Sari Swears Podcast: Your Brain is Lying to You

Let’s talk about the voice in your head.

The one that says:

“You should settle.”

“You’re not ready.”

“If you lose, you’re exposed.”

That’s NOT wisdom.

That’s your saboteur and it’s trying to keep you “safe.”

In this week’s episode, I break down:

🤨 What the saboteur really is
🤨 Why your brain resists growth
🤨 The 7-step process to stop self-sabotaging your trials (BONUS: Free downloadable prep sheet)

👉🏽 Download FREE 7 Step Process Prep Sheet 👈🏽

You can’t stop thoughts from entering your brain.

But you CAN decide what to do with them.

Start growing the box.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari

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“You cannot stop thoughts from entering your brain. That’s not how the brain works. But you can be intentional about what you do with the thought once it’s there. You can decide: this thought is here — what do I want to do with it? Because when you don’t decide, the saboteur decides for you.”
sari de la motte

Transcription

Sari de la Motte:

People are saying you can control your thoughts, you can't really, in terms of the things that are constantly coming in. Over time, as you create neural pathways and you start thinking in different ways, you will have less intrusive thoughts, that's for sure, but there's no way to stop a thought from entering your brain. It's just not how the brain works. But you can be intentional about how you want to think once it does enter your brain, meaning you can have intentionality, and this thought is here, what do I want to do with it? You're listening to, Sari Swear, on the Sari Swears podcast.

Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Sari Swears, today we're talking about how your brain is lying to you, and how to fix that. Yes, your brain is a liar, and it is getting in your way. In fact, I was working on this with my masterminds this month, and this is saboteur month in my mastermind program, and I realized that I have not podcasted on saboteur for years, and years and years. I think I only have one podcast on it. I mention it from time to time, but an actual dedicated podcast like today, we're going to talk about what it is, how it gets in your way, and I'm going to give you the seven step process that I take my clients through to learn how to manage that fucker. So, it's such an important part of mindset training, I really feel bad I haven't talked more about it because it's so central to all of the things we do in the mindset portion of the H2H method.

If I haven't said this in a while, let me say it now. There are three components we're always working on back in the crew for the H2H method, and that is we're always working on how to create compelling content. Why compelling? Because what you do is difficult. You have to get the jurors, you have to compel them to take action when the easiest thing in terms of human behavior is to leave things as they are. So, we're always looking at how we can create content that is compelling to the jurors? But then we're also looking at how you can command the courtroom, and that's all the nonverbal skills. The gesturing, the pausing, the voice modulation, the management of energy, all of those things also come into play because that's what brings your content alive.

But the piece that really brings it all together, and for me personally, brought it all together, made my work really take off, and now we have our mock courtroom and our H2HQ, and I really attribute it to bringing in the mindset training. I was talking to my group of masterminds from 2025, and one of them said, I'll never forget, he said, "I thought I was joining this year long program to learn how to master trial skills, and I certainly did do that, but what I really recognized is I learned how to master my mind." So, the saboteur and saboteur awareness is such a huge part of learning how to master your mind. So, that's why we're going into that today.

So, let's talk about what the saboteur is. It's obviously related to the word sabotage, meaning one is a saboteur when one sabotages things. And I think a lot of people tend to have a negative reaction to the concept of self-sabotage. Oh, I don't do that, or I don't really believe that we do that, but I'm here to say that you definitely do that. It is the human condition. One of the books that I recommend, I'll talk about a couple of books today, but one of the books that I recommend, and I also send in my welcome box to my mastermind clients, is the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And in that book he talks about the zone of genius, which I've talked a lot about here in the podcast, but he also talks about this concept of the upper limit.

The upper limit meaning, this is where we tend to think is the farthest I can go, right? Either that's money-wise, or in my career, or happiness level, I like to think of it as a box. So, when I teach it, I teach it as kind of a box. We put a box around ourselves and we think this is who I am. I'm comfortable in this box, I'm most authentic in this box, and anything outside of the box is not truly me. And here's why I think we think that, is because once we go outside of the box, or according to Gay Hendricks, once we hit our upper limit, we tend to self-sabotage, bring us back down to what we're comfortable with. And this is ingrained biologically in us. It's homeostasis, we don't want things to change, because change for the brain is very scary.

And so, we want things to stay the way they are. So, we will convince ourselves, well, if I do this thing that Sari recommends, for example, then I'm not being authentic. Or if I use this tone of voice, I'm not being authentic. Or if I act out a portion of my opening, I'm not being authentic because that's not comfortable. And so, I always tell my clients and my people who come to my training that the point isn't to try to stay in the box to remain authentic, the point is to grow the box. That thing can grow, and what we are comfortable with can grow, and we can get bigger and better. Every time we do that, the brain is going to freak out a little bit because it doesn't like that, because its number one job, as I continue to remind you, is to keep you alive.

