512 | What I’ve Learned From Helping Toxic People

Chris LoCurto 0:00
What happens when toxicity holds people back or worse yet, they start to poison and affect others negatively? That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are. I hope it's really fabulous, especially with today's topic, toxicity. Hey, let's talk about toxic people. I know that that is something you are super excited to get to right now. And some of you probably are. This is a very important topic and many lives. And if it's not something that you're experiencing, or don't feel like you've experienced, then it's great to understand this and know this. But on  the back side of this or by the end of this, the goal is to have a greater understanding of what we see with toxicity, we're going to talk about a lot of things that we experience and things that we have learned over the decades. Joining me today from bright and sunny Sicily. Actually, I have no clue what the weather's like is Brian, Alex, welcome to the show, Brian.

Brian A 1:24
We Yeah, we get little bitty bouts of sunshine, and I just tried to soak it up. Yep.

Chris LoCurto 1:30
That's it. That's your five minutes of vitamin D. So Brian is going to be joining me in and kind of just walking through and interviewing me on aspects of what we have learned and what we experienced and things to just help us to understand toxicity better. But before we get into all of that, and by the way, we've all had our fair share of toxicity of being toxic, right? You know, there's no doubt. We always say that the stuff that we teach here is stuff that we have screwed up in our lives, I have screwed up mistakes that I've made. Praise God. He's taught us how to fix a bunch of stuff, how to get healthier, and how to do things differently. And being a teacher, my goal is to not just sit on that stuff and make myself better. But it's to change as many lives as I possibly can. And praise God, I have a group of people that are battling that battle with me to help people get as healthy as they possibly can. So with that, we're going to talk about a bunch of things that, you know, we've learned and experienced. But before we get deep into the toxicity, I want to deal with what we know to be the elephant in the room, you may not know this, a lot of people may not know this, but it's something that we see as being the big focus of why there's so much toxicity. Can you guess what it is? Are you thinking about how many people are out there answering what it is right now in your head? Right? The thing is, fear. Fear tends to be such an underlying piece of what we experience in toxicity now, you know, it's probably not your past wounds and trauma, it's probably not your environment as much as you'd like to think it is. It's probably not other people that are holding you back in your own life. Nope. Guess what it is? It's you. So whether you're being toxic or not, you are, have a tendency to be toxic or not. One of the things that we discover over and over and over again, is that fear holds people back. So just to kind of give you an example, one of the things we talked about in strat plan with all the leadership stuff, is that when you're focused on yourself, when you're being self-centered, when you're being self-focused, like let's say you're being defensive. Let's say you're being self-protective, there's an important thing to understand. The quality perspective gathering comes to a screeching halt. So what am I saying? You can't gain quality perspective, you can't ask good questions you can't seek You can't be curious when you're totally focused on yourself. Now, some of you that might land really well, and you get that you're like, yeah, that totally makes sense. And some people like no, I think I still can't, you can't. I'm sorry. You just can't. Why? Because what is your focus? I'm protecting myself right now. Which means that I can't be curious to understand your side of the situation. I can't be someone who is wanting to really understand this thing, that we're discussing this topic, whatever.

So it's important for us to understand that if I am in fear mode, I'm afraid of losing my worth. I'm afraid of losing my identity. I'm afraid of having to take responsibility for something which I've convinced myself I'm done. Want to lose power in the situation? I'm going to give power to somebody else, whatever this thing is, that fear holds me back. Right? That fear holds you back. This is incredibly important to understand as we go through this. Because when you're living in this fear, and let me just give this caveat again, you've heard me say this 1000 times, there are two types of fear. There is the imminent fear. This is literally happening. You're being chased by a lion. Right? Something is going to happen. Right? If that's that's a legitimate fear, you can see it it's going to happen 98% Of Fear is imagined. It's the stuff that I imagined might could possibly maybe happen. And what we see when it comes to toxicity is behind so much toxicity, so much people's wounds, so much of people's trauma, and I really hate to use the word trauma, because that's become a throwaway word nowadays, where, you know, if you almost drop your coffee, it was traumatic, that's just ridiculous. But whatever people are experiencing, so much of what's behind it is fear. So let's just get this out in the open. A lot of people are held captive and tormented by Yes, I did just say tormented. And some of you, especially my highest is out there and my high seas out there you are probably folks that might be tormenting yourself to this in high eyes, as well.

A lot of people are held captive and tormented by fear. So two things that I want to point out before we get into this toxicity issue. Number one, fear is often a product, an outlet, or a manifestation of self-deception. What are you talking about? Chris? Well, a great definition is self-deception is when you deny or rationalize relevant signify significant or important evidence and logical argument. It's living in a fictitious reality a fantasy life. And when you're believing lies, then you're deceiving yourself and you're afraid. So think about how many things that we see in our lives, how many things we see in politics, in what's happening in the nation, and whatever pick whatever it is, when we choose to deny facts, when we choose to deny relevant information, when we choose to deny important evidence, because of fear, then we are self-deceiving. Almost said we are self-deceiving ourselves very redundant. The Department of redundancy department right there, when we are removing these things, denying these things, then we are deceiving ourselves. Another term for this and you've heard me say this before, many times is if we are getting input on audiology, could be what's called ideological subversion. We hear a lie so long, so hard that eventually, it becomes the truth. And we deny facts. We deny significant information. Either way, whether it's stuff that we're telling ourselves whether it's a lie that we're believing from somebody else, it's deception. And a big piece of self-deception is the fear factor. Instead of me digging in, spending time, gaining quality perspective, instead of me digging in finding out being curious to get to true facts. I allow the fear to make it true. So that's the first thing number two, fear forces you to focus on self-protection, self-preservation, right? It's this kind of situation or posture that all kinds of toxins build up inside of us. We believe the lies, we're afraid we take a defensive posture. We go into specific patterns like self-deception, self-protection, self-sabotage, and even self-harm. You know, we have literally seen self-flagellation from people. They physically harm themselves because of the lies that they're believing. And so many of those lines are lies that they tell themselves, folks, it is it's a terrible situation. It's a heartbreaking situation, to watch People who live in fear who live in lies, consistently deceive, and even mentally, emotionally, and physically harm themselves. All kinds of toxic behavior crop up from where a root system that's in bondage to fear.

