Hal Elrod: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. I’m your host, Hal Elrod, and my guest today is known as the Mindset Architect. His mother died of cancer when he was just seven years old, and then his father died in a tragic accident, drowning amongst 200 other people who all drowned when a ferry capsized when he was just 17. Despite enduring those traumatic experiences at a young age, he has become an expert in human psychology, but not in the way that most people talk about it. He doesn’t hand out surface-level hacks or motivational cliches. His work is about rewiring the deep subconscious patterns, the ones rooted in fear, inadequacy, limitation, patterns that we all struggle with, that silently shape how we show up in every area of life.

And his work has transformed the lives of world-class athletes, in fact, over 200 to date, top executives, and anyone ready to break free from the invisible mental prisons holding them back. His name is Peter Crone, again, though many know him as the Mind Architect. A journalist said that meeting Peter Crone was like meeting Buddha, Einstein, and Austin Powers all in one person. And Peter helps people as he does today, even me. You’ll hear him coach me live during our conversation, but he helps people re-engineer their beliefs, access new levels of freedom, and finally experience what he calls the power of infinite possibility. And today, we’re going to unpack how our minds are both our greatest obstacle and our greatest opportunity, and how anyone, including you, can begin to architect a life of more peace, performance, and authentic joy, love, and success.

Enjoy this episode with my new friend, Mr. Peter Crone.

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: Peter Crone, it is so good to be with you.

Peter Crone: You too, my friend. I’m really excited about this.

Hal Elrod: I’m excited. So, I have to tell you, in full transparency, I did not know who you were until we were introduced, but I’ve spent many hours over the last week or two preparing for this conversation, and I have to tell you, I’m so impressed with you. And when I say that, I’m so impressed with how wise you are with how much you care. It’s like it’s evident as I’m watching interviews or I’m watching you do live interventions with people, it’s apparent how much you care. And then I’m impressed with how able you are to really help people, to create a safe space for them to be vulnerable, for them to open up for you. And then you did access that wisdom.

And I believe you channel as well, but just really give. So, anyway, I could gush. I could go on and on, man. I’m just so impressed. And so, I went from going, “Oh, I’ve heard good things about Peter,” to, “Wow, I’m impressed.” So, from that place, I’m excited.

Peter Crone: Well, that’s a gushing introduction. It sounds like the start of a bromance, or as is said in Casablanca, Lou, “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.” So, it’s really sweet. Thank you, Hal. I think one of the nicest things, even in Austin, where we met speaking at the Biohacking conference, there’s many people there like you who have witnessed powerful transformations, like not getting too dramatic, but people who’ve had diseases for decades that sort of seem to almost instantaneously vanish, or at least the possibility of that happening becomes very readily available for people.

And so, there were people who were there who flew in just for the conference to listen to me. They couldn’t care less about biohacking. So, that’s always very touching. But I think the thing that I find most humbling is in my talk, there were at least, I don’t know, eight, nine people came up to me of the 70 people waiting to take selfies at the end, which is very sweet, who said, “I’d never even heard of you until today,” and how many of them simultaneously said, “And that’s maybe the best talk I’ve ever attended.” So, it’s really touching, especially coming from someone like you who is out there making waves and making a difference. And obviously, your Miracle Morning has touched so many lives.

So, thank you for the kind words. I don’t exactly know why I have this skill, but I’m very grateful for it. The consistent feedback is like, “Wait, how did you just change a person’s life so quickly?” And they’ve had a problem for decades, and they’ve been in counseling for 15 years, and nothing shifted. So, it is fun. It’s very fulfilling and like you, being of service to a world that is replete with suffering, really gives me my life. And it’s very moving to get inundated with thousands of messages a week of thanks and gratitude of people that I’ll likely never meet but nonetheless have been touched by the insights that I share. So, thank you for taking time to look into it, and I’m glad that you’re a new convertee.

Hal Elrod: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Actually, I just spent some time on your website, PeterCrone.com, and, wow, the Freedom membership and the Mastermind, there’s a lot of cool stuff that you offer. So, look, I want to start here and I know I think a lot of people start here with the interview when they talk to you, and I think it’s important that you had such a traumatic childhood and two trauma points that were 10 years apart, one when you were seven years old when your mother died of cancer, and then 10 years later, so now you’re 17, you’re almost officially an adult, and then your father dies in a horrific ferry accident where he drowned.

What did those two experiences, losing your parents at 7 and 17, and maybe you answer these separately, because, obviously, when your mom passed away, you were seven and that was a different experience than when you were 17. How did those experiences in losing your mom and dad, how did those affect you when you were younger? And then how have those affected you decades later as you’ve processed them as an adult and with the tools that you now have?

Peter Crone: Yes. Well, thank you for the sincere curiosity and interest. I have told the story many times, but I think, like anything, like you, I mean, how many times have you repeated SAVERS and what it means? But, hopefully, I’m knowing you and how authentic you are. I like to generate the response to present time in a conversation, right? I don’t like to work off a script. So, I think the way you pose a question gives me an opportunity to maybe answer it in a slightly different way than I have previously. So, thank you for that sort of comprehensive way of bringing my childhood to the forefront.

