Rewire Your Brain for Growth: Dr. Lincoln Stoller's Secrets

Sponsored by Harford County Living

In this episode of "Conversations with Rich Bennett," Rich sits down with Dr. Lincoln Stoller, a neurofeedback trainer, clinical counselor, and hypnotherapist. They explore the transformative power of brain training, how anxiety can become a self-fulfilling habit, and the impact of neurological patterns on personal growth. Dr. Stoller also shares insights on addiction, relationships, and how reprogramming the brain can help heal past traumas. Sponsored by Harford County Living, this episode emphasizes personal development and the importance of mental health awareness.

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Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation where we explore the stories and experiences that shape our world. I'm your host, Rich Bennett. Today, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Lincoln Stoller to the show. Dr. Lincoln is a Ph.D. physicist, clinical counselor, hypnotherapist and neurofeedback trainer with a rich background in neuro psychology. He's also an entrepreneur, mountaineer and author who brings a deep understanding of personal growth and healing to his work. Today, we'll be diving into the fundamental skills of enduring personal relationships, exploring how we can cultivate meaningful connections that stand the test of time. So first of all, Dr.. Do you like to go by Dr. Lincoln or Dr. Stoller? 

Lincoln Stoller 0:49
Now. Lincoln is fine. The doctor thing. 

Rich Bennett 0:51
Lincoln. 

Lincoln Stoller 0:52
Acosta. 

Rich Bennett 0:54
Okay. But so before we get into the relationships and all that, I have to. What is a neurofeedback trainer? 

Lincoln Stoller 1:05
Oh, you know, there's no topic that can hold its own. It all dissolves into everything. So it's your brain. And, you know, every day I start with a different point of view. And today's point of view is that we're built as self-adjusting machines, sort of. 

Rich Bennett 1:25
Mm hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:26
And that works pretty well because we tend to adjust ourselves. But it also means we tend to overlook what we don't see. 

Rich Bennett 1:33
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:34
We use what we have to fix what's broken, and we generally don't tinker with what we think isn't broken. And we call that our personality or. Reality or reality. And so one of the big things in a lot of my work, good you know, everywhere, mental health coaching, entrepreneurial physics is realizing what your perspective is telling you to believe in. 

Rich Bennett 2:03
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 2:05
Before we started, you talked about the paranormal. And, you know, some people have a certain mindset about what they believe in and other people are anxious or have all these personality qualities of extrovert, introvert, depressed, manic or not diagnostically, but just sort of within the realm of average. And the whole business about brain training is that most of these are trainable, learned qualities. 

Rich Bennett 2:35
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 2:36
The things they're learned by life experience. And they're trained not very well because life experience doesn't really train us any more than, you know, the transit for tennis. I mean, everybody can swing a racket, but to be trained in something, you have to focus mostly on what you're missing. I mean, if you take a tennis analogy or a sports analogy to get better at it, you have to look at what you're missing and develop an ability to see control, sense, express what's kind of off your radar. So brain training is about doing that. And the simplest, you know, it applies to everything you think and do. 

Rich Bennett 3:18
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 3:18
Some of the simplest areas are like anxiety. And so you 

Rich Bennett 3:22
Oh. 

Lincoln Stoller 3:23
everybody can kind of appreciate that anxiety is self-fulfilling. Circular and somewhat addictive, if that's the right word. 

Anxiety, worry, you know, rumination. People take these aptitudes as well. They take these as aptitudes. Confronting their issues. But I find myself saying to them, if they're ready to hear it, that they are more like habits, habitual. 

And, you know, you can talk about past traumas and how you became habituated to be anxious about certain triggers, or you can just talk about what your brain is doing, why it's always in this hyper vigilant state. It's like, why is that trigger always loaded? Why is the gun always loaded and the trigger always cocked in your brain? So instead of what you're pointed at or what's pointing at, you look at what your machinery is, what path your machinery is putting you on. So brain training is trying to get people to understand 

how they're seeing anything. 

Rich Bennett 4:39
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 4:41
I don't talk about it to everyone because some people are just putting out the fire and they're not ready to reflect. You know, they're just upset or something. But even those people, you know, you try to talk them off the ledge, not just 

Rich Bennett 4:53
Mm hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 4:53
convince them not to jump. So the ledge is your state of mind. The willingness to jump is your thoughts that are causing you to come to somewhat less than perfect conclusions. 

Rich Bennett 5:07
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 5:08
Or actions or relationships. So what I'd like to do is to when possible, when people are ready, and you have to be somewhat reflective and somewhat calm to look at yourself and how you're thinking. This starts to sound like meditation, but it's not really. 

Rich Bennett 5:26
Okay. 

Lincoln Stoller 5:26
Tension is something that's like relaxing and contemplative and reflective, and brain training is often something where you're not even involved, you're not even aware of what you're doing, you're 

Rich Bennett 5:39
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 5:40
just lowering your 

mirror. You're just unwinding the spring. 

So that's a simple explanation. And yeah, it, you know, typical, uh, situation is people who've been under stress. So you have a military background. Military people are 

Rich Bennett 5:59
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 5:59
all. But, you know, not always. 

Rich Bennett 6:01
But. 

Lincoln Stoller 6:03
Well, you know, the whole structure of the military is in. 

Rich Bennett 6:05
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 6:05
The vision is to keep things in line so that. You can cope with what comes, but, you know, it's usually not enough when the shit hits the fan. So people do get stressed and over little things, you know, just comments made to you at the checkout counter can trigger you if it hits you the wrong way or if you. 

Rich Bennett 6:23
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 6:25
You know. The aliens are out to get you. But can anything can set you off, you know? I mean, we talked about, you know, the presence of spirits and like anything can set you off and then you're off and running. 

Rich Bennett 6:38
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 6:40
And 

Rich Bennett 6:40
So. 

Lincoln Stoller 6:40
if your brain is if you're hyper vigilant person, you'll be off and running for quite a while until you. 

Rich Bennett 6:46
Okay, So with you being a trainer, are you trying to because it seems like with anxiety and everything, people are always aligning themselves with a ton of negativity, whether it be the news, you know, some of these video games, a little bit of everything. Do you try to train them this to stay away from that stuff? 

Lincoln Stoller 7:07
Well, there are different ways to go about it. You know, one way is to deal with the issue. You know, finding the initial trigger. So, you know, what makes you want to do this so you can it is like talk therapy, you know. 

Rich Bennett 7:20
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 7:21
Why? Why, why? Why are you taking these perspectives? How is this making you feel? Better. And sometimes it's not making you feel better. A lot of people well, you know, I get a skewed version of reality because people come to me with either problems or hopes. They're not average people. I used to think that meant that they were defective and needing a crutch. But now I find my clients are usually the heroic people who are actually trying to try to do something. 

