From Self-Questioning to Self-Mastery - David Corsini is RightOffTrack

Anya Smith (00:02.06)
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of RightOffTrack. I'm your host Anya Smith and we have a real treat for you today. We're diving into the story of a man who went from asking, who am I supposed to be to becoming a guiding light for others. Our guest today is David Corsini and imagine being at a crossroads in life, feeling stuck and then deciding to take a transformative journey to find your purpose. That's exactly what David did. Today he wears many hats.

trainer and coach in neuro-linguistic programming, public speaker, dad, and business strategist. This is a man committed to something we all find tantalizing, unlocking the human code. Yep, you heard that right. The recipe for tapping into your genius. So, if you've been searching for ways to understand your unique qualities, or you're a parent wanting to guide your children towards their own paths, or maybe you're an entrepreneur trying to resonate with more...

trying to resonate more authentically with your audience. Today's episode promises to deliver insights that could change the way you see success and personal growth. So get ready for an insightful conversation that might just shake up your understanding of success. David, welcome to Write Off Track.

David Corsini (01:14.75)
Wow, what an intro. Thank you so much. Um, hello to all the listeners and thanks for tuning in and thanks for getting on track to, so you can get off track here with us now.

Anya Smith (01:30.336)
Yeah, I love you, Becca, and you're in the city, and here I am always, like, in our little farm village, so you give us a taste of the other side of life in here. And quick shout out to Ira Bowman, who connected us, so thank you, Ira, who was always a previous guest, to expand our wonderful connections. And again, as I mentioned in the intro, you have so many hats that you're wearing, and I always like to start by kind of peeling the onion and understanding, like, how did you get to this off track of your own, where you mentioned that you were somebody who was finding yourself.

And maybe can you unravel, like, why did you start that pursuit for yourself?

David Corsini (02:04.31)
Yeah, thanks for asking. So I've always had this need to kind of get into business. Like I always knew I was gonna own my own business. And life kind of brought me to real estate. I always knew I wanted to invest in real estate. And I thought, well, what better way than to get my license, you know, sell a few houses a year, maybe part-time, and learn the...

business, the industry, so when I had the capital, I could invest in it. And I knew what I was doing. Life sometimes has a different plan for us. So at my last job, they, at my last J O B, um, they had promised me a position. The position opened up. They gave it to someone else that wasn't even qualified. And when that happened, I had just passed my.

real estate exam, so I knew I was getting my license. I put in my two weeks. I didn't even have my license yet and I didn't care. I drive Uber until I got my first, like I closed my first transaction and I never looked back since. And kinda going through real estate, I realized there was, I was doing very well, very young.

Anya Smith (03:04.557)
Oh.

Anya Smith (03:22.008)
at you.

David Corsini (03:32.406)
you know, after just a couple of years. But there was always like this voice in the back of my mind, like, there's more you can do. There's more to this. Yeah. Maybe it wasn't as soothing. Um, but it was, and at that time, you know, I was doing very well and I was part of the work hard and party hard kind of lifestyle. So.

Anya Smith (03:42.527)
What a soothing voice. Right.

Anya Smith (04:00.908)
Okay.

David Corsini (04:02.394)
I ended up realizing I was kind of filling up a void with commission checks, with partying, with alcohol, with women, all these things that, you know, I wasn't in a healthy spot mentally, emotionally, even physically. It was like I got to the worst shape I had ever been in. It was like...

30 pounds heavier than I am today. And I don't know, I guess this voice kept talking to me, talking to me, and I ended up at a Tony Robbins event. Like, I didn't, it kinda found me. And then Tony Robbins is on stage like, there's more to this, you can do more, blah, blah. If you're trying to find your purpose, say I. And it's like, are you?

talking of the voice that was talking to my mind up until now. Because and right. Are you do you have a nano chip in it? No, I'm joking. But I always had this lingering thing that I was meant for greatness and changing the world. But I didn't know.

Anya Smith (05:06.38)
Paid by Tony Robbins.

Anya Smith (05:12.631)
Right.

David Corsini (05:23.918)
who I was supposed to be in that change. Most people think about what they wanna have, what they wanna do, and I was like, well, who is that person that creates that change? And that's kind of where, when I got to the Tony Robbins, it brought awareness to it. It had always been there, but I brought more awareness to it.

And I kind of led me down a rabbit hole of, I'm like, well, what does Tony Robbins do? How is he so effective? And I realized what he does is he actually understands the structure of thinking. Because the situation we're in is pretty much based off of the actions we've taken.

And the actions we take is based off of our thinking. So I was like, it took a minute and I was like, well, my thinking is what got me here. And unless I change the structure of that thinking, I'm gonna keep ending up here.

And once I started to deconstruct that thinking, I realized what was at the core of that void and I was able to reconstruct it in a way without a void.

David Corsini (06:59.478)
And once I got to that point, once I went through all that pain, I realized like, holy crap, this pain brought me to my purpose. Like I learned all these tools to help me. Yes. And it's to impart the same wisdom onto the world. And

Anya Smith (07:19.896)
Quite a path.

