Ep. 144 | There Are Three Ways to Think. Which One Are You?

Sep 22

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There are three ways to think. Which one are you?

Most of us assume our thoughts are just... ours. True by default, ours to have, not really up for question. In this episode of the 100xLife Podcast, Rob Dayton challenges that assumption directly, and gives you a framework to actually test it.

Rob names three distinct patterns people fall into without realizing it: the thought predator, who treats every thought as absolute truth and slides into comparison and entitlement; the thought victim, who fears their own mind and spirals into self-condemnation; and the thought director, the one who's learned to notice a thought, question it, and replace it with something truer. Most people bounce between the first two their whole lives, never knowing a third option exists.

From there, Rob walks through the actual mechanics of becoming a thought director, a simple, repeatable four-step practice: notice, evaluate, replace, repeat, drawing on Paul's instruction to take every thought captive. He shows exactly how he applies it in real time, including a personal example from a recent trip through the airport.

This is a practical, hands-on episode, closer to a coaching session than a conversation, meant to be journaled through rather than just listened to.

You'll Hear

Why repentance means "change the way you think," not "feel sorry"
The three thought patterns: thought predator, thought victim, and thought director
Why your emotions aren't truth, they're how you imagine the truth
Paul's strategy for "taking every thought captive" in 2 Corinthians 10
Rob's four-step practice: notice, evaluate, replace, repeat
A real example of Rob catching and replacing a judgmental thought
Why full alignment of spirit, soul, and body is what Rob calls faith

Journal Prompts

What's a dominant thought you're having that feels negative?
How does this thought make you feel?
Who would you become without this thought?
Jesus, what thought would you have in this situation? (journal his answer in the first person)