Rich Bennett 7:48
Oh, okay. 

Lincoln Stoller 7:50
I have a whole different approach to counseling and therapy, which is not. It's more encouraging and in developing people's skills than it is trying to identify their lacks and and 

Rich Bennett 8:03
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 8:04
giving them a bandaid. So 

wait, I lost your thread of thought. You asked the question, what was it? 

Rich Bennett 8:12
About? Are you trying to sway them away from the negative thing? 

Lincoln Stoller 8:15
Oh, no. So that was my first answer, was to talk about the cognitive strategies that they use and the thoughts that go through their heads and their 

Rich Bennett 8:23
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 8:23
actions and coping strategies. But what's more mysterious, and I think more to the point, will, if you can understand it, is just to lower. I mean, if you think of your brain as a complicated with me machine with lots of springs and gears, it can be overly wound. It can be wound up too tight. It can react out of synchrony with events and even out of synchrony with itself. You sort of ruminate endlessly or you trigger yourself. And so what I what brain draining ultimately is, is trying to get your brain without your mind. If your brain is just the machine in your mind is the the thing that it produces. 

Rich Bennett 9:10
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 9:11
You know, just getting your brain to look at itself and to see that it's 

not 

or it's over overreacting or not operating most efficiently and it's not a cognitive thing. So what you do, I have to get sort of, you know, grass roots here. You this is what I do anyway. 

I put electrodes on a person's head. Electrodes? They're just little, little metal contacts that you stick to their scalp. 

Rich Bennett 9:47
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 9:47
Conductive paste and I try to keep them from falling off when their skin gets warm and you can put them in different spots because your brain is electrical and you can hear to some degree what's going on through your cranium and on your scalp and in different parts of your brain. It tends to focus on different things. That's sort of well known, but it gets obscure when things get complicated. So. You know the old story of the pre-frontal lobotomy where they drove an ice pick through the right orbital thing of your brain. And I think 40,000 people were disabled. But it it affected them in ways that were somewhat predictable. So there is that part of your brain that tends to focus on fear and anxiety. It's it's behind your right ear. Right eye. For most people. 

Rich Bennett 10:38
Okay. 

Lincoln Stoller 10:39
And so if you put an electrode there, you can sort of get a handle or at least an echo on a person's level of anxiety and fear. Okay. So just, you know, I'm building this sort of tinker toy model for you. So. 

Rich Bennett 10:53
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 10:54
If you've got this amplifier that's recording the electrical signals that your right frontal lobe where you tend to process fear and anger and you 

teach the person, Well, I've got a bit of noise here and that bothers you? No, I. 

Rich Bennett 11:12
No, you're fine. 

Lincoln Stoller 11:14
So if you can teach a person well, you're not teaching the person, you're teaching their brain 

Rich Bennett 11:19
A brain. 

Lincoln Stoller 11:19
the difference. The brain doesn't talk in English language or any language. It talks in electrical signals. So if you teach their brain to stop 

overacting in that place, then they tend to lose their fears and anxieties. And it has nothing to do with the content of their thoughts. You know, we're talking on the spring and year metaphor. It's not what your brain's doing. It's how your brain's doing it. Your brain is 

programmed or you've programmed your brain, or it's become habituated to being highly anxious. And whatever the trigger is, it gets anxious. It's just it's, you know, you know, like a dog has spots. This is. 

Rich Bennett 12:05
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 12:06
This is your mode. So you're trying to change the mode. And because it's all software, it's well, not all. But you know, you can be injured and you can be mechanically disabled. But 

Rich Bennett 12:17
right. 

Lincoln Stoller 12:18
most of this is software learned behaviors you can learn. Well, again, it's not you, it's your brain, because cognitively you're not thinking any different thoughts, but your brain is not so wound up anymore. You you're giving your brain the feedback to see that it can move its 

reactivity. Its. Activity to a lower level. And if it's this is a crucial thing, I think if it's comfortable, you'll learn it. You can't really teach somebody to do something that's uncomfortable. You can they can react to something that's uncomfortable, but it's very hard to teach someone to hit their head against the wall. It's just they don't get positive feedback. But if they get some positive feedback, they learn to do more of that. And again, it's not the you, it's not your cognitive, it's not your ideas. It's not taking a sunny disposition. It's that your brain just calms down. And I'm just using this as the sort of this dominant place. Right. Frontal. 

Rich Bennett 13:22
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 13:24
Every part of your brain, every part of your cranium has an echo of what's going on beneath it. And some of those locations have a predominant function. And then you know, your deeper brain is harder to get at and it gets all complicated and you can't do everything, but you can do some important things. 

Rich Bennett 13:42
So you're basically helping people reprogram their brain then? Well. 

Lincoln Stoller 13:46
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 13:47
You're not helping them. You are doing it because. Do I have that right? You're doing it with the electrodes. Your ribs. I don't want to say reprogramming it. Well, it's. It's like software. 

Lincoln Stoller 13:59
Well, let's remember that there's like three kinds of software, well, three kinds of programming. There's hardware which is built into 

Rich Bennett 14:05
Right? 

Lincoln Stoller 14:05
the. There's software which is programmed ad hoc, and there's this thing called firmware, which is like how the hardware is built the most, you know, So like this the Nvidia chip that does AI, it's 

Rich Bennett 14:19
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 14:19
not hardware, it's firmware. It's. Its aptitude is best for artificial intelligence. It's not the only thing it does there. A separate graphics company originally. So. You're actually sort of working at the firmware level, not the not the ideas, conceptions or thoughts. And you're not doing that. You're not doing a scalpel or, you know, excision of brain tissue. You're you're just changing the habitual reactivity of the brain. 

Rich Bennett 14:51
Wow. 

Lincoln Stoller 14:53
And you can imagine that that could be really important for some people who just. 

Rich Bennett 14:56
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 14:57
People who are addicted, their typical things, and we're all slightly addicted, if only to our thinking patterns. But if you're addicted to alcohol or drugs, that's very. 

Rich Bennett 15:05
Oh. 

I think the thing about how many people do I don't have you can answer this or not, but do you actually work with a lot of people that are in addiction or in recovery doing it? 

Lincoln Stoller 15:17
Well, it's funny because 

I. I find myself talking to addicts after I've been working with them for a year and I never they never mention it. You know. 

Rich Bennett 15:29
Really? 