David Corsini (07:21.631)
That's kind of how I ended up here.

Anya Smith (07:25.508)
I'm writing things down because I want to unpack a couple of things. Can you go back just a little bit? So you mentioned that here you had a point of really big, I would imagine frustration where you were working for something so hard, it's not easy to get your real estate license. It's a lot of effort from what I hear. You spend a lot of time and then on top of that having sense like, oh, I'm so close and I know that's going to lead me to this path. And you mentioned it didn't happen. Things change unexpectedly.

but you then decided to pivot and you didn't look back. And Chris, can you, you know, in that one point, I know it's kind of leading up to different things, like what was your mindset around even that? Like, how did that make you make you more resilient? Were there setbacks that you had to overcome just like from unpacking your thinking in that moment that led you to feel like more resilient after that setback?

David Corsini (08:12.986)
we're talking about when I realized about the void and all that. So.

Anya Smith (08:17.336)
No, I'm actually talking about the real estate. So you mentioned the first example, like you pivoted from that, you were preparing for that path, then it didn't turn out because of the, what you expected didn't turn out. And you're like, okay, I'm just gonna do something completely different. I'm not gonna look back, but that's easier said than done. What was that first kind of transition step like for you?

David Corsini (08:21.313)
Yeah.

David Corsini (08:35.782)
So I was supposed to, I was working at a graphics company and they produced graphics, like printed, all these different things, and I was getting groomed for a sales position, right? So I was working as a project manager so I could understand the industry so I could sell it. Now they gave this assistant sales position to someone else who I knew and who I knew didn't know.

Anya Smith (08:42.815)
Mm.

Anya Smith (08:47.721)
Mm-hmm.

David Corsini (09:05.282)
what I knew, which I was like, okay, well here in this position where I'm at, I'm not going to get to where they promised me. And if I do, it's on their terms and I'm tired of waiting. And I was like, I took this opportunity to get into sales because I knew working in sales, I could, you know, you live by the commission, you die by the commission, but you're, there's no cat.

Anya Smith (09:06.537)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (09:15.532)
right.

Right.

David Corsini (09:35.694)
And when I got my real estate license, it was more of a trusting.

I had to trust that this was happening for a reason. I had to trust that, well, I've been doing this for over a year and a half now. I've gotten so good at the project management, I'm actually helping people that have done it for decades.

Anya Smith (10:01.644)
Wow.

David Corsini (10:03.618)
And, you know, if they can't see that, then that's their loss. And if I can do it as in graphics, I can easily do this in real estate. Um, so I had a decent nest egg. Um, I just said, you know what? I'm going to do Uber part time just to bring some money in and.

Once I got that first sale, I never looked back. And I just kept going. I was good at it. I also, I mean, the industry also sucked me into more of the distracting myself from things I actually needed to unpack. But it was, I appreciated it so much and then I did end up investing in real estate, which was my ultimate.

Anya Smith (11:02.644)
Right. Yeah. It's funny how the paths that maybe you didn't choose sometimes lead you to the paths that are better for you. And you mentioned also what inspired you about Tony Robbins is obviously the success he's had, but it got you thinking about the structure of thinking. So can you maybe share like, what have you learned now about this topic and how have you been able to use that to help others?

David Corsini (11:02.682)
and I'm super grateful for it.

David Corsini (11:28.01)
Yeah, so.

David Corsini (11:32.234)
I was in Fiji, because once I went to one of his events, I was like, oh, I guess I got to go to more of these things. So I was in Fiji for one of his events. And one of my friends that I made there was like, dude, everything Tony says is NLP and I was like, what's NLP? He's like, no linguistic programming. And I was like, oh, I don't know what that is.

Anya Smith (11:39.175)
Right.

Anya Smith (11:51.617)
Right.

Anya Smith (11:58.507)
Still don't get it.

David Corsini (11:59.246)
I don't care. And it was funny because I was like, all right, I don't know what NLP is, but if this man is the guy that presidents call, billionaires call, he's influenced over 50 million people, I think there's something to this thing. So

Fast forward, I got every certification possible in it. And one of the things I like to do is a lot of times when we learn something new, when we learn a new tool, we think the power is in the tool.

where we think we need to learn more. Like, if I'm not getting the results I want, it's because I don't know enough.

Well, what I started to do with NLP once, you know, I was like, oh, I got to learn more. I got to learn more. And then I was like, well, knowledge is only as good as how much you've embodied it.

And it's different than what most people say about implementation, not just implementation, embodying the knowledge. Because when you've embodied it, it becomes a part of you. When it becomes a part of you, it's at a subconscious level and it's a level of mastery and that's where the true switch came. When I've started to

David Corsini (13:35.346)
embody it and integrate that learning into myself. And I realized all NLP was, was breaking down the structure of our thinking and creating tools in a way that could tweak that structure. And that's kind of where I learned the essence was structure of thinking. And that's what I apply to myself. That's what I apply with my clients.

