§ 01 · The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The promise lands before the framework: the most powerful effect he has ever seen is that trying harder is what is blocking you. He opens standing at a whiteboard already filled with diagrams, signaling this will be a teaching session, not a talking-head opinion piece.
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:01
01 · The Backwards Law explained
Hook, promise, and overview — applying this creates calm, reduced need for approval, safety inside the body.
01:01 – 02:04
02 · Why the inside mirrors the outside
Mirror analogy: you cannot change the reflection by changing the mirror; internal state must lead.
02:04 – 03:09
03 · Alan Watts and the Law of Reversed Effort
Credit to Watts; effort equals resistance; the more you want people to like you the more your energy is off.
03:09 – 04:02
04 · Why letting go makes things come faster
Texting example: you obsess, they do not reply; the moment you let go they respond.
04:02 – 06:03
05 · The house story: feeling trapped
Personal story about selling an Austin house. Emotion was burden and trapped. Recognized childhood pattern.
06:03 – 07:03
06 · Stop waiting for the outside to change you
Choosing not to be a victim shifted energy; offer appeared within one day of that internal shift.
07:03 – 08:48
07 · Why the opposite might actually be better
Explores what good could come from the deal NOT going through — market recovery, better tenant, better offer ($50K more in real agent example).
08:48 – 10:02
08 · Protest behaviors and the Still Face Experiment
Protest behavior: what emotion are you avoiding? Baby and mom experiment as the template for adult controlling.
10:02 – 11:23
09 · Why people attract love when they stop needing it
Accepting the opposite gives a neutral relationship to the thing; no longer in aversion equals no resistance.
11:23 – 13:13
10 · What does this mean about me?
Deeper fear: not getting the thing means I am not enough. Good Will Hunting scene used as illustration.
13:13 – 14:34
11 · Scarcity keeps you stuck
Scarcity thinking treats the universe as finite — that is the loop generating urgency-as-resistance.
14:34 – 17:03
12 · The failed move that became relief
Assistant story: excited to move to Big Bear, deal falls through, feels relief. Relief is a nervous system signal.
17:03 – 19:00
13 · Stop resisting what you do not want
Aversion to a bad outcome is also a form of control that attracts what you fear. Neutrality is the goal.
19:00 – 21:25
14 · Desire is not the problem
Suppressing desire creates more resistance than feeling it. It is okay to feel desire AND lack simultaneously.
21:25 – 23:00
15 · The 3 shifts that change everything
Accept the opposite; feel the suppressed emotion instead of protesting; take action unattached to outcome.
23:00 – 24:12
16 · CTA: letting go video
Internal CTA to the 2M-view letting-go video.
Visual structure at a glance.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:07
concept
The Backwards Law / Law of Reversed Effort
The more you try to control, force, or resist an outcome, the more resistance you generate. Popularized by Alan Watts.
Steal for Any offer or content about getting unstuck, attraction, nervous system regulation
08:28
concept
Protest Behaviors
Controlling, reassurance-seeking, or forcing behaviors used to avoid feeling an underlying uncomfortable emotion.
Steal for Relationship content, leadership content, sales follow-up frameworks
21:25
list
The 3 Shifts
- Accept the opposite of what you want
- Feel the suppressed emotion instead of protesting
- Take action without attachment to the outcome
Three-step framework for practically applying the Backwards Law in any area of life.
Steal for Workshop close, email sequence, challenge framework
Lines you could clip.
10:36
"The law of reversed effort is that effort equals resistance."
10:02
"If you can accept the opposite, you will be more free."
18:01
"It's okay to feel desire and it's okay to feel lack."
11:00
"By the time you get what you want, it will feel natural to your nervous system."
Things they pointed at.
02:06channelAlan Watts (Backwards Law)
11:56productGood Will Hunting — Robin Williams scene
09:03productStill Face Experiment
How they asked for the click.
23:05
next-video
"Here is the most popular video I have on letting go. It has got over 2,000,000 views. Go ahead and watch this video next."
Clean internal retention play — no product push, no sponsor. Logical next-step for a viewer who just consumed 24 minutes of the concept and needs the practice companion.
Word for word.
HOOK opening / re-engagementCTA the pitch
00:00HOOKIn this video, I'm going to show you one of the most powerful effects I have ever seen in my life. I'm going to show you how the backwards law, or what is called the law of reversed effort
00:12HOOKis the key to finally becoming free. It's the key to letting go of the resistance that is literally blocking
00:22HOOKthat which you want. When you apply this in your life, you'll notice that you feel more calm. You'll notice that you don't put people or things on a pedestal.
