Evolve Ventures
Co-hosts, Emilia Smith and Bianca Thomas are taking state-of-the-art research, experience, and data-backed methodologies to evolve the old version of themselves leveraging their obsessions into Evolve Ventures, a podcast designed to accelerate evolution, excellence, and extraordinary. Evolve Ventures is designed to radically equip you for today’s experiences, and tomorrow’s challenges, shifting you into unlimited potential. Topics will dive into the keys of leadership, elite brain performance, the not-so-scary parts of tech, the tools to navigate mental health, strategies for optimal living, relationships, and of course, personal development without the fluff. You can look forward to deeper stories, insights, and tactical takeaways to leverage and apply in your everyday life. Connect with the Evolve Ventures team on Instagram: @EvolveVentures @EvolvewithEmilia @EvolvewithBianca | Like the Evolve Ventures Facebook Page to connect with the global community: https://tinyurl.com/evolveventures
Evolve Ventures
#516 | You’re Seeing What You Want to See...And It's Hurting You
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What if the thoughts you trust most are the ones quietly keeping you stuck? In this episode, we examine how cognitive biases, digital influence, AI, algorithms, and the deep human need to belong can shape the way you see yourself, make decisions, and tolerate patterns that are costing you clarity.
We’re getting into the uncomfortable space between what feels true and what is actually driving your behavior. From confirmation bias to borrowed beliefs, from social influence to the quiet outsourcing of your own thinking, this episode is an invitation to question what has been steering your life from the background. Bring your brain. Leave your excuses at the door. They were getting a little too comfortable anyway.
Digital Asset:
Evolve Cognitive Bias Worksheet
Here’s a related episode that builds on today’s conversation:
#468 | The Books That Change How You See Yourself and Your Choices - https://apple.co/4qXneXG
Learn more about:
🤝 Out of the Mud (OOTM) - "The Difference Between Avoidance and Self-Protection" - https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/IykObX8eR7ixJaQ-qqZogw#/registration
📆 Evolve Group Coaching - https://evolveventurestech.com/evolve-group-coaching/
📽️ Insightful films. Meaningful growth. Join our Evolve Movie Club - https://forms.gle/bBZUbFEeD2ijypCT7
🌱 The #YouDoYou Therapy Program gives you support when and how you need it. No pressure. Just real help. Start your free 7-day trial today - https://buy.stripe.com/fZe8Avdfx8bW9gcfZc
_________________
Connect with Emilia, Bianca & the EVOLVE VENTURES Community:
Website: http://www.evolveventurestech.com
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/evolveventures/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/EvolveVenturesTech (Public Page)
Evolve Ventures Society (Private Facebook Group) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/457130589193794
Emilia’s IG - https://www.instagram.com/evolvewithemilia/
Emilia’s TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@evolvewithemilia
Bianca’s IG - https://www.instagram.com/evolvewithbianca/
Bianca’s TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@evolvewithbianca?_t=8gq3wqu4fAx&_r=1
Connect with Emilia & Bianca from Evolve Ventures for FREE:
https://calendly.com/emiliasmith/free-evp-communityconnect?month=2025-07
Show notes:
(3:29) The behavior question that changes everything
(4:14) How cognitive biases hijack perception
(8:46) When old beliefs become self-fulfilling patterns
(14:05) The bandwagon effect and borrowed thinking
(18:04) Eddie shares his uplifting and empowering experience with the Evolve Ventures Society.
(18:42) How belonging can become manipulation
(22:38) AI, algorithms, and protecting free thought
(27:34) A practical way to spot thought traps
(28:35) Awareness as the exit from victimhood
(31:50) Outro
***Leave them a 5-star review if you felt their energy, became inspired, or felt as though the value was added to your life in your EVOLUTION.
(Stay tuned for this coming Monday’s episode!)
Bianca Thomas
(0:00) I heard this quote the other day that said, you have the exact life that you deserve.
Bianca Thomas
(0:10) And I thought, woof, what we're going to dive into today is actually what the scientific truth behind that really is.
Emilia Smith
(0:21) And there's nothing more confronting for your nervous system than hearing some of these things. (0:28) So buckle up. (0:29) Let's have an episode.