I always try to impart some sort of shift where people's thinking changes. Because once you can change your thinking, your actions naturally change. And when your actions naturally change, then the results you get naturally change. You don't have to think about it because it's doing it naturally.

Anya Smith (14:31.14)
Right? And I'm curious, can you unveil maybe some of your favorite tools in the NLP toolkit or maybe guide us through something that somebody might think, okay, well I'm hearing this, is it possible that something in my thinking and my structure is not serving me? What are some maybe observations somebody can make about what's not serving them and maybe some quick things or anything you recommend for somebody to start on exploring this journey or maybe working with you?

on the line, but as a starting point, what would you recommend?

David Corsini (15:02.754)
So I can walk all of the listeners through something right now. And for all you guys driving, don't do this right now.

Anya Smith (15:06.72)
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Anya Smith (15:12.979)
Park safely.

David Corsini (15:13.122)
Save this, listen to it, and then come back to it later. Listen to this part. Like, this is more of a journaling thing. So one of the things I like to talk about is we have structures of thinking in different areas of life, right? The way you think in career is different than the way you think in family is different than the way you think in health, right? Like in career I might think influence is important. Influence isn't.

thing I really need in health. I don't know what I'm influencing, right? So in health, maybe it's diet or nutrition. Like those are things that are important to me. Normally the things that are important to us are the things we spend the most time on. And the things we spend the most time on are kind of like what we value, which starts to create the structure of the way we think in that

And you can go as high as life. You can go as specific as leadership, marketing. Whatever thing is like troubling you the most in life, pick that thing. So I had someone the other day, we were talking, and like decision making is the tough, is like the one thing that's really holding them back in life. So if you need help in decision making, like just think about decision making. So.

go through and kind of create a list with just thinking about that area of life. So you can make it generally career, you can make it investing, you can make it money, you can make it whatever it is, but just ask yourself, what is important about blank? So what is important about health? What is important about relationships? What is important about career?

and start to like get out all of the words that pop up. It doesn't have to be a paragraph. You actually want single words or, you know, two word answers and just make a list of all these things. Now, after you asked yourself what is important about it, ask yourself again, empty out, and then a third time, empty out.

Anya Smith (17:19.223)
Mm-hmm.

David Corsini (17:40.254)
Also think about the things that motivate you in that thing.

So normally this is a, like in a worded in a positive way. Some people say like frustration. Well, cool. There's frustration then turns into maybe something else. And then maybe you start, you're frustrated about something and then you see it differently and you get excited about it and then you get motivated. So maybe like excitement is something.

Anya Smith (17:55.742)
Mm.

David Corsini (18:16.278)
that motivates you. So write those things down too, and then you should get a list. Let's just say it doesn't have to be, but between 10 and 15 things.

David Corsini (18:29.662)
and then create.

Put them in order.

Now don't try to think about what should be the most important. Be honest with yourself and actually put them in order of what it feels like to you. Which one is it really?

Don't think too hard. Just whatever pops up. Like what's number one? This, boom. What's next? Boom, boom, boom.

Anya Smith (18:58.34)
Right. Nobody has to see this but you. Just be real with yourself, right?

David Corsini (19:03.646)
Right. Well, that's because you'll also, when you're honest with yourself, you'll see what's not firing off. Chances are a lot of times when I do this in career with people, money is not very high on the list and money is the one thing that they say they want more of. Well, if it's subconsciously not important to you,

the structure of your thinking isn't going to give it importance. It's not going to put the time and energy, you're not going to take the same action steps as if it's higher. So understanding the structure of your thinking is powerful because it'll help you make better decisions because you understand, well, my thinking is this way, I'm going to be able to make better decisions based off of that.

I just had a client, new client, we did this together. I had her get even more clarity on it. Right? So I'm gonna give you guys more questions you can ask yourself for like the first five or six. And if money's somewhere on the list, do this for money too. But why is it important? What is it? What is it not? How does it get fulfilled? And how does it get crossed?

or violated.

David Corsini (20:36.542)
So here's the thing, when you go through, you know how some people just feel like they're always fulfilled in whatever they do? What they're actually doing is fulfilling those things on their list.

Anya Smith (20:43.868)
Yeah, not a lot, but maybe.

David Corsini (20:54.142)
And when we feel like, well, something's off in my life, it's usually because something's crossing those things on our list.

David Corsini (21:07.836)
so structurally our thinking will...

It's like, it's kind of like a computer. You'll get an error message. If something's not getting fulfilled, it's not going to fulfill the next thing and not going to fulfill the next thing.

David Corsini (21:25.998)
So when I say the structure of our thinking, it seems like a daunting thing. It's actually quite simple. And once you get clarity around that.

David Corsini (21:40.355)
things are just more clear and you can make decisions based off of that a lot quicker.

Anya Smith (21:46.4)
Can I ask, just let me know, I don't want to interrupt, but I have like two questions around this process if I could just share. Cool, so two things. One is say we do this list and we're being genuine of ourselves. We look at it and say, okay, maybe money or whatever that element is not on there, but I want to move it up. Is there a process or is that even, should we even do that? And if there is that conscious desire to say, oh yeah, actually I do want to move this little area

David Corsini (21:52.622)
Go ahead.

