulated, that's warning you to be aware, to be cautious is fear. Whenever you feel fear, you need to flex courage. Courage is a muscle. It's a mental muscle. It is developable. If you don't use it, you lose it though. And it is not an emotional process. It is a cognitive upper brain process, overriding the lower brain. Lower brain says, be careful, danger, danger. The upper brain says, nah, not actually real danger. I'm not gonna die. I'm not gonna lose a limb. I'm not gonna be destitute on the street if I take this little action. So you can start with just little things. Little, little, little things that make you slightly feel a slight discomfort. And then doing that over and over, like going to the gym. If I'm completely out of shape and I go to the gym, I'm not gonna pick up the heaviest weights and lift them until I burn out. I'm gonna be in so much pain afterwards in the healing, in the recovery process that I might be deterred from going back and doing it again. Actually, Tony Robin talks about that. The quickest way to actually get into a state of mind is physicality, right? Fast, a walking fast, try that trick. If you feel like I don't have guts to do this or I have fear right now, go outside, prop your chest, like you have a strut, you know, you just, you're the shit and just walk fast. Instantaneously, you transform your hormonal landscape of your body and your psychology transforms like this. It's the body-mind, mind-body, you know, connection. Is that, you know, even if you're not thinking you feel like you can do it, you can put your body through actions that will make your mind start realizing. I always say challenge yourself every single day. You know, for example, something that I do is I'm a righty big time, so I try to eat my food, a fork with my left hand. It's awkward, but I challenge myself. You know, I'm taking a new martial arts every year. This year, I'm doing crown maga. Or learning the piano or going toastmasters or whatever it is. You're doing something new. And even though you may not think it's a challenge or that you may not fear it, trust me, psychologically, all these processes are going down. It's like, okay, how do I cope with this new, new information? It's brand new information. Like, how do I- It's a novelty. How do I organize this so I can become a master? But I think one of the biggest issues when it comes to regret or fears, I personally believe people don't push themselves enough on a day-to-day basis. And I give it the Mount Everest analogy. Like, you're looking at Mount Everest, you're looking at the peak, you're like, I think at the peak, it's called capstone. You're looking at the top, you're like, oh, fuck. That's a pretty high hike. But if you actually break down Everest into, say, I guess, what, different peaks? Yeah. It's a bit by bit. Base camp one, base camp two. Base camp three. You get to one base camp. You acclimatize to the lack of oxygen, the new environment you're there, and your body gets used to it. You go back to the next level. That's right. And it's gradual. You know, if you do too much at once, you're gonna get knocked down if you've never done it before. But novelty, like you said, eating with the left hand as opposed to the right. You know, however you go home from work, you have a route you go, take a different route. Take a different route. You drive, take the public transit. You can start little things like that. And you think, oh, what if I take public transit and I take a zip card today or I do an Uber today? Like, what could go wrong? You start convincing yourselves of all the things that go wrong, do it. And whatever goes wrong, likely nothing will go wrong. Well, there's also a stoic. This is a very famous stoic practice that I do is I actually think of all the things that could go wrong. And then in my mind, I figure out ways to overcome those obstacles. So for example, you know, I'm about to invest 5 million, what could go wrong and lose all my money? Okay, but what is my contingencies? What am I psychologically preparing myself for? So if that happens, I'm already there. I've been there, done that, I'm ready. And I give the example of Michael Phelps when he won, I think like his 10th gold medal in the Olympics. He went in the pool right away. The chlorine went in his eyes and the glasses kind of fell off. He was blind, right? He kept on swimming and like he got a world record and a gold medal and they're like, dude, like how the fuck did he do this? You know, you were pretty much blind. He's like, you guys don't understand. Like I already knew this is a possibility. I knew that the water can get in my eyes and my glasses can fall off. I actually swam this lap about 10,000 times in my head. I knew every square inch of that pool. Yeah. So it's future framing yourself and already being in that moment of like, what if this happens? Fuck it, I already know what to do. Really, it's one question. I want to do this. I'm scared. Your body starts resisting. All these physical sensations come up telling you to run the other way. Really, what's the worst that can happen? Imagine the worst thing that