Discover the power of overcoming limiting beliefs in this transformative episode. Join Penny Zenker as she sits down with Rick Torrison, the best-selling author of Born Limitless: Crush Limiting Beliefs, Cultivate an Infinite Mindset, and Unleash Your True Potential and a renowned transformational coach. Together, they delve into the depths of overcoming limiting beliefs, a journey that Rick candidly shares from his own life experiences. This episode is packed with practical advice and actionable steps to help you identify and conquer your own limiting beliefs, empowering you to unlock your full potential.

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Transforming Limiting Beliefs Into Pathways For Success With Rick Torrison

Introduction

Welcome to the show. On this show, we’re looking to find new ways to help you achieve more with less stress and less effort. We’re going to be talking about our limiting beliefs and how, when we can let go of those, we can become limitless. Rick Torrison is here. He’s a friend, a fellow, a best-selling author, and an amazing human being. He’s a coach, a best-selling author, a consultant, and a transformation and growth catalyst with over 25 years of experience in helping individuals, teams, and organizations overcome obstacles, break through barriers, and grow through their lives and their businesses.

From Fortune 50 companies to struggling entrepreneurs, he has been able to help clarify vision, define values, and create growth cultures that have increased personal and professional productivity. There are so many more things. He’s been mentored by some amazing transformational leaders like John Maxwell, Dale Galloway, Doug Stringer, James Boswell, and many others. He also has an amazing best-selling book called Born Limitless. It’s about how to crush limiting beliefs and replace them with limitless ones.

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Without further ado, Rick, welcome to the show.

I’m so excited. I’ve been waiting for this day. I’m so excited to be with you. I’m honored to be on your top 2% show in the world. Let’s celebrate a little bit. That’s amazing. You are getting a message of value, hope, and transformation out to so many people. I’m excited to be a part of that. I’ve learned so much from you. I’ve got your book. I’ve already dug into that. I’m so excited about that. I’m glad to be here. Thank you for having me. I was wondering. Before we get started deep into this thing, can I ask you a question as we get started?

Sure.

Born Limitless

I like to flip the script a little bit. It’s helpful for me to do that. Maybe it’ll be helpful for some of your audience. I wrote a book called Born Limitless, which is my first book. It made it to the USA Today best-seller list. That journey is crazy because you never know but it was a lot of fun. I’m so excited. I’m living in the aftermath of that and learning. I’ve been in that process.

Limiting Beliefs: Born Limitless: Crush Limiting Beliefs, Cultivate an Infinite Mindset, and Unleash Your True Potential.

I was on a lot of podcasts and with amazing hosts. I’ve asked them if I can ask a question because it’s helped me. I’ve been on about 43 podcasts in the last few months. That’s a lot of podcasts. None like yours, though. I’ve asked all of those hosts the same question. What’s interesting is that of those 43 podcasts, 40 of them have answered the same way. There has pretty much been the same answer.

My book is Born Limitless. It’s about limiting beliefs. The reality is I believe we all have them. We’ve all struggled with them at some point in our lives. Some, we’ve identified, and some, we haven’t. You are amazingly successful. You’re making a huge difference in the lives of the people in the world around you. What is one limiting belief that you had to overcome that you’ve worked through? Maybe you’re still working on overcoming it. In your journey to get to where you are, to be a best-selling author already, to writing another book, doing all the coaching, and everything you’re doing, what is a limiting belief you’ve had to work through that you discovered along the way?

I know why so many people had the same answer. I believe we all have one core thing that we are in growth with, and that is worthiness. I’m sure that’s what it is because we are all inside this little kid who wants to feel that approval, wants to belong, and feel worthy and valued in making a difference in a contribution to the world. Every time I rise to a new level, I get imposter theory. It’s like, “Do I deserve this? Am I providing the value? Is it resonating with people?” That’s a constant struggle. I’m still working through it. That’s the human condition.

You nailed it. It’s personal value and worth, the belief in self. Most of them, if they unpack their stories, somewhere along that line, they started to believe a lie in an area of their life that  they said, “I can’t. I won’t,” or, “I’ll never.” They believed it for so long that it became a truth to them. Their behaviors began to back up a reinforcement, and they created a ceiling over their lives that was never meant to be there. It all stemmed from that place of worthiness, value, the way we see ourselves, and our identity. Almost 100% of the people I’ve asked that question to, that’s what they’ve said one way or another.