Anya Smith (22:15.964)
above, how would somebody go about that?

David Corsini (22:20.022)
Great question. One.

If you're working with someone that understands this, it's actually very quick. Doing it on your own, I don't think I can guide you through it. And just know this list is the things you spend the most time on. So if you want something to become more important in your life, you have to give it more importance. So this is something you can do with time.

Anya Smith (22:49.993)
with time.

David Corsini (22:55.006)
So this could be, you know, I want to move money up on my list, right? Every single day, look at your finances, put a journaling prompt. How can I, every single morning, like, how can I make more money in a more fulfilling way or a more purposeful way? But just you keep.

doing that over and over and over and you're essentially telling your mind this is important and over time it will move up and up and up and up because it's important and you'll end up spending more time on it.

Anya Smith (23:41.824)
And question around that too. So we move our way up. You mentioned earlier that the things that we might prioritize one part of our life may not always align to other areas. So like you said, the example in fitness, what's happening in my health and fitness and health and business and maybe family, there might be different things. So if this approach, how do we create a balance between different parts of our life while talking about like the values and like understanding what works in one area or do they overlap?

David Corsini (24:11.154)
So from my experience is most people are doing, have pretty much most of their areas of life balanced out except for maybe one, that's the linchpin that's hurting them. Maybe you're going through a divorce, tougher on your health, tougher on business and career, tougher on the family, tougher on all these things.

Maybe something's going on with one of your kids. It's affecting your relationship, it's affecting your health, it's affecting your career. Maybe something's going on in career and you bring it home and it's affecting your relationship. So I would say focus on the one area that's actually borrowing the most time from the other areas because if you get that balanced out.

If you work on that the most, everything else will just balance out because of it.

Anya Smith (25:17.244)
You know, can I ask you another, like, I don't know if this aligns to your philosophy, but one thing that made me think about where I'm maybe living out of alignment, as I'm doing this work, I really value just the flexibility to do things on my own terms. And being a content creator, you have this maybe, maybe my own internal pressure, like you need to be posting a certain amount of time, you need to be exposing yourself, not exposing yourself, but you need to be sharing more about yourself and creating content. You know what I'm saying?

David Corsini (25:21.952)
Absolutely.

David Corsini (25:43.394)
Well, there are content creators that expose themselves.

Anya Smith (25:45.36)
No, not like that. This is not this kind of content creator right here. But with that in mind, I am realizing that maybe some of this hesitation around or frustration around it is that I feel like that push to create is going against this idea of I want to be flexible at doing things on my own term. Like I don't want to have the pressure to create it. I want to create it when my energy is right, you know? Have that feel. So maybe that's just me being reflective. This is where.

David Corsini (25:49.454)
Hehehe

Anya Smith (26:10.696)
my value of having things on my own terms of flexibility is conflicting against this perceived internal pressure that I need to be doing things a certain way in a certain structure. So that was, came up for me. But the question I had around that is actually one thing I observed is sometimes when I focus so much on a goal, I wonder if I'm actually pulling myself away from it, pushing myself away from it. So sometimes I think it's important to focus on a goal and then give it space.

you know, like not obsess about it. So what are your thoughts about that? Like when we focus on a goal really, really hard, sometimes I notice when actually stop thinking about it, give it space, it actually materializes easier. So is there something that we can overdo it when we try to focus on one area too intensely?

David Corsini (26:56.638)
So there are, I've studied this so much and there are so many different types of people where it's, you see people like working super hard towards a goal and they get it. And then you see people like kind of tripping into their goals. And then you see people working super hard and never achieving their goals. And people just meditating and waiting for it to happen and it never materializes.

And everyone's like, dude, what is it? Like there's so much, there's so much net content out now with this manifestation, which manifestation is essentially goal setting and goal achieving, right? It's, um, this law of attraction and.

Anya Smith (27:29.772)
Right.

Anya Smith (27:42.645)
Yeah.

David Corsini (27:52.942)
from what I've noticed is, you know, any goal first needs to be a thought, it needs to be spoken word, and then you need to take action. You can't get around any of it.

So when it comes to goal setting, I used to be super big on, I'm gonna get this done by this time. And it's like, these are all the action steps I'm gonna do to get it.

Anya Smith (28:26.474)
Right.

David Corsini (28:29.518)
I can tell you the most effective I've found so far, and when I've started to dial in what people are truly doing, is they have a huge desire for a goal without attachment.

Anya Smith (28:44.737)
Mm-hmm.

David Corsini (28:50.995)
And they have an idea of these are the first steps to get there. So they have a plan and they are also the most flexible and knowing, okay, something came up, it's not working. We've got to pivot.

So what you were saying before is completely right. Sometimes you just want this so bad and it kind of like, you feel like you're pushing it away. And here's the thing, like.

Anya Smith (29:19.02)
Great.

