In this episode, Jason Hartman welcomes Gary John Bishop, author of Unfu*k Yourself, Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. They talk about being honest with yourself, forgiving someone or something, and a significant change available to everyone. Gary also shares some of the philosophies that shaped his world.

Announcer 0:01
This show is produced by the Hartman media company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts, visit Hartman media.com.

Jason Hartman 0:12
Welcome to the American Monetary Associations Podcast, where we explore how monetary policy impacts the real lives of real people, and the action steps necessary to preserve wealth and enhance one’s lifestyle. Welcome to the show, this is Jason Hartman, your host and every 10th episode, we do something kind of special kind of different. What we do is we go off topic, so regardless of which show it is on the Hartman media network, whether it be one of the financial shows economics, real estate, investing, travel, longevity, all of the other topics that we have, every 10th episode, we go off topic, and we explore something of general interest, something of general life success value. And so many of our listeners around the world in 164 countries have absolutely loved our 10th episode shows. So that’s what we’re going to do today. And let’s go ahead and get to our guest with a special 10th episode show. And of course, on the next episode, we’ll be back to our regular programming. Here we go.

Hey, it’s my pleasure to welcome Gary John Bishop to the show. You’ve heard his name, he has sold so many books, and they are really unbelievable. He’s the New York Times bestselling author of an F yourself, get out of your head and into your life. Several other books, stop doing that. s h. I find that people always get stuck introducing you with these titles, right? And, and do the work and a bunch of others. He’s got a new one that’s just an audio-only book. And we’re gonna dive into his very unique and innovative philosophy of life. So I’m looking forward to it. Gary, welcome. How are you?

Gary John Bishop 2:02
I’m great. And thanks for having me on your show.

Jason Hartman 2:05
It’s good to have you and you’re coming to us from Orlando area. Is that correct?

Gary John Bishop 2:08
Correct. Right here in sunny Central Florida belt.

Jason Hartman 2:11
Not too far from me in Palm Beach. Good stuff? Well, you know, you have sold so many books, I mean, give us the latest tally on your numbers, and congratulations on your success as an author.

Gary John Bishop 2:22
Well, on the first book, it’s over 2 million copies, you know, and that book is very, it’s definitely unique from my publisher’s perspective. HarperCollins. I’m the only author ever to have breached a million audio books. So that was a kind of big deal. And the books, I guess it is surprising to me, they continue to sell, like consistently every week, like the numbers really don’t go down. It’s it’s like a steady stream of people doing this kind of work on themselves.

Jason Hartman 2:53
That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Well, in your most popular book, The Unef yourself book, you start off chapter one, asking the question, you know, have you ever felt like a hamster on the wheel on a wheel furiously churning your way through life, and somehow going nowhere, I think we’ve all felt that way at one time or another. So maybe that’s a good place to start.

Gary John Bishop 3:16
Yeah, there was a lot to be said for, you know, because I think in the day to day loving of our lives, we have general thoughts about how we’re doing and how life still went and how you know, overall, how I’m feeling. But it’s sometimes very challenging to tell yourself the truth about how you really feel about something or, or maybe what the impact is something really as on you. And that’s a lot of what I wanted people to deal with in this book like this opportunity for you to really tell one on yourself. Right? He put together a good aside there that can show like, if you like and start and reveal some of your innermost struggles.

Jason Hartman 3:55
Now, reveal to oneself or to others or both?

Gary John Bishop 4:00
Well, definitely and actually oneself. Most people think the odd honest with themselves, you know, it’s of all the people I’ve ever met. When I first start talking to them, most of them would say I do tell myself the truth. But once you started digging away at it, you’ll see how a lot there’s a lot of things in your life you’re still convincing yourself about. And you have to do it repeatedly. You have to keep convincing yourself about it. And you have to keep reminding yourself that you’re older you have to keep reminding yourself that you don’t care. And a big part of my work is finally telling the truth to yourself, which is the best place to start.