So, yeah, as a 7-year-old boy, only child with a sick mother, that experience is sort of probably in the archives of what we would call unconscious trauma. I think there’s certain events that we all go through as kids that they don’t have to be as drastic as a child losing a parent, but kids go through a lot of sh*t, let’s face it, and sometimes stuff that really is abhorrent and shouldn’t be condoned. But so, for me, the immediate answer with my mom is I don’t quite know how that impacted me. I’ve done a lot of reverse engineering and especially the last decade plus of like, “Okay, what is that?” without sounding too Jungian, the mother wound that might have left me as a young boy and a man. How do I relate to the feminine? And all of that is quite interesting.

I think years gone by in older relationships where it manifested as I was perhaps overly accommodating as a boyfriend and as a partner, because that was the pattern that I’d learned, right? That my needs don’t matter as a kid. In fact, not only do they not matter, there’s no one that can tend to them because the attention was, of course, on my mom who was dying. So, I think I became the quintessential good boy who was well behaved, never had tantrums, was quiet, shy, but tended to his own needs. And so, I think that has played out in various relationships where I was overly accommodating, overly thoughtful, didn’t necessarily speak my truth for fear of rocking the boat or upsetting somebody who is not well, you know?

So, that was pivotal. And I think I’ve worked through so much of that and understanding the relationship between the masculine and the feminine, which is obviously a pain point for I think most people in their lives, but I think also an exquisite way that we experience love. And then with my dad, it was obviously a little bit more apparent the impact it had because I was older, so I had a bit more wherewithal and experience as a 17-year-old, albeit as you said, one year away from being officially an adult. But we know that people in their forties are still not adults.

Hal Elrod: That’s right. Yeah.

Peter Crone: That are now being driven by their subconscious child patterns. But that was, as an experience, subjectively much harder just because my mom had already gone. And so, the relationship that got forged between my father and I was at one level, exquisite, right, because there was just this beautiful human that was my father who was so loving, so kind, and in ways that I couldn’t comprehend, that I’ve subsequently looked back on. What was his experience, not only of now being the sole custodian of his pride and joy, his son, but also, what was his heart going through, the fact that his own wife died? And as a kid, you don’t think about those things at all. Most human beings throughout the course of their life, I call it WIFM radio, like, which is what’s in it for me? So, that’s how most people are tuned like, how does this affect me? And what do I get from this? It’s all self-referral.

So, even as a kid, I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, wow, I knew my dad was obviously impacted and sad,” but now I wish I could go back as an adult man-to-man and just talk to him about like, “What was that like? Who helped you through that? Or how did you come to find profound acceptance with sometimes the severity of life?” So, that one hurt me a lot more just by virtue of the fact it was us. I did have a woman come into my life when I was around 12, who was a sort of like a stepmother. She never married my father, but she moved in, and so it became like what’s called a common law wife. And she was a lovely lady, although not my mom. And we got along and I, as a good kid, played the good role and called her mom for a while and whatever.

Hal Elrod: When your dad passed, was she still living with you?

Peter Crone: Yeah, she was still there. She actually still lives in the house that I was brought up in with my dad. So, I’m going to go and visit in September because I’m speaking at an event in London. And so, I’m going to go down there, and I haven’t been to that house for a long time so it’s going to be interesting to see how that feels. But, yeah, so it was definitely pivotal, but at the same time even though for years, friends, loved ones, sort of pseudo family would send me notes every year on the anniversary of my dad’s passing, just because it was so tragic and it was all across the world and certainly nationally in the UK because close to a couple hundred people died.

So, it was a real and certainly a horrific experience for people to witness. It was all over the news for days as bodies were being pulled out of the water. So, friends would be like, “Oh, gosh, so sorry for your loss.” And I lived in that narrative for a long time, that I lost my parents, but that became sort of reconciled when I was in my first loving relationship that I thought was sort of potentially a partner for life. And she left me and there was, without going into the details, but that was when I sort of had my epiphany and my sort of satori moment of awakening, where I realized I was still in the story of loss. And as a boyfriend with her, I was being driven by the fear of loss, right? So, I became the perfect boyfriend as a coping strategy, as an adaptation to avoid loss.

Hal Elrod: You wouldn’t lose someone important to you again. And how old were you when you were dating her?

Peter Crone: 29.

Hal Elrod: Okay. All right.

Peter Crone: Yeah. So, it was a sort of decade-plus later, and it was that sort of Saturn return for those people who are into astrology, where we go through the grinder of some sort of transformative event, usually between 29 and 31. So, that’s sort of an overarching view of the loss that wasn’t a loss, but was still really painful. And I still miss them, but at the same time, it informed who I am today in ways that I couldn’t have possibly comprehended back then. But I think to your point, when you kind of said earlier how much I care, how much I see so much suffering, and how much compassion I have for that, I think, is in large part because I went through it myself.

So, yeah, I don’t recommend it. I don’t wish it upon anyone, but nonetheless, we all have our crosses to bear, and apparently, that’s mine. And at one level, I guess I’m grateful, even though it was only 17 years with my dad and seven with my mom, that I had two of the most loving parents any child could ever wish for. And so, it was a lot of quality, maybe not so much quantity of years, but I would always pick that over 70 years, but maybe not so much love and affection.

