HealthyGamerGG - Why You Can't Just "Rewire" Your Brain

Episode Date: September 7, 2026

In this episode, Dr. K takes a critical look at popular advice on how to "reprogram" your brain. Reacting to a claim by Shopify's CEO that writing a simple affirmation for a week cured his lifelong fear of public speaking, Dr. K explains the scientific flaws of success stories, the mechanics of trauma, and the ancient yogic tools of Sankalpa and Klishta that can actually rewire your mind. Mental health resources designed by Dr. K and made with love: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQTalk to a HG Coach 1-on-1: https://bit.ly/46bIkdoDr. K's NEW Guide to Love, Sex, & Relationships: https://bit.ly/4dO3x0VDr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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environment focuses mine, once the mind is focused, to absorb whatever is happening to you. If you tell yourself, I will write down a hundred times something about yourself, that writes it into the neural frontal cortex at such a deep level

that your brain will start with consolidating. YouTube that I was terrified of public speaking until I just sat down for like a week and every day I spent like 10 minutes just writing that I like public speaking. I love public speaking. You wrote that down? Yeah, like a week later and I knew it's not this works when you know what you're doing. It's like it's not like a placebo. It's like it's actually like you just actively change your new frontal cortex. So I use this often. I also write to my sad message in a bottle. You write messages to yourself? Yeah. Affirmations or just? No, it's just like like that I feel like something is like there's something I figured out that I really like.

And now I have to write a scheduled message to myself to remember it. Because like I need space to reputation on the idea. Thoughts? I love this stuff. So this is why I like science. Before I went to med school, I was gallivanting around the mountains, the Himalayas, and wandering across ashrams. And I encountered someone who was like, hey, this guy had cancer.

And he went to an ashrum. He meditated. He learned to play a home. flute. And what he did was play the flute every day for four days. And cancer was cured. And so here's the tricky thing. You may say that sounds like BS. I'm not saying it's BS. I mean, it could have happened. Maybe the flute cured cancer. The issue of science is reproducibility. So here's what bothers me about things like this. So here's a person, Toby, who's the CEO of Shopify, founder of Shopify, who says, hey, I did this thing and I transformed my fear of public speaking. Now I love it. I

just wrote this thing to myself 10 times. My question is, what is the reproducibility of it? If human beings on the planet write something to themselves 10 times every day for a week, will their fears disappear? Is that, is it that simple? And the answer is, I don't think so. We're going to do a really simple, scientific, kind of like, not experiment, but just, I'm going to ask you all. So what we're going to do is look at Tobias Lutke's Wikipedia page. And I'm going to ask you guys a question. Of the variables that we look at, which of the following do you think has the, if we duplicate this thing again, which one do you think has the biggest impact on overcoming a fear of public speaking? Early life. Born in Germany, received a personal computer

at the age of six, rewriting code for games he played at the age of 11 or 12, graduated from school and entered an apprentice program, became a computer programmer after the 10th grade, lived in Ottawa home of his parents, parents-in-law, Bruce and Dale, who were federal public servants, provided seed capital for his startup, et cetera, et cetera. So which of these variables, writing something in a journal 10 times a day for a week, or being given a gift, being supported professionally, being supported financially, being encouraged professionally, I have an idea to start a company. Like, I have this idea of self-agency and determination, right?

Like, I can shape the world. And then the universe shows up and they're like, hey, here's a pile of capital. Go do your thing, bra. I'm not saying the guy isn't amazing. And this is what kind of bothers me about, like, why I don't like advice from successful people. Because the advice from the successful people almost never takes into account the variables that are actually responsible for the change. Right. So this is the problem is like if you listen to advice for successful people, a simple example is myself.

is myself. I applied to medical school 120 times over the course of three years. And if I tell you, hey, if you want to go to med school, you keep applying and keep applying and keep applying until you make it. That advice doesn't work for you. You know why? Because my parents are both doctors.

