Ever feel like you’re living a life that doesn’t quite feel like yours? Maybe you’re stuck in a job you don’t love, caught in routines you never really chose, or just feeling like something’s holding you back, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. A lot of that might be coming from beliefs buried deep in your subconscious, beliefs you didn’t even realize were running the show.
In this episode of Actions Antidotes, I chat with Albert Bramante, psychology professor, talent agent, and author of Rise Above the Script. We dig into what it really means to live “by the script,” how to spot the limiting beliefs that keep us stuck, and why small, consistent actions (not huge leaps) are the real game changers. Albert shares insights from his own journey and the work he’s done helping people shift their mindset and build a life they actually want to live.
So if you’ve been saying “someday” a little too often…maybe today’s the day to start taking that first step.
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Stop Living by Someone Else’s Script with Albert Bramante
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, I want to talk to you all about kind of achieving your potential and achieving your potential through various different mechanisms. There’s no one set way, despite what they may have told you in school or some other traditional childhood component of your life, that there is no one set way in which you can achieve your potential. There are plenty of ways that we could all, as my guest today would say, Rise Above the Script. That’s the name of his book. My guest today, Albert Bramante, not only is an author but also a psychology professor and talent agent.
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Albert, welcome to the program.
Thank you, Stephen, so much for inviting me. I’m really happy to be here and really happy to be part of the community here and happy to have a conversation, answer any questions and offer any insights that can be helpful.
Yeah, that is wonderful. And so the core message behind this podcast is always about different ways that we can kind of achieve the life that we want, and it’s interesting that your book is titled Rise Above the Script because one of the common expressions I use is “living by the script.” When we talk about the script, I’m curious about if your understanding of the script is similar to the way mine is.
Yeah, I’m not talking about the literal sense of a script, like for a play or for a movie.
And I use the metaphor of a script because the book was written for performing artists who use scripts all the time, so I used that as a metaphor to kind of help understand exactly what the message is and that is really working, rewiring our mindset, and changing our mindset and changing the approach that we live our life on a day-to-day basis.
And is this rewiring of the mindset something that spans kind of almost any kind of pursuit? Because you talk about working with performing artists, we’ll encounter people who say, “I wanna level up at my job.” Maybe we’ll encounter some other people that’ll say, “I wanna leave the nine to five and I wanna build my own business,” or even someone that just wants to create a different community or some other aspect of their lives or they’re like, “I want my relationship to better. I wanna have a relationship.” All those different pursuits that we’re all having in order to level up our lives, is it similar subconscious pursuit?
A hundred percent, yes, because all of that requires you to optimize your mindset and your subconscious beliefs and your conscious beliefs. And what can hold you back from any of these endeavors that you had indicated is limiting beliefs, and these limiting beliefs cannot just be conscious but they can also be subconscious, which means that they really guide the behavior on a really broad level. And so that’s why I kind of talk about the idea of rising above that so that you can transcend and change your life and create the life that you desire, create the action that you desire.
Now, how would someone go about determining whether their limiting belief is conscious or subconscious?
Well, I would say most likely it’s subconscious if you’re trying all the time, you feel that you can’t do anything right or you’re always struggling to get through your day or you’re starting and stopping and starting and stopping and you really don’t know exactly what is going on here. And that’s where it might be subconscious. Because I’m a psychologist, Sigmund Freud, for example, one of the iconic psychologists of our time, came up with the idea of the iceberg metaphor, which is if you ever look at the actual idea of an iceberg, the iceberg only is a tip on top of the ocean, really tiny, but what you don’t see underwater is 95 percent of the iceberg, which is a huge mass. And, of course, that’s what sunk the Titanic.
And so that’s why it’s important to examine these. And this takes a lot of work, and it can be done. It certainly is very possible and that could sometimes come through coaching, either meditation or deep thoughts or just really gain some insights. But even working with a coach I think sometimes can really help with that to address whatever is limiting or holding you back.
So if 95 percent of our beliefs are subconscious, then would you say it’s safe to think of that as like the place where it’s most likely housed? Like if you’re trying, trying and just not seem to be getting there.