And so, when it comes up against anything unfamiliar or new, it automatically, because that's the safest option, declares it dangerous, and then it tries to get you to bring it back down to where we're comfortable. So, that is self-sabotage, and that is where the saboteur comes in. We all do it, we all self-sabotage. Because once we start getting a little uncomfortable, we try to find a way to get back to our comfort zone. So, here's an example. For example, let's say that you are about to take a case to trial, and I've heard this from so many clients now, working with thousands of attorneys over the last nearly 20 years, and they will say, Sari, I don't know why I had this fantastic case, I should have tried it.

And they'll tell me all the things about why they should have tried it, and I agree that they should have tried it. And they said, but I settled it. And I say, that's your saboteur. It is trying to keep you safe in a scenario that it views as unsafe. Now, that scenario, as we know, is risky. It is risky to go to trial, absolutely. But often going to trial is the right thing to do even if it ends up we don't win. And you can say, well, how is that true? If I go to trial and I lose, that means it was the wrong decision. Oh, fuck that noise. It absolutely does not mean that, it means that you held this person's feet to the fire and they're going to think twice before they do the thing that they did. They're going to have to, because they had to go through the process of trial.

Yeah, they may have "won," but it makes them think twice again, and it also increases your reputation as someone who will try cases. So, it doesn't mean that it was the wrong decision just because you got a defense verdict, not even going to say you lost. I don't even like win-lose language. You got a defense verdict. It doesn't mean it was the wrong decision. But again, there's the saboteur, that is a saboteur voice. Okay. So, where did the saboteur come from? Well, the saboteur, or saboteurs, I unfortunately have to tell you, is a collection of voices, meaning there are more than one usually in our lives, that were created early in life and their primary job, and that's still their primary job, is to keep us safe. Now, when I teach the saboteur to my masterminds or here in seminars or here on the podcast, oftentimes people will identify some of the things, and you're going to go through that process today, and they'll feel bad about it.

They'll be like, this is such a silly thing to think, or this has really held me back over the years, and they start to really internalize that. And I don't want you to do that. What I want you to recognize are two things as we go into saboteur training and saboteur awareness. The first thing is that we as humans only do what works. Even if in the larger scheme of things, we can look at that and go, that didn't really serve me, it worked on some level or we wouldn't have done it. That's just true of human behavior. We don't do things that don't work on some level. So, the saboteur was helpful to you at a time. The problem is that often you grow past the need for the saboteur, and yet because you haven't made it aware, you don't know about it, which is why I'm doing the podcast today, it's still pulling the strings, kind of like a marionette behind the scenes, and it's subconsciously driving your decisions and your behavior, and that's when it does become dangerous and does not serve you.

But at one time it did work. The second thing is that we're not going to make anything wrong about how you got to where you are today. I've worked with many, many clients over the years who have traumatic backgrounds, I think all of us on some level have some amount of trauma in our lives, some more than others, for sure. And we're not going to make what got you through that time wrong because it got you through that time, and you are here for a reason. And if that's what got you here, then God bless it. Now, that doesn't mean we still need it now moving forward. I find that most of the big breakthroughs that come in my client's lives is when they recognize that what got them here won't get them there, meaning where they want to go from here. And there really is a nice break when they recognize the saboteur and how it is no longer serving them.

But we are not going to make it wrong is my whole point here. I want us to really be thinking about this concept that it helped us at a time, and it may no longer be helping us now. All right. To my long time listeners, this is your chance to get a front row seat to jury group dynamics, live with me. On March 4th, I'll be forming a group of mock jurors live, right before your very eyes, and this virtual training is exclusive to members of the H2H crew. Now, you still have time to join before March 4th, so head over to SariSwears.com/join. SariSwears.com/join. This training is something you do not want to miss, my friend, I swear. Mindset training is all about being intentional, that's what we want out of this podcast today or anytime I'm working with my clients, if we want to be intentional.

We cannot stop thoughts from coming in. People are saying you can control your thoughts, you can't really, in terms of the things that are constantly coming in. Over time, as you create neural pathways and you start thinking in different ways, you will have less intrusive thoughts, that's for sure, but there's no way to stop a thought from entering your brain, it's just not how the brain works. But you can be intentional about how you want to think once it does enter your brain, meaning you can have intentionality, and this thought is here, what do I want to do with it? Because oftentimes when a thought does enter your brain and it's not serving you, we'll just go full bore on that thing and start derailing our progress and spiraling and all of the things. That's where we do have some intentionality.