Hal Elrod: Sure. So, I am curious about something. I went through a tragedy when I was eight years old. My baby sister died in front of me. She was 18 months old. And so, similar but very different, losing your mom. Very different. But here’s what I’m curious about, and this is like my own personal selfish question here. I’m just curious. So, for me, when I found out my sister died because the ambulance took her away, and I thought they were going to save her. I didn’t know she was already dead. And I went to a friend’s house. I get a phone call an hour later, a few hours later, and it’s my dad, and he’s crying. I’ve never heard my dad cry. And he said, “Amery,” her name was Amery. He said, “Amery is in heaven.”

And I don’t remember. I can’t even remember what I was thinking or feeling. I just know what I said, what I did next. I went out into the living room and I announced it to all my friends. I said, “Hey, you guys, guess where Amery is?” And I remember, I can picture my friend’s mom furrowing her brow because I think she knew. And I said, “Guess where she is?” I said, “She’s in heaven. Isn’t that great? Heaven’s supposed to be the best place ever.” And I only realized this in therapy a few years ago, where I think that I realized as a protective mechanism, I go, “Oh, if I just make light of it, I don’t have to feel these weird emotions that are coming up.” And so, I suppressed painful emotions for 30 years until probably five years ago. I’m just curious, if when you were seven, did you cry? Did you feel it? Or did you have any kind of similar experience?

Peter Crone: Well, before I get to that, thank you for sharing that story. That’s really moving, and it tells a lot about who you are as a kid, right? And that probably explains so much of what you’ve created as an adult and as a profession, and the lives you’ve touched as a sort of terrible tagline but always look on the bright side. So, knowing your story and what you’ve been through and the ordeal and what you kindly shared on stage in Austin really speaks volumes about the beauty of your spirit and the positivity of your mind and your outlook which is really beautiful, and I just want to acknowledge that because what I see is, yeah, precisely that, a boy who didn’t know what to do with that.

So, similarly for me, you eight, me seven, I love that we can see these threads throughout our life, regardless of how old we are, and the way that we tend to manage or cope with things. And so, again, not to reiterate the same point, but I feel it’s no surprise that here you are, somebody who’s perhaps been through some of the most trying and arduous situations any human could go through and yet you’ve got the biggest smile on your face and arguably the biggest heart. So, for myself, I think it’s important that we recognize, especially as parents, I know you are, that kids, we do what we can to cope, right? And there’s something beautiful about allowing that mechanism that humans have that we’re not able to process. We’re not supposed to at that point.

But I think it’s also really important that an adult makes space for a kid to just have the opportunity to try and figure it out in terms of what they’re actually feeling, even if it’s like, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this.” That would be an authentic response. So, there’s something perhaps in your wiring and your programming that even in the face of obviously devastating news, that’s especially in the arena of being with friends, that you feel it’s incumbent upon you to, similar to myself, not be a nuisance, not be an inconvenience, not upset anybody. And that does carry a massive amount of weight, right?

And again, not planting seeds, but to what degree does that 8-year-old boy even unconsciously think there’s something he could have done? Or was it my fault that she died in front of me? Or should I have noticed it and done something? There might be these sorts of trickle thoughts in the background, but it’s where there could be an overarching compensation that you developed as a man to make sure that “nothing bad happens” ever again. I know if that resonates, but.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I mean, it resonates at just always never wanting anyone else to suffer. So, when I go through something like my cancer, my car accident, I’m the most positive person in the room. And it’s unconscious. It’s not like I’m going, “How am I going to show up?” It’s like, yeah, it’s this deep, and I mean, all of your work I think or most of it is deep subconscious reprogramming from what I understand. You are known as the Mind Architect for that reason. Yeah, subconsciously, I’m always trying to prevent people from suffering, from feeling. Even feeling like the lowest level of suffering would be like uncomfortable. This person, so I don’t want to make anyone comfortable/uncomfortable. I don’t want to, yeah. It’s a double-edged sword for sure.

Peter Crone: It is. It makes you, like myself, we could classify ourselves as nice guys. You know, that word is always a little bit, I don’t know, sort of double-edged sword compliment, not compliment, but I feel, yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, I don’t want to deflect the question about how do I deal with that as a 7-year-old because I don’t know. I think I can reverse engineer my life as much as anyone and look at, okay, what might have that little boy felt? And I think for the most part, like you, it’s confusion. It’s uncertainty like, “What is this? I don’t know what that means.” And I certainly can’t predict the ramifications of not having a mother for the next few years.

So, I can only sort of, as best as possible, speculate the impact it had on that boy, like I said earlier, that I learned to be very self-sufficient. My invitation to you, because it’s something that I’ve looked at and just in the course of these sort of 15-plus minutes we’ve spoken, I feel there’s obviously a lot of simpatico between our way of viewing life, and so maybe this is helpful for you. I love the intentionality of you not wanting to contribute to, or even in your mind, cause other people’s suffering, but I just want you to consider that you deny a human being what might be necessary for them, because you don’t want them to feel bad, right?

So, as a kid, I can remember, it might seem like a weird analogy. Whenever I was nauseous, I did everything I could not to throw up because I hated it. Not that most people love it, but I was practicing pranayama as a kid, and I didn’t even know it because it was the way that I used breath work to not throw up. But unbeknownst to me, because obviously in that avoidant energy where we’re designed to seek pleasure and avoid pain, I didn’t want to throw up, I was actually perpetuating and prolonging the sickness that my body was designed to help rectify. So, if you were, as a horrible analogy, sort of putting your hand over my mouth so I don’t throw up because you don’t want me to feel bad, then actually what you’re doing is preventing the natural course of events, which is for my body to do what it’s designed to do to help me heal or not be in pain.

