Freethinker - The Mindset Shift for Instant Mental Clarity - E156

And it's because they're trained to rush to certainty.

So think that through for a second.

What does it mean to you to live in a world where we're rushed to be certain about things, to respond and be certain about things?

“Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking before you?”

That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears, and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleep walking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the Makes sense with Dr. JC Podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the

shock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up, let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Most people think that being a free thinker. Think about what it means to be a free thinker is just some sort of a label.

And what's interesting about that is I have a guest coming on the Makes sense with Dr. JC Podcast this week. The Great Near I.L., who just made the New York Times bestseller with his new book called Beyond Belief. So naturally I read the book. I'm a huge fan of Nears, he wrote a book called Indistractable, he wrote a book called Hook. If you have not gotten your hands on this new book, Beyond Belief, please consider it.

It's just fascinating to think about what that even means beyond Belief. But he shared something and our folks out in Asia, Malaysia, Singapore. He shared something that most people don't know, you know, in those countries when you fill out a form and they ask you questions about yourself, including your beliefs, it goes a little bit further than just religion. There's a box that you can check off in Malaysia and Singapore, which I think is a very thoughtful thing to ask somebody.

But there's an option to consider yourself a free thinker. How fascinating is that to not say, you know, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or even atheist just to consider yourself a free thinker.

So think for a second, what that would mean to you to allow yourself to identify as a free thinker.

So most people think that a free thinker is just a label and maybe something that you check off on a form.

“But today, we're going to look at the idea of what if it actually is a secret weapon for your brain?”

Whether you want to consider your religious beliefs as a free thinker or not, what if you just consider yourself as an open curious free thinker? And yes, that may be go. So today I want to explore something that I haven't fully made up my mind about yet. How's that? Is sound working now? So that's what my hat represents. It says, hmm, and that's just a sound that I say that is an open and curious sound.

But it also stands for haven't made up my mind. That's something that I allow myself to do to not make up my mind. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. But this idea of maybe the reason why so many people feel stuck, reactive, and maybe even mentally overwhelmed.

And it's because they're trained to rush to certainty think that through for a second.

What does it mean to you to live in a world where we're rushed to be certain about things, to respond and be certain about things? There's this pressure that we have on ourselves to be certain. I don't know if you guys can feel it. We're going to look at the idea that in 2026, potentially one of the greatest advantages that you can have might not be to know more. God, we're so pressured to know things. Like, and if you don't know something, you might pretend you know or you might feel compelled to go look it up.

But maybe it isn't about knowing more, but staying open and curious longer.

“That's what we're going to talk about that moment that pause when we say, hmm,”

and we allow ourselves to not know and stay curious. And this is attached to being a free thinker. So by the end of this episode, I don't want to give you more answers. That's not my task today to give you more answers. What I want to do is I want to give you something better, and that is just potentially some windshield wipers or some make sense glasses that will enable and equip you to see things more clearly. Here's a perspective. So I came across something as I said before, and I want to put it into context while I was reading this book beyond belief.

What Neera Yel does in this book is he points out that there's places like Malaysian Singapore where free thinker is actually listed as an option when we're identifying our religious preferences or in the case of the book believes.

I thought to myself, oh, great. Another label, right? And another, I kind of got frustrated like it's not enough to call yourself a whatever or an atheist.

“Now we have a free thinker. So that was my first knee jerk reaction, but the more than I sat with it, which prompted today's podcast episode, the less that I felt like it was a label.”

And the more I started to consider that it was more like a permission slip. Do you guys know what a permission slip is? A permission slip to me at this time means that somebody of authority gives me permission to think for myself. But I'm talking about giving yourself a permission slip. I love to actually write myself permission slips to do things like be open and curious. I write myself permission slips every now and then to care less about things that don't deserve my care. And I'm not talking about a permission slip to rush to an answer either because I give myself permission to not rush to an answer and not feel pressured to pick aside to not lock yourself into a belief just so that you can portray that you are a certain person.

I just loved this concept. And I don't know. There's something about that. This idea of giving yourself permission being a free thinker. It just feels like it might be missing in how most of us think. And I hope that that is a gift and a blessing for you today to just recognize first that I don't really do that. I kind of allow my programmed persuaded and conditioned mind. She's been programmed by our mother, father, teacher, preacher, society, evolution.

I just kind of put the keys of trust that it will know what to do. I'm talking about putting a pause on that for a second and having a conversation with yourself and calling the shots.

“Here we say welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. That's what this show is about. We live in a world where the thinking is being done for us. We're going to give ourselves permission to think for ourselves.”

We're going to reclaim control as the dominant force and shot haulers of our own lives. So here's the problem. If we look around, we live in a world that rewards certainty. Can you see that? Can you see that we live in a world that has like a reward system that is progressive and it rewards people for being certain. Certain in their opinions. We get rewarded if we take a stance, you know, or at least we think that we get rewarded when we take a stance to be confident, decisive. Don't get me wrong. There's value to those things. I'm not saying don't ever do that. I'm just saying start recognizing that we live in a system that has a reward system for those things.