Lincoln Stoller 15:30
All the problems in life and the problems with the boss, the problems of the partner. And then finally, a year later, they say, yeah, you know, I'm addicted to alcohol or, you know, I'm an alcoholic or, you know, I'm a drug addict. It's like I'm saying, Gee, you didn't think to mention that. But I mean, it kind of makes sense because I'm dealing with people's issues as they present themselves to the person. 

Rich Bennett 15:54
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 15:55
Something like addiction takes a certain amount of reflectiveness to think that, Oh, this is your problem, not their problem. And so people who come to me with trying to solve put out the fire or solve the issue, the addiction is usually not their problem. It's their problems, maybe a consequence of their addiction. But they're, you know, like that joke. You know, I have no problem with alcohol. I drink, I fall over, no problem. So they build their lives around their addiction and they don't blame their addiction. If they did, maybe they'd be on it a little sooner. So then it comes around to that. And yes, I do have a number of people who I think, you know, they'll say, yeah, you know, I took another tranquilizer. And I'd say, Well, how many track ones? Or do you take it all, you know, every day? And I was like every day or maybe twice a day. And I think, Oh, fuck. 

Rich Bennett 16:42
Wow. 

Lincoln Stoller 16:42
Is it a problem you didn't think to mention? Well, no, they don't mention it because it's helping them. Like most of these coping strategies. 

Rich Bennett 16:49
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 16:50
So yeah, I do have a bunch of addicted people and they're probably more addicted than even I'm aware of, and I try to keep on them on this issue. 

Rich Bennett 17:00
As that's gone, it's going to be a challenge for you in a way, especially the ones that are addicted well to alcohol or drugs, because and correct me if I'm wrong, but that affects the brain. 

Lincoln Stoller 17:10
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 17:10
You are trying to help them and it's like you're it's like a battle that's on going back and forth. 

Lincoln Stoller 17:18
It's worse than that. It's like you can't I don't want to be negative, but, you know, I could also be positive. The enemy is on all sides, but also. 

Rich Bennett 17:26
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 17:26
Opportunities are on all sides. So almost every topic a person brings up, if it is a topic of consequence, has both some negative and positive, like what's gone wrong or what could be better. Some people are more stuck and some people are less. So the typical dichotomy is, or at least it appears as a dichotomy, is the person is mentally ill or claims they are and the other person is entrepreneurial and claims that they're you know, they're they're massively able. And the world is holding them back. So sort of like, where do you think your problem is? The entrepreneurs think the problem is in the world. The world doesn't appreciate them and how do they get their ideas out? And the neurotics think their problem is in their cells. You know, they're mentally ill. They and both of these people, I have to say, I have to say, okay, well, this is your story. We'll we'll go with it. In the back of my mind, I'm saying I'm not entirely believe any of this, but okay, maybe you are schizophrenic. There are you know, I do get to know people and they do sort of. 

It's wearying from my point of view of people who are really stuck. And I so I'd like to have a really high bar and tell people, you know, go for it, you know? You know, forget about all your defects. Focus on all your assets. You know, they're sometimes hidden in how they're misunderstood. 

Rich Bennett 18:54
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 18:54
So I've got a schizophrenic. She's really smart. So. Okay, let's keep that going, you know? I've got another guy who keeps I don't know if he's violent, but other people think he's violent. He thinks he's really sensitive. And so I'm. 

Rich Bennett 19:11
Wow. 

Lincoln Stoller 19:11
Well, okay, maybe you need me more sensitive to use that as your skill and start to recognize how things are getting out of hand. But. But I mean, he's. He's not the. I mean, I'll be straightforward with you all. Say, you know, you're not normal. You know, anyone who tells you to behave normally is doesn't understand you. So you're going to have to make the best of your gifts. 

And I don't know, maybe, you know, if you're doing something, something self-destructive, all I'll say that's that's not something you want long term. You want to try to get away from whatever you're doing. That's not helping. But it's it's hard to figure out. 

Rich Bennett 19:56
Yeah, to me. I mean, I'd be pulling my hair out. Well. Well, what little bit I have left. 

Lincoln Stoller 20:01
We I know. Well, when you when you get rid of all your hair, what are you going to do? You're going to like this is this is typical. Like when you try when you're coping, strategies no longer there. What do you do? Then you pick your nose, scratch your face. So, you know, like. 

I'm bring these and say, okay, do you know you're doing that? Do you know you're pulling your hair out? Metaphorically or physically? I mean, I have a guy. He didn't actually pull his hair out, but he had this alopecia where hair falls out. I don't know. Maybe he did scratch it again. Would he even know? Anyway, so, you know, he's getting better. It's like we didn't actually have to talk about hair or coping strategies, but we did talk about the problems that bother him. And we tried to get, you know, a positive perspective on the whole thing. And the funny thing about my job is I never really know when I'm effective or not, because when things go really well, people stop coming back to me and then, I don't know. And that's what I'm trying to do. I want them to start coming back to me. But I. 

Rich Bennett 21:02
Well, yeah. If they start coming back, then you're hoping that they're fine now. 

Lincoln Stoller 21:07
I'm hoping. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:09
Yeah. So actually, how long have you been doing this now? 

Lincoln Stoller 21:14
Well, that's a that's a trick question because 

you have to learn this stuff really early. You have to be you have to have a memory. I think back to your childhood because all this stuff ties back to people's childhoods or somewhere along the line. And the childhood is a big place where lots of things happen and lots of things are formed. So I think a person needs to be aware as a kid and needs to be able to remember your own childhood to get on that frequency with people or to bring them back to that frequency. So, you know, I was kind of an only child and it was I had a certain bothersome situations, which I didn't do too well at, but I remember them and I'm still, in a sense, working on them, the anger I had to my parents. And since my parents aren't alive anymore, I make much more progress because now I don't have to deal with the unmovable objects that they were. 

Rich Bennett 22:10
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 22:11
And. And then I started. So I started mountaineering as a teenager. And I think that's an A that's really I'm starting to understand that as a more important thing. Like a lot of military people can relate to mountaineering because it's action under stress. It's like equanimity and responsibility and and well, not not collegiality, but partnership, you know, being trustable and honest with your partners are all important things in conflict. And mountaineering is about conflict. It's self-imposed, but it's still conflict and it's still risk. 

Rich Bennett 22:50
It's like a strange kind of therapy. 

Lincoln Stoller 22:53
It is. It's not seen that way. It's more seen as a. Compulsion, but it can be for some people therapeutic. And so, you know, then, God 

just you know, physics was even part of therapy. You get to there's plenty of conflict and plenty of confrontation. It's personal and puzzles that can and maybe shouldn't be solved or it shouldn't waste your time on. And so it was only 

1995 that I started working with psychedelics in foreign cultures, you know, the sort of shamanic religious thing. 