So, just as an invitation to consider that maybe there’s something a little deeper for how to look at, which is twofold, right? One, who am I to know whether somebody should or shouldn’t experience some suffering, because perhaps that’s part of their healing journey? That’s one, right? The audacity of the ego. And then two, much more maybe profoundly for you, is to see that you can be with other people’s suffering. Because it is sort of the subtext of that is, one, “I don’t want people to suffer.” Okay. That’s the kind of nice part, but there’s also a subtler part, which is, “I don’t like to be around people suffering.”

Hal Elrod: Sure. Yeah.

Peter Crone: I can’t be there. And so, what it does is it not only denies somebody else’s process or just self-expression, but equally, it negates the fact that you are big enough being to be in the presence of whatever anyone else needs to feel, especially as a man.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. That’s a really good observation. And that’s been the last like five years since I realized this is realizing I used to think, “Oh, I don’t feel painful emotions.” I thought it was a superpower. And what I realized is, “Oh, I’m actually too weak to be able to allow myself to feel painful emotions.” And it was a superpower in a lot of ways, but I also realized that as now I’ve been married for 15 years and for the first until five years ago, it was like I didn’t have a lot of empathy because I didn’t allow myself to feel painful emotions, so I didn’t understand what that was like. And I had so many little ninja tricks and tools to just be able to flip a switch, “Hey, why are you… Like just smile. Just change your physiology,” like whatever.

And so, A, I didn’t have empathy. Like, I really lacked empathy, number one. And then number two, to your point, when my wife would get upset, whether she was angry or she was sad, I would immediately try to fix it because I didn’t like the way it made me feel. So, yeah, really, you nailed it there, and it’s been a big area of growth over the last five or so years since I had these breakthroughs of how do I actually become emotionally not invincible. I used to call it emotional invincibility like, “I’m emotionally invincible. No negative emotions can get to me.” And now I call it emotionally enlightened, which is just how do I experience the full range of emotions in a way that serves my highest good and that of those around me.

Peter Crone: Yeah. Beautiful. And I appreciate you taking it on and letting me share that, but I was doing one of my live events that I do periodically, which I love because I coach people in the audience. And something that just came to mind as we’re speaking on this, a guy, 58, big dude sitting in the audience. I don’t know who’s going to say what. Again, I know some of the people because they’re repeat customers. They love to come. It’s a powerful environment. But this guy I’d never met before, and he was following on from a kid who was struggling with whatever he was going through, sadness, depression. And I helped him break out of that.

And the man said, “Wow, I can really relate to that.” And he said, “You know, I’ve just been suffering I think for decades and just gotten used to it.” And so, to cut to the chase of the story, it turns out when he was eight as a boy with his brother, he had asked his dad if he could take them out just for a fun day or whatever, just to leave the house. So, they got in the truck or car or whatever. And within a 30, 45-minute drive, the dad picks up a girlfriend. And dad is still married, right? And so, here’s this 58-year-old kid recounting the story as an 8-year-old boy and so it’s a bit confusing. Anyway, they go about their day, they have fun, and then they come home. And dad said to the boys, “Just don’t tell your mom.”

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Peter Crone: Yeah. You can imagine the onus and the weight that’s put on an 8-year-old, not only the confusion, but now the potential shame and guilt that is accompanying that. But anyway, so this now 58-year-old grown man, he says, “So, I…” referring to his 8-year-old self, “…ran into the house and immediately told my mom.”

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Peter Crone: And so, what was so powerful about the story and why it relates to what we were just discussing, and I hope it helps not just you, but obviously the listeners, is he said, of course, his dad was furious and then about six, seven weeks later or something, they were going to some fun fair for the day with the family. The boys were in the back, and the dad looked around and said, “We’re getting divorced,” and sort of gave that knowing look to the eight-year-old like, you know, “And it’s your fault,” right? So, anyway, he’d been walking around and he is telling the stories about his relationships subsequently, and his dad still to this day sort of occasionally would make a dig and make him wrong for sh*t and it’s really heavy stuff, right?

And you can feel the sensitivity of this guy. And he say he was married for 12 years, and yet I helped him see he was never actually in a relationship because we would think the feeling of guilt and shame was most associated with him snitching from his father, which was there, very impactful. But actually, what he shared was very revelatory because he said, “What happened is I told my mom, and the look on her face,” because she was just in shock, right? But also, the sheer disappointment, the sadness, the suffering, it was all there in that instance for that boy to witness.

And in this group, this beautiful live, 200-plus people, he said, I at that moment vowed to make sure that no woman ever has that look on their face again because he was so just devastated that he had in any way contributed to his own mother being able to feel that level of devastation, right? So, why it’s so powerful is because when I helped him go through the whole process, which you’ve, well, it sounds, witnessed a little bit, that he was living in a prison for the last 50 years, that it’s his fault, right? Meaning because what he did, which actually was just beautiful, authentic, telling the truth, I said, it would’ve been more your fault if you hadn’t said anything and your parents had stayed together because now you are living in a lie. So, that gave him immense amount of relief.