Jason Hartman 4:38
Right. Well that’s I think that goes back to maybe the unexamined life not worth living concept, right? Because we’ve got to first be honest with ourselves. That’s true. So you know in the do the workbook, you really reveal specific steps that one can follow to doing the inner work on one’s life. And we all have to do that at some stage or another, I’d say maybe most people do that kind of in their 20s, maybe their early 20s when they’re sort of finding themselves, if you will, but then again, whenever a crisis comes up, maybe maybe it’s just a general midlife crisis or, you know, marriage, divorce, whatever, things like that death in the family, or getting fired, it’ll cause us to examine, right? These are things that are an impetus to that. But do you have some specific steps that you offer to an effing oneself?

Gary John Bishop 5:31
Yeah, a great place to begin is to connect. And again, it all has to start with some kind of truth, which a lot of people ignore or, or resist, because it seems like it’s not a positive thing, right? Seems like oh, this is too negative for me. So let me focus over here where things and keep things on the sunny side. But I say to people, very simply look at an area life you feel as if you’re tolerating something, either yourself something about yourself some circumstance, some relationship and look at where am I currently just explaining or become okay with. And that’s when you start to kind of zero in on something you’ll see. And what you will see as a human being as your tremendous capacity for tolerating for putting up with and then overcoming. Overcoming on the surface might seem fine, but in fact, it’s really just this constant stream of trying to make something okay, that fundamentally you’re not okay. So I like to ask people that kind of questions where if you told the truth to yourself, for instance, about, let’s say, your procrastination raise somebody procrastinating? What’s it really like for you when you when you know yourself as a procrastinator, right? What’s it really like? What’s been the impact on you and your life? Are you in your career? Are you and your finances? And how do you explain that to yourself? And how do you explain it to other people. And you’ll see that in the areas of your life that don’t work as well as you would want them to, you’re actually putting a lot of work into making that palatable for yourself, right. And so that’s a big part of that are feeling like that, you start to see what you’re burdened yourself with,

Jason Hartman 7:12
Like you said, we as humans have an amazing capacity to sort of rationalize justify. But, you know, the question is, maybe is that all bad? It seems bad in this in the context of this conversation, but, you know, maybe that’s a survival mechanism, right? That’s just built in to all of us. So we can, right kind of get by at some level, we do have to accept things like the the prayer of St. Francis, right, you know, change the things I can accept the things I can’t change, right. So we’re gonna draw the line on that, I guess?

Gary John Bishop 7:45
Well, St. Francis, and I might have different points of view. But with all the respect in the world to St. Francis, my view was, you’re way more encumbered by what you think, than anybody else. So you’re way more burdened by your own limitations, people live with a complete illusion that they’re interacting with life, you’re not interacting with, like you’re constantly interacting with your own view, in or interacting with how it is, you’re interacting with how you think that’s right, that’s a veil that you never really quite get in touch with your wife until you started, you can step back a bit and see the matrix of your own thoughts and the matrix of your own emotions, and the matrix of your own automatics. And you don’t have to reveal all of that in one go. By the way, you can reveal a little better that that would sometimes shock you to your core, when you see how you’ve kind of funneled yourself away from your own satisfaction, funneled yourself away from your own fulfillment, and favor some subconscious belief or some subconscious idea. So there’s nothing wrong with being able to overcome overcome, it’s fine. But I think it’s full, fully proper to look at your life in terms of, am I realizing on my existence? Or am I shelving parts of myself? in favor of some explanation?

Jason Hartman 9:11
Gary, do you want to share any examples of these things, you know, maybe from some of your readers that they’ve shared with you, you just did an audio book on this? And, you know, maybe there are some specific examples. I just thought I’d open up that door for you. If they make sense at this point, or, or maybe later and some of the other steps.