What are some of those behaviors we see? Anger is, is quite often one. And you see a lot of this nowadays, right? We see a lot of people just being angry in life, we see a tonne of offense. Now, I'm going to say a lot of that is coming from your root system. And I think a tonne of it is coming from the influences in your life. We've talked about this, you we've gotten great shows where we've discussed even with, you know, teenagers and kids and the influence that's happening to them, but us as adults, if you're spending your day watching the news, guess what, you're gonna be offended by a lot of things. Right? If you're spending your day on social media, where people are complaining about everything, not too long ago, just I think a couple of episodes ago, I talked about our youngest daughter, Kelly, who I'm so proud of that she was in this social group, it was supposed to be this fun group talk. You know, one of the great things I love about Kelly, she loves cars. And it was so it was girls talking about cars that they loved cars, you know, that's a fun thing, right? And yet, it turns she goes, Oh my gosh, there's so much drama in this group went from, hey, we could talk about cool cars too. Now, you know, people are just becoming total idiots. And so she's like, I am so done with this, I can't do this. I wanted this to be a fun group. It's not, I'm out. And she even let them know, this has become a group of drama. I'm out. And I was so proud of her to see her stand for that, right? But it's not uncommon to see that happening everywhere. Another toxic behavior is outbursts. We see so many people nowadays being so out of control, personally, that their responses are just over the top. And one of the things that I have a tendency to ask somebody who's struggling with outbursts, and I will ask myself if I'm struggling with, you know, responses is is this response equal to the situation? How many times do we see people losing their minds over essentially nothing? Right. Other bad behaviors, defensiveness, and probably one of the, worst, poor decision-making. We would call this surface-level response and Next-Level Life. But I can tell you so much bad decision-making has fear behind it. So we've got to deal with the fear if we truly want to heal and move forward in life. So if you want to dig into this and find some freedom, then go back to Episode 459 on overcoming fear Heather join me in the studio. And we went through in-depth fears such a great lesson. She also taught that last year at the Next-Level Leadership Live Event and it just blew people away. Today, however, we've also got Brian back in the studio or in the studio Sicily. Let me say that and we're gonna get into all of this stuff when we come back. So when we come back, what is toxicity? Where does it come from? And what does it look like when it's present?

Speaker 2 13:39
Freedom, it's so powerful, I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed, I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am, and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there that had a really big impact on me, and that's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be even better on the other side. For me, it was just, it was just very refreshing. And I'm gonna say lifegiving for me, it really was, you know, I would go to Next-Level Life again. And probably again, and probably again, because it's so powerful.

Chris LoCurto 14:15
If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, the same kind of self-awareness and freedom that they have. Or maybe you're just curious about what the process would look like for you. Then head on over to Chrislocurto.com/next level life

All right, we are back and Brian Alex is Sicilian, which I say I don't know.

Chris LoCurto 14:50
it'd be great if we could say our man on the street and Sicily but those interviews that would be fun. You should just go outside nobody would understand it but All right, so Brian is joining me. And we're gonna be talking through a bunch of stuff that we have learned and experienced. So Brian, let me turn this over to you. Yeah, to get us rolling.

Brian A 15:11
Man, I love what you're talking about there. And the the the underlying fear factor in all of this. It's, it's a little absurd, but it made me think of Star Wars. There's a part where Yoda is talking about how fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and suffering, he says at the end. But no, I mean, there's some truth in that where fear is kind of this underpinning of our anger, the things that are going on the toxicity that we have built up inside of us. And I love that we're tackling this. It is a torment. People are tormented by fear, a lot of times and it is suffering. And I'm glad that we're, we're finally digging into this, we've got some episodes fun episodes coming up this year about health, physical health, mental health, psychological health, how to stay healthy in a toxic culture, but we're dealing with the toxicity that's in us first. And I think that's appropriate. Just for some perspective, I've been reading some books, and I came across this quote by a physician, Gabor Ma Tei. And he's talking about living in a toxic culture. And he says this in the most health-obsessed society ever talking about today, all is not well, health and wellness have become a modern fixation. And yet, here it is, our collective health is deteriorating. And so yeah, I want to tease out some things about what you're seeing, because we, you know, we've been 10 years now in this, your leadership goes back decades, but Next-Level Life we've been doing for 10 years, over 500 of these leading people through to, you know, through a process to health to find freedom, all of that. And I want to tease out some of what you're seeing, but just on the, you know, I guess the basics here of what is, what does it mean to be toxic? What is what are we talking about a toxic culture, and toxins are just basically poison. They're things that kill and destroy health, it's anti-life, and health and flourishing and all of that. I mean, it's like getting a wound in our soul in our mind and our emotions that gets infected and just won't go away until it's cleaned out, disinfected and mended so that it can heal. And that toxicity, you know, is what we're talking about that inner infection. And so I'd love to hear you know, some things from you, Chris, about where you're coming from, you mentioned in the intro, that, you know, you've grown up around some toxic people and in toxic environments. What what does that look like? I mean, you mentioned some of the surface-level responses. But is there a picture that you could paint to just talk about, you know, people who are psychologically or emotionally toxic? They're poisoning themselves and others? What did that look like for you, that brought you to the place of really putting a stop to it and then saying, Gosh, I'm going to help other people get this toxicity out of them?