Rich Bennett 23:38
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 23:39
And so I went around to Latin America and Asia and North America, indigenous people, and 

and that was interesting. You know, that's certainly a different point of view from the mountaineer in the physicist, the religion stuff. 

Rich Bennett 23:56
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 23:57
And that led me into the brain science because there were some people doing brain profiles of people under the influence of drugs. And that's how I learned neurofeedback and then 

hypnotherapy around ten years ago, and then clinical counseling three years ago. So but it all layers, you know, that they're not they're not different, which is my objection to how most people are trained in practice. 

Rich Bennett 24:31
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 24:32
In that they were different. They're not different. You know, they're layered, perhaps. 

Rich Bennett 24:37
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 24:38
And you can't focus on one layer to the exclusion of the others. 

Rich Bennett 24:44
Oh, yeah, I've had a couple of people on that. It's funny that you mention the psychedelics in going around the world because I've had a couple of people on that did the same thing and thought about that and it just blew me away, everything that they learned from it. 

I take it you also work with a lot of couples in helping them with relations ships. 

Or is it just the individuals? 

Lincoln Stoller 25:11
No, I work I've worked with some couples, but almost every individual deals with relationships. I mean. It's hard to imagine somebody who has no relationships. And those relationships are usually with significant people. Significant people. 

I found that when I actually deal with couples, then it's like a firefight. I mean, even if it's not, you know, slings and arrows, there's still a great difference of perception. 

Rich Bennett 25:39
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 25:40
Look, these are couples that are having some issue. So they're not the happily, you know, calm waters of paradise. They're people with some issue and their issues are going to be reflected or projected on each other and carried over from their childhood or their business and played out in their relationship. So, 

you know, to cut to the chase both for you and for these people, I tend to say to them, you know, what is love to you? You know, what are you really trying to accomplish here? What is your goal? Are you just using this as a platform to get your life together or are you trying to achieve an enlightened position with another person? In which case, you'd better leave all your baggage behind. So most people aren't ready to leave their baggage behind. And they're. 

Rich Bennett 26:32
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 26:33
Becomes a 

psychodrama. And I mean, that's okay. But don't expect if the relationship is not primary, then don't expect the relationship to be your goal. If it isn't, it's just your stage on which you're. Your life. So, you know. I don't know. I've found that in many cases, the choice in relationship counseling is for a person to decide are they there for the relationship or are they there to deal with a particular problem of their own? 

Rich Bennett 27:10
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 27:11
They can choose either way, but if they're there for their own, then the relationship is up for sacrifice. But if they're there for a relationship, then they have to put their own needs secondary. So what do you want to do? You know, the question 

Rich Bennett 27:28
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 27:28
is what if love to you? You call this a loving relationship. You want a loving relationship. Well, what is love to you? Is it being happy or making someone else happy? That big difference. You know, on. 

Rich Bennett 27:41
It's a deep question. 

Lincoln Stoller 27:43
People have a hard time answering that. So. 

Rich Bennett 27:45
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 27:46
You know, what do I have to do? I just keep knocking on the door and eventually either they come in or they leave. And, you know, but they pay me, you know. I do learn from it. 

Rich Bennett 27:59
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 28:00
I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for the pay because I couldn't afford it. But if it was only for the pay, I don't think I'd do it either. 

Rich Bennett 28:07
Right. 

Wow. So that question there, though, about love that is 

today, I don't think a lot of people could answer that right away. 

Lincoln Stoller 28:23
Oh, no, no. It's one of these deep questions, and you shouldn't. 

Rich Bennett 28:28
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 28:30
I don't think you should. I think it's a I think it's a source of universal wisdom to. 

Rich Bennett 28:36
Mm hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 28:37
Then you to answer that question 

and hang on, whatever answer you get, you know, this is like you don't want to be a martyr. You don't want to have them, like, string you up. 

Rich Bennett 28:50
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 28:51
You do want to commit to a higher 

level. I mean, it's it in a way. So it can be very rational. You can be very rational in this discussion. But you can also get very, you know, metaphysical or you can get supernatural, whatever, you know, it's like, you know, Jesus tells me, well, fine. Or the alien I learned from the aliens, wherever, you know, wherever you learn it. I don't take any of it too seriously except what you do. 

Rich Bennett 29:20
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 29:21
So, you know, and people do some weird stuff, you know, self-destructive, sabotaging, 

mean, insensitive. They do weird stuff. And you kind of ask why, you know. What do you. 

Because I have a kind of optimistic view of everyone. I think there's probably a good reason for almost everything. Even the even the psychopathic serial killers, they're often very cogent and they have like 

Rich Bennett 29:51
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 29:51
very good reasons for what they're doing. It's totally crazy and unacceptable. But you can is what we all have some of that dark stuff. 

Rich Bennett 30:04
Oh, yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 30:06
You know, but I think part of mental health or at least emotional health is learning. How to ride it, not how to suppress it or bury it like a zombie, but give it some air and not become a 

source of negativity. 

Rich Bennett 30:26
Right. So with relationships, what do you think's the most or probably the most most understood aspect of building and maintaining strong personal relationships? 

Lincoln Stoller 30:45
I have to come back to the layers part of its how your brain works. 

Rich Bennett 30:48
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 30:48
What you're inclined to do if you're inclined to be defensive or you're traumatized from injury and you're reacting still with a Band-Aid on every problem that comes up, then that's going to be a problem for seeing a higher 

consciousness or relationship. But but not to discount it if it's a real thing, if you know, there's bleeding or trauma or a gash in your psychic constitution, you've got to deal with it. So it could be an issue, you know, and it could be emotional, it could be 

neurological, it could be mechanical. You know, you could be, 

you know, in the sort of firmware analogy, you could have some some part of your development could have been retarded. You know, you could have. 

Rich Bennett 31:37
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 31:38
Failed to learn what love is from an abusive parent or an abusive relationship. 

So, 

you know, I've gotten my view of what the person presenting might need. And as clear and as certain as I am, I know I'm probably on the wrong track because nobody's that simple. Nobody's. You know, if I think I really know what's going on, I know I'm full of shit. But, I mean, I can still talk and I can still make a good case, but I'm usually being misled by either myself or the person I'm talking to or down whatever coping strategy is their preference. And 

so I actually like to get to a point where there's where everyone's confused. I say, confused. 

Rich Bennett 32:29
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 32:30
Cos that's everything's open now. All the pieces are on the table and we can start to like, take apart these myths, constructive concepts that are jammed into our heads that we insist on applying to every problem and have come to realize is not working. All right, so take it all apart. Be confused. And I use hypnosis to get people to an imaginary place where they just can't figure anything out anymore. Like, just keep going. 