But really the narrative that he was stuck in was, it’s his fault. And he said, “Yeah, that’s how I lived in my marriage too. I would make sure that I never did anything to upset my wife.” And he said, “For that realization, now I see that I was never actually in a relationship because I couldn’t be me and she couldn’t be her.” And I said no. And then when he shared the part about the woman, I said, “I hope you now see the capacity you have as a man to be big enough to allow any woman to have that look on her face.” I said it’s not that we want it, but the feminine is the expression of all emotions to in any way confine the feminine is to create suffering. So, a woman wants to express all of her, the extremes of rage to the extremes of love and joy, that is sort of the beauty of the feminine, right, is it’s almost like the raison d’etre is to be able to express every aspect of life.

And the look on his face when he got that, he came up to me afterwards, gave me a hug, and he said, “I had never understood that.” He said, “I thought I was doing a good job, but actually, I’ve been denying the self-expression of women and that’s why my marriage didn’t work.” So, just as an anecdotal beautiful story to say, how, including myself and all men out there, can you be big enough to allow the feminine, we could say almost the right to be able to express all parts of themselves.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, just as much as they want or we want them to allow our masculine to be logical, right? Like, we need to allow them to be fully emotional when it’s appropriate and when it’s not appropriate, right, from our perspective as when we are logical, when they would say, this is not the time, I don’t want you to be logical. I don’t want you to fix my problems, right? So, it’s a balance between the two.

Peter Crone: Yeah, yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s just a never-ending evolution, that balance between male and female, but…

Hal Elrod: Yeah. You mentioned something through the course of that story about sharing that that man’s mind was a prison and in preparing for our conversation and researching you, that was a phrase that I heard you use quite a bit, that our mind is a prison or can be a prison. And often in the context of suffering, you talk a lot about suffering and helping people to, I don’t think you say end your suffering, but to kind of how to manage your suffering or how to experience it. So, I’d love for you to talk about those concepts or mind as a prison suffering, for anyone listening that is suffering over their past or their present.

Peter Crone: Yeah. No, it’s a beautiful question. And the way that I delineate suffering versus say pain, pain I really say is sort of more physical. It’s to do with our physiology where mammal sentient beings, you stub your toe on the table, it’s going to hurt. You go for a filling at the dentist, depending on how much painkillers you’ve taken or anesthetic you’re under, you may not feel it, but this pain is just, it’s unavoidable. And I would say the same is true of suffering and I would like to consider that I do end suffering for those who are ready to hear my message. It certainly mitigates it and diminishes it greatly. And suffering for me is, it’s really an umbrella statement that captures all of the human emotions that really create what we would consider problems or negative emotions, right? Anxiety, depression, feelings of grief, anger. Suffering is where we’re really in a lay way of putting it. We’re not happy with life, right? We’re in some form of resistance.

And so that I delineate different pain, which is physiological because to me, suffering is psychological and emotional. It is part of the human experience, but it is nonetheless not necessary once you recognize the underlying, to get to the first part of your question, the prisons of the mind. So, I’m writing my first book, which is cool and exciting and I’ve been talking about it for way too long. I think I’ve gotten to the peak of interest, where there’s this anticipatory advertising campaign, which is great. I don’t think I could push it too much before people get just pissed off and they’re like, you know what? F*ck his book. But the way that I’m delineating the book is what I call these 10 primal prisons that every human being has is my assertion.

So, these prisons are the lenses through which we view life, and hence how we react and how we act. And then the results we get are commensurate with the view that we have. So, as a very simple example, one of the prisons that everyone can relate to is this fundamental feeling of not being enough. And everyone has their version. It might, I’m not good enough, smart enough, young enough, thin enough, whatever, but not enough. And everyone can relate. And to me, these 10 prisons, they’re all there. They’re part of the operating system of what it is to be human.

And so, when we look through the lens of not enough, we tend to create some sort of strategic coping strategy, albeit sometimes maladaptive. So, what that means is this is the perfectionist of the world. These are the people pleasers, the people that work harder to overcome this feeling of deep inadequacy, right? And so, you can see that that becomes exhausting because not only are you utilizing your resources of whatever it is, time, energy, mental capacity, work hours as a compensation which is physiologically where people get sick, right? You’re in a state of disease, right, because you’re no longer at peace, but also, you are sustaining and perpetuating the very lie that there’s something not enough about you.

So, this is what I’m undoing why I tell people I don’t solve problems. I dissolve them. Because what I’m doing is removing the underlying context or prison that is fundamentally a blind spot, but nonetheless informs all of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and consequently results. So, they are the two prisons or the precursor to suffering and they commensurate when we dissolve the prisons, which is what I do in my mastermind coaching people, and I do it live in those live events, which is fun.

Then suffering ends, at least associated with that prison. There may be some other prisons that we’ve got to tidy up, but most humans are sort of defined by typically two or three primary prisons. The others are either dormant or they’ve overcome them just by virtue of maturing and gone through life’s knocks and maybe had a little bit of help from friends or therapists and they realize, oh, that’s not true that I’m not loved. Yeah, so that’s the world of prisons and suffering, as long as you’re in prison, even if you look at it literally. I don’t know anyone who’s in prison who isn’t suffering, and it really is, if we look at it energetically, it’s because to me, it’s in conflict with our nature. Our true inherent state is freedom. And so, when freedom is compromised because of constraint, either bars and concrete walls, or in this case, narratives that are based in some negation, meaning I’m not something, then you are in a state of suffering because the essence of your freedom is now inhibited and that feels uncomfortable.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, I love that. Inner freedom to me is, right, that’s the ultimate freedom is how do you become completely free mentally, emotionally, spiritually, so that nothing anyone does or says and no external event determines your experience of life.