Rob Dayton (00:00)
you
Welcome to the 100X Life Podcast, where we activate people who desire to live the words of Jesus and experience the abundant life He promises. I'm your host, Rob Dayton, and I hope this podcast inspires you to put in the work of following Jesus.
Rob Dayton (00:36)
Hey, 100x lifers, welcome back to the podcast. my goodness, what a week. Just got back from Newport Beach in San Diego. Just incredible time spent with master's program guys who are in the room to learn how to follow Jesus better, to learn to pursue life mastery in the way Jesus sees it, and also to find their kingdom calling. Man, it is such a privilege to be in the room.
With guys. We actually had a graduation in Newport. So that's session twelve. the wives come, and it was just so precious hearing their stories and hearing the transformation that's happened over the last three years. As you may know by now, I am a complete fanatic. The way I get fed, the way I get the most gratification is by seeing people transform, primarily guys, how they're transformed.
To love Jesus and to love like Jesus, those two things. It's just so brilliant to participate in the kingdom this way. And so, man, we've had some really incredible podcasts recently. Carmen LaBurge, if you didn't listen to
that two weeks ago. Really, really cool testimony and a life of ministering to people on the radio, and then Pete Miko and really catching Pete at a time where
Hey, the testimony's not over. We're in the midst of it. We're in the fight. And then seeing what God is doing through his commitment and his desires to see his wife, how Jesus sees her. Man, that was super rich. If you missed that, go back and listen to those. Today is gonna be like a coaching session. It's a coaching session on repentance. Do you know how to repent? Now it's interesting because that word.
I'm gonna lean into repent. And it's gotten super distorted over so much time. And as a 100x lifer, you may know from the book we talk about that repentance does not mean at all. It does not mean at all to be sorry. The closest we get is to repentance being sorry is just I'm not gonna think that anymore. I'm not gonna do that anymore, which requires the meaning of the word to be put into practice, which is change the way you think.
And this is Jesus' first commandment. Change the way you think so that you may believe. Repent so that you may believe. And repentance, interesting, think about this. So repentance is a core strategy for a follower of Jesus. If you don't have the ability to repent, do you have the ability to follow Jesus? Can you actually do that? If you can't change the way you think, how do you?
How would you take any of the things that Jesus says to do and fold them into your life? Everything begins with a thought. You know, I I love the progression. How you think becomes how you speak, and how you speak turns into how you act, and how you act becomes your habits, and how your habits become your character, and then your character is your destiny.
That is the progression. It all starts with a thought. If you cannot control, if you cannot transform the way you think and make it in accordance with the behaviors of love, which are the commands of Christ, then it's gonna be really hard for you. So we've got to do this. This must become your most amazing skill. And let me tell you, you can get so good at this. This is kind of like emotional intelligence.
You know, you can't change your IQ. You can't get any smarter in the way your mind computes. You can practice, practice, practice, but you're kind of stuck with your IQ. Your EQ, your emotional intelligence, on the other hand, anyone can become a have a really high emotional intelligence, EQ score. And maybe this is RQ, a repentance quotient.
Everyone can have an amazing RQ. Everyone can learn to repent. This is a required skill of a Jesus follower. And it just takes practice. And the problem is that you might not understand that you're three people in one. You're you're a spirit, soul, and body. I know that's a really difficult concept to think about, that you're three people. Instead, you might just really be in the reality that you're only one person or that you're not three people.
and that can be a drag because if you don't know that you're three people, you won't know how the thinking process actually works. It'll be hard to learn how to change how you think. and then your emotions are not necessarily truth. Think about this. Your emotions are how you imagine the truth. Perceptions are true. It's interesting when we used to say in government that
the truth doesn't matter. It's what people perceive is the truth that really matters. And that is actually speaking to the thought process. How do you think? How do you see things? Your emotions are not necessarily true. Your emotions are how you imagine the truth. And so this skill of adjusting to make sure that you are actually seeing the truth is going to be so critical for you. Okay.
So let's get into it. Here's what here's what we're gonna do in this coaching session. I'm gonna propose that there's three types of thought patterns. And I'm gonna have you think about as we go over those, what you might be, what's your dominant thought pattern, Then we're gonna talk about how do you actually transform the way you think? How do you learn this skill and become good at it? I love this new term. I just coined it today on this podcast. RQ. How do you increase your RQ and learn how to change the way you think?
