Change Your Brain Every Day - The Importance of Mentors on your Physical and Emotional Health

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Our brain health and the way we see and interact with the world is influenced by a multitude of factors. One of the most important is the mentors we meet throughout our lives - the people that tear us down to (hopefully) build us back stronger. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen discuss the ‘Teachers / Coaches Dragon’ and the advantages of finding one that will push you to be your best.   For more info on Dr. Daniel Amen's new book, "Your Brain is Always Listening", visit https://yourbrainisalwayslistening.com/  

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back, everyone. We're talking about the they, them, and other dragons. Today, we're going to talk about mentors and how important mentors are to your mental and physical and brain health. But you have a review. I have a review and this is from Family Therapist Unplugged by Quincy Rose. This podcast has transformed not only me personally, but also my outlook on my mental health and physical disability, which has therefore revolutionized my practice as a family therapist. I've realized that I can help my people view their insecurities as a strength. If they can actually view my own most crippling insecurity as a strength. I've had three traumatic

brain injuries before the age of 19, which has led to focus impairments as well as challenges walking. The Ammons approach to understanding the function of every change or difference in our brain and body is what started the process of viewing myself and the world differently. And I'm going to challenge you, Quincy, to use the term other-abled instead of disabled. So. There you have it. There you have it. All right. Today, we're going to talk about mentors. In the book, I talk about teachers and coaches, dragons, and how important they are. And you actually write about mentors a lot that that's very huge in my life, important to you. Now, all of us have had terrible teachers and some of us have had terrible coaches.

But we've also typically think of Mrs. Rice, my third grade teacher. I adored her. She was cute. Yes, it's true. But she was also present and encouraging. And I just wanted to go to school so much. So I still remember her and then Sister Anastasia, the complete opposite. In grade. I just was in trouble all the time. These people really matter. And I think we don't value teachers as much perhaps as we could or we should, that they are so formative in helping to create healthy people.

Absolutely. I believe in having mentors in pretty much every area of my life, but especially the areas where I struggle the most. So if I'm struggling in an area, like I love doing an assessment of like, these are my strengths, these are my weaknesses and where the weaknesses are is where I want to make sure I have someone who is sort of helping me in that,

you know, with those, those difficult points. And when you seek a mentor, don't seek to get, get, get, seek to give, how can you make your mentor's life better? Because they're more likely to want to be helpful. Also don't seek someone who's just going to give you praise. Like for me, my favorite teachers were not the teachers who were just nice and always, you know, complimentary. Those weren't my favorite teachers. My favorite teachers were the ones who pushed me. They were the ones who I typically liked the teachers. I had the best relationships with the teachers that

oftentimes other people didn't like. So, which is weird, but it's because I saw the value in how hard they pushed. Like they, I could not, if they were mean, not if they were unfair, but in the challenges, I like to be pushed. I don't want someone who's going to let me not be my best. If that makes sense. I want someone who's going to push me to be my best. Mediocrity is not to tell the absolutely story. Yeah.

So still to this day, one of my very favorite professors, I was taking anatomy and phys and everyone told me, don't take this guy's class. Do not take Mr. Rosario's class. He is so hard. He's so mean. So he used to teach gross anatomy in the medical school over at Loma Linda. And so I'm like, well, I just need to take whatever class I can get into because these classes were so impacted. And so I couldn't even get into his class because it was so impacted. And so what I was doing was I was petitioning the class. Everyone said, oh, don't

worry, you'll get into his class because so many people, they're going to drop like flies after the first quiz. So I kept showing up and he told me, don't bother. Just don't even stay because my class is too full. You're not getting in. And I'm like, well, is that an order? Or can I stay if I want to? He's like, you can stay if you want to, but you're not getting in. So I stayed all the way through the first test and I aced the first test.

Well, after the first test, a bunch of people left. And so he's like, fine, if you want in, you can get in. And he was like, he's very gruff. He's very intense, gruff. And he was, it's funny. He's this redheaded Puerto Rican guy, big gruff voice. And he was just very intense. I don't know why I resonated with him right away. It was very weird. Because of your stepfather. I don't know, but I just liked him. There was something about him that I just resonated with.

And I liked, I liked how direct he was. He was just very intense, very direct. And so I took copious notes in this class and we got to the second test and I got an A on the test, but I got like a 94 and I missed this one question. And I'm like, that question is wrong. It's wrong. I took notes. That's a bad question. So I raised my hand and I tell him it's a bad question and he gets mad in front of the class And i'm like miss rosario. I don't mean to be disrespectful. That's a bad question I have my notes. I took copious notes. I wrote it verbatim we get into this argument He's like did you write it out exactly how I said I said, yep And I handed him my notes and he's like, are you sure I go?