Peter Crone: Amen. That’s why it’s my main product. Freedom.

Hal Elrod: I love it. I love it. Can you give me an example of how you might dissolve that particular prison that you mentioned, which is the, I’m not enough prison or imposter syndrome, right? Another way somebody might say that.

Peter Crone: Yeah, for sure.

Hal Elrod: How might you involve that for somebody?

Peter Crone: So, first of all, for people interested in really witnessing it, as you mentioned kindly my membership is called Freedom for that reason. So, I think we just counted now, there’s, I think, 10 lives that I’ve already done. So, even if people just watch the lives, it’s about 20 hours of me doing this process. So, if what I’m about to share is moving or inspiring, then there’s 20 hours plus another 80 hours of programming on all of this, but…

Hal Elrod: And that’s at PeterCrone.com, right? That’s where I was at today.

Peter Crone: Yes, PeterCrone.com, and then see the Freedom membership. And it’s also at the top of my Instagram. But to answer your question directly, so there’s two main buckets I talk about. First of all, awareness and then practice. So, awareness speaks to Carl Jung’s quote, he had a great, where expressing what I do. He said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will drive your life and you’ll call it fate. So, very powerful way of saying, okay, your blind spots are what’s informing all of your actions and driving your life, but you are not aware of it. So, that’s where there’s compassion. So, I always tell people, you can’t be held accountable for that which you’re oblivious to, right? So, that’s where we can have some compassion nonjudgment.

Now, awareness is bringing that, which is what I call subconscious or unconscious to your awareness. So, like the gentleman who was 58 at my live event who didn’t know, he knew that he was not happy in his life. He’d struggled with health issues, his relationships weren’t great. He still had an acrimonious relationship with his father, and there was all of these very evident things in his life, but he didn’t know the why, the causative factor. So, what I helped him see is the narrative or the prison for him was, it’s my fault.

So, he was as a 58-year-old and for 50 years, subsequent to that moment, thinking it’s his fault. Like, that’s what his brain took on. He was the cause of his parents suffering. Now, looking back, you can see, well, an 8-year-old can’t be at fault for the fact that his parents don’t know how to functionally love each other or be in harmony, but it’s just not the truth. So, my work is about delineating these lies. All of the prisons that I speak to are lies, but they’re inherent in the human experience. And for us, they become truths. That’s the thing. We live them for so long, you wear a mask and you forget that you are wearing it, so anyway.

So, awareness is to investigate where are you stuck, and I reverse engineer. So, someone’s dealing with anxiety, if somebody’s dealing with depression or a weight issue or a health issue or a relationship issue or somebody can’t make money. All of these symptomatic human, very everyday experiences to me, reveal a deeper unconscious prison that then I will help them discover. So, that’s the first step is, people come to me with their problems. Like, in my life, someone said, they’re trying to improve their coaching business, which really wasn’t the truth. She found out, she shared with us that her dad had told her one day that she’s going to turn out to be a loser like her mom and her sister. So, that was driving her perfectionism of trying to improve, in this case, her business. It didn’t have to be coaching. She could be a stylist, she could be a hairdresser, but it’s this underlying unrest that who she is is flawed, right?

So, once I hear the story, I have, for whatever crazy, magical purposes, reasons, the ability to suddenly know what prison they’re stuck in. And then so, very similar to a magician who then takes people on the entertaining ride of revealing the elephant under the carpet or curtain or whatever, I’m helping them to discover this fundamental prison. So, with him, it’s not your fault. So, that’s stage one. Bring awareness.

Then the next stage is what I say to investigate the validity of that constraint, right? Meaning in lay terms, find out is it really true that it’s your fault? And that’s the beautiful moment because I take people through my own sort of proprietary method where I say, if I cut you open, am I going to find a manufacturing label that says in this place, Kenny, it’s his fault, right? Is that part of your makeup? And he’s like, well, no, obviously not. No. Okay, but it defines you. So, where does it live? Obviously, people get there eventually. What’s in my head? Okay, what’s it made up of? People are like, oh, well, beliefs. And I’m like, well, yeah, what are beliefs? What’s ultimately words?

And if you really want to break it down, it’s sound, it’s vibration. So, when you really understand that human suffering and people being inhibited from realizing their own potential and self-expression is based on sound, people are blown away. They’re like, holy sh*t, all of my suffering, depression, anxiety, relationships that have failed, money that’s lost, sickness that I have is based on sound because I’m not something. I’m not loved. I’m not good enough. I’m not going to be okay. And when we live in that world, it’s sort of this, what I call a linguistic prison, right? Then we have to enact on that, and that’s the self-fulfilling prophecy of the mind. I don’t know if you know this, but abracadabra, which obviously, magicians use every day, the Aramaic translation of that of magic is “as I speak, so I create.”