So, I have seven things that I'm going to share with you today, because you know I like my things in odd numbers, but also that's how it worked out, about how you can first identify your saboteur, and then work with your saboteur, and then manage your saboteur. So, the first thing when I'm teaching saboteur awareness is really that, is that you need to bring the saboteur into your awareness. We tend to think that these thoughts that we're hearing... Do you hear thoughts? Do you hear voices in your head? Well, you're normal, everybody does. That's your saboteurs. And it's also your core wisdom. But oftentimes your core wisdom is much quieter because the saboteurs tend to be so loud that we can't hear our inner wisdom or core wisdom. But these voices, the first thing I like to say is, once you bring it to awareness you need to recognize that this is not you.

These are mechanisms that were created at a time, often early in life, that were created to keep you safe. In fact, one way that you can identify saboteur thoughts is to just track some of your thoughts over about a week or two. Just when you have intrusive thoughts, that's thoughts that create anxiety or worry or sadness or anxiety, that you just write them down over time. And what you may notice is that oftentimes the voice says, you shouldn't have done that, you should have handled that differently, you should probably think about settling. You shouldn't take that to trial. You probably should give this case to a better lawyer. And it's lot of shoulders. Now, some of you may hear that as Is, I should, I should have done this, I should have done that. But I think oftentimes the voice is you, which is your first clue saying this is an outside voice, meaning it's not me, it's not my core wisdom trying to keep me safe.

Now, if you do hear your thoughts as Is, I want you to start changing them to yours. So, when you write down, I shouldn't have done that, just change it in your journal, you shouldn't have done that. That's one way to start separating it from yourself. So, as you start creating this list of thoughts that's going to help you recognize that these are the voices that are intrinsically there that are trying to keep you safe. Now, there is a saboteur assessment that goes along with the book, Positive Intelligence by Shiraz... Shiraz Ashamarine. No, I have that totally wrong, it sounds like wine. Shiraz is a wine, that's not his name. Shirad maybe his name? Anyway, the name of the book is Positive Intelligence, it's fantastic, it's one of the other books I send to my masterminds. How do you get to become a mastermind? Well, you can email help at SariDLM.com, we're starting to create a wait list back there.

But you can take an assessment, go to PositiveIntelligence.com/saboteurs, S-A-B-O-T-E-U-R-S, I know it's a hard word to spell. So, I spelled it there for you. S-A-B-O-T-E-U-R-S, Positive Intelligence.com/saboteurs, plural. And you will find that they'll tell you what your top three or four saboteurs are, the avoider, the hypervigilant, the controller. Some people find that it's really helpful to identify the different types of saboteurs. Other people just like to think of this as one voice that takes on different characteristics at different times, and that's how we're going to use it today. So, even if you take the assessment and you come up with three or four types of saboteurs, I want you to, for today's lesson on saboteur, think of this as one person maybe that has different personalities, but this one voice that you're constantly hearing in your head.

So, the first thing, as I said, is to just bring it into your awareness, the fact that you even have one, and to separate it from yourself by making it say your statements. You should have, you didn't, you really screwed that up. You, you, you, you, you.The second thing you're going to do, once you have some awareness of some of the things that the saboteur says, is think back to how did this help back in the day? What is this saboteur's job? What is it protecting you from? How is it trying to help? So, for example, I have a client who has a saboteur message that he or she consistently hears, which is, it's better not to rock the boat, meaning this comes from a pleaser saboteur, right? You shouldn't rock the boat.

And so, when we were working in one of our sessions, I asked, why? What does this saboteur think when it tells you don't rock the boat? You should just give people what they want instead of asking for what you want, because it's not worth it to rock the boat. It sounds very, it's not one of those saboteur voices that is you should, or you shouldn't, or you suck, it sounds very reasonable, which oftentimes our saboteurs can be like that. I said, what do you think is really at the core? What is it trying to protect you from? And we export a variety of things, but let's just use that as an example. One of the things that it could be trying to protect you from is, well, if you rock the boat, then people get mad at you. And then I say, well, what would happen if people got mad at you? Well, they could leave.