It doesn’t surprise me. Let me ask you this question, then. You opened it up there. When was your first known memory that it was this that was holding you back?

If this was a half-day episode, we could really get into this thing. 

It’s a twenty-minute episode.

There are so many places. Here’s the interesting thing about that question.

 The most important one. The one that you want to share.

Here’s an interesting thought about that question. One of the challenges to identify that is we have lived with limiting beliefs for so long that we’ve called them normal. We don’t even recognize that we have them. The one that set this off for me, and this is a story I tell in my book so I won’t get into the whole thing, was at six years old, I was abused by a babysitter. It was not good. It was a terrible situation. I was raised by a single mom.

Here’s what happened. In the process of that happening to me, I had no outlet. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to do with all that. This experience is happening to me and I am beginning to define it in my head or interpret that experience in a way that says, “I must have deserved this. I’m not very good. I must be doing something wrong. There’s something in my value or worth that says this is okay,” and that all women wanted to do was to hurt me or to take something from me. I had this look on females and women.

That was at six years old. Fast forward to 25 years old, I met the woman of my dreams, the one I knew inside I wanted to marry and be with for the rest of my life. I kept sabotaging that relationship. I kept seeing myself do things, say things, and act in ways that I was like, “If I don’t change this, I am going to destroy this relationship. I’m going to lose this person that, for the first time, I felt like this is the one I want to be with for the rest of my life.”

I didn’t understand why. I didn’t know where the source was. I didn’t recognize I was doing it until I got confronted with, “I want to be with her and I’m struggling.” I had a coach at that time who was getting started in that, was working me through some of my journey in my life, and started asking me some questions. What I discovered as I looked back over my life was that there was a wake of broken relationships with women. I’ve never looked at it that way. I said, “Every relationship I’ve had with a female, I have kept them at a distance. When they got too close, I was done.” He helped me trace that back to this experience.

The issue was that I had interpreted it in such a way that defined my identity, worth, and value. My behaviors began to live that way and I began to play that out in everything that I did until this situation with this woman that I wanted to be with. This is stuff you talk about with the reset, the mindset, and the reframing. I had to go back to that space. I still had to deal with the pain of what happened. What I had to shift was how I defined and interpreted it, which defined my value and worth and all women.

I started to reshape it. When I reshaped it, reframed it, and made different declarations of, “I’m not bad. I didn’t deserve this. I’m a good person. All women aren’t bad,” I began to act differently. I’ll summarize it this way. I’ve been married for 34 years to that same woman. It wasn’t the easiest journey at the beginning because the behaviors and everything hadn’t shifted. I’m so glad that I discovered that situation or that limiting belief that was based on a lie. I was able to reshape it, reframe it, and begin to walk out new behaviors. That’s a long answer, but that was probably the most powerful one that set me on this journey. 

You’ve spoken to a lot of other people about this, and we all have our own experiences. I’m thinking about where I might have recognized the limiting belief and how I would have been able to break through that if I had recognized it. I’m sure there’s a ton that I have that I don’t even recognize. Do we want to say that it’s recognizable by self-sabotaging behavior?

Probably not. It could be. It was the vision of something I wanted that I was destroying. I wouldn’t have thought about self-sabotaging at that point, but I had a vision of something I wanted and I couldn’t get it. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t break through to that. That began the self-assessment of, “What is going on? Why am I struggling?” I really needed the help of someone to ask me some questions that I didn’t know how to ask myself.

The challenge is that we have lived in these areas for so long that we call them normal. I start all my coaching when we start digging into that with, “What if that normal that you’re calling normal isn’t normal? What if it was never meant to be normal for your life, but you’ve accepted it because of the experiences and the behaviors that you’ve created and experienced? You said, “This is what my life looks like. We’ve accepted that as normal. What if it’s not normal?” That’s really the question. We have to be willing to self-assess and ask that question in areas. The other thing I tell people on how we begin to find that is not so much self-sabotaging. We get to that. It’s about listening to the words we speak. How do we talk about ourselves?