Bianca Thomas
(0:31) Most of us are looking for hope, answers to the madness, certainty that we'll be okay and someone safe to help guide us through the most challenging parts of our lives. (0:42) In a world that's changing and evolving every single day, where chaos, uncertainty and cycles we never chose wreak havoc on our lives, it's easy to feel lost, hopeless and scared of what the future will hold.
Emilia Smith
(0:58) Evolve Ventures is here to provide that hope, direction and data-driven strategies to growth-minded human beings just like you every Monday and Thursdays, where each new episode is filled with vulnerable stories, interesting lessons and simple tools you can use that will help you evolve into the person you were always meant to be.
Bianca Thomas
(1:19) My name is Emilia. (1:20) And I'm Bianca.
Emilia Smith
(1:21) And as the co-founders of Evolve Ventures, we are so grateful to be a part of your evolution. (1:27) Let's get into it.
Bianca Thomas
(1:28) Hey, everybody. (1:29) It's Bianca.
Emilia Smith
(1:30) Welcome back, Evolvers. (1:32) It's Emilia. (1:32) For episode 516, you're seeing what you want to see.(1:37) And it's hurting you. (1:39) Bianca and I are going to banter a little bit so that you, dear listener, can really get an understanding as to why your life is exactly what you deserve to the quote that Bianca mentioned. (1:54) And most importantly, how to begin to tweak or change the levers that you uniquely have control over when it comes to improving your life.
Bianca Thomas
(2:07) That quote, I can imagine, must feel like shit hearing for lack of a better phrase. (2:18) Can you say the quote again? (2:19) You have the exact life that you deserve.
Bianca Thomas
(2:26) What that quote meant and what the person who said that was talking about was the fact that for more often than not, for more people than not, you have the life that you have worked toward, that you have tolerated, that you have allowed and accepted based on your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviors, your reference group, your social network, all of these different things. (2:59) And that I can imagine that is so unbelievably hard to hear because someone might hear this and say, I hate my life. (3:11) How dare you say I chose this?(3:14) How dare you say that I deserve this? (3:16) And I think back in the day, I definitely would have said something like that too. (3:22) I would have said, you know, that's not fair.(3:25) I want different. (3:27) I want better. (3:29) And the question I wasn't ready to face that when I finally did actually allowed me to change everything was, does your behavior actually demonstrate that you deserve better?(3:45) Cognitive biases is really what we're talking about here. (3:50) So you, you're seeing what you want to see and it's hurting you. (3:54) Your life is also, you're getting the outcomes that you are seeing because of that exact principle and what we're specifically referencing is cognitive biases.(4:08) So Amelia, can you dive into what, into what cognitive biases are?
Emilia Smith
(4:14) Yeah, I, I think it's really important to also say the cognitive biases that we all have is a constant, I feel like it's like whack-a-mole unless you're consciously weeding the mental garden or kind of hammering the opposite of what your cognitive biases are. (4:38) Your mind just becomes infested with cognitive biases. (4:42) So to its most simplest form, what cognitive biases are, are mental shortcuts that cause irrational judgments and those irrational judgments often influence your decisions, your memory and your belief systems.(4:58) And so there, Bianca and I have a couple listed for this episode, but I want to say one of the, so I have, I have a couple of different competing thoughts for this episode. (5:12) One of the things that first kind of introduced me to cognitive biases or rather one of the, one of the first impactful introductions was when I was studying philosophy and when you study philosophy, essentially you, you study what someone's way of thinking is about life. (5:33) And in doing so, you realize that there are many trappings of life and you might have heard someone say, try to avoid the trappings of life, right?(5:43) Or you might've heard someone say, well, that's just how it is, right? (5:48) There's these platitudes, there's these things that people say that just wash, rinse, repeat without actually thinking. (5:57) And human beings are so fallible of making statements without really using their cognitive capabilities.