Gary John Bishop 9:28
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that people often struggle with is this notion of forgiveness. How do I forgive somebody? Most people, just if you have a fairly positive attitude, you’ll just say, Well, you know, I’ll just let that go. The problem is, you have no capacity for letting go. You only have a capacity for overcoming, you know, capacity for actually just releasing yourself from something. How do you know that? Because the things that you haven’t let go of, you get reminded of them over and over again, then you tell yourself, you’re okay with it, and then you’ll let it go. So this thing, so Keep coming up in your mind you get reminded a little hook the little trigger. So people are often asking like, how do I forgive someone or something, which is you are never taught how to forgive, we are taught we should. We shouldn’t forgive another human being. But there are other steps to what? Yes, there are stamps for governance. And mostly what we’re left with is some kind of morality based forgiveness, which ends up being unbearable than Yep. So I’ll forgive you. Right, right, which is quality. And so I don’t do morality that way. So if you look at forgiveness, in terms of, what do I get to justify about myself, or my life by not forgiving? Now you’re getting closer to something. Now, like, I get to say about myself, by not forgiving you what I get to hold on to

Jason Hartman 10:52
So you know, you get to be right. In essence, right? Yeah.

Gary John Bishop 10:56
Initially I get to be right about something. And that is another thing that human beings just love. They just love being right, right? Even though they say no, no, this isn’t about being right. But but but the funny thing is, and I found this in my own experience, and of course, in culture, monster people, it’s amazing the things that will just trash in favor of being right. We’ll let go of a marriage, or like, have a business or an opportunity. Because I’m right. Which, and again, I understand right, and and if people are something’s like, well, I am right, I know. But at what cost? Like I’m right, but at what cost? cost, peace of mind. So forgiveness for me begins with seeing your own kind of self righteousness, and how you use your how you use your current situation, to justify you. But I think a really important part is, and this is something you’ve got to do a little bit of mental acrobatics for this. You got to see yourself and other people, you got to fight you got to see them logic. It’s not your logic. It’s not how you do it. But when you see somebody logic, they make sense to you. And when somebody makes sense to me, I got a lot of compassion for them, because I realize they don’t have a whole lot of choice where that thing, choose that thing, what it does. So I’m always at great pains till I’m like a serial forgiver. And I’m a serial forgiver because I don’t like who I am when I’m not when I don’t forget. I don’t like the minor. But

Jason Hartman 12:30
Here’s maybe the $64,000 question. Should you always forgive? Or are there times when forgiveness actually doesn’t make sense? When I interviewed Dr. Laura someday, I’m gonna ask her that question.

Gary John Bishop 12:46
No, I’ve said it very, yeah, you should always forgive for the sake of forgiveness. Right. So much. Part of the reason I think why we struggle with forgiveness, too, by the way is we feel as if it means something to the other person, like somehow it gets them off the hook or whatever they did. Right?

Jason Hartman 13:05
May may be a distinction between forgiveness and accountability,

Gary John Bishop 13:10
Right. I’m okay with forgiving you. You’ve got to live your own choices, I’ll forgive you because I want to disconnect myself from resentment. I wasn’t willing to torture myself, because of what you did. I’ll forgive you, you might never play another role in my life. You and I might never connect again. But I want you to know, I’ve forgiven you, you got to go sort that out for yourself. Whatever you did or didn’t do that’s on you. But I am a serial forgiven. I forgive every time again, because I just don’t like what the lack of forgiveness of the brother the presence of resentment does to me. I don’t I don’t like being a resentful man. It’s a horrible place to be. I’d much rather free myself from not to get on with whatever’s next in my life and to get myself fully to the people that in my life. I get that.

Jason Hartman 14:01
Yeah, no, the forgiveness is really for yourself. In other words, right. That’s, that’s like an internal exercise. Right. So what do you do in the external world?

Gary John Bishop 14:13
Yeah, you declare your forgiveness. Like, if I forgive you, I’m going to tell you, I’ll say I’ll forgive you. However, this relationship is over something that might be something like that. Okay. I’m willing, right? I’m no longer put the work in this friendship.