There's one thing called past life regression where you you imagine yourself as something and then everybody dies and everything falls apart and you're left sort of in this sort of state of, 

I don't know. Openness. Openness is a good place to be. So if it's done hypnotically, it's very emotional. It's not just, you know, intellectual construct. You really feel it. 

Rich Bennett 33:23
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 33:24
So that's a good place to be. Then you really feel that it's a place you can really go back to. Kind of like meditation, but deeper. So emotional, neurological. And then, you know, there's the typical thing that most therapists are trained to do, which is cognitive. Like, what's your reasons for doing this? Why? You know, what's your behavior? Well, don't you know, put your head on backwards when it's raining, put it, you know, don't react with anger when, you know, it's like, don't do this instead. It's like that only. That's like animal behavior training, which well, it's okay. It sort of works. And maybe it has feedback into your feelings, but until you get down to your feelings and ultimately down to your neurology, you don't get a permanent, comfortable solution. So when the answer to what you might have thought was a simple question. 

Rich Bennett 34:19
I like the long winded answers, but they're not long winded. They're educational. People learn from them, and that's a whole 

Lincoln Stoller 34:28
Well, you know, I have to say I'd love it if they did, but the truth is that they learn what they're ready to learn. We have very limited minds. We focus on one thing. We can only hold one thought at a time. You know, we can only count. We can only remember seven numbers, right? Isn't that pathetic? We can only remember seven numbers, Right? The phone number is about all we can remember. Somebody gives you a long number. You can probably remember the first seven digits if you try, but short term memory is kind of short, you know? I mean. 

Rich Bennett 34:57
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 34:58
I'm always amazed that actors can remember their lines. But okay, if you work at it, you can remember more. But you know, a parrot can remember four. We can remember seven. But the world is an almost infinite number of details. So people learn what they're ready to learn. And I don't like to call myself a teacher because that's like two formal and two presupposing. But I like to consider myself a facilitator. You got to facilitate what people are ready to do. You can't like, you know, if I talk about neurofeedback and brain training and neural aptitudes to somebody who's having an abusive relationship, it's like 

they're not ready for that. What they need to do is just like, stop hurting themselves or stop doing what gets themselves hurt. 

Rich Bennett 35:48
Death. 

Lincoln Stoller 35:49
And then we can talk about what they're, you know, same thing with like addiction. And I think that's why the addicts I work with don't talk about addiction. They don't really want to work at it right now. They want to work on the real problem. And that's fine. So the real problem is probably driving the addiction anyhow. 

Rich Bennett 36:05
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 36:06
Why talk about the addiction when it's just a strategy for getting by? 

Rich Bennett 36:12
Either way, you're you're helping them get to that point where, knock on wood, they're going to be in recovery and help themselves. 

Because you're you're I mean, you're I guess you're well, you're back to the beginning where you're reprogramming their brain and helping them realize a lot of things. And, you know, I mean, think about it. If they didn't come in and tell you originally they were in, you know, they had an addiction and then here they are with you all this time, and then all of a sudden they're opening up more. 

Lincoln Stoller 36:46
I had one client who was addicted to meth and alcohol and and whatever else. And I asked him, you know, why you do this and make you feel good? And he said, No, it makes me feel terrible. And I said, Well, why do you do it? And he said, Because I. Well, you know, what it came to is he was punishing himself. And he had a story that in his father died when he was a child, died in his arms, and he felt responsible for the death of his. 

Rich Bennett 37:10
Oh, man. 

Lincoln Stoller 37:12
And and it's like at some point you what you want to say is like, I get over it already. You know, it's been like 40 years. But obviously that everyone tells them that. So. 

Rich Bennett 37:22
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 37:23
So he he takes drugs and he abuses himself because he seems to need penitence or something is like. And I couldn't really do anything with him except to say to point that out, say, well, I don't know what you have to do to yourself or how long you have to keep doing it, but I don't think it's getting you anywhere. In fact, it's, you know, losing you, this relationship. 

Rich Bennett 37:45
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 37:46
And do you want to talk about it or work on it? And it's like, no, I just want to get, you know, fucked up and feel miserable. 

Rich Bennett 37:55
Wow. 

Lincoln Stoller 37:57
And this is kind of a depression. People who are depressed often are not interested in hearing anything else but why they're miserable. 

So, you know, again, like, am I going to. I don't know. You try and you try anything in your toolkit. I was about to say you're going to talk about neurology to these people. You know, it might seem to me ridiculous. On the other hand, it is true that some people who have certain kind of depression, if they just do brain draining, the depression, goes away for a very simple electrical reason that that part of their brain calms down and then they. 

Rich Bennett 38:33
Wow. 

Lincoln Stoller 38:34
Not so much. I mean, getting them to do it might be a little hard. And also, I've got the problem that I work remotely most of the time. And and to do the brain training, I have to actually sit them down on a chair and attach the electrodes to the head. With with an exception that they're now. Do it yourself or do it at home kits. 

Rich Bennett 38:53
What? 

Lincoln Stoller 38:54
You put the glory. The muse had said the sense I had said. I mean, there's a whole industry where you put these headsets on you and they have little electrodes and they work on your smartphone and they show you what your brain's doing. But you know, there's a big problem in that. They can really they can really throw you for a loop. So the companies almost disable the IT to protect themselves from medical liability so the device. 

Rich Bennett 39:20
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 39:21
Could actually be helpful or often very watered down. And they're advertised as meditation devices and sleep aids and stuff like that. 

Rich Bennett 39:32
I'll be. Damn. Is that similar to like I got the thing that, you know, it looks like. Well, you put it over your eyes. 

Lincoln Stoller 39:42
The verge. Oh. Oh, maybe. Well, there's all kinds of ways of giving you feedback. Well, there's two kinds of feedback. One, what is responsive to you? And the other that just helps you along. So, like binaural beats or flashing light. 

Rich Bennett 39:58
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 39:59
Soothing music. That all sort of helps you along. It doesn't actually teach you how to maintain or be different. It just helps you. 

Rich Bennett 40:07
It puts me in. 

Lincoln Stoller 40:08
Now. I'll put you to sleep. It'll calm you down. It'll make you feel good. But then, you know, your habits will come back and your ruminations will start again. And your triggers will set you off. 