“So there's the value in considering and entertaining the exploration of what might be the sooner that we stop this program to respond system that we have.”

And we'll get closer to this potential of thinking about what we actually think what actually serves us rather than just playing the role. So it got me wondering how much of what we know is actually just what we decided early on.

And never questioned again, how much of what you're certain about. Now certainty is a tough thing to challenge because it's the foundation for our identity in many cases.

But how much of your certainty, if you really give yourself a chance to think about it, is just based on something that you decided early on was. And you never questioned it again. The whole concept of, hmm, is not only questioning what you're receiving from the outside in. It's also questioning and disputing and contemplating, not saying, I'm not going to think that way. It's just saying, well, what is another way of thinking and alternative perspective entertaining alternative perspectives. It's such a freeing thing if you allow yourself to do it.

To say, it turns out, you're not going to believe this, but it turns out that 75% of all of you and consume my material are not subscribed to the YouTube channel. If you could just take a second and subscribe to it, subscribe, support the makes sense ecosystem and you'll get notifications and help us grow. And when we grow, the content's going to get better and we're going to be able to keep the lights on and serve you guys better. We'd greatly appreciate it. I want to introduce this topic and kind of ease it into the interface response system, which is our four step system of changing the way that you look at things so that the things that you look at can change and that comes from the makes sense book.

So this is where I want to bring in something really, really simple and I've mentioned it a couple times, but it's probably the most powerful thing I have to share.

And that is, this sound of him. And it's spelled H M M M for a reason. And I think a lot of people say it and a lot of people look it by hat with the question mark and they say, oh, and I don't know what it means to you, but it means haven't made up my mind.

And that is a four step system to help us move away from reaction, which is handing the keys of trust to our program condition mind, which is very often faulty and moving towards a thoughtful response. But what we're talking about where this hm, sits is in the pause. So that's the second step and it's a practice of cognitive distancing, stepping into a space between the stimulus and your program response and what that does is it gives you a chance to think to ask yourself questions about what you really think.

So the pauses where everything changes, if you can just allow yourself to start saying, hmm, more often, and by the way, that's not running away from an answer, because remember there's forces that work right now that are prompting us and pressuring us to answer, you're not running away from an answer, you're not dodging the answer, you're just going to process it and come up with an answer that suits you and potentially then better.

“And I want you to know that there's also a situation where no answer is appropriate.”

We're very often getting approached by people unsolicitedly, things are happening that we don't control and we still feel prompted to have a reaction to it.

You don't have to have a reaction to everything. So sometimes when I say, hmm, and I pause, I recognize I don't really even care. I don't have anything to add to it and it has nothing to do with me. This is the actions behind this idea of being a free thinker. When you say, hmm, haven't made up my mind, what you're doing is you're interrupting the automatic reaction that feels compelled to display that demand for certainty, sit with that for a sec.

What you do is you create space between the stimulus, now the stimulus is not always something that you're perceiving on the outside, the stimulus could be your thoughts.

I've been really fascinated how we feel compelled to participate with all of our thoughts. We have 40 to 70,000 thoughts that run through our head. And somehow we select like four or five of them and we create our identity behind it and we participate with that and sometimes that are ruined our day or sometimes that'll be the reason we don't follow through. So when I say, hmm, sometimes I'll do that with my own thoughts. I love to ask myself, oh, is that right JC, is that right dragon and then say, but what else might be true, and that moves me into this space where I can determine what else might be true.

“I just want to make sure everybody knows that sometimes I don't participate. I just observe, I don't run away and just like my heart beats, I don't challenge every beat of my heart because that's what my heart does.”

Well, your brain, like the heart, thinks and we don't have to entertain every thought and we don't have to entertain every unsolicited action or event that happens in our life. So it's a valuable tool.

So you create space between the stimulus and your response and in that space, as I said, you're no longer operating from internal triggers and distraction. It's a healthy space for you to be in.

It's a better version of yourself and it's a space where you're not trying to defend what you already believe. Now remember we said before, when I look at a belief or something that I know to be true, something that I know that I have certainty behind, I entertain whether or not that's something that I had decided on a long time ago and never allowed myself to question it, you're just observing it.

“We're entertaining the idea right now that there are things thoughts and feelings because remember day card says, I think therefore I am. So before you decide that you are, right?”

We're just going to entertain. Well, maybe not something that has expired and the key word there is maybe. Now if this is an exhausting thing for you to entertain, like to actually rethink your thoughts. As a great book by Adam Grant called Think again, he basically says, it's okay to think again. It's okay to rethink things and it could be the catalyst to an extraordinary breakthrough and acceleration in your life. So we're talking about a massive shift. This is some good shift and the shift is to move from reaction to free thinking and maybe that's what a free thinker really is.