Sometimes it’s like you don’t know what you don’t know, in a sense, that’s where the subconscious comes in, because there may be things that are holding you back that you don’t even realize that are holding you back until you address those and say, okay, now, once you know and this maybe it’s subconsciously, now it’s like, okay, you know what you don’t know and that’s where you can work with a coach and say, “Okay, how do I deal with this limiting belief?” And then it’s through that insight and a lot of things that we do things subtly and that might be taking action.
And that’s the biggest thing about if you want to rise above the script, you have to take action. Share on XSo maybe something small, I’m not talking about doing anything drastic right away, but something tiny, a little tiny change here and there, and after that, that can eventually head up.
So if someone were to make a tiny change, just even a small change in something you do in your day-to-day life, does that then map down into the subconscious and change those subconscious beliefs?
Absolutely. Over time, it will, because you’re making some changes. And I see a lot of people who are always like, “I wanna change my life, I want things to change,” but they’re not doing anything. And, case in point, especially when it comes around the end of the year, you see all these posts on social media, like, “I hope the new year is gonna be my year,” or, “New year, new me,” and if there’s no change, it can’t happen. It’s impossible. If you look at the definition of insanity, it’s like doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. So, you got to change.
You want to see different results, you have to start making changes in your life. Share on XAnd then you’ll start to see the results and you’ll start to see changes and you’ll start to change and rewire some of the subconscious beliefs.
So would you be willing to walk through kind of just maybe a really, really base level example where someone comes in and they’re like, “Okay, my life is not what I want it to be,” and let’s just say, “I don’t like my job and I don’t even like what I do on weekends.” What does that starting point look like and what does that realization point look like?
The starting point would be like, okay, you don’t like your weekends, what would be the ideal weekend for you? And start planning that. You would think about that. Map that out entirely, and don’t hold it in the back. What would your ideal weekend look like? And if you don’t like your job, focus on, a, what don’t you like about it? Is there anything you could change? Maybe there’s something you could talk to, have a talk with your boss, have a talk with your coworkers, or anything minor that you can change. And then, what is your dream job? What is your ideal thing that you want? What is your ideal vision of employment? If it’s working on your own, what are the steps that you can start to take? Now, I’m not talking about, I don’t mean like tomorrow quitting your job, that would probably not be realistic for 90 percent of the people right off the bat. So what would be things that you can do? Start doing some research. Look at your downtime. Maybe instead of doing an hour of social media, scrolling, doom scrolling, take that hour and do some research. Even if it’s just an hour a week to start, do something, and start to change that. If you don’t like your weekends, is it because you’re not doing anything? Is it because you’re too wrapped up in your work? It really would depend on what you don’t like about that weekend. So specifically, it would map down, okay, when you say you don’t like your weekend, what is it about that weekend you don’t like? That’s great, but I wouldn’t know how to help you until I know what your weekend looks like and what it is you don’t like. So even start thinking, just even go beyond that, what is it that you don’t like? And start going down. And then, what would an ideal weekend look like? What would an ideal work situation look like for you?
So it starts with a little bit more investigation. And baked into this whole discussion has been some form of habit replacement. You mentioned instead of doom scrolling, kind of looking at it. Can a lot be achieved simply through replacing some things, whether it be doom scrolling or even complaining, ruminating with simply meditation if people don’t know what else to do and they don’t know what they want to research quite yet?
So focus on what you can change and work on that. And instead of ruminating, because that takes some time, do you sit up, that’s all you’re doing is you’re sitting, so instead of doing that, start doing something productive. If your dream is to start your own company, start those action steps.
Is it subconscious, though, that often gets in the way of people taking action? Will someone be like they’re ruminating like, “Hey, wait a second, what if I just reach out to someone who has their own business and ask them what they did,” but then, at that point, does the subconscious often get in the way and say, “No, there’s nothing you can do,” and then, all of a sudden, they’re just on social media again or they’re on their soapbox again.