David Corsini (29:24.01)
When the dynamic between and I know it's 2023, but let's just use the dynamic between masculine and feminine energy. So let's just a more, a more, a more masculine man and a more feminine woman. It can be whatever, just masculine, feminine. When the masculine is like, this is the only thing that I want and they keep trying every single time and they try super hard. The woman just is like, I'm not interested.

Anya Smith (29:32.48)
Okay, let's go there.

David Corsini (29:53.878)
you're trying way too hard. Goals are kind of the same way, right? It's like, I don't know if you believe in God, the universe, source, the force, if you're a Star Wars fan, whatever. I don't care what you wanna call it, but let's just say there's something out there that's created everything and there's certain laws. Imagine having kids and they say, imagine having kids and they say, hey, can we get ice cream later?

Anya Smith (29:59.064)
I'm gonna go get it.

Anya Smith (30:17.392)
I can definitely imagine that.

David Corsini (30:25.206)
And it's like, yeah. So you say yes, but you're in the middle of work. You're not gonna just get up and go get ice cream. Now imagine them asking you every 10 minutes, hey, are we gonna get ice cream? Hey, when's the ice cream coming? Hey, like the ice cream, we're still gonna get it, right? The universe after a while is like, nah, I don't even wanna get ice cream anymore. You're gonna say, we're not getting ice cream.

A lot of us are nagging, trying to get our goals. Hey, am I getting this goal? Hey, it's like a month left. Am I getting this goal? Like, yeah, just keep doing the things you gotta do. Stop asking me, it'll come.

Anya Smith (31:10.508)
Right, I love that. I love that. So with that in mind, I didn't know how we're gonna naturally do this, but I'm curious, now you're using this parenting analogy. Are you using this also to help you as you parent? Like, has it helped you shape your framework or helped you in your parenting journey as well? You brought it up on yourself.

David Corsini (31:32.896)
One thousand percent. I can't, you know, when you understand the way we start to create these thinking structures, you can't but be aware of it while you're doing things. So awareness has become a huge thing in my parenting style. And I'll give an example too.

Anya Smith (31:34.249)
Yeah.

David Corsini (31:58.986)
So for example, most parents, if they've got stairs in their house, put the gates going up the stairs or going down the stairs. And subconsciously what that does, it goes back to the, have you ever heard of like how elephants get tamed?

Anya Smith (32:08.876)
Gates. Yeah.

Anya Smith (32:21.872)
Yes, yes, when they're little, they're tied to the ground and they stop fighting, even when they're big enough to pull it away because they just subconsciously learn that they can't do it.

David Corsini (32:30.958)
Right, so for all those that don't know, the way you tame an elephant is you wrap some rope around its neck, you tie it to a stake in the ground, or to the hoof, the leg, whatever, the foot, yeah. Is it a hoof? Yeah, don't try this.

Anya Smith (32:43.552)
foot. But don't try this at home. I thought it was their leg. I thought there's their leg. Yeah.

David Corsini (32:50.742)
their leg, their whatever, their neck, whatever it is. So a baby elephant can't pull away from it. Over time, they get conditioned that they can't pull away from it, they'd stop trying. Even when they're adults and they're the most powerful animal on the earth. Same thing with kids. When we're kids, when we were kids, we were conditioned in certain ways. And, you know.

Anya Smith (33:01.556)
Yeah, right.

David Corsini (33:18.55)
that probably stopped us from trying to quote unquote, realizing we could just pull the rope out of the stake and just do whatever we wanted. So with my son, I never actually put gates on the stairs. I actually taught him to go up and down the stairs and he only ever fell twice. And it was only like,

Anya Smith (33:42.584)
Mm-hmm.

David Corsini (33:48.712)
one or two steps.

Anya Smith (33:50.166)
Right.

David Corsini (33:52.758)
because I was, and it took a lot of, I'm not saying it's easy. I can tell you this kid was going up the stairs before he was even walking. By like seven or eight months, he was going up the stairs. He started walking nine or 10 months. And like, he's almost two now, and he can run circles around three year olds.

Anya Smith (33:57.596)
Right, right.

Anya Smith (34:10.22)
Right.

Anya Smith (34:19.832)
cute

David Corsini (34:21.906)
And that's not to impress you guys, but just to impress upon you, kind of. Sometimes when we're adults, we've been taught that this is the way life is. But it may not be the way life is. That was just the way life was taught to us.

and we can actually be limiting them in their own thinking, conditioning them for when they're older. So.

it and it look and then you also have to like be stern in certain things and no you can't do this and then there's it's a fine line it's this is not a this is how you parent talk because I don't believe there's one way to parent I believe there's the right way for the right person to parent the right child because we're all different personality wise we're all

Anya Smith (35:05.313)
Right.

Anya Smith (35:13.109)
Right.

Anya Smith (35:20.461)
Right.

David Corsini (35:25.502)
Children are all different and it's having the balance between the discipline and the flexibility into, well, potentially this could work and just letting them figure it out.