Rich Bennett 40:20
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 40:20
It's different from changing your brain state, which is a training as opposed to a 

what's the word, palliative. Right. So there are two kinds of things. So the thing that massages you and, you know, 

massage in general. Can make you feel better, but then you'll go out and stress yourself again because you, you know, you lift things that are heavy. Whereas if you learn not to lift things that are too heavy or how to lift things more consciously. Which might be, you know, cranial sacral massage or deep tissue massage or, you know, something that releases and corrects your posture or something. Then then then you'll behave, act and work with things differently and you'll be, I think, closer to the solution. But, you know, people I mean, I was just looking at a movie, some of it we're making this in terms of prostitution, a prostitution, the great one. Are you are you going to satisfy your sexual desires or are you going to heal them? You know, two totally different things, right? And most people couldn't you couldn't be. It would be one or the other. I do have clients who are, you know, six. I wouldn't call them addicts because that's kind of the wrong word, but six hyper focused. 

Rich Bennett 41:50
Favors are okay. 

Lincoln Stoller 41:52
I don't know. You know, they're serial masturbator. I don't know. Whatever, you know. And so, you know, and I have to ask them, you know, is this really I certainly you find some reward, but so do the addicts. Meth addicts and alcoholics find some reward. 

You know, so here's the thing. Do you have a healthy system or are you just coping with your stress? And I think that's a very basic question for anybody in a problem situation. Are you coping with this or are you trying to fix this because coping makes you feel good? Fixing generally doesn't, right? Fixing at least confronts the problem in greater relief so people don't like to fix Oh, don't talk to me about my childhood and my abusive past. Just tell me that you love me. Oh, that's such a sad situation. 

Rich Bennett 42:55
Bad. Well, you already did answer one question. I was about to ask you if you work with people in person or virtually. So should the very important, since you work with people virtually, how do they get in touch with you? 

Lincoln Stoller 43:13
Well, that's that's the marketing mystery. So I just. Try to put out a lot of smoke and, you know, like mosquitoes, but a lot of heat and carbon dioxide and hope that they'll follow the trail back to me. And. I'm not very good at it because I don't I don't like to talk. I don't like to blow smoke. Put it that way. 

But, you know, here we are sort of blowing smoke. But but I like it because we're talking about substantial issues. But, you know, how many of the people listening get it? How many of the people listening are attracted to what I'm offering? Hmm. You know, that's 

Rich Bennett 43:53
It's 

Lincoln Stoller 43:53
a. 

Rich Bennett 43:53
hard to say. 

Lincoln Stoller 43:54
It is hard to say. Some maybe. Here's an interesting answer to you. I did. And this is something I've started to do, which is probably the best answer I could give you. I started to try to do podcasts with people in areas that I think I understand. So are entrepreneurs artists? 

Rich Bennett 44:14
Mm hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 44:15
Scientists, mental health people. 

People with mental health problems or emotional problems, relationship problems. And so I figure, well, those people are already they have their ear to the wall. And if I have something to say, it will register perhaps. So I was doing podcasts on mountaineering because I have an attitude about that. Having done that for a while and my attitude is basically or it sounds like that I'm saying it's a waste of time, which which triggers a lot of people who are in that sport. Because what I'm saying is, if you don't do this consciously, you're just 

satisfying yourself, then you're not actually learning anything. And there's stuff to be learned. I have a kind of poetic approach. It's like, there's nature, there's your relationship to yourself, there's how you deal with stress and how you cope with people. And how you make decisions and how you become responsible. These are all the important things that you learn in mountaineering and you know. 

Rich Bennett 45:18
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 45:20
But if all you're focused on is achievement and grades. And harder and harder and more and more heroic, then you're missing 95% of what you could learn. So a lot of people in the sport don't like to hear that because they're addicts. You might say addicts to the heroine heroic approach of harder, longer, more dangerous, more courageous is like, Oh, bullshit. 

So I did these podcasts and I got more clients from them than anywhere else. So it was a rich field and it doesn't make. I'm not all that surprised because anybody is going to go out and do something as dangerous as mountaineering has got, a real impetus has got a real problem opportunity complex, and I want to focus on the opportunity side of it. And so I got a whole bunch of clients, and none of them are talking to me about climbing. It was only something that the stage on which they did their life, they're all talking to me about the business and relationship. 

Rich Bennett 46:28
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 46:30
Mostly business. Yeah. They're all people and all high performance people. And in a business area, one's high tech, the other in banking, the others in science. Climbing for them is just something that they do. And they, in a sense, were never fully satisfied with. And I expressed that. So I would like to do that in other areas. And I think I think I can, but I don't know if I can. So I would like to tell scientists the same thing, that they're wasting their time if they're focusing on their technical problems. And they have to understand that this is a personal journey. 

Rich Bennett 47:08
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 47:09
And I'd say the same with art. You're wasting your time if you're just producing paintings and you're not seeing this as a personal journey. 

So that's how I market myself. But it doesn't seem to work very well. 

But I still feel noble about it. I feel noble doing the right thing. 

Rich Bennett 47:28
You started the podcast a few years ago, didn't you? 

Lincoln Stoller 47:32
Well, I do podcasts of two forms. I narrate my blog posts, and I do. 

Rich Bennett 47:37
Okay. 

Lincoln Stoller 47:38
So the interviews or whoever, I can get to talk to me. The podcasts are weekly. I mean, the narration is made weekly, so that's two different to try different things. 

Rich Bennett 47:49
Okay, So it's not a podcast where it's like on Spotify and all that. 

Lincoln Stoller 47:55
Well, I don't know. You can put music, you can put monologues and music on Spotify or you can put dialogues and interviews on Spotify. So so both. But there's monologues and dialogues. So yeah. 

Rich Bennett 48:08
But you also write books which help people as well. Write 

Lincoln Stoller 48:12
I think it's 

Rich Bennett 48:13
what? 

Lincoln Stoller 48:13
better than a calling card. Yeah. People think you know something when you write a book. Not always true. At least you take a project from start to finish. If. 

Rich Bennett 48:24
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 48:25
30 pages long, at least, you know. 

Rich Bennett 48:28
Yeah, but I'm sure 

Lincoln Stoller 48:29
Oh, yeah, 

Rich Bennett 48:29
you've 

Lincoln Stoller 48:29
That's. 

Rich Bennett 48:29
gotten feedback from your books, too, that have helped people write. 

Lincoln Stoller 48:33
I have to ask for it. You know how many authors you contact? 

Rich Bennett 48:37
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 48:38
You know, none. So if I ask for, I'll get some feedback. And it's good feedback and I get good feedback from my clients. Do even the ones that I've had a few clients that thought I was bullshit and left. But that was good feedback too, because I said what I meant and I meant what I said. And if they don't like it, then they got what they needed and they can take it. They can shop it around whatever they want, you know, if they're ready, you know. So like one guy thought, You're being abusive. And I told him that and he wanted to be supportive. And I said, No, you're being abusive. You've got to stop. So he didn't like that and he left. But that's what he needed, you know, And his partner was the one who really needed to understand it. 