(6:07) And Bianca, you and I were just talking about how now and increasing levels, people are off-boarding their way of thinking to AI and chatbots and things like Claude and ChatGPT, et cetera. (6:19) And what that's doing or what that's not doing is increasing the skill set to be able to groom through your own cognitive biases. (6:28) So for example, if you're not studying or, or examining what your mental shortcuts are that are causing irrational judgments, which influence your decision, your memory and your belief systems, AKA all the decisions that you make in life to where you are right now today, if you're not doing that, you're going to consistently just be stuck in a life that maybe you might not have planned.(6:54) More than likely you will be stuck in a life that you didn't plan because someone who designs (7:01) their life and is an active participant in that architectural design for lack of better (7:08) words from a cognitive standpoint, are those people who as a result of their goals, their (7:14) dreams and their aspirations have necessity to root or rip out the roots of manifestations (7:21) of their thought processes that get in the way. (7:23) So for example, confirmation bias is one of them.(7:29) So when you, let's say for example, set a goal to all of a sudden we have right now, we're doing a fitness challenge at Evolve. (7:38) And by the time this episode comes out, we will have already complete that. (7:42) So what people are saying to themselves right now before they get started, I'm going to accomplish 30 days of consistent fitness, which we put the bar at 10 minutes or more, right?(7:53) Minimum 10 minutes. (7:55) Now, how people think about that goal is going to be a number of different things. (8:03) When people approach that goal, if they're not consciously mindful of the cognitive biases, they're just simply going to see what they want to see in pursuit of that goal.(8:14) So, Bianca, let's talk about a couple of the cognitive biases that we see that might come up, for example, in that fitness challenge that we've heard and why it's actually really important to understand our own cognitive biases because of how it's hurting us and how cognitive biases ultimately hurt the individual who doesn't pull them out, for lack of better words.
Bianca Thomas
(8:49) So the way that a cognitive bias works is that it completely orients the way that you see and experience things. (8:57) So if I have a belief, let's say using this fitness challenge, that my my back is too unstable. (9:10) So I had a back injury when I was 18.(9:13) I was in and out of physical therapy for years and years and years and years and nothing worked, nothing helped. (9:21) I recently started going to a new physical therapist that's finally working. (9:25) Awesome.(9:26) If I then went into this fitness challenge and I said, my back is too unstable, my body's too weak. (9:36) I'm not going to be able to handle this. (9:40) What I'm going to end up doing is I'm entering into a situation.(9:48) My brain went into an automatic interpretation. (9:53) It had an automatic thought, an automatic assumption that was leaned towards something that I already believed, which was that my body is broken or that I'm not capable or whatever. (10:07) So then what am I likely to do?(10:11) I'm likely to feel the weight of that and then act on it, meaning I would be less likely to actually work out, which would actually make my back hurt more, make my body unstable, make my body not be at the place that I wanted it to be. (10:33) Now, that's obviously not a true example for me because I worked through a lot of that. (10:37) But like I had a client that I was working with this morning, I'm going to use a different example.(10:42) So he's been trying to look for a male role model his entire life because he never had one. (10:50) His father was very abusive and harmful. (10:53) He never had good men in his life.(10:55) The only other men in his life were his uncles, who were just as bad as his father, if not worse, and basically. (11:05) Like reinforced the harm that the father was doing, so never had good male role models, he had really harmful other experiences that happened that basically taught him, I cannot trust anybody. (11:24) Men are dangerous.(11:26) Women are going to abandon me. (11:28) It's just it's negativity and danger all around.
Emilia Smith
(11:32) Yeah. (11:32) Yeah.