can happen on this new novel, unknown, unpredictable, uncertain, new thing you're doing and then ask yourself, if that happens, can I handle it? Can I actually, if that worst case ever happens, can I deal with it? Most of the time, it's a yes. If you really are honest to yourself, you will be able to handle whatever it is and this is resilience training. This is the most, they don't teach this in schools. They do not teach this in classrooms and I tell you right now, education is failing. Millions and millions and millions of people because they don't teach kids. They don't teach them grumps. And listen, you got this part of your brain. It's called an amygdala. It is your best friend and your worst enemy. It will keep you alive, but it will keep you in a cage, locked in a cell, if it thinks that's what's gonna keep you safe and you have to override it at all times. One of the final tests that Navy SEALs do is they'll look at the sunrise. I may be mistaken, but I heard this from another Navy SEAL. And one of the final tests is they're gonna future frame themselves on the worst possible situations. And they put themselves in a really fucked up situation. They'll say out of all the tests, the physicality test, other mental tests, that's the hardest of the Navy SEALs. Really? Yeah, cause they really know how fucked up a situation can be. Knapp, this, that, like these guys are the elite elite people in the world. Like stuff they do boggles my mind, but goes to show you they understand future framing power. They understand that the ones that do past that test, whatever happens, these motherfuckers are prepared. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think that's like, I think this exercise can be done every day. And it doesn't have to be like, you know, death and gloom situations, but it can be something so simple as like, you know, you have a pitch, you want to pitch some investors and the investor said no, okay. So what? Just thank the guy in your mind, thank him and ask him point blank. This always tell the advice to entrepreneurs want to pitch. Ask them why they said no. Yeah. What would make it a yes? Yeah, what would make it a yes. It's a no, I totally get it. If I go back to the drawing board and I go to someone else, ask the question. Yeah. What would have made this closer to a yes for you? Yeah. They'll tell you, go back to the drawing board, race there, rewrite, go to the next guy. And like, if you don't do it and you never do it and you set yourself up, the regret will haunt you for as long as you live and time does not wait for you and windows of opportunity, they're called windows opportunity because they open, they close. They're here and you keep moving forward and you pass it and it closes. And one day you will get to a point in your life where you look back all the time you had, I'm speaking from experience and your regret time wasted. Oh, we waste a lot of time. A lot of time. And Clayton and I know each other for like 20 years. Yeah, and you can get lost there, depending on how further down the path you are, but then you can stop and say, okay, I learned from those things, the things I did do that didn't work, I don't regret them, I learned from them. The only things I really, truly regret are the things I didn't do and moving forward really, really way where you're at right now, how happy you are there, how fulfilled you are there. And if you're not, and you can honestly say to yourself, you're not, you will, nothing will change unless you open your arms and hug regret, that feeling of regret, of regrettable action. Regrets are related to actions taken. They'll be your best friend. Regrets related to inaction and avoidance will haunt you as long as you live and in your deathbed will be the loudest, screams in your ears in your inner world and you will not be able to silence them. That's the definition of hell right there. There's no physical hell, that's hell right there. Looking at a life that could have been lived fully, that could have been lived courageously and when you're honest with yourself, all you can really say is, I lacked the courage to act in the moment and don't get it wrong. Like I said, courage is a muscle, it's developable. It never feels good and the bigger, the more courage you get, the more stronger your courage gets, new level, new devil, a friend of mine said. And you know, you can do another level and it's like that fear is gonna, you're gonna counter a new level and you know, you keep upgrading but if you're not lifting, you're not gonna be getting stronger. Start lifting. Hey man, always a pleasure brother. If people wanna get more info on who you are and what you do, where they can find you, man. ClaytonElliot.com, C-L-A-Y-T-O-N-E-L-L-I-O-T-T.com It's under development right now but you can go there and sign up for the email lists and be notified when the site launches. Cool. All right guys, so what I want you to do right now in the comment section below, leave a comment about your experiences with regrets and fears and maybe wanna share some exercises that you have. Till then, have a great day. Adios. Peace.