Yeah, or it could be the limiting belief, like, “Oh, well, it’s so simple they’re not going to help me.” One way to do this is start blocking on times where you will take action and without questioning and just do it. A lot of the population come to that someday cycle, “Well, someday, I’m gonna do this,” “Someday, I’m gonna start my business,” “Someday, I’m gonna start this podcast,” “Someday, I’m gonna write my book,” or, “Someday, I’m gonna take vacation.” This is going to sound harsh but when I hear the word someday, it’s kind of like you’re telling me it’s never going to happen.
I even think of that, I think it was Stevie Wonder who made a Christmas song like, Someday at Christmas, there’ll be no fears, there’ll be no starvation,” and that someday hasn’t happened either.
Yeah, because it’s not possible when you say the word someday. So start taking some action. If you want to write a book, then maybe write, start out one book. That’s your first action. Take the next month and research whatever it is you need to do. Start those actions and just do it. That’s one way to build up your confidence is by doing something. And that’s one way to rewire, change your mindset is by doing new actions, because, a lot of times, to change your subconscious belief, sometimes, it’s actions before thoughts. That’s why sometimes, if you look at programs that build up self-confidence, well, the first thing is working on your physical projection of confidence. Stand up tall, shoulders back, and just do those actions in the beginning, smile, and, eventually, what happens, because the body catches and the mind is going to then have to rewire itself to catch up with the body. So that’s why actions are important to take.
So you talk about taking actions to rewire the subconscious. Now, there’s always going to be a little bit of a time lapse, and I think I’ve read different things about how much time but it doesn’t –– like, let’s say you get confident and you walk up to someone you want to talk to at a networking event or something like that, that one action won’t necessarily overnight change the subconscious. You need to kind of do it repeatedly. As you kind of repeat the action and try to kind of stick to that behavior replacement and rewire the subconscious, what is the most common blockage that people experience in that path, in that time frame between when they first take that first action and when their subconscious actually gets rewired in a way that makes the new behavior kind of just what comes naturally?
Yeah, it varies from person to person. Sometimes, you have to look at the perspective. You didn’t arrive at this place you’re at now overnight. You’re not going to change overnight either. But the more action you take, the more consistent it’ll be. The more consistent you’ll be, the better you are. I mean, let’s say you go and talk to one person at a networking party, you do that one time, now that one contact might not give you the dream right off the bat. However, you never know in a year from now that one contact could snowball into something else. Or if you do that one action, let’s say you go to a networking party, networking event once a month or once a week, let’s start doing that again next month and next month, next month, and you do that as often as possible, and cultivate the networking, follow through and take actions again, not just collecting business, “Oh, I went to this networking event, I collected five business cards.” That’s great. What did you do with that? Otherwise, you become cupholders or whatever it is around your house.
Yeah, just a pile of business cards. When I first started networking some years back, all I would do is come home with piles of business cards.
I’ve done the same, and that’s meaningless because that pile of business cards by itself isn’t going to do anything unless I follow through, follow up. And even if somebody that might not be in your industry directly, perhaps, “Hey, this is what I do. Do you someone like this? Pass it along and I’ll pass along if someone needs that,” like even if let’s say you’re working in coaching and you’re a plumber, well, maybe somebody will need a plumber, I’ll refer you. And if you know anybody who needs some coaching or some of this service that I provide, please keep me in mind. Don’t dismiss that. And that’s where I think a lot of people, and myself included, that’ll follow through when you meet people and you collect the cards, the expectation is when you hand someone your card, that they’ll reach out to you.
Yeah, and then, all of a sudden, you wake up one day and you just have a pile of business cards and you’re trying to remember even how you met half the people that handed those cards to you because handing out a card is easy and even the digital cards, they’re the ones I find get lost in a lot of stuff too.
One way to do that is to follow through immediately, the next day even, say, “Hey, it was great meeting you last night. I’d love to keep in contact,” blah, blah, blah, and then you make a note of where you met that person and you’re building your network up. And that’s taking action and, now, that’s five contacts maybe you met at this networking event that you didn’t have last week. There’s an action right there. You created an action.