Bianca Thomas
(11:32) So what he's now doing, unfortunately, is. (11:38) Not by choice, but he developed an avoided detachment style. (11:42) So now this is just deeply ingrained, I'm going to avoid everybody, I'm not going to let anybody close to me.(11:49) I'm never going to allow anyone to really get to know me. (11:52) So he goes through that for a while. (11:54) He becomes deeply lonely.(11:56) So what does he do? (11:58) Bypasses all of his boundaries, all of his values, all of the things that matters to him so deeply. (12:04) And tries to go find either a female partner or a male role model, someone to look up to.(12:12) So he puts this unrealistic expectation on them because he wants someone so badly to prove him wrong. (12:21) So he goes into it guns ablaze and I want and he sees all of the good in this person. (12:27) So he's honing in who hasn't been there, honing in on everything good about this person.(12:34) Oh, my God, I think I finally found them. (12:36) This is it. (12:37) This is what I've been looking for.(12:41) And then reality sets in, which is this is a human. (12:47) Humans are deeply flawed. (12:49) Humans are imperfect creatures and nobody is ever actually going to meet this idealized image he has in his mind, which is a cognitive fallacy for him to never actually have to get close to anybody.(13:04) So he feels massively burdened, he feels massive despair and grief and loss and loneliness and whatever the case may be. (13:15) And then what happens? (13:16) He avoids and he runs away from them.(13:19) And he basically proved his original thesis. (13:22) Right. (13:23) I can't trust anybody.(13:25) There's nobody out there. (13:27) People are harmful. (13:29) What he also unintentionally does is he seeks out the very kind of person that is going to validate his belief.(13:37) So even in that example, there's a couple of different cognitive biases in there, but the pattern remains the same. (13:44) When we go into the world with a certain set of ideas, beliefs, ideologies, narratives, emotional patterns, behavioral patterns, we end up seeking out all sorts of information and experiences and people to validate that which we already believe. (14:06) That is a cognitive bias.(14:08) So some of them include the bandwagon effect, which is we are going to jump on what everybody else is doing. (14:16) And then that continues reinforcing a pattern of like, I'm not an individual. (14:20) I can't make my own choices.(14:22) I'm never going to be chosen just for me. (14:25) Whatever.
Emilia Smith
(14:26) There's confirmation bias. (14:28) I do just want to jump in on the bandwagon effect. (14:31) I always would say this.(14:33) Be mindful of the train that you jump on, meaning be mindful of the bandwagon you jump on. (14:39) I remember in, I want to say it was high school, there was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, right? (14:46) There was.(14:48) At one point, I forgot the name of it, but it was just like randomly dancing. (14:54) I think it was in college. (14:56) The Harlem Shake.(14:57) Harlem Shake. (14:58) Yep. (14:59) Yep.(15:00) So those are all bandwagons that people have gotten on. (15:02) And the Plank Challenge. (15:05) Yeah.(15:05) Do you remember that? (15:06) Oh, yeah. (15:06) There's so many different challenges that that are bandwagons.(15:10) And I think that those are great examples because those can bring back associative memories, meaning what you associated with that. (15:18) But if you jump on a bandwagon and you're not mindful of what the beliefs are around that, you are unconsciously adopting those. (15:27) And so one of the things to the Evolved Fitness Challenge, like that's a bandwagon, but that's a bandwagon for better choices about yourself.(15:37) And I think that that's being mindful of the train, the train that you jump on or the bandwagon that you jump on is really important when it just comes to our belief systems, because who's on that train influences you, whether you want it or not. (15:52) Right. (15:53) So please continue.(15:55) No, that was great.
Bianca Thomas
(15:56) I also 10 out of 10 did all of those challenges, by the way.
Emilia Smith
(15:59) Yeah, I can tell by your face.
Bianca Thomas
(16:04) Oh, my God. (16:06) The ALS ice bucket challenge. (16:08) I can't even if I can go back and punch myself in the face.(16:11) Oh, be kind. (16:13) Oh, God. (16:14) It's brutal.(16:16) I oh, my God. (16:17) I so badly like I couldn't wait for the chance to finally do it. (16:21) It was really brutal.(16:22) Oh, my God. (16:24) I'm outing myself so bad right now. (16:25) Whatever it is, what it is.(16:27) It was a whole different time in my life.
Bianca Thomas
(16:29) Yeah, it was. (16:30) Oh, brutal. (16:33) Anyways.
Emilia Smith
(16:38) We all have those. (16:40) And I think that that's actually pretty good. (16:42) Like you're literally showcasing the contrast, like you're way more aware of what bandwagons you jump on.(16:48) And for false, you're where you're way more aware of the bandwagon effect and how it's influenced your decision making, not necessarily in the most positive way. (17:00) Like that's a cute memory. (17:02) But now apply that to like other areas.(17:04) Right. (17:04) You're now far more aware of the cognitive bias and how much that influence your behavior and your decisions and the repercussions that came as a result of wanting to simply belong, which is where that bandwagon effect is so powerful. (17:19) Right.(17:19) You think about like P90X or 75 hard. (17:24) Like people love talking about that. (17:26) Why?(17:26) Because it's a bandwagon effect. (17:28) They're not actually thinking on their own accord. (17:31) And honestly, a lot of these cognitive biases are, like I said, shortcuts, heuristics, because the brain doesn't want to think for itself.(17:39) It's easier not to. (17:40) It's literally less cognitively expensive to just adopt someone else's belief systems, thought processes, ways of deciding. (17:49) So it's not anything against us.(17:51) It's just more so let's be mindful of how we as human creatures exist. (17:56) And if you want to take yourself off autopilot, understanding what are the most prevalent cognitive biases is a great place to start for anyone.