Rich Bennett 49:21
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 49:21
You shouldn't be putting up with this. But, you know, if people are not ready. I mean, this is the whole thing about co-dependence, right? People get into this groove. Like addiction. They become codependent on each other, just the way they become substance dependent. That it seems crazy. I mean, it is crazy. And at some point in their future, they'll think it is crazy to they'll agree with you. But at the moment, they're enmeshed in rapture and addicted to. So and, you know, then you can see it comes back to what is your nervous system inclining you to do? 

Rich Bennett 50:01
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 50:02
Why do you put up with abuse or what is? I ask myself that too, because my second relationship I come to realize was abusive. And it's like, Oh, but I love this person. It's like, 

you know? And so I do give myself brain training and try to figure out why do I love a person who's abusive? And I still do love her, but I have to keep telling myself, you know, just because, 

you know, a little of this is good doesn't mean a lot of it is better. 

Rich Bennett 50:36
Right. Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 50:37
And, 

you know, that's kind of a a life lesson for a lot of us. Doing something that feels useful, like going to school. I'm a big 

I make another they come right out and say, I hate teachers. I make a big point of saying, you know, you got to learn what's important for you. You don't learn what people tell you to learn. And only when he stands up and gives you a lecture about what you should know is almost certainly a person you don't want to listen to. 

Rich Bennett 51:09
Mm hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 51:10
You need to find out what you need to learn and you need to go and find it. And and I find myself in the funny position of trying to teach. I hate the word. I hate teachers. I teach my 13 year old about the world outside of video games, which is otherwise all he lives in. And so we have this ongoing battle. You know, I drag him through documentary videos with my own running commentary about what's going on. And then he calls me stupid and retarded. And, you know, and I say, you know, whatever, you know, define yourself, whatever you want to say, because I think he's feeling stupid. So he calls me stupid. That's fine. But I drag him through it anyway, and I try to actually make it interesting. And then in the back of his mind, 

here's an example I found on Curiositystream, which is like YouTube, but without. 

Rich Bennett 52:06
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 52:09
A video called the Red Elvis about a guy named Dean Reed, who was a very popular singer. We never heard of in the U.S., who was popular in South America and then defected essentially to the Eastern bloc when the Soviet Union was still a Soviet Union in the 1970s and sixties and would do this folk song tribute to communism and totalitarianism and the Soviet, you know, and and so we watched this video, my 13 year old and I and it's it was an opportunity because his mother is of 

a singer I was going to say folk singer but that's she's a gospel singer, a religious. 

Rich Bennett 52:55
Okay? Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 52:57
And so she's in the sort of music industry. And so here we are talking about a guy and his actions politically, musically, emotionally. And it gave me a chance to talk about Che Guevara and Allende in Chile and the CIA and and the Stasi and the Soviet Bloc and the Iron Curtain, all this stuff that a 13 year old should eventually know about. 

Rich Bennett 53:21
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 53:22
In the context of his mother and music and 

audiences and performance, which is part of our sort of family orbit. So he learned a lot and he was interested. And I was lucky because most videos are not that engaging and relatively. 

Rich Bennett 53:44
No, You have to go to Korea Curiosity Street to see them. 

Lincoln Stoller 53:49
No. You never find that night. I didn't know 

Rich Bennett 53:50
No. 

Lincoln Stoller 53:50
it even existed. And also, there's a couple of movies about Elvis that were interesting, too, because Elvis's story is, you know, sort of story for our times about. 

Rich Bennett 54:00
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 54:01
Stuff like talk about addiction. Right. 

Rich Bennett 54:05
Hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 54:06
How does how does that even come? You can learn a lot from people's lives if they're presented in ways you can understand. Anyway, so I'm down on teachers and I'm down on people telling you stuff. But still, you got to, you know, stretch and, you know, I mean, I don't know what you did in the military because some people get drawn into the military by accident and other people find it really 

positive for them. 

Rich Bennett 54:37
Yeah. Oh, it was definitely positive for me. I was. 

Lincoln Stoller 54:40
Well. All right. So there you go. So, I mean, any of these things, if you put your full self into it. 

Rich Bennett 54:48
Mm hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 54:49
I guess the word would be commitment and authenticity. You know, those two things are hard things for people to learn if you don't have them. 

Rich Bennett 55:00
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 55:01
But if you don't have them, you're just, like, spinning your wheels, I think. 

Rich Bennett 55:06
I agree with you 100% there. Yeah, You. You have to commit it. I'll be honest with you. If I wouldn't have gone into the military. 

God only knows what I'd be doing now because it changed my life. It taught me more about respect. It taught me about commitment. 

Discipline, especially. 

Lincoln Stoller 55:33
Vulnerability. Big 

Rich Bennett 55:35
Responsible. 

Lincoln Stoller 55:35
one. 

Rich Bennett 55:36
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's funny, cause I one of the I went for a job interview in the I.T. field, and I interviewed for this job for an hour and a half. And Miguel also, I got the job, But after I was there for a while, they got an interview. Me come. They said, Yeah, I just found that you're in the Marine Corps. I said, Yeah. He said, Well, why didn't you tell me or put that on your résumé, as I don't want to think about it, which is odd. Unfortunately, back then, coming out of the military, this is something the military did not teach you things about when you're going back into civilian life. So a lot of these things you did not learn about. And I thought, hey, I was at a car dealership for ten years and he's like, yeah, if you would have told me, because he's he served in the Marines, too. He said that interview would have been a lot quicker. Oh, look, I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing. You should know because of what you did in military. I would have asked you, what did you do in the Marine Corps? And it's just your work ethic and everything. It's different, you know? But I did it. I learned from that mistake. 

Lincoln Stoller 56:53
Well, I'm ahead of you here. So we've been talking for about an hour. So I want to, like, pull things together because. You're going to pull the plug soon. So I think these are the I mean, if people are listening to it. So there was different approaches. So there was the mental health and there was the entrepreneurial thing. And 

I guess I pulled them both together because I don't like to be one or the other. 

Rich Bennett 57:23
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 57:24
I'm dealing with somebody's mental health. I'm always trying to say, What? What can you be? What are you good at? What? What moves you? What what drives you? What makes you feel, you know, vibrant and alive? And if I'm dealing with somebody who's already feeling vibrant and alive and capable, I'm talking about like, what's holding you back, you know? You know what's, you know, on the bottom of your shoe. What what are you not talking about? You know, some of these people who are addicted are high performance people. 

Rich Bennett 57:57
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 57:58
I mean, that's famous, you know, the. 