Take Back Time | Rick Torrison | Limiting Beliefs

That’s self-sabotage. I’m a total believer in words, but if we look at what those behaviors are, it’s not intentional because there’s a mismatch between what we want and where our beliefs are. Our behavior shows up because we can’t get past that. That’s what I meant by that.

100%. We self-sabotage. That’s exactly what happens. Our breakthrough doesn’t necessarily come from a recognition of that. Our breakthrough comes when we realize, “I can’t get to what I want. What’s going on?” We then go, “This is me.”

It could. That is the thing that I’m trying to say. I don’t want to be competitive, but it’s interesting to me if we notice that there’s behavior that’s keeping us from the very thing that we want if we notice it there. There are different noticing points. That’s interesting. 

It’s not a linear process.

There are lots of different ways to enter into this maze.

The on-ramps to this revelation are all over the place. You’re right.

Let’s come back to language because I love the conversation around language. I believe that language has energy, intensity, and direction. We have to have more purposeful intentions around language. Tell me where you are going with that.

I believe words have power. Our declarations have power.  When we recognize and understand the words we say, our words or our vocabulary can reveal itself to us. It exposes things. One of the words I tell people to start listening for is the word “But.” “But” can help you get from one place to the other. When you say, “I’m not very good at this, but I’m working on it,” that’s a transition to better behavior.

90%-plus of when we use, but we’re exposing ourselves to a limiting belief. It’s like, “I would love to,” or, “I’d like to,” or, “I wish I could, but.” We disqualify everything we said prior to that. The very next thing we begin to say can be a telltale of where our limiting belief is. It begins to expose something that we believe that says we can’t do this.

I have people listen for those words. We use “I can’t” when we start justifying situations. We’re like, “I can’t. I’ve never done that,” or, “I’ve not ever been very good at that.” We begin to justify or qualify our lives before we ever go down that road. If we can identify any of those places, there are good signs that there is a limiting belief somewhere. We have to acknowledge the lie that we’re believing “I can’t,” “I’m not,” or “I’m never.” That’s where we work.

The book talks about how we identify the lie, the limiting belief, and replace it with a truth. For, “I can’t do this,” it’s, “I can.” For, “I’m not very good,” it’s, “I am.” For, “I will not,” or, “I will.” That declaration is the doorway or the entry place to the transformation and change and to see different results. It’s not the answer. Declarations don’t change things on their own, but they are a huge step. You can’t get there without flipping those declarations over your life.

Let’s talk a little bit about that because there might be people whose declarations are like, “I will earn $1 million.” It’s an affirmation type of thing. They think, “I can say that until the cows come home but that’s not going to make me a millionaire.” People, when I talk about gratitude and I go through this exercise, are like, “It feels fake.” What do you say to that person that says, “That doesn’t work,” or, “That’s fake. That’s toxic positivity.” What do you say to that?

I would say, “I understand. I’ve been right where you are. I live in that place and don’t even realize that I’m doing that.” Part of the process is the grace that we give to ourselves and to others in the self-discovery of the things that we’re saying about ourselves. I typically don’t start with, “Let’s start making all these positive declarations.” What I typically start with is, “Where are those limitations? Where are the beliefs we have that are holding us back?”

From there, part of the holistic process is, “If that’s not true, how I defined my life and women when I was six years old was a lie. All women weren’t out to get me and to hurt me. That was a lie. Based on that, I believed that this was true.” I had these declarations that I was making. That’s a declaration, like, “All women want to hurt me.” The shifting of that is, “Not all women want to hurt me. One woman wanted to hurt me. Women are a support for me. They’re a strength for me. They’re partners for me,” and all of those things. I don’t go to the declarations right off the bat that aren’t tied to a limitation. It’s that idea of manifestation. I do believe in manifestation, but not typically the way most people talk about it or are fearful of it. I do believe our words have energy and power behind them.

I do a test with people. I’ll say, “Do this for me.” In my crowds in my speaking, I’ll say, “I want you to say, “I’m not very good. I will never accomplish anything. I won’t be successful. Declare that as loud as you can. How did you feel?” Most of them would say, “I’m heavy.” I then tell them, “Now, say it to the person next to you. Look them in the eye and say, “You’ll never. You can’t, and you won’t. How did you feel there?” They’re like, “I didn’t even want to say that.” I say, “We may not have wanted to do it in this exercise, but we do this every day over ourselves and others and don’t even realize it.”