And you said that those little things because even if you cultivate that five contacts don’t necessarily mean anything unless certain other things come out, whether you’re looking to get business from them, whether you’re looking to have a social connection or anything else like that, but it’s still in this category of these kind of intermediate actions where you can say you’ve produced something but it hasn’t gotten you, say, your final result yet, those actions can still be a manner in which people can kind of build some level of self-confidence and build better subconscious patterns.
The more you take action, it’s like, okay, now you start to realize, “Hey, I can do this,” and that alone is sometimes the drive you need. Share on XAnd meeting five people at a networking event is a tiny action but it can lead to something down the line, because these five people that may not necessarily directly be able to do anything for you or be able to write anything for you directly, they may be related to people that could, or they may be best friends with somebody who could help you down the line, and you might be able to help someone they know down the line. You never know these connections to unless you take action, because, otherwise, when people say, “Well, these networking events are pointless,” well, if you don’t go to them, they’re going to be pointless, or if you just collect the cards and don’t follow through, they are going to be pointless.
And when someone first starts preparing to take action, do subconscious thought patterns often get in their way? Because I’m just imagining people who say, “Oh, I would go to this event and try to meet people,” or even go to a party I got invited to but it’s like, “But I don’t know everyone else. Are they really gonna like me?” I’m picturing a lot of people having these types of things ruminating in their head before it becomes kind of a natural thing to do.
And you don’t have to do everything. I mean, if you’re more of the introverted type, maybe going to a large party might not be the best thing for you, but go at some meetup groups, those tiny that are specifically in your niche or your interest and do that. Go to some career events or business events. Just take action. What’s the worst that can happen? You’re going to come home and you’re going to be in the same place you were earlier, but you had a night out and you got out of the house. That can sometimes, even just getting outside can be a signal. I can’t tell you, just sometimes getting air. Okay, great. This is helpful. This is what I need. So look at it that way. If anything, you get a night out. When somebody says, “Oh, I’m worried I’m not gonna make it.” Well, you had a night out so that’s a win already, if you want to look at it that way.
So it sounds like it’s a lot of it is about that mindset shift around it. I’ll often talk about people who are single going out to the bars or clubs with their friends and some people can get really, I guess, intense about my goal is to meet somebody. My goal is to meet somebody. And can’t get to that attitude that, okay, maybe I’ll meet someone at this club, but if I don’t, I had a good night out with my friends, and that should be enough.
Well, you’re describing, especially with singles, is they try too hard, and it’s like I must meet somebody when I go out, and, no, you’re going out to have fun, whatever else beyond that, great. If not, you had a night out and do it again next week. And it’s about being consistent too because sometimes people will try one thing. “Well, that didn’t work.” Okay, well, maybe we’re at the wrong event. Maybe that wasn’t the right networking event for you. Maybe that wasn’t the right venue for you. So look for other things rather than saying, “One time, that’s it, I’m done.”
And even with trying something, I know a lot of people will like, say, try to develop a following or try to develop a network repeated such as you want to have a YouTube channel, you need to post pretty repeatedly and post good content in order to get a following. The same way if you want to have a community, let’s say there’s like a weekly meetup. If you want that meetup to become your community, you need to show up to that weekly meetup pretty regularly and then, all of a sudden, people all know who you are and you know who they are and you have this network of people. So some of it does take that consistency and follow through. And it sounds like what you’re saying also is that there’s a lot of people who will try once or even try two or three times and if they don’t see those results right away, they kind of drop off.
Yeah. I was just having a conversation with a mastermind group who have been working on podcasts, for instance, and they were saying 80 to 90 percent of podcasters stop after the first six episodes and they don’t continue anymore because they’re not seeing the following. And five or six episodes is really nothing, nothing at all. It takes time. It takes episodes after episodes of doing that and doing things consistently. And also, a lot of times when you’re making an impact, you may not realize it at first that you’re making an impact, because sometimes you may not get that feedback. Even if you start that YouTube channel, maybe that content you’re putting out, there may be somebody who’s viewing it, consuming it, but may not be commenting.