Hal Elrod: I only know that because one of my best friends, Jeremy Reisig, he’s a musician, J Hobbs, and he has a song called Abracadabra. And those are the lyrics that follow the chorus of Abracadabra.

Peter Crone: Oh, I got to check it out.

Hal Elrod: You have to check it out. His musical name is the letter J Hobbs. And yeah, check it out. It’s called Abracadabra.

Peter Crone: Okay, I can’t wait. So, full circle, because we live in these prisons, abracadabra as we speak, so we create, even though what we don’t realize is what we’re speaking at the deepest level is some negation of ourself. I’m not enough, I’m not loved. We spoke that, albeit it got created at a young age, and then that’s informed our identity and how we live our life. So, that is where we’re magics, magicians. It’s just we’re casting dark spells on ourselves, right? Spelling, and the words we use. So, that’s the process is bring awareness to what is the fundamental lie, which I’m calling a prison. Investigate the validity of it. I can tell people right now, it’s never a truth. It doesn’t matter how much evidence you got. Yeah, but my brother was the athlete, my sister was the academic. That still doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. It just means you’re you. And they were better at sports and school. That’s it.

So, once then people see that it’s not a truth, that’s the euphoric moment. And then I say, who could you be and what could become available for you in the absence of that constraint? That’s when the floodgates go on and the eyes, the breathing patterns change, the physiology starts to heal. They’re like, whew, I mean, I could just do whatever I want. I mean, I feel light, I feel much more vital. There’s energy surging through my body. So, that’s the process that just never gets old.

Hal Elrod: Wow, that’s powerful. And then I am curious. So, is there a next step in terms of, like for me, a big part of my work, I talk about affirmations. And affirmations, I always kind of talk about how they’re very flawed in the way that they’re taught, that you don’t affirm something that’s not true. Like, I am a millionaire if you’re not a millionaire, right? That creates an incongruency that’s not healthy for us. However, an affirmation to me in the simplest form is it’s simply a reminder of something that you aspire to be true, right? It might not be true yet, so you’re not affirming it as if it already is true.

But in the simplest form, it’s just a reminder, right? So, if you say, I’m committed to becoming healthy or wealthy, or I’m committed to be experiencing joy, or I’m committed, right? So, my question is, like for me, if I were to, what you just said, I would go, okay, if you just did that to me, I met at your event and you just took me through this process. Now, in order for me to remember and reinforce this new reality that you’ve created for me, it would be like, I would write it down, right? I would write down what you told me, what you helped me understand, and then I would read it every single day so that it would be until I didn’t need to read it anymore because it changed in my subconscious. So, I share all that just to wonder is, do you do something similar to that? Like, how do you help somebody integrate this new reality that you’ve unlocked for them?

Peter Crone: Great question. And that’s the second part that I spoke to. So, awareness is bringing light, literally the guru, which I’m not at all ascribing to myself, but the word guru in Sanskrit means one who removes darkness by bringing light. So, the awareness is the first step to bring light to that, which is driving someone’s behavior that they’re oblivious to. And then I said the next part is practice. So, practice, being the person who’s no longer confined by the previous narrative that was confining you, right? So, that practice this, there is a place for repetition.

Affirmations, I love the way that you reframed it. For me, I’ve never been a fan of affirmations because typically, they’re used, as you said, as a fixing or as a solution to a problem that’s not actually being addressed, right? So, you’re a winner as someone looks in the mirror, or I love you when in fact, that’s not the truth at all, right? So, it’s compensatory. And so, I’m not a fan of that particular use. However, when somebody realizes the untruth of the previous existence they were living in based on these sort of dialogues that got formed in their childhood, again, not parents’ fault, but parents are the catalysts to turn on what I would assert the constraints we arrive with is the way I look at it. That’s a much more empowering way to look at it. Otherwise, you’re a victim of life.

So, once you see that, then we can use language, affirmations, remembrance, confirmations, whatever words you want to use to go, oh, I am free. I am loved. I am more than enough, right? I think, I use a very funny analogy where I was playing golf. I love sports and I was playing golf with some friends, and a buddy of mine was struggling on this one hole. He was all over the place. And it was not anywhere close to a birdie, certainly not even par. He made this massive putt, which was probably like a one, two-percenter. It was like 50-foot putt. And we were all like, “Whoa, f*cking great.” And he is like, “Yeah, whipped cream on sh*t,” because it was like for an eight. That’s a great part.

But did you see what I was doing for the rest of the whole. I use that as sort of a comparison that when someone’s standing in the mirror and saying, you’re a winner, that’s the sort of the whipped cream on sh*t to me, and it’s about dealing with the sh*t, right? It’s about getting into the weeds of your subconscious and recognizing, well, for 20, 30, 50 years, I truly have thought that I’m just not important. So, it doesn’t matter how much I try and rah, rah, and cheerlead myself in the mirror unless I remove the underlying sort of emotional constraint, then I’m just kidding myself. So, I think there’s a place for affirmations, but it’s after we freed somebody from the constraints of their subconscious. That is the integration and practice, yeah.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I could talk to you all day. I mean, I think that this is a– I’m slapping repeat guests under your name because I’d love to have you back and keep chatting.