What does that look like? What is the practice of transforming the way you think? And then we're gonna have an exercise at the end where you can start applying this. So this is a coaching session. Buckle up, let's go. Okay. So there's three kinds of people in the way they are. It's let's call them a way of being. And the first one I call the thought predator. The thought predator believes that their thoughts are their own. In other words, they don't believe
there's a triune being
For the triune being, your spirit is perfected seated in heavenly places in Christ. So it's actually perfect. It's thinking perfect, it's directing perfect, it's hearing God perfectly. And then your soul is your mind, will, and emotions. Your mind, will, and emotions. And your mind, will, and emotions are the decider. That is the decision-making force. It's what you will decide to do. It's where you're really like God.
in that you've been given this power to decide. And then your body, which is your flesh, it contains your brain. And that's where your thoughts, your programming lives. If you don't see yourself as three people and know that the mind has to judge what the body is thinking, that's where you're not gonna have the advantage.
The thought predator just owns their thoughts. The belief is I am my thoughts. My thoughts are absolute truth. And then the imagination in their in their minds, the imagination, you know, you can focus your imagination. That's not your brain. Your imagination is your mind and it chooses what to imagine, and you're imagining.
possibilities. In this person, the thought predator, their imagination focuses on how they're better than others and what they deserve. And they their practice is that they're led by their feelings. So they're led by what their brain thinks. The imagination emphasizes what the brain is thinking and that is their feelings. So the mind focuses is self, it's comfort.
It's I'm better than it's I deserve. And the thought predator, their prayer might be because these could be Christians. I mean, this is it doesn't matter if you're a pre-Christian or a Christian, you can be one of these three. And the prayer might be save me from these people. Save me from these people, God. my gosh. Just you're subject to all these people and what's going on around you. And the mind of the predator
Focuses and creates imaginations based on any thought that arises from the brain. That's that's really what you to know. That's kind of like desire. Whatever the brain desires, the imagination in the thought predator just accentuates. the next person is the thought victim. so their thoughts are feared. The thought victim fears their thoughts. Their belief is their thoughts cannot be controlled. They're just, there's no control. And the imagination.
That they have is they focus on how I am less than. I'm not as good as other people. I'm, you know, I haven't been given what other people have been given. And then they practice self-condemnation. and their thoughts actually move into self-condemnation. Like, why did I do that? Why am I such an idiot? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The mind focus is again, it's on the self. I'm worse than others. And then I need to be seen as. So they're thinking about.
How do I need to be seen by others? And then they typically move into escapism to get away from this plague. So they might move to alcohol or drugs or a way to escape their thoughts to not to turn them off because they don't think they can be controlled. And the prayer of this person, of the thought victim, might be, save me for myself. And you can kind of hear that. Now, on those, on those first two, the thought predator and the thought victim.
I want to suggest to you that everyone might have a dominant area that they go to, but most people will will dabble in both. So you might have you might be dominant in thought predator and then dabble in thought victim, or you might be dominant in thought victim and dabble in predator. know, that's what happens to me. I I've noticed that in my own life. And so we you can go back and forth. This is just the natural biology of the old nature is to move into.
these two things that you own your thoughts or you fear your thoughts and you just kind of go back and forth based on circumstance but you're usually dominant in one or the other. I would say thought predator is where I'm dominant. So less thinking of myself the as a thought victim. I can if my thoughts are left unchecked, I can feel like I'm better than others or that I deserve a certain thing.
That's just that's just my dominant. What's yours? What would you say is your dominant thought predator or thought victim? And then where we're going is this third person. This is the thought director. Thoughts are evaluated. This is this is the thinking, is thoughts are evaluated. The belief is I control my thoughts and conform those thoughts to truth. And the imagination is directed towards the truth.
The practice of the thought director is they invest time to notice, evaluate, and replace thoughts with truth. That is the practice. That's what they spend time doing. The mind is other focused. So we're focused on other people and we train ourselves. So notice the difference here between the thought director and the other two. The other two, their mind focuses on their self and how they're feeling.
Whereas the thought director is focused on other people and self training. How do I correct what's wrong in my thinking? Remember, repentance is the fact that Jesus is saying that he wants you to repent to believe, repent so that you will believe this, what I'm about to tell you, all the teachings I'm going to give you. This is what Jesus is saying. You've got to change the way you think. So the thought director knows that.