Anya Smith (35:47.192)
that was interesting to me. Like as a parent, obviously we're always doing our best. So if you're a parent, you're doing great. You're keeping your child alive. Amazing. My four-year-old now, he has been to the ER four times. Before he was two, he had like eight stitches. Now he has like almost 20. You know, he's a very active kid. And what I was going to say, I obviously want him to be safe, but I also am very mindful to your point about what-

like how I'm parenting, how is it going to influence his perception of the world? Like I was reading this book called Not Nice because I had the strong feeling of pleasing other people. And it gets back to thinking about when you tell the child, be nice, or, you know, how they react to being told, like, don't do this. It ingrains in us this desire, like when we say no, that I maybe as a kid when I was told that like, oh, you need to please somebody else because God forbid I'm being not nice to somebody.

And when I look at it that way, when my four year old tells me no, which is frustrating, no matter how you look at it, I actually look at it from a perspective like that's good that he can say that not in all situations, right, where it's appropriate, but it's good to train a child to have their own ability to say no to things they don't want to do to also when I'm telling them to be nice, I have to question like, Hey, is that really what I want him to get out of it?

David Corsini (36:49.867)
You

Anya Smith (37:09.484)
Like I want him to be able to be resilient. And we actually had my pediatrician, Nina Jane on the podcast. If you want to listen to her take on it, please do. But we talked about, you want your child to be resilient, not them to be nice, not them to be, you know, always the, you know, not scratched. Because when you step away from them as a parent, they are going to have those skills that you ingrained in them. And they're going to have a lot less skills in their toolkit if you did a lot of that hand holding for them. And you taught them just to be nice and courteous and all the things.

Like you should have manners, but also your child should be able to stand up for themselves, stand up in the world, not be nice when it's not necessary really, not please people for the wrong reasons. So I hear it's challenging, but when he tells me no or things that to me, like to my niceness, like, oh, but then I think about long-term as an adult, I hope he's able to take those and be more successful as an adult, to be more resilient, to not be nice to people for the wrong reasons.

to have his own mind and say no to the right things and not feel bad about it.

David Corsini (38:13.39)
1000% and I always go, I always think about is being nice a universal thing or is it a relative thing and it's like not nice compared to what? Like so one of the things and you know it remains to be seen one of the my objectives for my son Luca

Anya Smith (38:22.572)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (38:27.541)
Hmm.

David Corsini (38:42.362)
is to teach him how to think for himself and how to find what his own truth is. Because just because it's truth for us doesn't mean it's truth for them. Just because something was truth for our parents doesn't mean it was truth for us. Because every generation has something that they're like, well, this is the way you live life. And it's like,

And then we grew up and we're like, nah man, that's not how you live life. You can live life like this. So it's like, the people I see that have the most trouble in life are the ones that weren't able to think for themselves. And school will always teach them, this is the way it is, don't think for yourself. This is what happened in history.

Anya Smith (39:16.856)
Right.

David Corsini (39:42.302)
What is that, a story told by one side, by one part of one side? So school will never teach this to your kids. Some kids will just naturally, no, I'm gonna think for myself. I think the most, based off, going back to what you said, the most important thing is letting them be resilient. That resiliency of like,

Anya Smith (39:45.376)
Right.

David Corsini (40:10.798)
thinking for themselves, making their own decisions, and being able to pivot.

Anya Smith (40:15.03)
Mm-hmm.

David Corsini (40:18.954)
is the most important thing we can do as parents, in my opinion.

Anya Smith (40:24.664)
And then obviously it's funny, we say this to our children, we want that for them, but then we forget that for ourselves. Like, okay, now we're out of school, like forget learning something new, forget being resilient. Now we have to be on this like five step track to success and like please everybody and please our boss. So it's funny how we want that for our kids and sometimes we forget to empower that in ourselves. Which speaking of, if we can go back a little bit, you mentioned that there's a Tony Robbins voice look alike, sound alike. In your head, I was saying,

David Corsini (40:47.767)
Mm-hmm.

Anya Smith (40:54.612)
hey, you can be doing more, you wanna be doing more. And when I was at Metta, before the layup, I had this feeling probably for like a couple of years, and I was jotting down book ideas and blog ideas, but I didn't do it, but I had the golden handcuffs situation which I'm grateful to have where like, you know, I have the money, I have, well, not, you know, just on paper everything looks good, but I'm not feeling fulfilled. And I had this, you could be doing more, there's more purpose to you. And now I am taking the steps to do that, but.

part of me sometimes feels a little, you know, not humble. You know, I feel self-conscious, like, is it braggy to say, hey, I want to create this platform for myself. I know my purpose is to help others and to inspire people to live a life that's more meaningful, more purposeful, more genuine. But it also feels sometimes like I question, like, who are you to wish for that? Who are you to want to conquer the world in that capacity? So what's your sense about

like the right way to take on this, I wanna do more, is there a right way?

David Corsini (41:59.554)
Whew, that's a loaded question. I believe, and kind of, if I'm picking up what you're putting down, it's almost like your purpose, right?

