⭕ The Internal Game: When Did You Stop Trusting Yourself?

Host: Will Carter (@TheWillCarter), with co-host Avni Mohindra (@ItsAvniMohindra) and guest co-host Devin (@d_allen99) · Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2026 · Duration: 2:39:27 · ~11 speakers

TL;DR

• A wide-ranging community conversation on self-trust as the foundation of identity, behavior, and follow-through — with Will framing it as: your brain is an "evidence-based machine," and once you break your word to yourself enough times, it stops taking your word seriously.
• Recurring throughline: identity/self-concept drives behavior. "I am" (present tense) beats "I will" (future) — Ben, Joanna, and Will all landed on this.
• Practical tools shared by the room: micro-commitments and reward loops (Malika), external accountability (Patricia, Cauvée), leverage/pain-of-staying-the-same (Devin), personal-personalization and grounding (Cauvée), and alter egos (Malika's Sasha Fierce, Joanna's "Unstoppable Jojo").
• Will gave an extended take on the Jonah complex, hypnosis, and subconscious "normalization" of a desired outcome as the real engine of lasting change.
• A long, warm comic runner about who does and doesn't make their bed — Cauvée and Devin confessed they don't, and it worked as a case study for "find what works for you."
• No part two got to Will's "how to actually change yourself" material, so a follow-up episode was promised.

Highlights

[1:41] Will names the problem. Will opens by defining self-trust as conviction — "when I say something, I will do it" — and describes how every broken promise erodes the loop until "you stop actually putting stock in your own word." Avni's cold open, meanwhile, was pure Avni: a wrecked ankle, 40 planks of decking hauled off a truck, and a backyard movie theater in progress, all offered as proof she "completely trusts" herself.

[6:44] Are we born trusting ourselves? Avni asks whether self-trust is innate or taught away. Will's answer — babies have only two built-in fears (falling and loud noises) and learn doubt as the perceived emotional cost of failure rises — set the philosophical spine for the whole space.

[14:13] The 6% Club. Will cites Michelle Rosen's study tracking 1,000 people from January 2023: by February, 94% had quit their goals. His key point — saying "I'll change next year" only reinforces "I'm not it now," the one tense the subconscious understands.

[17:44] Ben's "I am." Ben checks in to report the reframe stuck: "I'm not gonna do this. I am doing this." Will ties it back through history — the "I am" as present-tense being — and to his four C's: clarity, commitment, congruence, consistency.

[36:03] Standard vs. behavior. Responding to Patricia's point that external accountability keeps her on a 267-day streak, Will lays out his model: when you own both the standard and the behavior, the standard quietly drops to meet the behavior ("it's raining, I'll go tomorrow"). An outside person holds the standard fixed — that's why accountability works.

[52:21] Katoch's marble jar. Katoch brings Brené Brown's BRAVING rubric and the marble-jar metaphor for trust, then turns both inward: do I have boundaries with myself, reliability with myself, a vault with myself? He layers in the Jonah complex — the fear of one's own greatness — and hands Will a pointed question about how hypnosis actually addresses it.

[59:19] Will on the Jonah complex and hypnosis. Will's longest turn: fear of success is usually an unconscious association that the wanted thing (clients, money, fame) carries a hidden downside, so the brain keeps you safely where you are. Real change, he argues, is "subconscious normalization" of the outcome — making the desired identity feel safe and predictable — not white-knuckle affirmations.

[1:36:34] Cauvée on depression and the first win. Cauvée relays a neuropsychology framing: in a depressive episode part of the frontal lobe effectively shuts off (deer in headlights). The move is to sit up and "celebrate like crazy," then feet on floor, celebrate again — confusing the brain chemically into re-engaging. He's careful to add that suicidal crisis needs clinically trained help, not a peer.

[2:01:55] "I am the new Will." Will steps away to take a call and hands the room to Avni, who declares she's hijacked the space — "I am the new Will, everyone" — as Will signs off with "keep an eye on her, guys." This kicks off the bed-making saga, in which Cauvée admits Lewis Howes's make-your-bed ritual "didn't do shit" for him and Devin confesses the same, both to Avni's mock outrage.

[2:27:34] Closing on the harvest. Will closes with a Russell Brunson line — pray for the discipline to plant seeds, not for the harvest — and reframes self-trust as the highest form of self-respect: judge the day by what you sow, not what you reap, and there's nothing left to fear.

Topic timeline

Notable quotes

• "It's because I completely trust myself. So, Will, have you ever stopped trusting yourself?" — Avni Mohindra [0:50]
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• "The average person lives the same year 50 times and calls it a life." — Will Carter [48:06]
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• "If I tell you a secret… that means our vault is secure. And Brené talks about trust as if it was a marble jar." — Katoch [53:41]
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• "You can borrow some of my not scaredness. Like, you see how not scared I am?" — Patricia Watts, quoting a creator she follows [1:27:00]
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• "My name is Joanna. My alter ego's name is Unstoppable Jojo. So when I find myself procrastinating… I ask myself, what would Unstoppable Jojo do?" — Joanna Bepeh [1:53:18]
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• "I used to pray for harvests, but now I pray for the discipline to plant seeds every day." — Will Carter, quoting Russell Brunson [2:27:34]
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Who said what

• Will Carter (host) — Framed self-trust as conviction and identity; anchored the room in "I am," the 6% Club, standard-vs-behavior, the Jonah complex, hypnosis and subconscious normalization; closed on discipline over outcomes.
• Avni Mohindra (co-host) — Drove the conversation with sharp questions, kept the energy warm and funny, shared her post-it/color-pen system and her mother's proof-of-past-wins habit, and cheerfully ran the bed-making trial.
• Devin (guest co-host) — Spoke to leverage, the pain of staying the same, six years of therapy, and connecting discipline to loved ones as his source of strength; peaceful, reflective register.
• Ben — Reported the "I am" reframe working in his life; later offered his four-word mantra (healthy, wealthy, wise, bold).
• Malika Lardjane — Brought the marshmallow test, micro-commitments, reward loops, the alter-ego idea (Sasha Fierce), and the 5-4-3-2-1 method; closed on positivity through past failure.
• Joanna Bepeh — On four years of procrastination cured by an "identity mismatch" fix and self-concept work; introduced "Unstoppable Jojo."
• Patricia (Trish) Watts — Champion of external accountability (267-day streak) and "borrowing not-scaredness" from others.
• Cauvée — Emphasized awareness, alignment, priority and variables; behavioral assessments, personalization over cookie-cutter advice, music and water as grounding, and the sit-up-and-celebrate depression tactic.
• Katoch — Brought the intellectual scaffolding: BRAVING, the marble jar, In Praise of Risk, and the Jonah complex.
• Dimeji — "Nobody cares what you can do, they care about what you've done" — do one small thing, let confidence compound.
• DE KING$ W3B — Framed discipline through trading: patience, making the bed, self-reflection, and weighing consequences before acting.

Worth a full listen

• [59:19]–[1:13:00] — Will's uninterrupted stretch on the Jonah complex, upper limits, the rubber-band effect, and how hypnosis "normalizes" a desired outcome. This is the theoretical heart of the space and the summary can only gesture at it.
• [1:36:34]–[1:43:00] — Cauvée and Will on depression, dopamine depletion, and the mechanics of the "first win." Handled with real care and specificity.
• [2:01:55]–[2:15:00] — The bed-making runner: light on the surface, but it's the room living out its own thesis (find what actually works for you, and don't shame anyone for their version) — and it's where the warmth of this community shows.