They could leave me. And so, that's something that you really want to dig into. So, don't accept the first answer of what is this saboteur's job? Well, maybe your saboteur's job is to protect you from ever being alone. If you first hear, well, it's to protect me from not making a mistake. A lot of you have that saboteur, and that's why the saboteur is constantly telling you things like, you should stay up two more hours and read all those depositions, transcripts. Or you really aren't prepared, you should spend more time on that. Who cares about sleep? You should really, you got to be 100% prepared. You might ask the saboteur, the job is to make sure I'm prepared, but dig deeper. What does the saboteur think would happen?

Which is really the third thing. What does the saboteur think would happen if it didn't keep you 100% prepared? If it didn't keep you from rocking the boat? There's a belief there, there is a fear there that is driving this saboteur's behavior. It's not about what it's attempting to stop you from doing. For example, maybe your saboteur wants to stop you from taking cases to trial because that's really risky. The third thing you're going to be asking yourself here is, why? What does it believe will happen if I do take things to trial? And so, here in this third part of this exercise, it might be something like, well, if I take it to trial and I lose, then people will know I'm a loser. And you might want to say, well, what's the fear there? Well, if people know I'm a loser, then they won't ever refer me to cases.

Well, if people never refer you to cases, what's the fear there? Well, then I won't have a job. And well, if you don't have a job, then what... Well, then I'm down in a van by the river. Take it to its conclusion. This saboteur is trying to prevent you from living in a van down by the river. Take it all the way there. Or being by yourself where nobody loves you. That's how saboteurs operate, they honestly believe that that is the logical conclusion that will happen if you do not listen to them and take their advice. The more ludicrous you can make it, right? So, I'm going to be living down in a van by the river, that's what you think is going to happen, saboteur? Yes, that's what I think. Or I'm going to be by myself and nobody loves me. That's your fear? Yep, that's the fear.

The more ludicrous you can make it, the better it will be, because that's the fourth thing... I'm trying to think, where am I? The fourth thing is that now you want to ask yourself, does believing that serve you? Does it serve you? And by the way, you can go ahead and download these seven ways to deal with your saboteur at SariSwears.com/saboteur. You can get this PDF down there. You're going to have to give us your email, but you can get it there. But your fourth thing is, ask yourself, how is this serving you? And I think you'll find that it doesn't serve you. You can use the CTFAR model, which I've taught quite a bit here in the podcast.

So, the CTFAR model is this. So, you think of a circumstance. So, think of a circumstance, that's the C, where your saboteur gets activated. Where does this saboteur tend to show up and start yelling these things in your ear? Whether that's rocking the boat, or you should really settle. So, maybe it's as we start settlement discussions or mediations. Okay, so you would put that as a circumstance, right? I have a mediation coming up. So, then the next one in the model is T, what's the thought? When you have a mediation come up, and here's where your saboteur thought comes up. And so, you should settle, and I want you to add the ludicrous part, because if you don't, you'll be living in a van down by the river. Now, what's the feeling that happens if you believe that? Right? It's fear, isn't it? Fear, worry, anxiety, that's the F line.

Then, the action is oftentimes you end up settling the case, and then when we continue to go from there to the R line, which is the result, the result is often, you left money on the table. Now, again, not every case should be tried. So, please don't take my words as I try every case no matter what. But I want you to notice that when you listen to the saboteur, it is not saving you from living in a van down by the river, what it's doing is leaving cash on the table in many cases. So, that's what you're going to be asking yourself is, does this serve me? Does believing this serve me? And you can do a model and recognize that it does not. It does not. It may have served you in the past, when you were a child... And I'll just share what I've shared here, that I grew up in domestic violence.

No, my dad never hit me, and he never hit my mom, but things were often thrown nearly on a daily basis, yelling, screaming, grabbing, pushing... There was that, for sure. And as a child, I took it upon myself to be the fixer. I would literally wait at the top of the stairs as my parents were fighting, late at night, I'd be woken up, and I would listen until I thought, this is when he kills her. Now, he never put a hand on her, but as a child, I didn't know whether or not he would. And also, once my dad got medicated, he became one of the most amazing people ever, a total success story in terms of mental illness and medication. But back then he was not medicated and it was very scary. And so, I would finally go, this is it. I would run and I'd get in between them, and I'd push them apart, and I would calm the whole situation down, and everything would be fine until, of course, the next day when it all happened again.

So, early on I created, the saboteurs created, that said, if you do not fix things for people, people could die. And that meant that I would start fixing things that were not mine to fix, for years. I would fix other people's lives when that was not my job to fix their life. And it did not serve them, and it certainly did not serve me. Now, did it serve me as a child? Absolutely, that was a survival tactic. In my little child brain, it was, if he kills her, then I won't have a family anymore. He'll go to jail, my mom will be dead, and even though that wasn't going to happen, maybe, I don't think it would've, but my child brain didn't know that, and so the saboteur is born. But the problem is, if I continue to have that thought, even now as an adult, that it's my job to fix other people, it no longer serves me.