First, thoughts can be changed, and that they need to develop a practice of changing their thoughts if they're going to love Jesus and love like Jesus. That is what the thought director believes. The prayer of the thought director might be, illuminate my thoughts, O Lord, so that I might love like you.
And the thought director knows that everyone is behaving according to their thoughts, including themselves. So the thought is, I'm just gonna train my thoughts so that I believe the right thing and and behave the right way. Okay, so the great fake out, and I mentioned this at the beginning, is that, and you gotta be aware of this, is your emotions are not necessarily truth.
Your emotions are how you imagine the truth. so if you imagine a distorted version of the truth, your emotions will be fear-based. If you imagine a real version of the truth, your emotions will be love-based. There's a huge difference. So we have to question our thoughts. We have to question our thoughts. And that means we're going to need training. So here's a question for you.
How much time per day do you spend thinking about your thoughts? How much time do you think about thinking about what you're thinking about? And that is the practice. That is the beauty. No other species can do this. Only image bearers of God can think about what they're thinking about. And then change their thoughts. Now, we've got a lot of distractions in this world. And so the thought predator and the thought victim who may want to.
get away from their thoughts, they might look at distractions in podcasts, even this podcast. Could this be a distraction from your thoughts? Is that why you're listening to this? Or news or doom scrolling, social media, games. my gosh, did you know that the number one use of the iPhone is for playing games? They're just distractions from thinking. Isn't it interesting how people say when when they have time, it's like
my gosh, how are we gonna kill time? That's another way of saying, how are we gonna kill this opportunity to think?
When we think and we spend time with our thoughts, that's when we have we are inviting ourselves to imagine with God and His truth. So we want to set time aside for that. So, you know, typically that could be a quiet time. A lot of people are just they're thinking, okay, well, I need to be in my Bible.
I would say absolutely read the Bible every single day, preferably the gospels, and then and then conform the rest of Scripture to the Gospels. So every day, definitely read the Scripture. But then are you talking to God? Are you asking Him about your imaginations? Are you thinking about what you're thinking about? Are you practicing what Jesus recommended? The practice of repentance. So you can have a set time for that, what and I do, that's great.
primarily from the time I wake up till about 8.30, which sometimes is two hours, sometimes is longer, sometimes is only an hour. But it's a set time when I'm thinking about what I'm thinking about. I'm communing with God. I'm I'm abiding. I'm being with the Father. I'm positioning myself to be loved and have my thoughts transformed.
And then active throughout the day. So instead of being distracted, there's so much bandwidth that you have during the day. So much time is downtime. You think that it's not, but think about it when you're driving from point A to B, when you're on a walk, when you're on a run, when you're exercising, you know, you're working your body, but your mind is available to think while you're working your body. In fact, what I've noticed is when endorphins kick in.
That's when thinking really starts to engage. And some of my best God thoughts have been on a run. But how many know you can't, if you're listening to a podcast, you're not making room for your God thought. You're not making room for that endorphin to turn into a beautiful new thought.
Or when you're on that drive, can you just be communing with God and ask him, okay, so how did that last meeting go? How did that engagement go with that neighbor or with that business owner? How how did I show up? What was I thinking? So you got set time, but then you've got active time throughout your day that you can focus on this practice. Okay, so here's the practice I want to suggest to you. I encourage you to take some notes. Here's what we're gonna do. We're just gonna do.
It's a four-step process. Notice, evaluate, replace, and repeat. That's what we're doing. So the first step, and let's make this. I want to talk to you about this in terms of a journaling practice first. So this would be the set time that you have in the morning. The first one is to notice. What are you noticing about how you think? my gosh, if you can get good at this step.
You will be blown away at how resourceful this will be in repentance. Notice what you're thinking about. and then you know, this is a developed skill. So you might just go through your day or in your journaling practice and just notice, okay. So, what's my predominant thought? Or when you're going through your day, just as you're ordering coffee at Starbucks or walking through a grocery store or driving down the street, what thoughts
Are you thinking? It could be just as powerful as that. In fact, that's probably the most powerful thing you can do is just ask yourself, okay, what thoughts am I thinking right now? And then look at the thought. Notice the thought. What thoughts are arising all day long? Are there predominant thoughts? Are they just coming randomly? And remember, think about it as.
The soul noticing the soul includes the mind, will, and emotion. So your mind is a part of your soul, it's outside of your body, And so think about it as your soul noticing what your brain or your body is feeding you, the thoughts that are arising. Your brain is simply responding to the environment.