Eddie Rivera
(18:07) Hey, everybody, I just want to take a minute to talk about my experience with the Evolve Venture Society. (18:14) They're a wonderful group of people who allow you to communicate in an open and honest way, and they're very supportive and full of positive energy. (18:22) You can ask anyone for help.(18:24) You can talk to anyone and ask for questions. (18:27) And they're very supportive. (18:28) And all they do is just help you to become the best version of yourself.(18:31) And if anything, all I want to do is just learn more from this amazing group of people. (18:36) And I think that they will help anybody who needs it. (18:39) And that's the best thing that anybody can ask for.
Bianca Thomas
(18:42) Well, that's how cult leaders get people, too. (18:46) They target people who are. (18:49) They have a higher predisposition toward, like, trauma or harm, or they're like more of a weak minded or just weak human in general.(18:59) So for this person has massive vulnerabilities, they they. (19:06) They get them to start making small decisions in the direction of like a certain idea, a certain ideology, a certain belief, because this person makes themselves into such like a grandiose being that it's like, oh, my God, I want to be like that person. (19:24) I want to jump on that bandwagon.(19:27) I want to be a chosen one and belong because I have felt so like broken and harmed for so long and insignificant. (19:38) Exactly.
Bianca Thomas
(19:39) Whatever.
Bianca Thomas
(19:40) One hundred percent. (19:42) Then you start making these small micro choices over time. (19:46) Your identity gets enveloped in it.(19:48) You become adopted into this culture. (19:51) And now you're in a cult and it's it's so sad, like if you look at like the Jonestown cult or whatever that was, like he started getting people to complete suicide. (20:06) Yeah, it's wild.(20:07) It was like mass suicides that were happening because he tapped he was like a sociopath, but he was a genius. (20:15) And what he was able to do, like the way that he was able to manipulate and influence and contort people because he tapped into their cognitive biases and got them to and got them to adopt an ideology and a belief and start engaging in behaviors that weren't actually in alignment with who they really are. (20:39) This is why social media and TV and media and movies and who you're surrounding with and whatever, it's why it's so dangerous.(20:50) And you have to be so careful of what's influencing you because the susceptibility that we all have to be influenced by the wrong people, places and ideas is so high. (21:04) It is higher than it has ever been because we have with our with our phone, with this thing right here, millions and millions and millions of businesses and organizations and people have access to my brain, to my mental consciousness. (21:26) And what they do is they target weak people like what I used to be, and they target the people with a higher susceptibility to engage in that kind of behavior.
Emilia Smith
(21:41) Yeah.
Bianca Thomas
(21:41) Oh, Kim Kardashian did that. (21:43) I'm going to do it. (21:46) All of these biases that we end up getting tapped into.(21:50) Amelia, you studied this way more than I did. (21:52) Organizations literally hire psychologists. (21:56) They hire like really high performing psychologists to have them learn what these biases are and to manipulate and contort.(22:05) So they make these algorithms or these like ideologies or whatever that their demographic is going to buy into. (22:12) So it's like I'm just going to use an example. (22:16) It's like CrossFitters do things like this.(22:19) Nike is for athletes and athletes do this and Nike sponsors do this. (22:27) Oh, my God. (22:27) I want to be like Michael Jordan.(22:29) I want to be like Kobe Bryant. (22:30) I want to be like this person. (22:32) So then you buy a product that they paid psychologists and behavioral economists to convince you to do.