This is one of the places where I’ve had some interactions outside of my discipline that have really helped me out a lot. I was talking with a friend of mine who’s a college professor and, in that field, you oftentimes have really, really profound impacts on people’s lives that you don’t hear about. Not every person who’s 28 years old and now six years out of college and everything goes back to their high school and college teachers, even the ones that really, really meant something. And my friend just happened to hear it through another avenue that this one person was talking about him and the impact he had as a professor on his life, but I was thinking that for every one that even comes back to him, there’s got to be dozens that don’t so there’s a lot of places to learn.
Yeah, and that’s a great example, because I’ve been a professor myself for 22 years and I’ve had that happen to me a lot of times where like 10 years I run into a student on the train or on my way into New York City, and they’d be like, “Hey, I had you 15 years ago. That was best course I’ve ever had,” and I was like, “I never would have known.” And so you don’t know the impact and that’s the same thing, that’s why you should never stop going to these events. You don’t know what will happen, and it has to take consistency. And also, sometimes, it could take a while for that prospect or that person who may reach out to you, may take a while.
Yeah, the timing is not always right. Like just because you met someone in March but they were ready for your services in September, but they might not be there in the process quite yet.
Right. May take a year or two before they say, “Hey, I met you last year. Is this still something that happened?” So it’s these little actions that are important, but being consistent is another thing too, and that’ll change too because the more you do something, the more it becomes a part of you. And that’s why it’s starting a new habit –– and there’s a debate about whether it takes 21 days to start a new habit. That’s almost been a myth, the 21 days is a myth almost. It can actually sometimes be two or three months of consistent action before it becomes a habit, but the important thing is to be consistent about it. Another thing that’s really helpful, and this is what I’ve went through coaching I’ve been a part of, is maintaining a calendar is important. Putting things on your calendar. This time of the day, I’ll be sending out emails or this is the time of the day I’m going to go live or this is the time of the day I’m going to record something, record a piece of content, and you put it on your calendar because then it becomes real. Otherwise, it becomes a to-do list. So I’m not a big fan of to-do lists. I don’t think that they’re that effective. I think it’s –– actually, I think it causes anxiety with all these lists of things you need to do. And then it becomes paralysis. Sometimes, when we have too many things in front of us, we don’t do anything. It becomes that decision paralysis. So that’s why, sometimes, when you have these people who buy all these courses or have all these books in front of them, they never get anything done because too many options in front of them. It becomes a point, “I’m not gonna do anything. Instead, I’m gonna be spending two or three hours on social media scrolling.”
Yeah, it’s like that jelly experiment I’m sure you’ve heard about, where they had two options and then they had six options and they saw an increase and they’re like, “Oh, let’s put out,” I forget the number, about 34 options, and then no one bought anything because they were all absorbed by the too many choices.
Yeah, there’s too many choices.
And then I’ve also heard a lot of people say things about the power of putting it out into the world. Even if you just go to happy hour with your friends and you say, “Hey, I’m gonna do this,” then you’re more likely to actually follow through on it because you told someone, there’s something in your brain about that.
Yeah, and that, as long as you’re taking action. I mean, one of the things I learned about, from a mastermind that I was a part of before I wrote my book, is introducing yourself as an author, and then, therefore, it rewires your brain to some level, it’s like, okay, well, I’m an author, which means I got to write. What also that does is it increases accountability, and that’s what a lot of we need too is accountability, is someone to hold us accountable, like, “Okay, when are you gonna write this?” Now, one thing that I often –– and this is what I’ve done for myself too, and this is good to do with anybody else, is when somebody says they want to do something, then you say, “Okay, by when will you have this done?” Not, “This is great,” okay, “When will you have the first chapter written?” if you want to write book or, “When will you have your first podcast recorded? What date?” and you start setting a date on the calendar and say, by this date, specifically, it’s going to be done, and more likely it’ll happen than if you just had it as a drink or something, a list of what you want done.
There’s a difference between a week from Friday and someday.
Or sometime this year, I’m going to do this. No. When? Give me a date. And, even if it’s like you don’t exactly meet that date specifically, the moment. The other day, I was having a conversation about, we have a group of us and a coaching program, we’re talking about starting podcasts and it’s like when will you have your first episode done? Now, doesn’t mean you have to release the episode, we’re just talking about having it done.