Jason Hartman 14:27
But is it Hey, look, I forgive you for you know, sneaking out on the debt you owe me but you still have to pay me back. Or

Gary John Bishop 14:34
I can totally do that, by the way. And that’s another great thing. Because my, I may forgive you. It doesn’t mean to say you’re no, you know, like, for instance, obviously, if you owe me money, suddenly that you don’t owe me that money. No, I forgive you for the way you’ve paid me back. And you’re still on the hook for that. Yeah. You know, I’m not going to make it mean in the book. I’m not going to hold on to that, you know, this kind of person or that kind of person, but the reality is, I forgive you. Give me my cash.

Jason Hartman 15:00
Yeah, right. Right. Right. I like that. Because, because I think a lot of people confuse that. they confuse it with, you know, walking away when we come into like the biblical reference of turning the other cheek. Where does that come into play with forgiveness in this discussion?

Gary John Bishop 15:18
Well, I mean, I’ll quote Sartre, the French existentialist. And he said, life is empty and meaningless, right? So it doesn’t mean anything. So I don’t, if you’ve done something that I feel as if you shouldn’t have done, I’m not gonna indulge that emotional, kind of sense of whatever lost her dimension, I’m not gonna indulge that. All I’m really just gonna look at, you know, like, what you who you and I are, and what you and I had, for instance, in your case, if you say what somebody who owes me money, that’s what this is about. I’m not going to make this mean, somebody with me on to week with people, I’m not great with people or people that are always trying to abuse me or take advantage of me. None of that. I’m just going to say, Okay, well, I forgive you for what have you done. And you do owe me that money. The only way out of that, by the way. And I’ve actually had this as an experience, I’ve had somebody owe me money for a long period of time, no use money as an example, I guess. But a lot of people owe me money for a long period of time. And a couple of occasions actually turned to him and said, so I want, I forgive you for not paying me back. And I’m now gonna gift you that money. I don’t I’m no longer willing to live with a single like an open wound in my life guide. So I’m going to gift it to you. Of course, you can rely on that I would never give you money again. Right, but, but I’m gifting it to you. And I want you to know that I’m fully gifting it to you. It’s not a favor. I don’t want to answer return. Why do I do such a thing? Why? Why have I done that my life? Because it’s important to me that I close that thing? I don’t want to leave that open there between me and life or between me and people? Oh, yeah. And then you can’t do that. Because people owe you money, or people cheat you. I’ll close the loop. Now, what does that taught me? It’s taught me one, I’ll be very careful. But whoever I lend money to, I’ll be careful about that and responsible about that. But whenever I do, if I have lent somebody money in the past, have been fully cognizant of the notion that I might not get this back. Right. So I no longer feel like it’s a surprise. It’s part of the game. If you’re

Jason Hartman 17:25
Right. Right, that’s a good, that’s a good way to look at it. I like that.

Gary John Bishop 17:28
But it’s part of the game. It’s an unsavory part of the game. But as part of the game,

Jason Hartman 17:33
Right. Good stuff. We’ve talked a lot about forgiveness, just wrap this up, if there’s anything more on this, because there’s a lot more to your philosophy. And I just wanted to give you the opportunity to maybe share a couple more points before we wrap it up.

Gary John Bishop 17:45
Well, one of the things that really always jumps out at me, as you know, people often leave themselves helpless, they often leave when they have no more ideas, or no more sense of how to change them, like for change what’s next for them. I think the big thing that I want people to get as that that significant change is available to you, right, and every area of your life, by the way, with your emotional state, your moods, your body, your finances, your well being your friendships, your experience of love. All of those things are transformable, all of those things can be impacted. And even though it might seem impossible from where you’re sitting right now, I do want people to know that it’s available, and it’s made me not as complicated nor take as long as one might think.