Chris LoCurto 18:26
So I think what's important is to really, you know, I could spend an hour giving examples of what toxicity looks like. But I think hitting the highlights of what people I think will relate to is the easiest, I think it's probably the best idea for this. So I'm just going to throw a few things out there. One of the things I usually tend to say is if there is self-sabotage, right, if I am doing things to hurt myself, that's toxicity. So if you think about it, what does it you know, I love that you've used the example of a toxin right, as somebody who has been spending years trying to get led out of my body, which everybody asks that I, you know, the Tommy Boy thing did you look paint chips? No, I think I had spent a few years in a house that had led pipes. But it has been an incredible process to try and get this stuff out the painful process is difficult, exhausting, and very difficult on the health side, which is why we focus so much on helping people on the fiscal health side as well. Those toxins have been having it wreaking havoc inside my body. It has been affecting my blood pressure. It's been affecting me not being able to lose weight, which praises God, I've been able to find some ways around that it's been affecting me in my energy, how I processed stuff, my stomach, all these different things. This one toxin inside of my body has been wreaking havoc. Now let's translate that to fear Let's translate that to self-protection. Let's translate that to, you know, being worried about losing worth at a high level when you have something that's affecting you so much that you go to hurting yourself. That's toxicity. So some of the things that I think people will relate to in one of my two, two of the things that I struggle with most because they've been heavily inundated in my life, one is guilt. You know, I came out of a lot of guilting. So when people are struggling so heavily with whatever fear of something fear of losing, worth fear of losing control, fear of not having power, fear of losing power, whatever it is, one of those responses tends to be guilt in other people. I think a lot of people can recognize that or can, you know, maybe they've experienced that in their life. And for me, I had multiple people in my life, and I was their problem, I was the if something was wrong with them. I was the easy target, a very submissive person, very high s, very easy to all of a sudden for somebody else to gain control was to attack me with guilting Oh, you're the reason why this I wasn't even here. I didn't have anything to do with that. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know, you know, but it was so pounded into me over and over, and still 52/5 Well, yesterday was my 53rd birthday. So 53 years later, you know, I still experienced that from people I know and love. You're my problem. It's because it doesn't matter what kind of now that I've been healthier for decades and able to set healthy boundaries, it is something that makes it really difficult for people to do because it's very easy for me to see it. And it's very easy for me to set that healthy boundary.

But for me for decades, the first half of my life, I was a doormat to people, because I believed so much of the stuff that I was being told, I believed that I was the problem for so many people. So not only was somebody self-sabotaging themselves with guilting, because they were having to say, I'm so much more important than this other person, I'm willing to hurt this person, I'm willing to suggest that this person is terrible, bad, whatever. They were so struggling with the toxicity, that it didn't matter how they treated me. It didn't matter what they did to me. Right. So I think that's something that a lot of people can relate to. So there's toxicity on both parts there. You have a person who's being toxic and suggesting toxicity to somebody else, you have somebody else who's receiving it. We say all the time, especially Next-Level Life, I can't make you anything. I can't make you feel, I can't make you think I can't make anything happen. Except if I physically overpower you. That's something I can physically control. If I can physically overpower you. That's something I can make you out of control physically. But I can't make you think anything. I can't make you believe anything. I can't make you fear something. All I can do and I want everybody to just really get this, all I can do is highly suggest that you do. So for so many years, it was highly suggested I was the problem. It was highly suggested that I'm responsible for somebody else's happiness, that I'm responsible for why they're not happy. All those suggestions were, you know, directed at me for so long, and not just by one person but by multiple people, that I received them. It wasn't until I came to a boiling point in my early 20s and said, Enough is enough. And I shut down. I mean I shut down. I'm a high altruist Am I S I shut down? And I focused my time on God I knew that I needed to. And I spent a six-year period just going screw all of this. I need a better relationship with God, I need to understand this stuff. And that really shifted my belief systems and it really shifted the research, the study, the counseling, everything the things that I did to get this information to a place of going that's what's going on. So I think that's something that a lot of people can relate to. Anger is self-sabotage, right? If I'm feeling so out of control that I start attacking with the anger I have this heavy threat of anger that I can just blow into anger outbursts. I think that's something that people can experience pretty quickly because usually, it's not always there are times people have pushed me to the point that I've had to fire back with a hold on. This is super unhealthy. This is done, we're stopping this, that is completely different than anger, ripping somebody's head off, you know, losing total control. That is a self-sabotage. Why? Because I am dumping just incredible amounts of toxicity into my body. My cortisol levels are shooting through the roof, my adrenaline is running, pumping like crazy. I'm destroying serotonin, I'm destroying melatonin, I'm destroying good quality hormones in my body. And I am just dumping tonnes of toxicity into my stomach as I am choosing to be crazy over the top angry about something. Right? Crazy out of control. I think that's something that many people have experienced.

The other side of self-sabotage I want to hit again is the part that I struggled with so much. And that is the allowing myself to be so toxic by receiving and believing and not doing something about it and not fixing it and not changing it and living in the fear of I am this horrible person and allowing people I mean, you know, you and I have talked about this, because we both experienced this in our lives of believing, you know, having people earlier on in our lives, that almost convinced us were crazy that you know, this thing that we would push back on it. Hey, this is hypnosis? No, it literally is no it's not. That's all in your mind. That doesn't exist. You're making that up at just this. Am I nuts? Only to have another outside source? Go? You do see that? Right? I thought I did. But I've been experiencing you know that allowing somebody to have that type of influence is self-sabotage in itself. Because then that person starts to say, well, maybe none of this is reality. You know, they've been able to allow, you know, somebody else has been able to set my reality. And maybe I'm just wrong, maybe I am not seeing this correctly. Maybe this isn't happening, and only to discover that it is. So I think those are things for people. If you take a look at those types of self-sabotage, what's underlying, and why is there fear there? Most of the time, and again, we have to dig into the person's specific root system to discover why that fear exists. But many times that basic fear is I can't be out of control.

You and I've talked about this before, a lot of high seas don't relate to that phrase. Well, I am in control. Well, how do you feel frustrated? Okay. So what's the difference? While you're saying the word control? And I don't think that I'm out of control, but you're responding very frustrated? Well, yes. Well, that's the same kind of thing, right? It's just, it's a different definition of verbiage. When somebody can't be out of control when somebody can't lose control when somebody can't lose worth when somebody can't lose identity. When that compounds to a point that it becomes super toxic. That's when we see these other responses, guilting shaming, ripping people's heads off. manipulation, highly suggesting that there's something wrong with the other person and that things aren't happening, all of these things are built up. Because the person who's out of control is in such a high level of fear that they can't be out of control that it becomes. And we say this a lot Next-Level Life, a self-fulfilling prophecy. I can't be out of control. Because I'm unable. I don't have quality tools. I don't know what it's like to not have to struggle with that. That's when it gets close. The self-fulfilling prophecy kicks in. I become out of control to the point that I self-sabotage and I become toxic because all of that makes sense. questions on anything?