Yeah, like recorded and edited and all that, yeah.
Yeah. Or even just record. When will you have it recorded? Because now you take action, and the more you take action, it starts to increase your confidence, like, okay, I’m going the distance further, and, for me, I can even talk about how for years I’ve been having the pipe dream of writing a book and a pipe dream isn’t going to do me anything. Dreams are great but they’re not –– and I’m not telling anybody not to dream, but what I’m telling people to do is take action. For me, I kept saying I have the dream of writing a book. Well, that’s great. And I heard a statistic that was kind of sobering for me, this is in early 2023, was that 99 percent of people –– 100 percent of people want to write a book, only 1 percent are going to do it. The other 99 percent, they’re going to be sitting there saying, “Someday, I’m gonna write a book.” And I was easily falling into that 99 percent category. I said, okay, for two hours a day during the summer months, when I wasn’t teaching, I said I’m going to write a book and I set the calendar for June 1st, I’m going to take two hours a day, I’m going to write. And when I started doing that, I said two hours a day, after two or three –– about two and a half months, I had my manuscript. That was a major confidence booster for me, because this is really happening now.
I was thinking about even like when I first pushed out the first, I think I started with the first six episodes of this podcast, I kind of pushed them all out at once because if people like the first one, they’ll go and listen to some of those other ones, but it was a big difference between I’m planning on doing this and when those podcasts were pushed out and they started coming out regularly.
Yeah, it’s like, “This is really happening,” and that’s a confidence booster, right there that I’ll start to change, because that becomes a snowball effect. Well, if I can do that, then what else can I do?
Speaking of confidence builders, are there other things people can do? And I’m talking about a situation where maybe someone’s really, really in a downward spiral and having trouble finding the motivation to do anything besides that stupid doom scrolling or anything else like that. Is there a way to get a confidence boost out of just something as simple as I need to fix my lawn mower and I typed into a YouTube video how to do it and decided to do it myself and got it done?
Yeah, that’s taking action right there. If social media is your thing, join some Facebook groups. One of the things that I talk about even in my book that builds self-esteem is the people that you hang out with, and this is like Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins will talk about this is proximity is key, and that is by maintaining your social circle, enhancing your social circle a bit. Even if it’s just online, and take people you look up to, like influences in your field, and start consuming their content.
Yeah, so what you’re –– because I always think of them as like the same kind of concept where it’s like who you’re around are the people you’re talking to, you’re watching them do things, you’re hearing what they have to say, and then the content that you’re around, whether it be visual content or audio content, blogs, videos, etc., also kind of have a similar impact, because it’s kind of like what you’re absorbing, and if you’re absorbing people who are giving you certain types of messages, it’s going to naturally kind of push you in that direction,
Yeah. And that’s one way too and joining these masterminds or these groups, Facebook groups, and where people that are like minded that are there to build you up because we are the company we keep. That’s why you hear people say show me the six people you interact with daily, I can tell you who you are.
Yep, show me your friends, I’ll show you your future, right?
Exactly, so start hanging out with the people that are going to build you up, other successful people. So that will be one way to do that too, by taking the small actions, reading new books, taking new courses and just doing something different.
And one of the things I think that trips up a lot of people is when I’m about to do the right thing, because there is kind of an obsession with being right and maybe a worry that, okay, you’re going to pick something to do, and you might pick something that’s wrong for one reason or another. Maybe you picked the wrong venue. Maybe you’re trying to start a following online when you should have been going to this community center up the road or anything like that. How do people get past the idea that I may have taken the wrong action?
Well, there’s this saying that I kind of I like to quote that I’ve heard so many times, there’s no sense in failure, only feedback. Well, that’s great. Okay, so that is the wrong venue. So now you know that, so take that as feedback. Okay, that was the wrong venue. Okay, great. Now, let’s try another venue next week.
Yeah, makes sense.
And let’s try something new. Now that we know what we don’t want and what we don’t –– so let’s try something.