Peter Crone: Accepted, yeah.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, again, I was on your website PeterCrone.com. And for anybody, in fact, I’ll bring it up right now, you can go there and you can get his free manifestation series. I just opted in to receive 11 daily insights to navigate life with greater freedom, followed by weekly inspiration. Of course, your Freedom membership is there and it’s only $29 a month. I’m like, for what you get, it’s wild.

Peter Crone: Thank you, yeah.

Hal Elrod: What is the best way for people– yeah, I’d go at least 99. At least 99.

Peter Crone: We started there and again, I don’t know, I’m maybe going back to what we were talking about from our childhood as being these two boys that really cared and we just wanted to help. And I just know that some people, even the $29 a month is a consideration, even though they probably don’t notice that they might spend out 3x when they go out one night for a few cocktails. It’s actually poisoning their system versus having this access to a hundred hours of resources to free their mind and give them an extraordinary life.

But anyway, people will make the choice that works for them. But I appreciate you sharing that and signing up for different things because really, it is so fun and I’m in the community, I answer questions every week. And that’s, I think, where most people really see a surprising amount of value is their interaction with other people in there. Like the number of people who said, I’ve never been in a community where I feel so safe, so loved, and so unjudged that I can share anything. And there’s just this wealth of support and encouragement. So, that in and of itself is probably worth more than $29 a month. But anyway, I cut you off.

Hal Elrod: No, that’s right. Curious, when you mentioned that you’re finally writing a book, which yeah, definitely long overdue, when is that? Do you have a planned release date for that?

Peter Crone: I don’t have a release date. I’m in talks. And I just met with the CEO of a big publishing company. It was super exciting and I sort of had resisted that a little bit. I’m a bit of a lone wolf just by virtue of obviously my conditioning, orphaned at a young age, and started my business and done everything by myself. And I just didn’t feel aligned with any of the traditional publishing methods. But this group is so entrepreneurial, they’re so excited about doing other things as offshoots, whether it be workshops, lives, community events. So, I’m like, okay, awesome. So, a long-winded way of saying, we’re not sure, we’re just finalizing the deal. Obviously, as you know, as an author, there’s the process of me finishing the book and then there’s editing and publishing. So, it’s probably still another 8 to 10 months, I’m guessing. So, that would put us at sort of spring next year. That would be ideal, yeah.

Hal Elrod: I’ll count me in. I’ll pre-order a copy and I’ll have you back on to chat about the book because, just knowing you and your wisdom, I have no doubt that it’ll be a really important book for people.

Peter Crone: Thank you. I appreciate that, Hal. Coming from you, as someone, as I said, whose work has touched millions of people, that means a lot. So, thank you.

Hal Elrod: Got it. And I’m happy to. Any consulting I can do, you got my cell phone number, reach out anytime you want with any questions or anything I can do to help. So, best way for people to connect with you? I’m guessing PeterCrone.com, but I’ll leave it to you. And then, any parting words? What’s the last message you want to leave with the listener?

Peter Crone: Okay, thank you. Yes, PeterCrone.com for the web, but most people these days are on the gram, right? So, it’s also just @petercrone. So, there’s a ton of just free resources there. I don’t post me in front of a salad or a Ferrari or anything, like a lot of people. It’s always hopefully meaningful content that makes a difference, typically clips from wonderful podcasts like this. So, when this is out, we’ll take clips from my conversation with you, which will be beautiful.

And then, if they really want to be engaged with me, there’s two of the best ways. There’s one, Freedom is the sort of lowest hanging fruit because I do have a presence in the community over a hundred hours. That’s all recorded of me doing work and courses on anxiety, financial freedom, and what is real health and relationships, how to make them work. But if people want to go deeper, then I do my three-plus-month mastermind, where I lead that personally. It’s online, but it’s me live, and that’s the most powerful offering I have where we do over 30 hours, eight modules covering everything from subconscious constraints to how to create the life of your dreams in the absence of anything that’s holding you back and all of the different diseases of mind and body that people deal with. It’s super powerful container. So, that’s the best way.

And then parting words, first of all, just to say thank you. It’s a pleasure to be with you and I really acknowledge you for the difference you’ve made, not just in the world, but I really get who you are as a father and as a husband, and the world needs more men like you who show up that way. And hopefully, subsequent to this conversation, you may even access a little bit more of your masculinity to make space for the misses to be able to express it all right. So, if there’s anything I can contribute, equally, I’m here for you and you have my number.

But thank you for the work you do, and just send my love to everybody. Without sounding trite, I just feel there’s so much suffering out there in the world that I have both compassion for and understanding of, but my invitation is to let people know it’s not necessary and there truly is a world on the other side of these constraints and prisons that people are oblivious to. And that’s my invitation for people to come and join me in a world that is, as I say, based on the pillars of freedom, love, and possibility and vitality.

Hal Elrod: Beautiful. Peter Crone, it’s a pleasure. It’s funny, I’ll close by saying how this all started, which is we said, “Hey, let’s schedule a call and get to know each other.” And then I said, “Would you be okay with me recording it just so we–” I’d love to just kill two birds with one stone. So, it’s really cool getting to know you in front of the world. So, appreciate you, brother.

Peter Crone: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing your platform and bringing me to your audience. I know that they trust in you deeply, and so, it means a lot that you would have me on, so thank you.

Hal Elrod: Awesome. Well, hey, we will do it again soon.

Peter Crone: I love that.