00:31HOOKYou don't create an energetic block between you and others, and you're finally able to feel safe inside of your body. You're able to be present and okay with how things happen knowing it is not your job to control it, to manage it.
00:49HOOKNow, let's look first off at one of the most important ideas that I think can shift more than anything else. It's understanding that the inside
00:59mirrors the outside. So how you feel on the inside, no matter the action you take to control things,
01:09infuses energy into the process. Now, this means that you can try to change the outside but just like you know, if you stare at a mirror,
01:20if I were to look into this mirror and I were to wait for the mirror reflection to change, and I were to try to make it change by changing the mirror,
01:30of course that would create lots of resistance. Now you know, you're like okay, the way that it works is you must change your expression then the mirror changes.
01:40But you see with the backwards law, or the law of reversed effort, it's like subconsciously
01:47the belief is that I must change this in order to feel safe.
01:54In order to feel okay. Now let me first off give credit where credit is due. The backwards law
02:00is an ancient technique that has been known for thousands of years, but been popularized by Alan Watts. It's like the more you try to control,
02:11the more out of control you feel. The more you want people to like you, the more your energy's all messed up.
02:18The more you're performing, and the less people can actually like you. But why is it when you let go?
02:25Why is it when you're good either way whether people like you or not? Why is it when you're good either way with how things happen? Because there's self acceptance,
02:35then there's less resistance and it's like things happen better for you anyways. Have you ever had it where you want someone to get back to you? Like you're texting someone, you want their response, and you think about it, you think about it, you think about it, and you're trying It's like you're trying to
02:52project energy or you want them to respond, and the more you want it the more, like the longer it takes. But the moment you're like good either way,
03:01the moment you let go and forget about it, many times is the time that it actually comes in your life. Ain't that interesting? Now for myself,
03:10something I'll share that actually happened very recently for me is this thing where I've been in this process of actually closes. By the time this video go out, the house will have already closed and it already been a done deal.
03:24Which is very nice. But what happens is, there was this desire at many points along the process.
03:32There was this like bumps along the road where what I actually found shifted the energy was accepting if the deal didn't go through.
03:44Because I wanted to sell a house. Part of it by the way too, I was aware that part of the dynamic
03:52This is interesting to think about. You know, I've heard this said recently that like, it's not always about money when you're trying to attract something. It's about your relationship to the thing.
04:04Money is just like a variable. And when I would think about, the big shift for me selling this house by the way, is I realized that my life over the years have gotten kind of complex with like
04:18you know investing in houses situation which has kind of become a headache to manage. And it was this house in Austin that I wanted to sell. And I realized that the emotion that I felt around it was burdened.
04:32It was feeling trapped. There's every year there's these property taxes here in Texas which you pay every single year which is very high. And it was just like this this thing that the market's not as good so it was like the rental on it wasn't making as much as the bills were.
04:48And I was like why does this this is leaky energy? And I felt trapped. And I felt like I want to let it go.
04:54And what I also became aware of is part of my childhood pattern and energy around childhood was like I feel trapped. I feel burdened by it.
05:04I want to let it go. So what I realized was that, oh, there's a connection here. This is familiar to me in some way.
05:11And what I also realized is throughout the journey, there was an energy of trying to control the outcome. Why isn't it happening yet? There was also like a payoff for being a victim in a way.
05:22I think I talked about this in the last video. So it's like almost like this is happening to me. I wanted to change.
05:28I was subconsciously not running around like, I'm such a victim, such a victim. But just like annoyed by it, frustrated by it.
05:36And eventually, what I realized is the moment things really shifted, was the moment I chose not to be a victim.
05:44Not to see myself as like this is happening to me, and realizing I can handle it. Not only can I handle it, but I'm going to do what I can to shift it, and I'm not going to like let my outer reality
05:56affect the inner reality as needing to happen so I could feel okay?
06:03What if I could feel okay now? What if I could feel free now? You see that was like a shift for me, and literally within one day of choosing not to be a victim,
06:14there was an offer on the house.
06:18And what was great is, it was a low offer that we eventually negotiated.
06:22We got it to work. And then along the journey there was little bumps that came up. You know paperwork and all this stuff.
06:28It's like, oh maybe the deal falls through. And I would recognize that I had this desire almost like, I could tell I would almost like at times want reassurance from the real estate agent. Like is every I because you know, he's the middle man and I'm like, is everything okay with it?
06:42Wanting a wanting that confirmation everything was okay. Wanting to know I'll be free soon.
06:49Right? I'll change the outside soon. Right?