It's it's actually seeing what your reticular activator is saying. That's a fancy term for what you're focused on. Whatever you're focused on is what you see. And your brain is just showing you these thoughts. You're looking at people, you're engaging with people, and these thoughts are arising. You're driving down the street, and these thoughts are arising. You're in a classroom, you're listening to a sermon, and these thoughts are arising. You're in a family conversation, you're on the phone with a business partner, and these thoughts are arising.
All we're saying is to just notice your thoughts. Here's a thought that's dominant for me that I just hate, that I'm trying to get rid of, that I'm noticing. And it's when there's overweight people or they're oversized or odd shaped, like really odd shaped. I I noticed this, this was happening just two days ago. I was in an airport and I noticed someone who was extremely overweight. And also
Extremely short. So they were way more round than they were
You know, tall. And then and then I noticed myself making this thought about them, like, get your act together, like work out or get better, you know, this better than thought. This was the predator thought. The thought predator is like, look at you and this judgment. And man, that is not a good thought. That is a thought that in the advice of Paul, and we're gonna use Paul's Second Corinthians 10, his strategy here to take every thought captive. That's what notice is.
Notice is taking thoughts captive. And that thought about that person that I'm seeing, that image bearer of Jesus, that I'm making this judgment about, is a complete distortion of the truth. It's a complete distortion. And so we're going to take every thought captive. What are your thoughts? What are you noticing that are these thoughts? And you can take, let's just, let's just call it every single thought captive.
let's just make it real easy. You're just capturing all of them. We're not trying to weed them out yet. We're capturing all the thoughts. We're noticing all the thoughts. Okay, step two. You're gonna evaluate. What is the truth? Let me evaluate this thought. What is the truth? Is this thought true? Does the thought conform to love? Man, that's a great question.
I'm looking at these people who are overweight and I'm having this judgmental thought. And look at that, that different size. You just interesting about growing up in California and all these beautiful people. And then you get to other places, and people like seriously. It's like, I don't know what it is about Southern California attracting beautiful people, or at least maybe they're beautiful in my eyes. And I want to capture that thought and see all people is completely stunningly.
Beautiful because that is truth. So that my evaluation of that thought is that it's it's not true. That those people, no matter what size, shape, whether their body is out of shape, whether it's in shape, whether they have muscles, whether they're atrophied, whether they're in a wheelchair, that person is absolutely beautiful and something to behold. Like I was looking at Yosemite.
Like I do when I'm in Yosemite, and I'm looking at all the granite on this beautiful valley. If you haven't been there, you have to go. And I'm I'm just in awe. That's that's the way I want to think when I see people. I want to be in awe of them. I want to appreciate the details like I do Yosemite. I want to examine the beauty and be in awe and gratefulness over others.
Here's another question for evaluation. We're on step two. Evaluate is the thought unforgiveness, judgment, or condemnation? If it's one of those three things, you definitely know the thought is not aligned with truth because truth and love does not judge, does not condemn, and it practices forgiveness. You know, we know that from the words of Jesus in 100x Life
Is this a predator thought or is this a I'm a victim thought? What what which is it? In other words, is this brand of thought that you're noticing, is it in the area of a predatory, I'm a thought predator, or a thought victim? So think about that too. Like really distinguish what type of thinking do I have going on right now?
in a past podcast, we talked about Byron Cady's the work.
So you might want to look that up. You want to go back to that, because this is where we notice, is that thought true? And in Paul's advice, we want to destroy speculations and every lofty thing that raises itself up against the knowledge of God, or another way of saying it is is the truth.
And a speculation is a what if. It's like, my gosh, what if? It's an imagination about, my gosh, if this happens, it's a catastrophization. Or a lofty thing is something that is fear-based because it is above God. It raises things above God's goodness into fear. so the evaluation is really to destroy those thoughts, take them captive, and then get rid of.
Of the thoughts that you have that are not a conform of truth. And again, for this exercise, I want you to assume that most of your thoughts, if not all, are not conforming it precisely to truth. Just just have that initial thought. That'll be so resourceful to you. Cause I want you to be open-minded about every thought.
Even the thoughts you think are absolutely true, like that guy's an idiot. You're like fully convinced. I see all your behavior. Yeah, no, actually not. and God equates calling that person an idiot with murder because that is an image bearer. How do I bring more truth to my thought? Okay, step number three is replace. We're going to replace the thought. We don't just stop or destroy negative thoughts. We replace them. That's key.
