Change Your Brain Every Day - The Right Questions You Need To Ask Yourself to Learn Your Purpose

Episode Date: November 15, 2018

Inspiration (or lack of) plays a huge part of a person’s overall sense of well-being. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen give you a short list of questions to ask yourself to discover what inspires you. Knowing the answers to these questions can give you a heightened sense of confidence to live your best life full of purpose and meaning.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the 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 nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. You're listening to Inspiration Week from Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, our series on my new book. We hope you get it and if you do, if you download it or you buy it online or pre-order it, you go to feelbetterfast.com. We have some amazing gifts for you including Tana's brand new cookbook, The 10-Day Brain Boost, as well

as some bonus audios, the first chapter of the introduction, and we would just be so grateful. In this series, we have talked about whenever you write a review of the podcast, you inspire us. You actually drip dopamine into our brains. So what do you have for dripping dopamine? So this one is titled Useful for for the entire family by BDOU. That's their BDOU one. That's their tagline. There's so much great information in these podcasts. I love listening to them. I picked up the book, change your brain, change your life. And it has literally changed our whole family's lives. These podcasts are proving to be just as useful.

Thank you. That's what we want. I mean, ultimately, it's about get this information and then give it away because it is in the act of giving because when you give it away, you actually create your own support group, making it more likely you'll stay on the program forever. And so in inspiration, we're talking about ways to create joy. So it's the one-page miracle. Know what you want. Stop dumping dopamine, like high sugar foods, obviously drugs, scary movies, things that dump dopamine and wear out your pleasure centers.

You want to drip dopamine. Right. So holding hands, having purpose. Hugging, kissing people you love, doing something nice. Doing something nice. And then we were talking about living each moment with purpose. And we talked about Viktor Frankl and courage in the face of difficulty, love doing purposeful work. But there's a great TED Talk that I love on how to know your purpose

in five minutes. And you can watch it. It's Adam Leipzig's, L-E-I-P-Z-I-G, TED Talk. And it's so simple, but it's so powerful. And so five questions. So number one is, who are you? I'm Tana. Tana, right? I'm Daniel. What do you love to do? So I love to help the people I love, and I love to do? So I love to help the people I love and I love to teach.

Yeah. I love doing karate. I mean, there are a lot of things I love, but as far as purposeful things, I love helping people that I love. So it's not a surprise given that you're a nurse. Right. Right. And I'm a doctor and I love to write.

I love to teach. I love to help people heal. The third question, so who are you, Tana? What do you love to do? I love to help. And I also love to speak and write. Speak and write. So question three, whom do you do it for?

Or how does your work connect you to others? So first and foremost is my family. I'm clear on that? So first and foremost is my family. I'm clear on that. So first and foremost is my family. Next would be our community and other people and whoever else wants help, really. Okay, so my name is Tana. I love to help and speak and write and teach.

I do it for my family and I do it for our community. Fourth question, what do those people want or need from you? So that's an interesting question. So if I were to think about what they say to me, some of them actually do need something like as simple as, oh, I need advice or coaching with my health. But what I normally hear is that they need a strong role model or inspiration somehow. So I think that what I'm giving them is information, but I don't, that's not what I hear back from people. Does that make sense? They need you to teach and inspire them. Yeah. I think what they're really looking for. Because they want the information, but they also want the passion you have behind it.

Yeah, I think you can get the information almost anywhere. I think you need a delivery system as well. The fifth question is how do they change as a result of what you do? My opinion is I think they start to believe they can do it and they begin to do it. And some people like Angie lost over 100 pounds. Right, because she believed she could do it for the first time.

That's my point. It's not that I did it for her. She finally believed she could do it. And your family changes. So empowerment is the word I'm looking for. So you empower people to believe. That they are powerful.

Yeah. Awesome. So mine, my name is Daniel. I love optimizing people's brains and inspiring them to care about it. I love doing it within the context of our team here at Amen Clinics. We do it for our families, those who come to our clinics, read our books, and watch our shows. The people we touch want to suffer less, to feel better, be sharper, and have greater control over their own lives. As a result of what we do, people change by having better brains and better lives.

They suffer less, become happier and healthier and pass it on to others. So notice that two of the five questions are about me, three of them about other people. There's a Chinese saying that goes, if you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody. That's so true. Happiness is found in helping others. So when someone asks you what you do, and this just happened to us recently when we went to an event, when you're at a gathering and someone asks, what do you do? Answer them by telling them the answer to question number five. So in my example, when people ask me what I do, I'll often

say as a result of what we do, people have better brains and better lives. They suffer less, become happier and healthier and pass it on to others. And that's so much better than to say i'm a writer and doctor and tana's husband by answering that simple question and in your case it's i empower people with information with information so they can so they can change their lives transform their so by answering that simple question i get to share and you get to share the passion, the purpose of your life with many of the people, which increases dopamine and keeps your pleasure centers healthy. So those of you that are listening, how would you answer that question? So remember, who are you? What do you love to do?

Who do you do it for? What do those people want or need from you? And how do they change as a result of what you do? Quickly, to finish Inspiration Week, the fifth strategy to create lasting joy is you have to start living with the end in mind. When I was in college, one of the most important classes I ever took was a class on death and dying. Me too.

I had to take one on death and dying also. So interesting. Psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, probably the most famous person to study death and dying in her book on death and dying says it is the denial of death that is partially responsible for people living empty, purposeless lives. Isn't that interesting? For when you live as if you'll live forever, it becomes too easy to postpone the things you know you must do. Yeah. I think that's so true. So, and I know it sounds so morbid and actually Chloe, our daughter, our teenage daughter used to get mad at me. Now she understands. She's old enough now to understand. Um, cause, cause we sort of talk that way in our

house. We speak in a way that probably sounds morbid to a lot of other people. So I love the question that we often ask when things are not going well and not going right. You know, even things that seem big to a lot of people. It's like, does this have eternal value? You know, and then the next part that follows that in my mind, especially as somebody who's been sick and had to sort of face that early on in life, that idea. You know, none of us are getting out of here alive. The question is, what are you going to do while you're here? Right?

None of us are staying forever. So what are you going to do while you're here? Right? None of us are staying forever. So what are you going to do with the time you have here? And it just changes how you see things. And I think so many people are afraid of death or afraid they haven't done what they were put on earth to do. And then the last part of creating lasting joy is share your most purposeful stories. So the stories that really make your heart sing, share them with the people you care about. And one of the things I love doing with my grandparents was to have them share their most powerful stories. Chloe still loves that. We'll be driving and when my mom and I are together, she wants to hear stories from the past. I'm like, no, let's not do this. It's traumatizing to me. But she loves it. Well, you have to supervise some of those stories. Don't tell them everything.

I'm teasing. I'm teasing. But yeah. So there are tiny habits to boost inspiration. When I need to get work done, put down the phone or put it on do not disturb and stop the constant pings or drips of dopamine that try to addict you. Read your one-page miracle every day and ask, will my behavior today get me what I want? When I get upset, I'll ask myself, and you and I do this a lot, does this have eternal value? And before bed, I'll write down one purposeful thing I did today. You can feel better fast and make it last. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way cookbook we give away every month.