06:52And I could tell that the more resistance I infused into it, the more bumps would come up and the more I would just not also enjoy the process. However, I took every sign, every time something a bump would happen, what I would recognize is that believing my freedom,
07:08the abundance, the love, the freedom is on a pedestal. I started to realize maybe the opposite
07:16is actually something I can accept. So like imagining that the deal doesn't go through. Are there ways in which the deal doesn't go through that that's actually beneficial?
07:29And here's what I realized. We're at the bottom of the market right now. I really believe that.
07:34I just don't want to continue dealing with it. I believe that in two or three years it'll be worth way more and I'll make actual money, like good money on it. And what I don't know is I don't know that if this didn't go through, that then I would find like the perfect tenant to be in the house for a year or two.
07:52We don't know if that deal didn't go through that another deal would come through that's even better. Which the real estate agent actually says, what if this doesn't go through? He's like, I have an offer right now that's that's that just closed and the initial offer didn't go through, and then the second offer that from somebody else that came through is even more.
08:11It's $50,000 more than the original. And now that went through.
08:16Was like, okay, well that's a good situation. Right? But I realized I was so
08:21not wanting the opposite that I was creating resistance and actually just blocking things from flowing. But what I found is that the more I could use this backwards law in a way
08:33to realize that my ego doesn't understand the whole larger vision. And what I could also do is become aware
08:44that what my control pattern was, what is what I call a protest behavior. And when you learn this, and how in your life you might be using these protest behaviors to get different outcomes.
08:57You then see it's like, what emotion am I avoiding? The analogy by the way of a protest behavior reminds me of the still face experiment. You've probably heard me talk about many times where a mom and her baby are interacting and it's like the mom then comes back with a still face and the baby starts freaking out.
09:15Before the baby's freaking out because mom's not emotionally present. Even though mom is present, she's just not emotionally present. She's physically there though.
09:23The baby starts pointing, ah. Mom, come back. Control.
09:29And that's a way of getting the needs met. Now in protest behavior it's like, I want people to like me. That creates,
09:38what are we avoiding by people wanting us to like us? We're avoiding disapproval or rejection.
09:45But a lot of times we have to abandon ourselves in order to get that. We have to abandon ourselves in order to get that approval or validation.
09:52And what I'm saying, and one of the main parts of this video is that if you can actually accept the opposite, you will be more free.
10:02If you can accept the opposite, you will be more present. It's about more so having a neutral perspective,
10:10a neutral relationship to the thing knowing that the thing,
10:16the reflection does not need to dictate your inner state. Why is it so often
10:24people attract love into their life? When they let go of eating, needing love at all. When they let go of looking for it.
10:33When they're good either way with how things happen. The law of reversed effort is that effort equals resistance. And when you're efforting,
10:42when you're efforting and trying to control, you're infusing resistance onto what you want and that resistance actually blocks the attainment of it.
10:54Now realize that by the time you get what you want, it will feel natural to your nervous system. So the key is not needing the external thing so that your nervous system can feel a certain way, it's regulating your nervous system now.
11:10It's the self acceptance now. Now here's one of the things and one of the reasons people also subconsciously feel like they need to do these protest behaviors.
11:21You ready for this? You ready? They're afraid that if
11:27What does it mean about me
11:33if I don't get this thing? We're afraid that subconsciously it means that we're not good enough.
11:42You see deep down this is where you get down to the deeper level healing. Reminds me of the movie Goodwill Hunting. There's a powerful scene where Robin Williams and Matt Damon are talking.
11:55And Robin Williams is like, it's not your fault. It's not your fault.
12:00It's not your fault. And then Matt Damon's like, what? Stop.
12:03Shut up. And all of sudden he crying.
12:06It's not your fault. And it hits a deeper core when you get to that it's not your fault energy, in the sense that
12:15internalizing the outside thinking it means we're good enough on the inside
12:21is a way that we stay trapped in the loop. Because if we don't focus on what we're feeling or not allowing ourselves to feel, which I'll get to in a moment which is the shift here,
12:34is managing the outside becomes a means to an end. So things come things come forward to you
12:43when you allow yourself to let go of the resistance and the effort to control the out come, the outside.
12:56So the key to this is recognizing that it's all about you, your relationship to yourself, and your nervous system.
13:06Your how you feel inside of your body. So
13:11let's look at this for a second. Also let me point out this. Rooted in scarcity, think about this for a moment.