And once I bring that into my awareness, then it's something that I can have a conscious choice over instead of those marionette strings, where it's just happening under the surface without my knowing. All right, the fifth thing that you're going to do is you're going to choose what you want to believe instead. So, I have to choose, or I have to choose and have chosen that it is not my job to fix things for other people. In fact, when I went through my coaches training, one of the things that CTI teaches us is that we hold everyone, our clients particularly, but everyone is NCRW. Everyone is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and just because we're coaching them does not mean that we need to fix them. Boy, did I ever need that. Not just for my clients, but for everybody in my life.

So, that's what I choose now to believe instead of I have to fix things, because otherwise everybody's life is going to go off the rails if I don't fix it. I also had a perfectionist saboteur and controlling saboteur, they all go together. So, maybe for you, if your saboteur belief that you've identified in the previous step, or previous two steps, is if I take cases to trial and lose, I'm going to be living in a van down by the river, eventually, choose what you want to believe instead. Which is, I choose to try cases because it's the right thing to do. And if I get a defense verdict, I will be okay because it's true. Because we have people in the crew, thousands of lawyers that I've worked with, not a single one of them is living down by the river in a van.

Thank you Chris Farley for that. None of them, zero. And they've all taken cases to trial, and they've all got defense verdicts at some point or another. That's just the truth of the matter. So, you get to choose what you want to believe instead. Number six is to find a structure. So, what I mean by this is you need to have something that reminds you that the saboteur is not you. So, for example, Coach K, who's been here on the podcast and is our lead mindset coach at H2H, his saboteur structure is this plastic bobblehead clown that he found on Amazon. And it reminds him that when he is having these saboteur thoughts, he can flick that head, and it's not me. It's these voices that we're trying to help but no longer help. I like to think of the saboteur as kind of a toddler.

You know when a toddler wants to help make breakfast for mom on Mother's Day, and it's like the half-cooked pancakes, and the coffee that spilled all over the tray, and the berries that haven't been washed, and we are like, oh, thank you so much, you're trying to help, but they didn't quite hit the mark. That's what I view the saboteur as, it's this thing that did help at one time, it was misguided, even back then. Because it was never your job as a child to do that, but that was a survival mechanism that we needed. And it's still trying to do that now, but you don't need it anymore. You're like, oh, I get it, saboteur, but I'm good. I'm good. So, this could be something that you draw, something that you get on Amazon... I'm having all my masterminds find something, it's kind of a fun thing. Maybe it's a rock that you have in your pocket, maybe it's a picture that you've printed.

But something that reminds you that this is not you, it's a mechanism that was created that is trying to protect you, but you don't need that protection anymore, because you are a grownup who can now manage your mind. Maybe it's as simple as getting one of those little troll babies, and just reminding you that it's going to throw a tantrum, and it's going to sit there in its diaper and be like, you can't do this because it's going to be bad, and you're going to be like, I get it, you're trying to help. Not helpful though. So, find something, have some fun with it. Finally, when it shows up, name it. When you start hearing the, you should have, you shouldn't have the voice of the saboteur, name it. literally, if you can come up with the name, the toddler, the controller. Oh, there's the saboteur, that's fine too.

Say, ah, there's a saboteur, and I'm choosing not to believe that. I'm choosing to believe that I can try a case. I can take the risk, I bet on myself. And I got my own back. And if it doesn't come out the way that I want, I'll survive, that's what the job is. The job is to fight, not to win. I've got this. So, you recognize the voice and then you repeat to yourself what you want to believe instead. So, that's what I got for you on the saboteur. I hope that's helpful. Again, if you want the downloadable seven steps on how to manage your saboteur, you can go to SariSwears.com/saboteur, S-A-B... I got to go back and look, O-T-E-U-R, just one, not plural, like the assessment that I shared earlier. And really take the time to identify this voice so that it's not pulling the strings behind the scenes, and you are being intentional because that's where all good things start is intentionality. All right, my friends, have a great rest of your day whenever you're hearing this, or night, and talk to you next time.

Thank you for listening to the very end of this episode, A+. I'm going to ask you to subscribe to the podcast, whether you're one of the weirdos that like to watch it on YouTube, or you just listen, make sure you hit that subscribe button. It helps the podcast grow and let other people find me, y'all. But don't stop there, be sure to leave me a five star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We want this podcast to reach as many ears and eyes as possible. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye, everybody.