Unknown Speaker 29:19
Yeah, that's the man that's so much there to flesh out how many episodes would we need? Now

Brian A 29:26
I want to circle back around and just highlight one piece of that if you are on the receiving end, and you're not putting appropriate, healthy boundaries, that is a form of self-sabotage, you're sabotaging yourself. And you're enabling the perpetuation of that cycle, where you have a toxic person dumping on someone who's receiving it and that's toxicity too. And, you know, you're gonna get stuck there it comes you know, it gets real We're close to this kind of codependent type situation where they're tethered together, and they don't feel like either one doesn't feel like they can break free of that. So, man, that's so well, we've got to watch out for that.

Chris LoCurto 30:13
Yeah and the jumping on the codependency piece. The codependency piece kicks in where I must be in support of the controlling manipulative person. So to make it I know I give a tonne of information. But if I was to just say, basically, you have a submissive person who is connected, maybe in a close relationship with somebody who's controlling and manipulative, right, that's its most basic forms. If we talk about that, there's so much behind that. It's not that basic, there's a tonne that comes behind it. But if I am a submissive person, and I need to be in that relationship with that controlling manipulative person, because I feel worth that's where it really becomes jacked up because then that codependent and you know, as you're pointing out, same with the other person, how many controlling and manipulative people seek out somebody super submissive. Because there's that codependency, I can continue to lose my crap on this submissive person so that I can gain control in my mind, which that's a total illusion. And there's that codependency so just to kind of help people to understand there's plenty of submissive people that aren't in that codependent relationship, they just don't get it. But like you pointed out really, eventually stays there long enough. Eventually, you will find it probably moving into that codependent relationship.

Brian A 31:37
And what makes all of this so complex, and I imagine that you've seen this, I'd love your take care. There's this quote by Dale Carnegie, he says, when dealing with people remember that you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion. And, you know, we're not 100% emotion or 100% logic, we're a blend of these things. But I imagine that we tend to act and behave more in line with our emotions most of the time, than logic, and if you're unhealthy, that's a huge problem. If there's a buildup of toxicity inside, and it's always, it's always coming out and manifesting. It's not only self-harm and self-sabotage, but you're also spreading that poison to other people. What do you do with that? I mean, do you find that people are maybe lopsided on that emotional side too often? How does that work?

Chris LoCurto 32:41
Yes, is the answer by far one of the things that drive people crazy around me who know me is that I'm a very logical thinker, I spend a lot of time in the logical side of my brain. So when I address problems, I address some logic. You know, we've talked about it many times on the show, don't lose your mind when you fail. You know, failure is a great teacher, when people are like, oh, gosh, I don't even know how you get there. It's super simple. What did you learn? You know, what happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? How do we fix it? How do we make sure it never happens? Again, logic. But so many people are so afraid that somebody is going to be disappointed that they're going to rip their heads off, and so on, so on, and so on. So on, and so on, right? And so my brain is like, what, why are you so emotional about that? Just logically handle that right now, keep in mind, I'm an incredibly emotional being just like everybody else walking this earth. But something that changed for me and it was putting in all of these healthy tools was that it allowed my logical thinking I'm, you know, I'm very logistical. You know, my early days, some of the business, some of the jobs that I had were very logistical thinking type of, you know, that's just how my brain works. But it doesn't take me a lot to switch to the logistical mindset and then look at the situation, what do we do about how do we solve it? For so many people? And Brian, I'm telling you, this is exponentially growing rapidly. For so many people. It's almost as if they don't recognize the logical side that exists in their brain. They handle so many situations through emotion to the point you and I have talked about this probably about a year or so ago, this concept that's being taught and it has been taught for quite a while that your feelings must be allowed to exist. That you must allow your feelings to exist in you must feel every feeling that you have it is such total utter nonsense. Having feelings is okay. feeling something is okay. allowing that feeling to play itself out. When it's negative when it's self-sabotaging, is utter nonsense. It's ridiculous. To allow me to go, Oh my gosh, I feel so horrible because I might maybe do something stupid that disappoints Brian. And so I'm just going to live in this is just ridiculous. I mean, it is chaotic. That is not reasonable, rational thought. And yet we have people teaching nowadays, that you need to let that play out, that you can't shut that feeling down, that it's not only so utterly ridiculous, but it's also anti-biblical. It's not taking your thoughts captive. It is not looking at the negativity, the lie that you're telling yourself, the fear that you're experiencing saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, knock that crap off. That's not true. That doesn't even exist right now. And I'm just hurting myself in this process. What is truth? Truth is, I just made that up. I've not experienced that yet. I haven't seen that I'm going to disappoint Brian in any way. So until I do knock that off. How do I solve this so that I won't disappoint? You know, how do I think of this in a positive way? Right.

So I say all that to say that people are exponentially living on the emotional side compared to decades ago, I feel like there was so much more critical thinking 10 years ago, right? than there is today, instead of critically thinking through something. And the reason why I'm saying this is because I know it's true, I experienced this quite often, you know, we coach and lead hundreds, if not 1000s of people, you know, throughout the years, and we see a lot more of people being stuck in this place of not being able to shift over to the logical side. And so we even help them with some tools on how to do it at the moment. You know, what can you do right now, to shift your logic brain, you know, there are little things like pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth as hard as you possibly can, doing specific number patterns with your fingers, and things like that. And sometimes it can shift you out of that emotional side, right? But the important thing is to recognize how much time I spend emotionally thinking through a situation as opposed to logically, if you could capture that if you could spend even just a little bit of time thinking about it, what's the thing that bothered you today? What are the 10 things that bothered you today? What's the what is negative self-talk that you had today? What is the lie that you are telling you are lies that you're telling yourself if you can stop and go back and review those logically, and ask yourself how much time you spend emotionally processing that crap in your brain, you would be blown away? So I think that's one of the things that is so important for people to do is to recognize you have two sides, you can spend your time on your emotional side, which is just going to be self-sabotage, again, most likely, most likely, we're obviously we're talking about this in the context of the negative side of the fear side, all that. So if we're staying in that context, then you're going to ruin your day, you're probably going to ruin somebody else's day. But if you can shift over to that logic side, and ask yourself, Am I even thinking about this correctly? Is my processing this correctly? Is my response even equal to the situation? What you may discover very quickly, and most likely, you're going to discover is No. Nope, I'm just sitting here lying to myself about stuff. I'm just sitting here telling horrible negative things. What can I do to fix that? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