13:18If there's an abundance of love, if there's an abundance of money, there's an abundance of opportunity, are you efforting
13:26and trying to control the outcome so much? It's almost like there's a belief that God or the universe is only has so much,
13:37And you had your chance and you have to make it work. And when you realize that that's a scarcity, it's literally a scarcity loop that you keep creating, you realize, wait,
13:48Maybe I'm blocking more abundance from coming into my life. Just like with the house situation. Right?
13:54This one offer. This one person. This one People that want to buy it.
14:00What if there is an abundance to where I can't see it in the moment because I'm in the ego perspective, but what if on the opposite side of it, there is some If I can accept this, it will then allow me to resonate with trusting the universe. Trusting God.
14:16And then because of that state, somebody else with another opportunity could come forward that could be even better. Could be an even better offer or an even more alignment thing or the timing is better.
14:32There's an acceptance of that, and almost a relief. You know, it's funny. I was talking to my assistant yesterday who told me that she was going to be moving from LA to like the outskirts a little bit, two hours away to like Big Bear or something like that.
14:46More nerve She wanted to regulate her nervous system. She was excited for this place that she negotiated to get to move into, and she was looking forward to it.
14:55And she was going move there with her dogs and live like way more regulated for at least one to five years she said, like at least a year or maybe longer. And she was excited about it, but at the same time what she said was, I'll let you know later today when I get it.
15:09And she told me later on yesterday, she goes, oh by the way, I thought I was moving, I didn't get the house unfortunately. They The owner backed out of the deal they were going give me on rent and utilities and everything. And then I said, how do you feel about that?
15:24Like how do you feel in your body? And she goes, feel relief. She goes, it's okay.
15:28I feel relieved. And what I told her was like listen, like when things like this happen, if you feel relief by the way that's a that's a good that's a good sign.
15:40That's a sign that like there's a your nervous system. Even though your mind may have wanted it, which is a lot of this whole effort thing comes from the mind.
15:49But what you don't know, what I told her is what you don't know is you don't know if there's a place that you were feel more aligned to that might come up in a month or two. And if you would have locked in a year at this other place that you've never lived before, it may have not been
16:01ideal for your growth. You know, who knows? Maybe you're gonna meet your person or a deep relationship
16:08in LA, and if you leave right now, you might miss that. Who knows?
16:14Maybe there's another place that you decide you want to move to and this would have taken the place of that. So like you're Or there's another place even in that place that's like even better or more in alignment.
16:25You may have moved into that house and there may have been mold. There may have been challenges. The landlord may have been nutso.
16:31You don't know. So if we can accept that maybe we don't know, maybe this is redirection, it lets go of a little bit of the resistance, doesn't it?
16:43So when we talk about what we think we want and what we don't want, it's like being more curious to realizing
16:52that if we can accept what we don't want, and we can realize that what we don't want is not something like if we cannot because here's the thing, if you have an aversion to what you don't want, it's like you're also being controlled by it.
17:08It's like you're avoiding it. It's like, I don't want to attract people that are controlling and that I'm on eggshells around. I want to attract people that I feel like I can be myself around.
17:21But what you'll find is that if you're like, I can't attract people that I feel on eggshells around, you'll attract them into your life because you have an aversion to it. There's a there's literally a preference in your nervous system that feels familiar to it that's also,
17:35maybe you're attracting that person into your life to help you get to a place to where you're good either way because you know where your true power is. You know that you can stand your ground and stand in your frame around someone
17:50that maybe has that energy. You see that's the truth. That is when you're truly free.
17:56Is when you're good either way because you are able to feel safe within you. Sometimes when I'm coaching people, people will say, well what if I attract, you know, I won't feel safe.
18:09It's like there's a belief that being around someone else at a certain point, it's like your power's going to be taken away. And I'm like, you can reset boundaries. You can reset your frame
18:22multiple times in a relationship, or in friendship dynamics, or in a job.
18:29You have, you start to develop trust with you when you realize that you're not at the whim whims and a victim of everybody else around you. Forced to do something in a certain way. But you see this is where you could start to finally feel safe
18:43inside of your own body because you are showing up for you. And what's funny is what the law of reversed effort does or the backwards law does, is it helps you take your desires off a pedestal.
18:58It helps you accept the opposite knowing you can be good either way, and knowing that your true state of being is what's important here.
19:10Having a sense of peace on the inside allows you to actually choose what you want.
19:18So realize that this isn't also just about like Jedi mind tricking yourself. Okay. I'm just going to pretend and like manifest.
19:24I don't want I have a lot of resistance so I need to I need to like do this to get this result. I'll do what Aaron says so I can get this. And true degree of transformation
19:35and integration is when you can learn these principles, and actually allow yourself to embrace the uncomfortable emotions underneath the surface.