A lot of people hold the notion they got to be perfect, and that’s a myth. We’re always evolving. Share on XThere’s no such thing as perfection, and that is something that we need to let go is the perfectionist mindset. Because I found that perfectionism and procrastination are the same, tools of some level. So it doesn’t have to be perfect. Even if you look at like the most successful speakers, Tony Robbins, for instance, in the beginning of his life, beginning of his personal life, he was a really awkward speaker, very awkward person in the beginning. You look at his tapes, if you go on YouTube and look at his stuff from the 80s to now, it’s like a totally different person. It wasn’t until the experience that he’s done thousands of times, getting on thousands of stages till the point where he perfected himself. Even Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan’s like the king of podcasts, but if you look at Joe Rogan when he was starting the podcast to now, you’d be watching a really different show. Would notice a lot of clumsiness and cockiness in the show. The only way we’re going to get better is by doing it. Even using your metaphor about doing it perfectly. Let’s look at one of the fundamental things that we learned as human beings, that’s learn to walk. If you ever watch a toddler, any parents who are listening, toddlers, they take hundreds of falls before they can learn to walk. I’ve never met a toddler or an infant who says, “I can’t walk.” So it takes time. If they can do it, why don’t we stop? You’re going to make mistakes. That’s part of the process. But treat those mistakes as you’re going in the right direction.
Yeah, especially when you can observe those mistakes and see how they vary over time, and I witnessed in Toastmasters people learning how to be more effective speakers and what you find as they level up to maybe in the beginning they’re just constantly like, “Um, ah,” all those things, but then they level up to like the next level where they’re learning how to use vocal inflection to really prove a point and strategic pauses at the right time for the audience to really get that but you can see them kind of level up and they take on a new challenge and a new challenge the same way a toddler maybe will start walking and then they’ll learn how to run or walk backwards or step sideways to the next level that you can’t get to until you’ve done that first part of just putting one foot in front of the other.
That’s the only thing you got to do is actually doing it. And do you want to learn to ride a bicycle? You’re going to fall down a few times. It’s going to happen.
And then you use clip ins.
Yeah. Training wheels, all that, and it takes time. It takes time to develop. Just keep going, keep going, keep going.
And the key is to understand, because there’s time between when you start trying and you actually get good at something, and the key is to understand why you wanted to learn this thing. Because, with a toddler, learning to walk is almost like not optional. No one’s going to just go through life and be like, “I’m not a walker,” unless you get hurt or something. But, obviously, there are certain things, and public speaking is an example, where someone could say, “Well, maybe I never really wanted to be a public speaker, and I don’t have to be a public speaker if I don’t want to, I could just get this other different type of job,” or something like that. So how often do people need to really get back in touch with that original motivation?
Well, it’s very important, because even if you –– you may not be speaking to hundreds of people, but that public speaking training and experience is going to help you even communicate one on one with people. The important thing is just to keep learning, keep improving, because, otherwise, it will never happen. What I often hear people say, especially when it comes to speaking, and the question is why, “Well, I tried it the first couple times, didn’t work.” Great, okay, keep going. Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Eventually, you’ll overcome those obstacles, you’ll overcome those terror.
Is there anything someone could do in their mindset or any type of other practices, talk out a positive message into the mirror every morning by kind of trying to program your brain into being the kind of person that’s more likely to be able to keep going when there’s some part of your subconscious, whatever it is, that’s telling you, “Oh, you’re not good at this. You’re just not good at this so don’t keep going”?
Yeah. I mean, that’s why you come in with today, I’m working –– every day, I’m getting better and better at this. Every day, I’m getting better and better at this. I mean, I wouldn’t go out and say I’m a world-class speaker, I’m getting better, because then your subconscious will then say, “No, I’m not,” but if you say, yeah, I’m working on it, well, that’s a reality. By you being part of Toastmasters, yes, you are. It has to be believable, because I can say whatever I want, I’m a millionaire, or I’m going to make a billion dollars, but if I don’t believe that, it’s not going to happen.
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the various reasons why your subconscious kind of just rejects an affirmation.