Brian A 38:52
I wonder if the problem is that we get so trained by our emotions, instead of spending time training, our emotions, the picture that comes to mind is you remember those old telephones, the big ones that would sit on a desk and, you know, you'd pick up the receiver or whatever, but then it has the little flashing lights there. You can get trained to respond to that little flashing red light, you know, oh, and you go into crisis, you go into emergency mode, the adrenaline hits, cortisol shifts, all of these chemical changes are going on because you're being trained to respond to that signal, instead of asking why you're getting that signal. So if the anger and the rage comes, and those are signals, it's not about just you know, cutting the wire, and I don't want to hear or see or know what's going on because ironically, what happens if we're so busy being trained by our emotions? instead of training and managing our emotions, then what happens I heard this the other day, people will do almost anything in order to avoid facing their own soul, their own problems, and their own defects. And this is what we're getting to here is that you can get so trained by your emotions, you don't know why what's happening is happening inside of you. And it's like you're seeing those, those flashes and the buzzers and all that. And you're just responding, you're reacting to these, you know, the impulses, the signals that are going on instead of going, but why do I feel angry? Where is that? You know, where's that wound? Where's that coming from, and doing the hard work because the majority of us I know, I've been there don't like facing what's going on in their own soul, I don't want to look in the mirror and discover my own defects. And I think that's one thing that's so you know, scary for people not wanting to come through a Next-Level Life is, I really don't want to see why I behave in this way. Because it's going to point to some ugly part of me that I need to change so that I can get healthy because I'm toxic. But you know, this is you know, where we are as a culture, that we just don't suppress those emotions, just let them run rampant. But at the same time, we turn a blind eye to why all that's coming to the surface.

Chris LoCurto 41:33
Yeah, you just summarised, the reason that high AI personalities don't come through Next-Level Life. We have a very small number, percentage of folks that are more AI than anything, you know, we have di s and C, the DS SS and C's comm s is coming in droves. But yes, it's a small number. And the reason what you just summarised is I don't the fear, everybody doesn't matter what your personality style is, everybody has the same fear, I don't know, we're going to discover those of you that have not been through next level like that's the fear you're having of not coming through the water note, we're gonna find out and 500 and some odd events later, nobody has walked out going. I'm so shocked and surprised that was terrible. I found out something. But it walks out with the same oh gosh, that was eye-opening, praise God, I have a plan I can do, I can go and help I can go do something for myself, right? But what you just shared is the number one reason why a lot of eyes don't come through. But also the number one reason for folks that still haven't signed up period doesn't matter what personality style you are, here's the thing that we have to hear. And this is so difficult for people to really get I am more concerned with this is the assumption that a band-aid is gonna get ripped off, right, I am more concerned with ripping off a band-aid so that I can heal fast. And so I can become a better version of myself. I'm more concerned with that, that I'm willing to stick with the infected, jacked-up wound that I have in my life or wounds that I have in my life. I'm more concerned with getting in. And maybe something is painful, because sure it's gonna be painful. It's tough. Nothing we do around here is easy. And that's why it's so profoundly effective for so many people. It's not we don't give you simple, easy things. We walk you through something that's going to be effective. And that's why it's so people love it so much. We have such phenomenal testimonies. But you have to get to a place where you recognize its self-sabotage, not to fix the problem or problems. It's self-sabotage and self-hate. It's self-loathing to say it's better to stick where I am.

So I usually use this. It's an old joke. Where a guy goes into this hardware store, he's looking for a hammer and he walks inside and he's like, Hey, I need to get a hammer. What does that sound like? And the guy who owns a store says Oh, it's my dog. He's, he's back there in the back. He's laying on a nail and he's like, oh, okay, well, we're hammers, he's like down on aisle three. So the guy goes down aisle three. He's looking around and checking these out, finally finding the one that he likes the best. Comes back up to the front, and He still hears that dog. And he goes, is that dog still laying on that nail? And the guy goes, yeah, he goes, Oh, how come he doesn't move? And the owner says it because it doesn't hurt enough yet. And it's so profound when you get to the place where you recognize your trading, daily pain, daily, weekly, monthly yearly decades of pain for one day's worth of ripping the band-aid off To get to freedom. That is, by definition, self-sabotage. I'm willing to take incredible amounts of pain over when I stack it up when I pile it up when I count it all together over this time period than if I got in. And maybe found out it wasn't even that painful, stole some stuff, and was able to move on. So what we see over and over and over again, is that people don't recognize that they are caught in this rat wheel of fear that they are caught in this cycle of being so afraid of what could happen, what might happen, that instead of moving in the direction of health, they stay right where they are. Many times they are victims, oh, this is all happening to me, I can't do anything about this, because victim mentality allows you to blame somebody else and stay right in your crap. Many times, they just stay doormats, too controlling and manipulative people. Many times they convince themselves, it's not wrong, it's not them that this isn't actually happening. And one of the worst things that I absolutely hate, this just breaks my heart. Many times they convince themselves, they're not worth getting help. It's for somebody else, it's for my spouse, it's for my friends, it's for those people that Chris talks about, but I'm not somebody who's worthy of getting this help, and getting to freedom. Because people have told me I'm not worth it. And I believe that I'm not worth it. So all that to say, if we can just recognize the things that we're talking about, hopefully, we can get to a place of saying, Enough is enough, I'm done with this crap, there's a better life than what we're experiencing. So when we come back, after this break, we're going to jump into some good indicators for you to recognize. And also, we're going to talk about some healing information that we have coming in the future.

Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high-quality communication, make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life, it all starts with having great communication, the best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style, and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home, the best way to do that is to go to Chrislocurto.com/store. And get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team today, get them for your family members. Today, as you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate, go to Chrislocurto.com/store today. All right, we are back. And Brian, let's get into some of those, like the checklist information that helps people to recognize a bunch of stuff.

Brian A 48:24
Yeah. So you know, just a brief disclaimer here. Before we get into this, you know, you've we've all been there. If you've gone to church, you've probably heard that message and you're thinking of so and so that needs to be here to hear this because that would help them so much. So you know that our tendency and hearing this checklist is your mind is going to wander to everyone who's ever hurt you and go Oh, yep, they were toxic, they're toxic, you know, you're gonna look at your dog go and he's toxic, you know. So the tendency is to go there. But you know, this is for us to first of all, self examine, where am I here? You know, we've mentioned this quote from Pascal before about humanity's problems coming out of man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. I mean, if you want to take a toxicity litmus test, go into your bedroom, sit on the floor, put your back against the wall, and try to sit quietly for five minutes. Some people are just terrified by being alone in silence, because of all the things that then come to their attention that they have not been dealing with and that they're not facing about themselves. And so we want to do like Michael Jackson says to look at the man in the mirror, let's start there. You know, but hey, if you're in a relationship and you see some of these things coming from the other person and you're not putting boundaries, this is day one. Let's start here. Let's start with this today. But Chris, you know, as we go through this we can move quickly, we don't have to take a deep dive on all of these, but I'd love to hear what you've seen over 10 years. You know, you and Joel both have done 500 of these Next-Level Life, taking people through these processes and examining surface-level responses, give me some indicators of how often you see this. How rapid is it? You know, do people really struggle here, the first one we're going to talk about is just overall negativity.

Chris LoCurto 50:31
So everybody has a level of negative self-talk in their head, everybody does, right? But what we will tend to see and this is, it's a, gosh, if I were to put a percentage on it, it's probably in the 20% area, where we see folks that just live in negativity, right, and be in usually, they're coming out of that toxic environment, they have other folks that are toxic as well that, you know, maybe they were raised in it, but they have a tendency to look at everything with a negative bend, you'll see a lot of victim mentality with this, you'll see a lot of blaming other people, you're not going to believe what happened, oh, my gosh, this situation over here, I can't believe that nobody can ever do this thing. It doesn't mean that you can't be negative in life situations, there are plenty of things that we see that are negative in the world right now. But we're talking about how people view pretty much life in a negative way. You see, this tends to be the person that frustrates the daylights out of a lot of people, they don't have a lot of close friends, which, you know, they blame on everybody else. Because being in that negative mindset allows them to not look at themselves, they can constantly point out all the other negative things. And so they don't have to look at them. So we probably say about a good 20% I'd say on that

Brian A 51:54
toxic, people tend to wear a facade, a bit of a mask, sometimes it comes out in sarcasm, and microaggressions, sometimes being two-faced did plus it and having you know, one front, when they're around certain people and then change aspect when they're around someone else they lack that being genuine, transparent being, you know, just you just being real. Do you find that to be the case? What are the motivations there? What's going on inside of them is a self-protection mechanism that's happening.

Chris LoCurto 52:29
So most of the time, what we see is we will see somebody who feels responsible for other people's happiness. And they will say this all the time. We see this a lot though, where somebody will shift into being somebody who is a flatterer, which the Bible is very much against. So if you're flattering, somebody there's a motivation, there's a there's something behind that is you've convinced yourself, you're going to gain from flattering somebody or somebody feels like they have to make other people happy. Believe it or not, we will see this with a lot of high eyes, who believe that they have to make people happy they have, it's their responsibility. And somewhere in there, somebody probably convinced them that they were responsible for their happiness. And they realize that they've convinced themselves, let me say it this way, that certain things that they've done, have worked, that they've made people happy. And so they go on this, you know, they create this belief system that they can make people happy. And so it becomes worthwhile to them. If I can make you happy today, if I can get you smiling and laughing, feeling good about yourself. I'm worthy. I'm a good person. And I find that about myself. I feel really good about myself. If I can't do it. Chances are I will slip into a victim mentality, I feel horrible about myself. And it's probably your fault. Once again, one of the, when we help folks to discover that they're not responsible for anybody's happiness, is they can't possibly be. Because no matter how much I tried to make you happy today, if you're dead set, you're not going to be happy. It doesn't matter. I can't make you happy. As they learn that they start to recognize Oh, I can still be me. I just have to remove that responsibility side. And then I don't self-sabotage with I'm terrible. I'm a victim, of all that kind of crap that goes with it. When you see that probably about 15% of the time, maybe 10%. Again, a lot of highs don't come through. You do see that in a lot of eyes that they do feel responsible for other people's happiness. And they don't recognize that it's self-sabotage. That they're hurting them because all the time they don't make somebody happy. It really Jacks them up.

Brian A 54:56
Yeah, well, we've dealt a lot with the eye Is and a couple of the esses, I want to come back over to the C's and DS. Talk about control. High C is for high control. Yeah,

Chris LoCurto 55:10
that's exactly what that means. Yes.

Brian A 55:13
No, but the need for control, and I, man, I still wrestle with this a lot in my life, you know, just a self assess how comfortable are you, not controlling a conversation, not controlling what other people think about you, not controlling outcomes of situations and circumstances. You know, there are things that are beyond your control, does that make you uncomfortable and to what extent, you know, the other people's behavior, having children will, will show you how much you feel like you need to have control at all times, and you get upset if someone else is out of control. So that's, that's a big indicator of some toxicity built up under the surface.