Because when I had to pay $10,000 a year to just apply to medical school and fly around for interviews or fill out applications, I had mommy and daddy playing for it. Your mileage may vary. My strategy won't work for you. So if you guys want to know how to actually rewire your brain, let's understand a couple of things.

So this guy says, I sat down and I wrote, I'm not afraid of public speaking. I love public speaking, whatever, for 10 days. I want you guys to think about the cognitive work that happens before you sit down. Did he just wake up on Monday morning at 6 a.m. and say, oh, this is a random thing. Let me just reprogram myself. Or is this something that he had struggled with for years? As he developed, he was like, oh, this is a problem, this is a problem, this is where I struggle with it, I wish I wasn't this way. Is this something, or there are other things in his life that he struggled with than he intentionally focused on?

He's like, hey, I'm going to solve this problem. Is he gifted, experienced, call it whatever you want at taking something that does not work in his life, addressing it with his focus, energy and attention, and then that thing gets something. fixed. Hey, all. If y'all want to learn a little bit more, by all means, watch another YouTube video. If you guys are actually interested in finding the practical tools to change on your own, that's where memberships comes in. And if y'all are interested in getting some help or achieving a particular milestone four weeks, eight weeks or 12 weeks from now, check out coaching. So if y'all are interested, check out the link in the description below. So I think the key thing here is it's not the final action that is responsible for the change.

I want you guys to imagine, if you're the CEO of Shopify and you're afraid of public speaking, all of the moments that go into the drive, the energy, the desire to no longer fear public speaking, all the struggles he's had, all the times he's been anxious before he goes up. That's where the money is, right? And this is why you guys have to be really careful about even taking advice from people like myself. because, you know, the way that you play a hand of cards, right, the way that you bet in a poker hand is contextual. So part of what we try to do on this channel is not teach you what to do. Do this thing and it will work. Reproduce these actions and you will get the same results. That's not what we try to do.

Because I just don't think it works, right? I learned this lesson the hard way. Like, I tried to do it the other way and it just doesn't work. I am O. I could be wrong, right? Because even that conclusion is based on my perception of it. So how do you actually rewire your thinking? And hey, like, I'm all for it. If you guys want to try just writing affirmations to yourself for 10 minutes a day for a week and like give it a shot. Like see your mileage could work. I could be wrong. This guy could be right. I mean, he's a CEO of Shopify. I'm just some fuck nut on the internet. So maybe he's right and I'm wrong. It's worth considering. So what I'm going to teach you all now is if you guys want to know how to rewire on a most fundamental level, here's my understanding of it. So let's take something like fear of public speaking. And this can be divided into two things. What goes in? and what comes out. This is the first thing.

Okay, now this may sound kind of confusing, so let me explain. Let's take the example of public speaking. When I'm trying to speak in public, as I approach that situation, something bubbles up within me, right? Fear, what will people think? So that is what is coming out of my mind. That can be modified. And we can really train what goes in, okay?

And this guy's focusing on what goes in. He's like, if you repeat this 10 times a day for a week, it'll work. So let's talk about what goes in. So how do you implant things into your mind? Basic thing to understand. The mind has activity, okay? The greater the activity, the more stuff bounces off if you try to put it in. So if I'm trying to study chemistry, okay?

And my mind is distracted. I'm not going to learn. If my mind is focused and I'm studying chemistry, this will go in. Right? So if we look at medications like stimulant medications, what does a stimulant medication do? A stimulant medication turns your mind from this into this. Things sink into a focused mind. And since things sink into a focused mind, that's why we get traumatized.

Let's understand this. So if you have low self-esteem and you think to yourself, oh my God, I'm a terrible human being, I suck, I'm a loser. Let's think about what was the state of your mind when you learned that? So for me, when I was getting my ass bullied and beat or whatever on the playground at school, my mind was not distracted. I remember the feeling of like I would go out onto the playground. And I'd like play around the edges.