They begin to feel the power of those words and the energy of what they’re saying. We walk through that, and then I say, “Now, I want you to stand up and declare, “I can. I will. I am.” How was that energy? What did you feel? How did your posture realign? Look at the person and reframe that. Say, “You can. You will. You are.” The whole energy in the room changed. Those are simple statements without tying it to something in your life. Imagine tying that to a limiting belief that you have and flipping that. What would that energy, focus, and direction do in your life?

I love that, and I love that you’re helping people to experience it in a general way so that they know that they feel it. Once you experience it, you feel it. You understand the impact that it’s having on you. I do something similar but different. It’s giving people the experience to feel it. I want to come back for a second. You said recognizing the declaration. I want to use some different language so that it will help people to reframe it by using a different language. It’s a generalization.

We may have a similar past in neurolinguistic programming. It’s about how language impacts. The way that our brain processes is we delete, distort, and generalize. That’s how we create meaning. It’s like, “Based on this meaning, this is how we’re going to delete, distort and generalize things.” When we recognize these generalizations, in case they don’t like that word declaration, we can see that they’re not.

It’s really recognizing anything that puts us in a box, ice it, and put a ceiling over our lives. That ceiling has become the max that we can achieve in that area. Here’s the other thing that’s true. We have limiting beliefs in some areas and we’re killing it in others. We think, “I don’t have any limiting beliefs.” Typically, we don’t pay attention to those places of limiting beliefs, or we push to the side. I believe we’re holistic people. They end up bleeding together at some point, so they show up even though we don’t even realize it. It’s that process of recognizing where we are putting ceilings over our lives and settling for something less that I believe we were born and created for. 

Finding Our Biggest Limiter

How do we find our biggest limiter? People are sitting here and they get it. You gave a great example of what you do in the audience. From that, they get it. What’s the next thing they can do to make a difference and start getting past that biggest limitation?

It’s personal for everybody and our journey. The first thing I tell people in the preset is, “You’ve got to be willing to ask the question.” If you’re willing to look at your normal and say maybe it isn’t, then you’re well on your way. Once you’re willing to self-examine and say, “I have,” we can begin moving down the road.

What I understand and what I’ve seen in my coaching is it typically comes when we’re pursuing a destination, an objective, or a goal. It’s something that we wanted to do for some reason. Whatever that reason is, we’re unable to get there. We keep going around the mountain there instead of up. We keep running into obstacles or roadblocks. We’re like, “I’ve tried so hard at this. I’ve done this. I can’t seem to break through here.”

Those areas, when they start recognizing it, or places, I’ll tell them, “What’s a dream you’ve given up on? What is something you desired, had a passion for, or thought you wanted to do that you went down that road and for whatever reason, you stopped? You didn’t continue.” We will explore those places by asking them a series of questions and saying, “What is the belief you have around that? Where does that belief come from? Is that belief based on a lie or a truth?” If it’s based on the truth, we’re like, “This is a real situation. How would you adjust? What do you need to do differently to overcome this truth or move in a different direction? If it’s not the truth, what do you do?”

Two things can be true at the same time, too. That’s where we also need to get clear. It’s one of the things I talk about. When I talk about my divorce and my ex-husband, two things are true. He was a mentor to me, but at the same time, he was not the person I perceived him to be, without going into any other detail. Both are true. Whatever one I decided to focus on was going to determine how I was going to show up, how I was going to treat my children, how I was going to treat him, and everything. It’s interesting to say, “What else is true?” Maybe that’s a good question. I never thought about that before. What else could also be true?

“What else?” is a great question. That comes from some of the NLP stuff. It’s like, “What else?” It drives people crazy, but it gets them to think at a deeper level. That’s a really important question to bring that focus and that clarity to whatever it is that we’re talking about.

For me, “What else?” is a perspective. It widens our awareness and our perspective of what our options are. I believe that it’s only then when we know what our options are that we can really make a good conscious choice.

That what questions cause us to look forward. We spend too much time with our why questions. Why is good to get started, but it’s backward thinking. What causes us to begin to look at forward momentum, like where we want to go or what we need to do? The very energy of a what question propels you in a direction forward.

Limiting Beliefs: The very energy of a ‘what’ question propels you forward.