Chris LoCurto 56:02
Yeah, absolutely. The illusion that you are in control, right, the only thing you can control is you. That's the only thing you can control. But what do we feel out of control by people? situations? That's it. Those two things, we feel out of control by people, you know, maybe somebody is dominant, maybe somebody has a different idea that I do. Maybe somebody doesn't see things, the way that I see them, maybe somebody is not getting what I'm trying to tell them, and we can feel out of control in a heartbeat, right? What's the other thing a situation, the situation is out of control, there are too many people here, I don't feel like I control my emotions, whatever. Whatever the situation, or, or the people are, we convince ourselves that we are out of control. And we must then try and control either the person or people or the situation. And this is where we become super toxic. And I say we I'm, you know, I've worked myself up from a 10 C to a 40. C over 20 years. But when I'm talking about C, specifically, you know, high seas that struggle with the control thing, that usually tends to be it because they have convinced themselves that they can, or they must be in control. Once again, here comes that self-fulfilling prophecy. If I can't be out of control with people, it's going to happen. I always joke about, you know, God gives people the personality style they need in their child, you know, the child that they need that personality. So, whenever I find two high C that marries, I guarantee that they are going to have a high D personality style child, and that first child is going to be wild. And it is going to wreck their world for a while until they understand how to lead and parent that child because I mean, I've had many high C couples that are just like that child. Oh, you mean yours? Yes, that child is so out of control. And it's the opposite personalities, and they don't know what to do with them, right? Or him or her. So they try to control the child that trying to control situations. It's just a colossal waste of time. Because really, what you need to do is get to this place of recognizing, hey, I'm actually not out of control. This thing doesn't make me out of control. This person doesn't make me out of control. I make myself out of control. Yeah. And I'm only out of control. If I'm choosing to be out of control. What am I losing control of here? How am I actually added in walking through those processes? It's the same thing with the high D, right? Same kind of concept. With the high D that dominant personality style. If I can't dominate a situation, you know, this is how the high G I thinks that I'm going to control it with a threat of anger. You know, if I feel out of control, maybe this person isn't this team member and doing what I want them to do. And it's really just, you know, it's ticking me off, therefore, I'm going to show them that I'm getting really angry. Right? You know, it's so funny for folks, I'm a very confident person. And yet I'm the highest s is my highest. And people will always assume that if they've screwed up, Chris is just gonna get really pissed off. And when they don't see me pissed off, they can't figure that part out. Or they think maybe I'm just holding it all in or maybe I'm just you know, under, under the, you know, my facade, I'm just angry and I'm not showing it and when I keep showing them, it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to think about this. They're surprised and the reason why they are is that they've experienced so many people in their past that lose control and take it out on them and respond or, you know, bring a threat of anger or so. Yeah, that that the illusion that I can control People in situations, and it's not that I can't necessarily control the situation. But if other people are in it, then it's an illusion, right?

Brian A 1:00:09
Yeah. Yeah. If you're that way yourself, controlling, maybe judgmental, manipulative, abusive, even go back or you're in a relationship with someone like that. Go back and listen to our podcast on setting someone's reality. We dealt with gaslighting and some of the things that are rampant in our culture today, and learn how to put those right boundaries there. Let's talk about this other one, the lack of empathy. I mentioned being judgmental, but not being able to really see it from someone else's point of view. How does that point to toxins being built up?

Chris LoCurto 1:00:49
So this goes back to one of my biggest frustrations, self-protection. Self Protection, and defensiveness, drive me nuts. And I don't know, you know, I think I said I was going to talk about this. About 2030 minutes ago, if I actually did it. There is a level of lack of control that can drive somebody to have to feel like they have to protect the daylights Oh, I guess I did talk a little bit about that, especially in the guilting said, that somebody can feel so out of control that they attack other people. Right, they will, too, to self-preserve, they will go on the attack on somebody else, and just become me. Terrible, just insanely critical. And I say insanely because the thing that they become supercritical of tends to not actually exist, right? It's, it tends to be something that's so blown out of proportion. But they will go on this fierce attack, to try and make somebody feel horrible about themselves and suggest that somebody feels horrible about themselves. Because at that moment, they're so out of control. Well, what does that have to do with not empathizing, they tend to be so focused on self-protecting, that they can't see the other person's point of view, the other person's current situation, what the other person is struggling with, they're not curious. They're not gaining quality perspective, they are only seeing themselves as being the one struggling and they go on the defensive, on the defensive, and not let me change that they go on the offensive to try and suggest that the other person is massively the problem so that they can get out of feeling this way as quickly as they possibly can get this is, this is what I hate, this is what I hate. And the reason why I hate it so much is that it's saying the other person is so not important because they're willing to just pummel that person like crazy to feel in control. And that they are more important than how much they're hurting the other person. So it is not only massive self-sabotage, but it's also incredibly inflicting on somebody else, right? If that person, and usually it's on somebody who's going to allow it, you know, that people come to that direction with me, you know, quite often, especially when they're out of control if they're if we're in a teaching situation. And I just have to put those healthy boundaries in place and help them to see it as quickly as possible.

But man, I've been doing this for a long time, right? There are a lot of folks that just receive it quickly, and just get pummelling on how horrible they are and how terrible they're because they're in that self-protection mode. They can't empathize, they can't see what's going on with the other person. So that's one big piece. Another piece is just the I'm not I'm so focused on me. I don't see that you're struggling with something. You know, I don't see. You know, it's funny, we will have some folks that are so focused on themselves, they can't wait to talk in the conversation. You, somebody, said something, and all they can do is think about what they're gonna say next. Instead they really, they can be so bad that somebody could be talking about saying about something and saying, you know, like, you know, and that's when my dog died and like, Oh, that's great. And you're literally saying, you're so focused on yourself right now. You don't even feel that I just said something that was painful.

Brian A 1:04:31
Are they Trump to that with well, my horse died, so yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, I

Chris LoCurto 1:04:37
totally get your dog died. I and mine were so much worse because it was my horse.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:41
Yeah. Okay,

Chris LoCurto 1:04:43
well, good for you. I'm so glad you know. And again, we shouldn't be trying to get empathy from people, you know that shouldn't be our goal. Right? We shouldn't be trying to get sympathy. We should be working on the thing that we're experiencing at the moment and if people are empathetic and sympathetic, that's great. That's fantastic. You know, because once again what am I looking for? I'm looking for more worth, if I can get you to empathize and sympathize, if I did that, if I made that happen, we should really be focusing on what we're experiencing inside. Right. But that competition of you know, it's just another I'm so focused on me that I can't relate to what you experience. Right? Morning.