Anya Smith (42:14.504)
Yeah, yeah, I definitely see it that way.

David Corsini (42:17.81)
So in my opinion, the essence of our purpose, our life's purpose, you know, dharma, whatever you wanna call it, and whatever lens you look at the world, our purpose is twofold. Half of it is how are you evolving yourself?

And in that evolution, how are you creating an impact for the world? So for example, my purpose is to demonstrate to the world that human potential is truly limitless and in so doing inspiring and guiding others to unleash their potential.

in long lasting and self-sustaining ways through those types of transformations. Because to me, there are a lot of things, and for all of you Tony fans out there, there's something to be said about the Tony world where there are some people that keep going back and going back for motivation. And it's almost like...

It feels like the power is in Tony and not in them. And, and you actually brought this up earlier and it's almost like getting someone to realize the powers within them operating from their own power. Because one of my things is to helping people unlock their own human code and realizing their own genius zone. Like I can't operate your genius zone for you.

I can just guide you to it, but realizing what it is will in and of itself create that long-lasting and self-sustaining transformation. And that's them evolving.

Anya Smith (44:17.845)
Right.

David Corsini (44:37.15)
And then as they evolve, they realize, well, I can, I can give this gift to the world as well.

Anya Smith (44:46.332)
And so to also make sure I kind of follow you. So when we have that internal voice about also feeling we can do more, we honor that and maybe learn to not question ourselves. Like I think that's to your point, like that is probably my own limiting beliefs that are bringing this thought back about like, who am I? When really every person has their own skill, their own value that they could bring out into the world. And if you honor that purpose, just to your point, like let's see where it can take you.

and not necessarily focus on the objective, but honor that and see that you are capable of that too. So that's my own little insecurity that I'm just bringing out to the table because I feel that and I'm honoring the purpose and focusing more on that. But I definitely have my own doubts along the way. You know, who am I? Can I do it?

David Corsini (45:33.178)
I still get it. And one of the ways I kind of shift it is like anytime that voice comes into my mind, I just imagine it as though Donald Duck were speaking it. And it's like, wah, wah. And I start to laugh at it. I'm like, oh, you're silly. And I push it to the side and I keep going. Which is a great technique for anyone who's got that self doubt voice. By the way, the voice is in your mind. It's

Anya Smith (45:34.718)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (45:58.615)
Yeah.

David Corsini (46:02.538)
you can control it, right? You can turn down the volume, like get the remote in your hand, turn down the volume, change the voice, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Any Duck, just a quack, and see, as Anya's laughing now, you can just laugh it off. So that's one way I deal with it. And...

Anya Smith (46:04.024)
Right.

Anya Smith (46:08.545)
Mm-hmm.

Anya Smith (46:14.018)
Right.

Anya Smith (46:22.261)
Right.

David Corsini (46:32.514)
To your point, we all have different structures of thinking. None of us, this is what makes life beautiful and has us thinking, what the heck is this person talking about because they're looking at something, they're thinking completely different than we are. Their structure of thinking is completely different. And our genius zone stems from the way we think, the way we see the...

Anya Smith (46:37.333)
Right.

Anya Smith (47:00.951)
Yeah.

David Corsini (47:01.986)
The way we think is kind of the way we see the world.

David Corsini (47:07.346)
So if something's, one of the things I realized with working with a lot of people is sometimes they've got some stinking thinking, AKA the structure of their thinking will never get them to the results that they want. Now we can implement all of the business strategy. You can hire all the people around you. If you're thinking.

does not support that ultimate goal, it will never come about, or you'll achieve it, and then you'll sabotage yourself.

Anya Smith (47:47.052)
rates.

Anya Smith (48:02.767)
Yeah, that's powerful. the more I do it, the more, I was talking to somebody recently who has an amazing following, and he talks about how he has a therapist versus a business coach,

practitioner also so to speak. So it's amazing how the most successful people invest so much time on their mindset because they realize like that's the core foundation for everything. Like everything else will figure itself out, but you have to have that resilience that lies into your perception of what you can do. And yes, I don't think to your point, self doubt will ever leave, but you have the tools to say, okay, I see you there, but I'm still gonna get going. I'll see you later.

David Corsini (48:47.84)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (48:49.076)
Love it. And so I guess I'm going to add.

David Corsini (48:50.422)
Um.

David Corsini (48:54.282)
Well, so one of the things I say is like.

David Corsini (49:01.351)
The thinking part gets you there. And then the business strategy accelerates you to like, for it to materialize.

Anya Smith (49:15.165)
Love it. Win-win combination. Speaking of that, if people were watching this episode, they did their list, they decided, hey, maybe there's something there. Maybe I have some thinking that's not working for you. What resources would you recommend for people to unlock their human code? Maybe it's working with you. Maybe it's other tools that you recommend for people who are like, oh, this could be a benefit to my life.