I'd stay away from the high value playground objects. There was like trees around. So I'd just like walk around the trees in the back until my bullies were occupied. And once they were occupied, if the seesaw or the swings or whatever were open, like I would go over there and play. And then if they caught me, they would form a ring around me. And when they form a ring around me, I'm not distracted. Do you guys get that? My mind is laser focused on the bullies.

And then whatever they say sinks in. So the reason trauma, like the mechanism of trauma is distracted mind, environment focuses mind. Once the mind is focused, whatever they put in, this guy talks about rewiring your frontal lobes. That I don't even understand. That doesn't make sense to me. Beliefs, I don't think exist in the frontal lobes, but that's neither here nor there. The mind becomes laser focused and then you absorb whatever is happening to you. But it's not just trauma, right?

Good things can happen that way as well. Like, you can be crying and thinking like, oh, my God, I'm such a loser and your crush walks up to you. And then you're laser focused. And your crush, baby, I love you. It breaks my heart to see. And she doesn't say they love you. It breaks my heart to see you suffering. What can I do to help?

And it's like, oh, my God. Like, that sinks in. Like, oh, feels so good. I feel amazing. Everything is possible in life. Let's go. Right. So this is important to understand.

You can control what goes into your mind. And the simplest way to control it is by altering your focus. The more distracted you are, the less things sink in. The more focused you are, the more they sink in. And now we get to something really interesting. Maybe he's right. So it's not the fact that he's writing. What is his focus?

How has he prepared for this? When he sits down and he's like, this is it, baby, I can do this. I no longer fear writing. If his focus is laser-thin, I mean, laser-focused. And he says this to himself, it can work. That is the idea behind the Sankalpa in yoga nidra. So in some meditative techniques, what we actually do is attain a very, very, very, very still level of mind, as close to completely empty as we can. And then we just put one drop in.

And when one drop goes and that's what's tricky is the moment that you, Sankalpa is a resolve or something that you kind of repeat to yourself. But it's not the number of times you repeat. It is repeating it once, twice, or. three times when you are in a very, very, very still state of mind. And that reprograms really well. I've used it a lot with my patients. And we're talking about people who are in their 60s who have had years of narcissistic abuse, who have really low self-esteem.

Hard to say that this is what cures them. It doesn't cure. But we're also doing psychotherapy and there may be medication involved. And so everything kind of goes together. So I'm not saying that Sankalpa is like the only thing. There are some people who are super pro yoga and anti-psychiatry will say Sancalpa can solve everything. I personally think that that could be true,

but until I see the data to support that, I can't say that. Key thing, though, is the more inactive your mind is, the more flat your mind is, the more things will go in. So other interesting example of this is dissociation. So oftentimes when I talk to my patients who are dissociating,

what they'll tell me is they'll hyper-focus on, like, neutral things. So if something bad is happening to them, all they can see is like some picture out of a window. They're like looking out the window and that's all they see. So they fill their mind up with this benign thing while the bad thing is happening to them in an effort to protect their mind. So we even see it in dissociation. So steal your mind, then things will go in.

And we know this, right? Because if you're distracted, if you're like trying to learn calculus in a burning building, like not going to work great. You're trying to learn calculus and someone is like coughing or like farting or like whatever. If you're trying to learn calculus and there's some guy on the internet who's streaming about how it's hard to learn calculus and you're trying to do that. while you're studying calculus not going to work. Focused mind allows things to go in. So he could have done that. Second thing, what comes out?

This is something that we talk about with something called glistah. Okay, so I think this is the most important tool. We teach all these tools over on the membership side. So here's the other interesting thing. If you have a fear of something, that fear of that object, what you're afraid of doesn't come from just that thing. What do I mean by that? The fear that you have of something comes from your purpose.

past experience, right? So there is the fear of being on stage and public speaking. And then before you're even on stage, you're afraid of it. You're like backstage and you're not even there, but simply the thought of it evokes all of this fear. And then you carry that fear with you on stage. You're afraid way before you even go on stage, which I know sounds simple, right? But I want you guys to think about this precisely. What is that fear? Because the fear of being on stage is a piece. The fear of going on stage is a way bigger piece. In fact, that piece is so big that sometimes you don't even end up on stage. You end up with avoidance.