It's almost like a permission slip like we said before. It's not someone who rejects belief. This is the reason why we won't allow ourselves to be a free thinker to pause our certainty and allow ourselves to rethink it.

We're just going to ask ourselves what we think about it and a lot of my belief systems I didn't create in that sense. They were given to me and I had reason to believe that they were true.

So maybe their expiration date has come. So we entertain the maybe component of that and we say, well, let me take a look. Let me take a look under the hood. Someone who can process information without needing to agree or disagree right away. Remember, we have that urgency to be certain and also to respond. We don't have to right away. We can take our time and what's interesting is if you start doing this, people that are putting the pressure or society or your thoughts, putting the pressure on getting that expected outcome of that immediate certainty or immediate response, they don't like that. People will not like it if you start thinking for yourself.

There's a lot of pressure in doing that, but we're not talking about them. We're talking about you right now in your life.

“In other words, those people and these are very wise people. There's a direct connection between people that have full scale, joyful, film, and happiness in their life. Those people allow themselves to think freely. So are you one of those people?”

I'm a little bit of a science geek. So I don't want to just share theory. So let's talk a little bit about the science layer. So there's also something interesting that's happening here and it's on the research scale. Another great guess that we've already interviewed in his episode of Becoming Out a Couple Weeks. That's the amazing Tal Ben Shahar, who I just fell in love with. He's just an amazing guy. He's written several books, but his latest book is called Happy Your No Matter What, which I think is phenomenal.

“Another great book to get. Happy Your No Matter What, Shahar touches on this, and he shares with us a study. There's a fascinating study, and you can go Google this.”

And it suggests that cognitive flexibility is attached and connected and prompts longevity. This is a real thing. What this means is, if you have the ability to entertain what we're talking about. If you have the ability to stay open and curious and continuously allow yourself to learn what else there might be, you see, when I say, I don't know or maybe or at this time. I'm pretty sure I have certainty around this, but I said at this time, which means it's open to change.

“When I wake up in the morning, I've learned that I have this SD card for a brain and very often I have it on the right protect mode, meaning it's not open to anything else.”

So what Talben Shahar is pointing out with this study is that when you allow yourself to be open and curious and continuously learning, like a scientist who doesn't need to be right, they're more interested in what else might be better or more true, it's actually connected to living longer. So if you need another excuse to do this, there it is. If you like the idea of living a longer, healthier, happier lifestyle, just remain open and curious. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure. One of the things that I teach in the make sense academy and a big shout out to all of you that are members of our private community in the make sense academy.

We just always teach people that they don't need to know things, right? People don't need to know. I always remind people that the four magic words are to start sentences by saying, "All I know is."

And this is a great business tip. I teach a course called communication breakdown, and this is a great business tip to not talk about things that you don't know, because as soon as you do, you're moving from the servant to the salesperson, and people can sense that. When you're talking about stuff that you don't know about, people can sense it, and that's in some walks of life called talking shit. So this is super fascinating because it suggests that rigidity might not just be limiting your thinking, it might actually limit your lifespan to be stuck and rigid and certain.

So what this study is showing is that certainty, close-minded rigid certainty, this is this, is attached to dying younger. I just think that's fascinating. Look it up for yourself. At this time, I find it fascinating. You know, I haven't made up my mind about it, but it's sure fascinating to me. So let's put this into application. We're going to talk about emotional regulation and clarity.

And if you skip the first step of getting clear on things, getting to know thyself and establishing a clear state of mind where you're thinking for yourself, which is why is so powerful, you're going to be scattered. You might find yourself oscillating.

You might find yourself in this world doing a lot of things, doing a lot of the hard work, but not getting anywhere.

“Remember, it's who you are that determines how well what you do works. That's one of our two core tenants of the make sense ecosystem. You know, a lot of people say that the upstream cause of disease is not what most people think.”

One of my greatest mentors, Wayne Scott Anderson, he said that the upstream cause of most disease is emotional mismanagement. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. And this is where things get practical. When something triggers you, and that could be a comment, a situation, or a piece of news, God, we have so much news. Be careful if you're paying attention to news. There's a lot of say in who's delivering the news and we know that you're smarter than that, but it could be a comment, a situation, or a piece of news, your brain wants to react instantly. Remember, we're trained to react.

We're trained to think that we need to react. And this is one of the reasons we latch on to our thoughts and our feelings. So quickly, and we participate. Remember, we're talking about slowing the process down and emotionally regulating yourself first. Sometimes, if I'm in a bad state, and my wife has an intense conversation, or maybe a problem with something that I did, fellas, you know that, I will feel comfortable to say, I'm not in the right state to talk about this. Could we take a little bit of a break, a pause, maybe 30 minutes or an hour and come back to it, and we'll have a much more productive and understanding and empathetic conversation.