Yeah, because it doesn’t believe it. And our subconscious is really wired to protect us from danger. Sometimes, be misguided protection, when I say misguided, overreacting, but it’s still there to protect us from danger. Fear is a danger, so it’s going to protect us from fear, and sometimes it can overly protect you from fear, and, therefore, hold you back. So that’s why it’s good to kind of break these affirmations into tiny things, like I’m a work in progress, I’m working on this, and you are by doing that.
Is that one of the things that you coach people through is how to find the right affirmation or even the right language to say to yourself?
I mean, it doesn’t have to be an affirmation, it’s just language. I work with actors a lot so one of the things I work with them is get the motion out of your vocabulary about the starving artist. Society tends to romanticize the starving artist, struggling artist, a broke actor. No, you’re a professional working actor. If you went to school for this, if you underwent training for this, you’re a professional actor. And even if you work in a community, you’re still working, so you’re a professional working actor. And when you start seeing yourself and referring to yourself as a professional working actor or a professional doing anything, a speaker, I’m a host, I’m a content creator, you start to change the mindset of it and it becomes more of an “if you build it, they will come” mentality.
Yeah, so it sounds like there has to be some kind of a transition though from someone saying, whatever you’re saying to yourself at a low point, you think you’re an imposter, you think you don’t deserve to be here and stuff, to where you can kind of say it, and if you project it with confidence with like clear dates, clear actions, all the things that you said, you say, like, “I am an author and I will have a book out by August,” that statement is going to make people really believe it, “Oh, that person is legit,” especially if you just say the name of the book and what it’s about. Whereas you say, “Yeah, I’m an author, I have a bunch of ideas,” or you say, “I have a dream of one day writing a book,” as we kind of brought up earlier on ––
Again, come up with the actions, because, otherwise, year in and year out, because I see this all the time with people on social media, “This is gonna be my year,” and then every year is, “I want next year to be better.” And then sometimes I message them and say, “That’s great. What are you doing to make it better?”
To sum it up, what you’re saying is that when you start taking action and you start doing it on a more consistent basis where each day, day in and day out, you see, just doing anything different, “I’m going to that networking event and I’m putting myself out there and saying, ‘Hi, my name is Steve, I’m a public speaker,” blah, blah, blah, then, all of a sudden, it’s going to, over time, because you’re kind of programming your brain both with language but also with the activity so it sounds like you program your brain with the words that you hear, the words that you hear from the people around you, but also with what you’re actually doing.
Yes, because actions are going to produce results. Thoughts aren’t going to produce results. I like the intention behind it, but the whole law of attraction thing, great concept, workable concept, but it’s missing an important step, that’s action. Manifestation is great, but, alone, manifestation alone is not going to be enough. You have to take action. If you are a person who believes in manifestation, you can even say, I don’t know how exactly the method will happen, but this will happen, and then you start to take action. I will make it happen. It may not be a direct linear path but I will make it happen.
Yeah, because then that’s when you start trying the different places. You’re like, “Okay, I tried this. Maybe that wasn’t the thing that worked. I’m gonna try that. Okay, maybe that wasn’t what’s gonna work. Now, I tried this and this is gonna work.”
Yeah.
And it’s that consistency.
That’s a big thing, consistency.
Yeah. Well, Albert, thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes. Your book is Rise Above the Script, for anyone out there listening wants to check it out. I would also like to thank all the people out there listening today, anyone that tunes in to Action’s Antidotes, first of all, thank yourself for even tuning into a podcast like this versus, let’s just say, brain rot content you could have been consuming is also taking action that you’re kind of changing what words are going into your brain, and the more you consume content like this, the more likely you are to go and do what you need to do to hopefully bring about the life that you really desire.
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About Albert Bramante
Dr. Albert Bramante is a talent agent, performance psychologist, and mindset expert.
Dr. Bramante has secured major roles for actors as a veteran agent, giving him firsthand knowledge of the pressures in entertainment. His approach equips creatives with practical exercises to combat self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and self-sabotage—translating psychological tools into real-world growth.