Unless you’re talking about your core as to why you’re doing something, it’s attacking. It’s like, “Why did you do that? Why did you kick the dog? Why did you take the milk out and leave it out?” or whatever. It can feel more attacking. We do that to ourselves, too, sometimes. We’re like, “Why did I do that?”

We say that to our kids, our significant others, or people. We’re like, “Why are you acting that way? Why do you keep doing that? I’ve told you 1,000 times.” It’s guilt, shame, and condemnation that we’re putting on them. They can answer it, but does that matter? Is the answer going to change it? It’s like, “I did it because you do this.” There’s no solution in why. There’s no future or hope in why. It keeps us stuck.

Final Thoughts

Agreed. I like that too. I talk about that. That’s why there’s a lot of discussion around using the why. I agree with you. What is more powerful and forward-moving? I love how you describe that. We could chat on and on, but we are out of our time together. What’s one thing that I didn’t ask you that you want to get across to everybody?

What I would say to people who are reading that I’d want them to know in this process for me and how I go about things is I believe this with everything that I am, from the perspective that I sit in, and my background. I believe that everyone was born limitless. I believe that life happens. As life happens, we begin to redefine and reset and we put limitations over our lives. I believe that in our creativeness, we were born limitless. We were created for more. In that, I don’t mean stuff and things. I mean influence and impact, a future and a hope.

I want people to understand that no matter where they are, no matter what they’re sitting in, and no matter their past, the challenges, the trauma, and the brokenness, it’s all part of your story. Your past was never meant to define your future. It was meant to inform and refine it, not define it. When we let our past define our future, we limit our possibilities because the lens by which we see our future is marred by our past.

This whole thing is cleaning those lenses and saying, “Take a time out. Take a breath. Refocus. Re-look at this. Sit back, understand, and perceive.” When we can do that, everything changes. I want people to know that wherever they are, there’s still more. You are created for more. There’s greater impact and influence you’re able to have. Challenge your normal. Find someone to walk with you in that process to ask you those questions to move you forward. That would be the encouragement I would share with people as they’re walking through this. Give yourself some grace. 

I love that word, grace. Where can people find out more about you and get a hold of your book and more?

Thank you for that opportunity. The book is on all the platforms. You can go to Amazon or anywhere. It’s Born Limitless. You can get a copy of the book. I’d love that. Thank you for that. If you want to get into my world and see what I’m doing and talking about, Instagram is a great place to do that. It’s @RickTorrison.

If you direct message me through Instagram and you share a limiting belief or something you’ve been struggling with, I’ll send you a framework that I give people that they can walk themselves through to begin to challenge that and ask some questions around that belief to see if it’s something that’s limiting you or putting a ceiling in your lives. I’d love to give you that gift if you message me through Instagram.

If you want to learn, engage, or find out what I do, go to my website, which is RickTorrison.com. It’s under construction. We’re constantly evolving. Since the book came out, I have had to refocus and reset some things. There’s still a landing page there. Go to that and message me there. You can learn how to connect with me and the things that we’re doing. I’d love to serve you in any way I can and help you continue to walk into that limitless life I believe we’re all born and created for.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. I appreciate you. Best of luck with everything with the book. I can’t wait to see you on that next best-seller list.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

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Thank you all for being here. I know that you took a lot away from this because I did. I got some new connections and thinking. I’m really thinking about what’s limiting me. No matter where we are and what stage we’re in, if we’re limitless, that means something is holding us back. Create some heightened awareness as to what that is for you. Write it down. Take some time to think about it.

Take that reset moment that you know that I talk about and sit with it. Identify for yourself what that limiting belief is and what is possible if you find a new normal. Go ahead and check out Rick’s resources and everything. What a great opportunity to send him a note over Instagram. That’s it for this episode. This is the show. We’ll see you in the next episode.

Important Links:

• Rick Torrison
• Born Limitless
• @RickTorrison – Instagram
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/RickTorrison/

About Rick Torrison

RICK TORRISON is a Coach, best-selling author, consultant, and transformational growth catalyst with over 25 years of experience helping individuals, teams and organizations overcome obstacles and breakthrough barriers to grow their lives and their businesses. From Fortune 50 companies to struggling entrepreneurs, Rick has been able to help clarify vision, define values, and create growth cultures that have increased personal and professional productivity.