“The program that we're talking about, but if you insert the, hmm, next time you have a thought, especially a negative one, or even a positive one, just try saying it's, say, hmm, contemplate it.”

Take a look at it before you just jump on it, and even for a few seconds it's helpful, you activate something very, very different in your brain.

You move from reaction, and reaction is important if a rock is thrown at your head, or a car is coming at you, understood, but most of the time we're reacting too fast to things that don't even deserve our attention. But you move from reaction into awareness. I heard Joe dispens a one time, you know, he gives these amazing talks, and he has these weak, long retreats, and a lot of people ask after they've downloaded all that information.

“So what can I do now? What can I do now? And I'll tell you, after these conversations, if you've aligned with something fantastic, but what do you do now? What can you do now?”

It's just simply to allow yourself to be more aware, and the first step to being aware is to get curious, to wonder the first step to wisdom is wonder.

You move from reaction into awareness, from certainty, into curiosity, and from emotion, into emotional regulation. And there's so many techniques for emotional regulation. If you have a technique for emotional regulation, I'd love to know what you do to regulate your emotions when they're running high. What are some things that you do? I meditate, I do some breathing, I might take a pause. One of the things that I find helps me is speaking. One of the reasons I started my podcast, ironically, was not to create a podcast. It was just to do some talk therapy.

So what is it that you do to regulate your emotions? And I'm not saying that this makes you passive, by the way, a lot of times your brain will kick up and say, this seems very, very passive. I think this is about becoming more precise. So we're moving from passive that thought process to precise. Here's a reflection. Maybe the goal isn't to become more certain, and I know that sounds crazy, but maybe the goal is not to become a more certain person. Maybe it's to become more aware of what, how quickly we become certain. Maybe that's the big takeaway today is to just become aware of how quickly we become certain.

Now, look at anything that you're certain on right now and ask yourself how you came to that, how you came to that, and if it's been well thought out, and it's an alignment with you, great. You go on with that. My lean Serbana says, watching from Saudi Arabia, oh my goodness, that is super cool. What is it like in Saudi Arabia? You know, when I was a chiropractor, can't mention any names, but I took care of some royal princess. In places like that, but I never got to go there. I went to Abu Dhabi and I went to Dubai to provide care, but oh my god, so cool. Matthew Brownfield says, turn the thought into a question. So this always happens becomes this always happens. I love that. So I speak very often about recognizing the sentences and statements that we have that have exclamation points behind them and turning around just like Matthew says and putting a question mark.

Certainly feels good and that's one of the reasons why we buy into it. It's uncomfortable to not feel certain. In fact, if you look at all of the stuff that I talk about in the makes sense ecosystem, we're talking about the glory and the freedom of making sense of things.

“If things don't make sense, you got some work to do. So sometimes we have this way of talking ourselves into certainty or into sense. And how do you come to that determination that you're certain?”

It's typically not from the inside out. You might be thinking you're checking with your mind, your heart and your gut, but you're always getting influenced by the persuasion of your program.

Not saying to denounce it, but what we're saying is it's interesting, right? It feels good to be certain, but it might also be the very thing that is closing us off the fastest.

“This idea of being certain might be biting you in the ass. And if that's true, then maybe isn't a hesitation. A lot of people challenge me.”

God, we're not even allowed to hesitate. I mean, there are certain situations where hesitation is not fruitful. If you're a quarterback, if you hesitate, you're going to get sacked.

But a lot of times, we think that we are not allowed to hesitate. Maybe this is more about clarity in progress. Think about what that means to have clarity in your progress.

“So I'm going to just give you guys a challenge to close with, and I want to leave you with this. Once again, not an answer, but just a question. How much of what you believe right now?”

Did you actually choose to believe? This is a tough one, because a lot of the idea of believing something is believing in how you came to believe it.

How much of what you believe right now? Did you not everybody else, not society, not your upbringing? How much did you actually choose? And how much of it did you inherit? And when you inherited it, can you see that you might have locked it in as fact? I love saying what you see is what you get, but it doesn't mean that it's what actually is. And if you gave yourself permission today to not have to figure it all out, to not make your mind up, to not move so fast to a response, which is typically a reaction, and that's certainty.

And allow yourself to be a free thinker, what might you start to see differently? And that should make you say, hmm, because maybe being a free thinker isn't about knowing more, maybe it's about being willing to not know. Are you willing to let yourself not know for just a little longer? Just a little longer. Make sense? That's it for today. To support the make sense with Dr. JC podcast, be sure to subscribe, like, and share, as well as follow the make sense sub-stack for free daily quotes, live streams, and blogs. And remember, learning without action is just another form of distraction. If something hit home when you learn something today, give it away.

That's the only way it's going to stay. See you next time.