Jason Hartman 18:32
Okay, so don’t be the victim. Resources are available. They are you are available, you you can change any of these things anytime you want,

Gary John Bishop 18:42
You can and I’m not saying it’s always it’s always easy, but I’m telling you, the pathway to significant change is an uncomplicated one, it will might take your time. And it might take you some things that you need to handle. But it’s all dealt with well, and I’ve worked with people that have produced amazing results in their life, with their finances, with the body with a love life, whatever. And it’s available to all human beings. I know you might be despondent or down or whatever, but it’s available for you.

Jason Hartman 19:10
That’s a pretty empowering thought. I mean, if people want to change how they think about themselves, or how they think about their, their station in life, that’s the answer, isn’t it?

Gary John Bishop 19:22
It is. Look, we don’t always enjoy our thoughts, you know, or our opinions of ourselves. They often arise in moments of crisis, you know, when we’re most kind of down on ourselves. I’m not someone who says Be positive about that stuff. I’m someone who says All right, well, let’s kind of get that on the table. What is that? Right? What does that really about? What does it go and you don’t always get a say in your thoughts. You know, you have random thoughts, they come up, they disappear. But a lot of the times it feels the same emotionally. I don’t always feel you know my best. Some people deal with anger, lack of confidence, things like that. It’s amazes me how people can And leaves themselves with the experience that they’re stuck with. And I just want them to know in your heart of hearts, you’re not it’s this is all doable, right?

Jason Hartman 20:08
So if you think yourself, well, that’s just the way I am. Or that’s just the way it is. Those are just false statements, aren’t they?

Gary John Bishop 20:17
They are. It’s. It’s funny, you know, for this conversation with many people, people talk about self limiting beliefs, the problem of self limiting beliefs is you don’t know yours. Because you believe them.

Jason Hartman 20:30
Right? Because you’re in it. That’s the context out of which you operate. Right? It’s this box, and you don’t know what’s outside of the box. Yeah,

Gary John Bishop 20:38
Right. You’re the fish in water. Fish has no sense of water, right? You have no sense of your beliefs. You just level you can see other people and part of our fields of good work that you do on yourself as revealing what you fundamentally believe revealing your own sacred combs what can what is possible when as impossible. And it’s it people are more often than not completely shocked at the way they’ve boxed themselves in?

Jason Hartman 21:04
Yeah, they sure are. That’s. Gary, that’s so good. It’s, it’s great. Give out your website

Gary John Bishop 21:10
You can reach here at Gary, john bishop.com. There’s courses on now there’s obviously great ways to connect with me on Instagram and on Twitter. And also on Facebook, I got lots and lots of followers out there. And I like to make sure I’m giving them plenty of good stuff every day. So there’s always great little nuggets of insight and thinking for you to do.

Jason Hartman 21:33
Excellent. How did you become such a life life philosopher,

Gary John Bishop 21:37
I guess it started with working on myself and my own life. And then the more I got into it, the more I realized that I loved impacting other people’s lives. And I became a senior program director for a really, really big personal development company. And I did that for many years. And then yeah, it’s just been this layering and layering and layering, maturing and adding new information and thoughts and discussions, such that I can give it away to people now.

Jason Hartman 22:05
Good stuff. Any closing thought you want to share, quote, whatever.

Gary John Bishop 22:10
Yeah, I’m gonna I’ll give people one little thing that the your success in life is almost exclusively tied to the degree that you can keep a promise to yourself.

Jason Hartman 22:20
Very good, very good. Say it again.

Gary John Bishop 22:23
Your success in life is almost exclusively tied to the degree that you can keep a promise to yourself.

Jason Hartman 22:29
Excellent. Gary John Bishop, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

Gary John Bishop 22:34
Wonderful. Thank you for having me.

Jason Hartman 22:41
Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss any episodes. Be sure to check out this shows specific website and our general website heart and Mediacom for appropriate disclaimers and Terms of Service. Remember that guest opinions are the rain. And if you require specific legal or tax advice, or advice and any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional. And we also very much appreciate you reviewing the show. Please go to iTunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever platform you’re using and write a review for the show we would very much appreciate that. And be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.