Absolutely, he looks at it. He gets like he he gets all he looks like he's gonna scream at me and all of a sudden he goes fine absolutely and he changes the question and from that point on he called me absolutely for the rest of the course but i loved him and he gave me my letter of recommendation to get into school to get into loma linda's nursing school and um he pushed me to be the best i could be he was not going to take anything less. And those are the types of mentors I like. I know not everybody likes that. You have to pick what fits you. So where do you think you found that strength?

Well, I think for me, I didn't really have a choice. It was a survival skill. No, you totally had a choice. You could have become a drug addict. Well, I mean, I could have crumbled. Right? I mean, we could have explained why your life fell apart, but your life didn't fall apart. You know, I think part of it is, it was model, grit was modeled for me.

You were a little bit older too, right? Were you like 22 or 23? Yeah, I was like, I was in my early twenties. But grit was modeled for me. And also by my mother my mom she's one tough woman um but but also you know i'd fallen down enough and wasn't really rescued so it was sink or swim so i it's all in my book the relentless courage of a scared child i mean i had some tough tough experiences thing that can come out of that, I remember when I was in medical school, I had that same tendency.

If there was a bad question, I would go talk to the teacher about it. And when I went to medical school, I was in the charter class. It was the first class of that medical school. And I was actually in medical school in Missouri for a couple of months before ORU opened up. And I was part of the bitch committee, which stood for blatant indiscretions by teachers committed against helpless students. And so when I got to ORU, I'm like, and I'd see some bad questions on tests. I'm like, guys, we need to form a bitch committee. Now, ORU is a Christian school. And so we renamed it the Amos Committee because Amos was the prophet in the Old Testament who told the women of Israel they were fat cows. So we started the Amos committee.

And when you don't think things are right. Now, we had one professor and he wouldn't change. He was so rigid. I had one like that, too. He just wouldn't change it because he had to be right, which is not good. I mean, flexibility is an important mental health skill. But everybody else was reasonable. And, you know, the idea of the test is to just, do you know the information?

And if you don't word it right in a grammatical sense, or it could be taken multiple ways, but the principle is when things aren't right, it's okay to say they're not right. And that way you actually make the teachers better because they're more thoughtful. Somebody will challenge them. Well, and what are they there for? They're there to make. Somebody, they're there to make you

think they're there to make you, you know, question and think, and, you know, I mean, sometimes they get a little missed, but, um, if they're a really good teacher, they, they like that you're thinking and they like that you're pushing. Right. So the impact of teachers and coaches just so important. So if you're a teacher or you're a coach, Tana and I applaud you and don't torment. Well, and the best mentors and coaches are ones who don't tell you what to do. They lead you to figure it out through questions.

They lead you to, to make the decisions. They lead you to, to make the decisions. They lead you to understand, figure out what it is you want. So questions are the answer. You've sometimes heard that, that saying, you actually really helped me, especially even with parenting, with, with listening because I have a tendency to want it like, Oh, let me show you, you know, let me tell you. But as a coach, the best thing to do is use the proper questions and listen and let them figure it out. Because no one argues with their own decisions. Right.

Or if they do, you, mentors that you have had. What's your brain listening to? And thank God in medical school, I had some amazing mentors. I became a psychiatrist because of Stan Wallace. When my first wife tried to kill herself, I took her to see Dr. Wallace. He was the chairman of psychiatry at ORU. And I just loved him. I loved what he did. I mean, I became a psychiatrist basically because of him.

And a number of other physicians there was very special. So I don't think I ever told you this, but you know that I didn't have like a special love for anything psych related when I was younger. So I was like, no walkie talkies. I want them intubated, sedated. I don't want to talk about warm, fuzzy feelings. Yeah, you need to tell them what no walkie-talkies means. Intubated, sedated, out. You didn't want to nurse people who could interact with you. No, I wanted like blood, guts, or skull split open.

Like that was my thing. Because my own past was crazy enough and I just didn't want to deal with like, yeah, addiction, you know, chaos, trauma. That was not where I was going with my nursing career. But when I did psych nursing, I knew it's not what I wanted to do. My psych professor said I had a knack for it and wanted me to switch direction. She wanted me to go into psych nursing.

And I'm like, absolutely not. She's like, you have a gift for this. You should do this. I never told you this. So she was trying to convince me so if she saw actually right if she saw me now she would just she'd probably laugh well because she was right once you tame your dragon from the past see that's one of my dragons speaking in my ear, like. Once you tame your dragons, you can live your potential because you're actually very helpful. That was a reflexive. That was just a reflexive, you know, a reflex. That was a reflex to the pain from my own past.

I would call it psychobabble. When we come back, we're going to talk about friends, popular kids, mean girls, and bully drag. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics,

use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.