We replace the negative thought. So what is truer or love-filled? What's a love-filled thought? A truer love-filled thought? Which word of Jesus applies here with this thought? the prayer might be, show me the perfect thought, Holy Spirit. What's the perfect thought? And then we want to make this new thought our focus, the new thought, the the God-filled, love-filled, the truer thought.
So for me, in the in looking at someone who's obese or just an odd shaped, I want to meditate on the fact that they're image bearers and they're precious to Jesus.
I love what Paul says in First Corinthians twelve, twenty-three. He says, and those members of the body which we deem less honorable on these would bestow more abundant honor.
And honor less presentable members become more presentable. In other words, the person I perceive as less than in the kingdom is the one I'm to honor the most. I love that. It's a great rubric for replacement thinking, and particularly this evil thought, this
predator thought about how others are less than. Okay, so we wanna replace that. And we're the replacement is Paul's advice to take the thought captive and make it obedient to Christ or the truth. So replacement is actually taking the thought and making it obedient to the truth. And then the last step is just repeat, just repeat the process.
Get really good at this. This process is going to be something you hold on to and be will become natural. You actually will begin to notice the thoughts and evaluate them almost simultaneously as you're having them. And then as you replace those thoughts and use your imagination.
to have the thought be in alignment with truth and in alignment with heaven, what happens is you're actually reprogramming your brain or your flesh. And when your brain gets reprogrammed and aligned to the truth, that's when you have faith. When you faith is full alignment between the spirit, the soul, and the body.
When the spirit, which is perfected now, and then the soul chooses truth, and then the brain is rewired to truth in the body, that is faith. That's when we're fully aligned as one person moving in one direction. So repeat the process. Okay, I hope that's resourceful. We're gonna make this personal. So here's some journal prompts to do that process.
Here's what that looks like. So grab your journal, write this down. So we're gonna journal about a dominant thought that feels negative. So just start journaling. Okay, what's a dominant thought you're having? It feels negative. This can be a complaint about someone or a judgment about someone. What's a dominant thought you're having? Or a dominant thought about life that's negative.
Any thought that just this is I'm just trying to make it helpful. If it's negative, it feels negative, it feels doomsday, or if it feels foreboding, if it's a fear-based thought, what's a dominant thought that you have that feels negative? Okay, next question you're gonna journal about. How does this thought make you feel? This is a really important step. You want to connect the emotion.
with the thought because your mind, what you're part of your soul and your body, your brain, they are colluding together to create your reality. In other words, the brain is raising thoughts up and then the mind decides that that thought is true and then creates imagination and catastrophizes that thought to make it bigger than it is. That's when it becomes a a lofty thing.
And so then our emotions get attached to that. We get overwhelmed, we get anxious. How does this thought make you feel? Journal that the answer to that question. Okay. Next most important question is: who would you become without this thought? If you didn't have this thought anymore, who would you become? How would you be? How would your emotions be if you didn't have this thought?
It's really important for us to answer that question because we're evaluating and motivating ourselves that freedom, the truth shall set you free. Freedom is truth. And if this thought is creating anxiety rather than the abundant life, we need to know that because we it's our right in the kingdom to live the abundant life. We just need to practice the words of Jesus as we've spelled out in a 100xLife
The strategy is not to stop thinking a negative thought, it's to replace the thought with truth. So after you've considered who would you become without this thought, you ask Jesus, what thought would you have in this situation? What thought would you have in this situation, Jesus? And you're gonna journal from Jesus in the first person. In other words, have Jesus tell you about his thoughts in this one area of life.
Guys, this is really, really important. I can't emphasize this enough. This skill of repentance is something you want as a Jesus follower, is something you want in order to get the abundant life. You cannot obey the teachings of Jesus. You can't abide in the words of Jesus without being able to repent. Change the way you think. This is the practice of how you do that.
Sure, there's other aspects of it that we'll learn more when we get to heaven or someone else. Holy Spirit will down them someone else, but until then, practice, practice, practice. We're just gonna do this simple thing about notice, evaluate, replace, and repeat. We're gonna notice what we're thinking, evaluate that thought, replace it with a thought that's more true or more love-filled, and then we're gonna repeat the process. Do the journaling.
And I'd love to hear if you what if you write RobDayton@100xLife.com and let me know how this process worked for you, I would really be overjoyed. Remember, I get fulfillment from seeing lives transformed to love Jesus and love like Jesus. Okay, guys, we'll see you next week.