David Corsini (49:37.354)
Absolutely. So if you go to my website, the dash potentialist.com, I have a resources page that's got, I don't, I don't remember four or five different free sources. I've got a workshop on there. I've got some journaling prompts. Um, if some of you guys want to find a little bit more of your purpose, more of your why I have a seven levels deep exercise.

Anya Smith (49:51.892)
Awesome.

David Corsini (50:07.202)
If some of you guys have some problem, something big in your life that's kind of holding you back, I've got this cheat sheet, which is a good journaling prompt to kind of go through and see, kind of shift that problem into a solution. And then I also have a weekly newsletter called Mindset Mondays.

Anya Smith (50:30.892)
Love it, love it.

David Corsini (50:33.042)
On that resources page, you can sign up for it at the bottom. And that's a three-part thing, because I like to, you know, ones like, this is your mindset Monday, like, this is the article. Then I have a hack that can either be like, mindset performance health hack, because it's all interconnected. And then a quote of the week, just a quote I love, and I dissect it, and I show you how I see it.

Anya Smith (50:53.676)
Love it.

David Corsini (51:03.633)
Um.

Anya Smith (51:05.592)
We need to start the week. I love it.

David Corsini (51:08.129)
Yeah.

Anya Smith (51:09.392)
Well, this has been amazing. I appreciate you diving into this world of NLP with us and then your personal journey around it and also kindly touching on how it's also affected you in the parents' face. So just to get everything comes together and shapes our experiences. And so here at Right Off Track, we wrap up with three rapid fire questions. So let me know when you're ready.

David Corsini (51:31.458)
Let's do it.

Anya Smith (51:31.608)
Okay, ready, the thumbs up, that's a ready, okay.

Okay, let's see. Your favorite business hack for productivity?

David Corsini (51:45.36)
Um...

So my favorite business hack for product, so increasing your productivity, my favorite productivity hack is decreasing the to-do list.

Anya Smith (51:53.464)
Sure.

Anya Smith (52:01.684)
I love that.

David Corsini (52:03.138)
Pick three things. I believe that great action equals great reaction, but when we try to do everything, we do everything average, which then we get average reaction or average results. Just get bigger actions that get you bigger reactions. And honestly,

You can work less time and make more money.

Anya Smith (52:37.968)
That's brilliant. Oftentimes we focus on the little things in the to-do checklist and then the important things, speaking from personal experience, get put off for the next day and the next day, next day, and then you feel accomplished, but not really. Okay, great. What's one NLP technique you use daily or maybe almost daily?

David Corsini (53:00.882)
The best way to put it is visualization. So going back to goal setting, rather than just having a written goal, I get an image of what that goal is.

Anya Smith (53:04.054)
Okay.

David Corsini (53:18.11)
And every morning and everything that I do, I actually visualize that image and I tell myself this action is bringing me closer to this goal. So for example, before this interview, I had my image and I was like, I visualized it as though it were happening. I had that emotional state and I was like,

This interview is bringing me even closer to this goal.

Anya Smith (53:53.555)
How are we tracking on that?

David Corsini (53:56.978)
It's ever since I've been doing it, it's been so having the trust, even when things don't, even the times that you think shit's happening against you, still thinking and visualizing it and saying, well, this, I don't know how, but this is bringing me one step closer to this goal.

Anya Smith (54:19.648)
Yeah, it's either a progress or a learning opportunity, right? OK, beautiful. Last but not least, in the positive context, going off track is.

David Corsini (54:23.19)
Mm-hmm.

David Corsini (54:31.182)
Going off track is a detour to find a better way to get there.

Anya Smith (54:38.776)
Ooh, I love it. I love that, concise, but to the point. Beautiful, David, this was so much fun. I'm so glad that you invested your time with us and shared all these insights. And for everybody listening, I just wanna thank you for joining us right off track. Our mission is really to inspire people to live more fulfilling lives. So if you can take one moment and share this with somebody who can benefit from this episode of Pre-Knowing Learnings, that would mean the world to me. And I am so excited to have you join us.

us on this adventure again, right after I can thank you, David, again. This was delightful.

David Corsini (55:10.914)
Thank you so much. And I'd like to thank you Anya for creating this platform for people to come who maybe feel like they're off track and they're looking to get back on track. And maybe, you know, one nugget here, one nugget there. It all adds up to finding our way back. And I also wanna thank you listeners for listening. Maybe you're watching. Just taking the time.

Anya Smith (55:16.344)
Thank you.

David Corsini (55:39.998)
and investing in yourself. And if you're at this point, you've gone through the whole entire episode.

Anya Smith (55:46.882)
Woo!

David Corsini (55:48.482)
Good job. That alone is bringing you one step closer to whatever it is that you want. So thank you for investing in yourselves. Thank you Anya for investing in so many different people and creating a platform for them to feel like they've got a little community because that's what it is.

Anya Smith (56:11.808)
Thank you. I should have you do all my closing remarks, David. Well, thank you. I appreciate this time. And thank you everybody again for joining us, investing yourself. And until we meet next time in our next adventure, take care.

David Corsini (56:17.319)
Come on.

David Corsini (56:26.05)
Bye bye.