This is the fear that you carry around with you. And this is the fear that if you can learn to separate that, there is the thing itself, and then there is all of the dormant fear that you carry that gets piled up on top of the thing. This is something that all the Gen Z kids are talking about when they talk about getting triggered. What is it to be triggered? To be triggered is when you have a pile of dormant stuff that gets activated in a particular circumstance. And what makes public speaking really hard is all of that dormant stuff comes up and then it's like you're dealing with way too much. So this is really interesting. There's an exercise you can do so you can train yourself to remove the past from the present in the moment, in your mind.

Whenever you encounter something, ask yourself, what does my mind add to the equation? What is actually generated from this moment and what is generated from the past, not generated, what is carried from the past. What is generated from the moment? What is carried from the past? Ask yourself this question. And this is what's really important because you'll say, but Dr. K, I have good reason to be afraid because this did happen. This is my past experience and all this kind of stuff. Fine.

I'm not saying that you're foolish for having fears. What I'm saying is that, I don't know if this makes sense, this is such a different way of thinking. It's a yogic way of thinking. The pain that you experience in your mind today is like mathematically generated from your current surroundings from a mechanistic standpoint, plus your past experiences. Those two things combined to create your current experience. If you can literally wall off or remove that past contribution, your life will become so much easier. And that is what yogis do with glistah. Glistah means coloring.

Coloring is what they noticed is that when I, when I'm feeling, facing this particular person, I'm not dealing with this criticism alone. My mind is adding a lot of things to it. Great example is this. I get a phone call from some people and I just look at who it is. And already I'm like, oh my God. I don't even know what they're asking me about. They could be like, hey, I won the lottery and I want to give you half, bruh. Just the simple, this thing vibrating and seeing a particular person is calling on the caller ID triggers all these kinds of emotions. And here's what's really crazy about that is nothing bad has even happened and I'm already torturing myself. The crazy thing that I learned in India is most of our suffering from a

mechanistic standpoint. I don't mean like most of our suffering is made by us in a good. No, I mean like if you look at it like I play a game of Dota 2 and some guy, some support plus five picks pudge and my mental is already ruined. They could be a smurf. It could be a great game, they could be amazing at Pudge. Maybe they're swapping with somebody else. Like, who knows? There's all kinds of things. But even the semblance of something in my mind creates suffering right there and then. So this is where the answer is even wilder than the premise, which is what do I need to do? Nothing. What you need to do is notice it. That's it. So notice what of this moment am I carrying from the past? In the moment that you separate those two things

apart, the size of the stuff from the past actually starts to decrease. It happens automatically. Because when there's a rush of emotion and you feel overwhelmed, then you can't do anything, but it's starting to separate it out. It's magical. It takes a while to really work. And if you guys want more details, check out the glitch to the lecture. Because we talk about this principle for two hours and what to do with it. Okay. So if you want to rewire, you got to understand two things. It's what goes in and what comes out. A focused mind is how you implant. things and whatever amount of trash is down there will be floated to the surface and notice what is from the moment, what is from the past. Simplest way to rewire yourself will change the way that you

move through the world because you learn how to let things in and you also learn how to separate out the bad stuff from the present. And then you can just like answer a phone call and then it's still a coin flip whether it's a mess or not. And to be clear, like I don't think people are stupid for doing this is how human beings work. The basic issue is that we were not taught how we work. We are not formally educated in navigating this human instrument. Hey, y'all, thanks for watching the video. If y'all are struggling with something emotionally heavy,

like public speaking or something that you struggle with, we've got a two-hour video on emotional processing that I highly recommend that you check out. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers, like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always 375. and get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more.