Brian A 1:05:22
We've got a question. Exactly. No, I was gonna go right there. If we find ourselves unable to feel someone else's pain around us to be able to empathize, step into their shoes, and be compassionate, that's toxicity. That's something that we need to deal with. That's an indicator for us, oh, I'm not where I should be in a healthy place emotionally, that not that you you know, that the whole world has to lean on you and you have to save everybody around you. But just being able to, you know, in a healthy friendly way, empathize with people around you, as a human being, there is something going on inside. And gosh, we I mean, we could spend the next couple of hours going through a list, of toxins, you know, I want to move to

Chris LoCurto 1:06:17
one less limit, throw one quick last piece in there. Because this is something that has helped me immensely in my life. For those of us that are Christians, you know, when the disciples asked Yeshua, Jesus, Yeshua as his Hebrew name, how we pray, and he, you know, we, we call it commonly the Lord's Prayer. And one aspect of that prayer is, to forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. If you ever do a deep dive study on what God is saying, at that moment, let me just kind of give the converse of that, not the converse, but a different angle of looking at that. You know, from God's perspective, if you want me to forgive you of all of the crap that you've done against me, and you've done an insane amount, I can't you know, you can't calculate it, I can as God, you can't. That I'm asking You to forgive my other creations. You know, my other created beings that have sinned against you. Don't ask me for sin and then hold sin against somebody else. That's what forgiveness is about. Right? So that was a big piece for me years and years ago to go, oh, gosh, who am I to ask for forgiveness if I can't forgive somebody else? Right? So take it from them.

Brian A 1:07:33
No, it's a beautiful segue into, you know, just wrapping this up here. It's exactly where we wanted to go right now. And you know, just to ask ourselves some questions. Are you dealing with things in your past? You know, or I should say, actually the opposite Are you not dealing with some things in your past? Because you've been ignoring, ignoring them? They've been painful? Well, these things have got to get burned off. Maybe there are habits that need to go away and addictions that need to be confronted. You know, it's painful, but what do you get for it, you get healing, you get peace, and you get joy in your life. And you know, we're not telling you to ignore these feelings were actually telling you to face them and see what that you know that flashing light on the phone is indicating don't just react to it. Don't promote it and exalt it and let it have prominence in your life manage it by saying okay, what's that indicating? Where is that pointing me to it? It's to direct my attention that there's something I need to deal with asking myself why I feel this way. What have I not resolved? What I've had left unsaid or undone just what you said a second ago who have I not forgiven? What have I not repented of? All of these things should be pointing us to that pain that angers the surface level stuff the fear that we have to own that go okay, there are wounds inside of me that I need to do it there's something in the garden of my heart in that root system that I have to face I have to confront I have to resolve it in order for there to be healing and that you know that that toxicity the wound that's festering begins to heal. So Chris, let's wrap up on that. Where's the first step? If you're hearing this, where are you going to point me?

Chris LoCurto 1:09:35
Yeah, the first step is the very thing that we're trying to get out of today's recognition. You know, it is so useful you pointed it out before. There are plenty of people listening to this going, Oh, I know exactly. Who needs to hear this? Great. Get this to them. But go take a look at the mirror as well and see if it's you, you know, as somebody who comes out of a very guilting background, I do the opposite. I'm always the person that goes Let me You know, I go to me first. Am I the one doing that? Am I toxic? am I struggling with what am I doing, you know? And then I'll go after I've gone through all that I might go, oh, you know what I know who else struggles with you know, but it's for me I'm always very introspective and highest is are always very introspective, right? The key is recognition, you may not even be toxic, and you may not even be close to toxic. The questions that we need to ask are, are there things I need to really deal with other things that I've been struggling with or things I don't understand, or things that I'd like to get some really good insight on are things that I feel like are holding me back from on plateauing? If so, then you've got to find somebody to help you. You know, it's not something that you can sit on and wait for.

Brian A 1:10:48
Yeah, it's not good. There's a way on its own, it's not gonna

Chris LoCurto 1:10:51
go on its own. And unless God literally puts that person right in front of you to tell you exactly what to do. Chances are, he's wanting you to go and ferret that out and find out what do you do. How do you get that sob? How do you get to somebody who actually can help you with those things? But not, you know, I always think, you know, everybody should have a good counselor to sit down and talk through stuff. Our focus is blowing past sitting and talking and dwelling on something and getting to why, why does it exist. Why did that happen? Why, why, why, why, why? And what do I do about it? Now, our goal is not we don't want you to just talk about it or learn about it, we want you to get a plan, and a process tool. So you move forward and change that crap in your life. So that you get rid of a lot of the self-fulfilling prophecies. So you get rid of, you know, the self-sabotage, the hurt, the pain, the struggles, the anger, the ways that you've seen your parents or people in your past, I think one of my favorite parts of Next-Level Life is not justifying what a parent has done to a child, you know why in these are grown adults sitting there, you know, something that's happened to them in their childhood, but when they recognize what their parent went through, and they're like, Oh, crap, I never even thought about what this abusive parent went through themselves. And it doesn't justify and it's not like, oh, you know, you're, you're, you're the villain now. And, you know, we don't make any victims, we don't make any villains, we gain quality perspective. And many times when somebody can see that they can let go, of things they've been holding on to so that they can move forward with better decisions. Our goal is to get people to better decision-making, right, get them healing, and get them making better quality decisions so that they get freedom. Right. So I would say those are the steps that start with recognition. You know, be real, be honest with yourself, Is there stuff that you're struggling with? And what are you going to do about it? Then, you know, find out what to do about it, who is going to get with, we're always going to tell you to come to Next-Level Life. We're going to tell you that we think that that's going to be a strong thing for you to do so. Well, folks, gosh, we can literally man, just thinking I know both of us have been alone for hours.

Chris LoCurto 1:13:10
We've got we got to stop. That's a lot of information. But Brian, thanks again for joining me in the Sicilian studio, the studio line. So good to have you here. And folks, hopefully, this has helped you today. That is our goal. Our goal is to get you the best information we possibly can. So hopefully this has helped you today. As always, our hope is that you can take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.