Rich Bennett 58:00
Oh, yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 58:01
Executive. Right. So 

both sides have to work together. You know, the the dysfunctional side or the less functional side and the overachieving side and I'm not going to say that one is the cause of the other. That's probably too simple. But they need to work together. So if you want to accomplish, you have to look at not just what you're good at, but what you're bad at. And the flip side as well, don't focus on what you're bad at just because people tell you you're dysfunctional. 

I mean, the truth is there are some people who are dysfunctional, but, you know. Most of them don't come to me. They go to psychiatrists or something. 

Rich Bennett 58:48
I was going to say. But if they came to you, you can help fix it, Right? 

Lincoln Stoller 58:52
Well, not if they have some. I can only fix things that are fixable. A neurosurgeon, you know? I. 

Rich Bennett 59:02
But. 

Lincoln Stoller 59:04
If they have. I mean, the the interesting thing is that a lot of things are fixable, like gastric problems, irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux. And a lot of those which people will throw drugs at are actually strongly psychological and. 

I mean, I don't want to be glib, but you can accomplish something in a lot of these things. You know, back pain, gastric pain. Asthma, even asthma. Any of these autoimmune things or neurological things? I can. 

And like I said, the guy with Ella Pecos Harris falling out didn't seem to be mechanical. Seemed to be neurological or psychological. So it's worth trying. It's what you're good at learning. 

Rich Bennett 59:54
Right. 

Lincoln Stoller 59:55
And all the good things and all the skills and aptitudes like focus and calmness and resilience. 

Yeah, 

but I don't lecture people about how they should behave and I don't tell them that this is their diagnosis. And because if people don't understand diagnosis and mental health are just categories for for approaching people, they're not. Indictments or final explanations of anything, 

with some exceptions. Right. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:31
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:00:32
So 

yeah, I just tell 

this is where I would lead my listeners, just as I try to lead my clients into confusion, you know, out of anything you think you understand into the area where all the pieces are laid out in front of you, and then you can start to look at your traumas and your skills and your training and your habits and your addictions and your triggers and see that they're all sort of magnetically attracted to each other in a very often dysfunctional way. And you can rearrange them. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:13
Mm hmm. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:01:14
But you probably won't find it easy and you probably won't get support from the people around you. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:21
And don't get the things where you put it on your head and do it from your smart chair. 

Just 

Lincoln Stoller 1:01:28
Well, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:29
that scary 

Lincoln Stoller 1:01:30
you 

Rich Bennett 1:01:30
movie 

Lincoln Stoller 1:01:30
can. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:30
that that's kinda scary. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:01:35
Yeah. Come to see me at my office and I'll. No, see it. 

It's. It's. It's strong. Things are unpredictable. This is another import. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:47
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:01:49
Big changes make big disruptions. So you bet if you want a big change, whether it's, you know, making $1,000,000 or 

repairing your family, it's going to involve a big change. 

So then we get back to the Marines, you know, what are you capable of doing? You know, have you learned, you know, to be effective, responsible, 

committed? 

Rich Bennett 1:02:23
Yeah. And the thing is, I like, I love challenges. Prime example COVID was a big challenge for everybody. Everything was shut down. I learned something. I learned in the Marine Corps. You learn to overcome and adapt. And it was, business wise, one of the best years for me. Best years as Ty's fair and still has been. My business has been growing ever since. I know other, you know, entrepreneurs and businesses that you've got to think outside the box. You know, the whole time, I'll be honest with you, my mental health has been great. Ever. Before I had bad anxiety, depression was even suicidal. But I just I don't know, maybe I retrained my brain in a way. I just. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:03:17
Of course. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:18
I just. I don't even watch the news anymore. I stay away from the negative stuff. And I love what I'm doing now. If you would have told me ten years ago, Hey, Ridge, you're going to be doing parkour. Well, first of all, nobody probably knew what a podcast was. I would say you're crazy because I was in radio for a while, but I always played music. I was a DJ. I didn't like talking to people, you know, I didn't like interviewing people. It's yeah, the Marine Corps. It taught me so much. But I think the biggest thing is when it comes to challenges and obstacles. It taught me to overcome and adapt. You know, every problem has a solution, 

and that's to this day. I still believe that. Still believe that something very important. Tell everybody your website so they can find out more about you. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:04:13
My website is mine Strength Balance. Three words altogether. No spaces mind strength, balance dot com. And I have a blog. You know, there's a little pop up that appears when you go to the website. Subscribe. It's a free subscription and if you subscribe it, it offers you a link to my a digital copy of my latest book called Operating Manual for Enlightenment, which is a discussion of these three things. Your emotional habits, your neurological training and your thoughts, the things you figure out, and how those three things work together, and really the kind of layering that at the bottom there's the neurology of what you, you know, your firmware. And then on top of that, there's the sort of the software of your emotions and how you're drawn to act. And then on top of that, at the highest level are the thoughts that come out of this whole concoction. So that's what the book is. It's called Operating Manual for Enlightenment, and it's going to be published by Universal Press later this year. But you can get a digital copy of it if you subscribe to the blog, which is free. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:29
Oh, wow. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:05:30
There's a paid version, too, but that's an option. So that's the website Man Strength Balance account. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:39
All of you listening. Go for the paid option. Trust me, you're going to So. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:05:43
Yeah, you were. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:46
Well, Lincoln, is there anything you'd like to add before we wrap it up? 

Lincoln Stoller 1:05:51
I don't know. I'm an anarchist. I think everybody should think for themselves. And I understand that if everybody did that, we'd be in chaos. So I'm sort of ambivalent, you know, I understand there's got to be a, you know, a bell curve. And a lot of people in the middle do what they're told and and have a mortgage and mother lawns. But I'm all for the creative people and everybody's got it. It's a question of are you are you ready to be the leader in your in whatever your group is could be your family 

but without the leaders. 

I don't think you know, from an evolutionary perspective, I don't think human beings are the ultimate functional, enlightened machine. I think we've got a long way to go and we need a lot of people to help us get there. So I encourage you to grow and be all that you can be, even if it doesn't feel good. Any and any tool you can use, almost any tool that the claw your way up to enlightenment. And eventually you have to use a lot of tools. But 

Rich Bennett 1:07:02
Yeah. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:07:02
start start at it, you know? You know, finally I'd say, yeah, it does cross something, you know, Don't be afraid to invest in yourself. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:13
I love the fact that you said that because I believe too many people do not do that. And you need to invest in yourself. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:07:22
That's a big thing. That's. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:24
Yes. 

Lincoln Stoller 1:07:24
That's not. That's not a small thing. That's a big thing. It's a big investment. Put it that way.