19:46Because for me I like, isn't it funny? Because even now when I say this, you might say desire is evil. Desire blocks what I want.
19:55But if you don't let yourself feel desire, you will create suppressed energy and resistance. It's okay to feel desire
20:04and it's okay to feel lack. If you let yourself feel either one, you're not controlled by either.
20:11There's just acceptance of what is. There's an acceptance of the emotion underneath the surface. You see this is where things really begin to shift because this is like the protest behavior is the thing that you can begin to release.
20:26And that's why I'm good either way is such a powerful, such a powerful thing.
20:34So let yourself embrace the emotions you've been avoiding feeling by trying to protest behavior control reality or having the effort. If you can be present with that energy underneath the surface,
20:50it's like then you can process it and then your nervous system begins to relax more because you're no longer suppressing it and trying to control it. So this is what's completely transformed my life to allow me
21:03to trust God,
21:06trust the universe, flow with things, accept the emotion that comes up, and understand that this is a process of allowing like when you are truly neutral.
21:18You could still follow your passion excitement by the way, but the difference is that you're not attached to outcome. So three shifts that will really help you with this, is first off, the acceptance of the opposite.
21:31Accept the opposite of what you want. If you can accept, instead of trying to attract love or relationship, if you can accept being single and enjoy the process,
21:40you will be more free, and you will then let go of resistance of trying to control the outcome.
21:47You can also have a desire without believing that you need to manage it yourself. You can set up the conditions, but you don't have to control.
21:58It's like, can you make a plant grow? It's like, you can put the plant in the sun and water it, but you don't make it grow. God does that.
22:07So this allows you to accept. The opposite allows you to balance out the energy, not have aversion. Because both aversion
22:15and acceptance are what blocks that which you want.
22:20So becoming more neutral allows you to become the kind of person that generates state from within. The kind of person that feels the uncomfortable emotions that come up, which is why when you let go and actually embrace and accept the feelings underneath the surface, that's where things will really shift.
22:38So for me in the house situation, it was accepting feeling trapped. Accepting the burden.
22:45Allowing myself to feel it. Allowing myself to to embrace that. When it comes to love and relationship, you might say, oh, you feel lack or scarcity or you feel alone.
22:57If you can embrace it, accept it, you will begin to, in a way,
23:04CTAreverse the backwards law, the law of reversed effort, because then it's like no longer avoiding it, and then you start you'll start to feel more free. And then, of course, as well, you can take action without being attached to the outcome.
23:20CTAIt doesn't mean you'd be passive, by the way. It doesn't mean the backwards laws like you don't take action. You just wait for things.
23:25CTAYou just have to get into energetic flow. This is about also moving through the process, not waiting till the desire goes.
23:46CTAbut recognize that you can bring your energy back and put the energy inside your state. And if you wanna learn exactly how to apply the backwards law and to actually let go, will completely transform your life, here's the most popular video I have on letting go. It's got over 2,000,000 views.
24:01CTAHere's the comments to see what's possible once you watch it. Go ahead and watch this video next. Learn how to let go, and learn how to actually apply what you just learned.
— full transcript
§ 05 · For Joe
Resistance is the cost of needing a specific outcome.
WHAT TO LEARN
The more urgently you require something to happen, the more energetic friction you introduce — and the practical release is not pretending you do not care, but genuinely accepting that the opposite outcome might be okay.
- Effort directed at forcing an outcome creates resistance proportional to the effort — the harder you push, the more friction you generate.
- Your emotional state infuses the situation independent of your actions, which is why the same action lands differently when you are anxious versus neutral.
- Protest behaviors — seeking reassurance, over-checking, controlling — are attempts to avoid feeling an underlying emotion, not strategies for achieving the goal.
- Accepting the opposite of what you want is not resignation; it removes the aversion relationship that was generating resistance.
- Scarcity thinking treats opportunity as finite and time-pressured, which is precisely the mental state that narrows what is actually available to you.
- Feeling relief when a deal falls through is data — the nervous system registered something the conscious mind did not, and that signal is worth taking seriously.
- Desire and lack are both okay to feel openly; suppressing either one creates more energetic resistance than simply experiencing it.
- You can take action, follow through on commitments, and still be unattached to the outcome — these are not contradictory positions.
- The underlying fear driving most protest behaviors is not missing the goal but what missing it would mean about you — addressing that layer directly is more effective than managing symptoms.
- Being good either way is not a passive posture; it is a position of strength because your safety is no longer held hostage by an external result.