Emilia Smith
(22:41) Yeah, there's something that I was recently and this is something that I'm always, always scanning for because I really do deeply believe how important it is to conceive one's own thoughts. (23:01) And I believe so deeply in free thinking and freedom of choice and free will. (23:10) And so I'm always scanning for things, businesses, services, clusters where that might be pulling free thought, free will, free thinking, all of that from our world that we live in.(23:33) And recently I heard of a phenomenal, like as a scientist, I think it's amazing what we're able to do now and what is always been the case is scientists in the hands, scientists and their tools and their instruments in the hands of really greedy people that don't actually have a code of ethics or code of conduct or any concern for removing the free will, free thinking possibility of human beings. (24:06) That's very dangerous. (24:08) And for example, if if you're curious, I want you to Google Tribe V2, which is a trimodal brain encoder, Tribe V2.(24:19) Yeah, it was released in March of 2026, which is essentially an AI model that maps as a digital twin of human brain activity. (24:28) And this was designed after having, I believe it was 702 different human beings hooked up to neural sensors to where when they got exposure into content, what was the most optimal type of content from reels to lives to carousels to digital design, everything that you're exposed to on your phone to what you just mentioned. (24:50) And so that simulation provided the data for now what this trimodal brain encoder does, which is a tool that now businesses are going to be trying really hard to get some.(25:05) Some exposure into or service, because ultimately the person who has the sneakiest ability to influence people. (25:17) Is what's going to win in the future digital market of people that do not protect their (25:21) consciousness, and I think that that's so again, so amazing that we have science now (25:25) that we can do that science in the hands of corruption, though, of people with power (25:33) that have no limits, that it is really scary because what that does is essentially that (25:38) that literally is influencing your brain to areas that likely the lay person.(25:46) Has no idea. (25:48) And again, whose fault is that, is that, you know, the business that is trying to provide a service or a product that satiates a need, or is that the human being's fault because they're not actually going and learning and they're just OK with. (26:03) Being no different, never looking at their cognitive biases, never actually.(26:09) Upping their own awareness about life, right? (26:11) It's such an interesting and hot debate, but I mean, obviously, both, though, for sure. (26:17) I mean, I'm with you because you can't just put all like that's like abdication of total responsibility.(26:22) That's a whole separate conversation. (26:24) But I mean, I also understand that this is it's not anything new, right? (26:28) Like human beings have always been lazy and not interested in learning and developing.(26:33) And human beings have also had certain minorities who want to learn so much and they have a leg up because with increased awareness, you have an increased probability to make more effective, strategic, long term decisions that are better, statistically speaking, than others. (26:52) That's why we are such advocates of educating yourself about yourself, about your brain, how it works. (26:57) Cognitive biases.(26:59) Look up how many cognitive biases there are. (27:01) What are the ones that use hundreds, hundreds? (27:04) And you might be like, OK, where the hell do I start?(27:07) Anywhere. (27:08) Action is always better than, oh, my goodness, there's too much information like overwhelm, right? (27:15) I'm with you.(27:16) Google confirmation bias, bandwagon bias, survivorship bias, loss aversion bias, catastrophization, magnification, like any of those start there and go through and then literally ask yourself, OK, how might this be hurting me? (27:32) To why we're doing this in the first place, they're thought traps.
Bianca Thomas
(27:37) Yeah. (27:38) You know what an easy way to start is go look up the common 10, go look up the common 10 CBT cognitive biases. (27:45) And then what you do is you review your day and you say, OK, where did this come up?(27:52) You're going to be shook when you start seeing how this shows up.
Bianca Thomas
(27:59) Everywhere.
Emilia Smith
(28:01) Bianca, you know what?
Bianca Thomas
(28:02) Screw that.
Emilia Smith
(28:03) Don't look it up. (28:04) Click in the show notes. (28:05) We're going to have an evolved specific cognitive bias worksheet that will list the top 10.(28:11) And we want you to insert in the available form. (28:15) Where this came up in your life. (28:17) So, for example, confirmation bias, where did that come up?(28:20) Not just in your life, on the 24 hours that you had. (28:23) If you list it, you can start to name and you can start to become more aware of how that might be influencing you. (28:30) So make a note to make sure that our team makes that.
Bianca Thomas
(28:33) But I'm with you. (28:34) That's a great place to start.
Bianca Thomas
(28:38) We stop being victims of the world when we stop feeling as though we are victims and allowing ourselves to be victimized. (28:45) I say this to my clients all the time. (28:49) You cannot choose whether or not you are victimized, but you do not have to be a victim.(28:54) Being a victim is a choice. (28:57) And all of my clients with severe trauma all agree. (29:02) Isn't that interesting?(29:03) The ones who have actually experienced crazy trauma, it's like, yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense. (29:09) The world is going to try to victimize you. (29:12) It just is what it is.(29:13) But the majority of people have experienced some sort of trauma in their life. (29:19) There are predators and ghosts and ghouls and lions and tigers and bears and all of the stuff out there in the world. (29:26) It is true.
Emilia Smith
(29:27) Right.
Bianca Thomas
(29:28) We're not going to run away from it.
Emilia Smith
(29:29) Corrupt, greedy, evil people.
Bianca Thomas
(29:32) Horrible, evil people in this world. (29:34) It's true. (29:35) It just is what it is.(29:37) They have less access to you, the more aware you are. (29:40) And that's how you stop being a victim, right, which means not being a victim. (29:46) It starts by not victimizing yourself, equipping yourself with the tools and skills and capabilities, and then taking action based on that.(29:57) That's how you stop being a victim. (29:59) That's how you stop doing stupid shit like the ALS ice bucket challenge like I did. (30:04) Why did I do that?(30:05) Because I wanted to belong. (30:07) Yeah, because I wanted someone to love me.
Emilia Smith
(30:09) To be seen, to be significant in the group. (30:11) Yeah. (30:12) Very natural.
Bianca Thomas
(30:14) If I actually thought about it for a second, I was like, OK, how is this actually going to get me love? (30:21) Does this actually make me belong? (30:23) Is this actually going to make me a better person?(30:26) Is this actually in alignment with my goals? (30:28) No. (30:29) So then why am I doing it?(30:31) When you start questioning, people stop having control over you. (30:37) So. (30:39) We're going to put that digital asset in the show notes, we're going to have our teamwork on that.
Emilia Smith
(30:44) Yeah.
Bianca Thomas
(30:45) Take that out, do it for yourself, see how it goes. (30:49) And if this episode resonated with you and you want to listen to another incredible episode that 468, the books that change how you see yourself and your choices, we go through our top 10. (31:06) I think it was like 12, actually.(31:08) 12 of the best books that we have read and seen on how to understand your cognitive biases, how to understand your mind, the way your mind works. (31:18) All of these really amazing things that we all need to equip ourselves with. (31:22) So 468, head over to that.(31:26) And if you want more personalized help with this, send Amelia or I a DM on Instagram. (31:31) It is the best way to get in contact with us. (31:33) You are going to hear from us.(31:35) It's not going to be some bot or some robot or an AI or an admin or anything. (31:40) You're going to talk to us.
Emilia Smith
(31:42) DM us biases and we will hook you up with an even deeper exploration within your world. (31:49) OK, that being said, stay alert, Evolvers. (31:53) And as always, thank you for your interest in the holistic science of mental health and well-being.(32:05) We know firsthand how important it is to have a safe space with people who support and celebrate your evolution. (32:12) That's why we created our free live virtual event called Out of the Mud that we host the last Wednesday of every single month, 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, so that while you venture into new territories of your growth, you can get in a room with others who are too. (32:29) Extraordinary topics with evolved people.(32:31) That's what this event is all about. (32:34) What's great, too, is that you don't even need to have your camera or mic on. (32:37) You can just listen in.(32:39) Click the link in the show notes to register for the next topic to kickstart your growth.
Bianca Thomas
(32:44) Be on the lookout for our IG lives that we host every Friday at 1230 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. (32:51) This is a place where you can connect with us live and in a fun, lighthearted way. (32:56) We are also in the process of rolling out group coaching and online courses.(33:00) And these are sure to help you evolve into a greater version of yourself.
Emilia Smith
(33:06) If this episode resonated with you or you heard something you know will help you evolve, please share it with someone you love and care about, team members across the world or someone who you believe deeply could benefit from joining this discussion.
Bianca Thomas
(33:20) This content is intended for information purposes only. (33:23) It is not a substitute for professional counseling or psychotherapy, medical advice, diagnoses or treatment, and does not constitute medical or other professional advice. (33:35) Names and identifiable personal details mentioned in respective podcast episodes and stories may have been changed to protect personal privacy and identity.