Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - Crippling Anxiety: How I Beat Panic Attacks to Become a 3x USA Memory Champion | John Graham

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

John Graham went from being a shy, anxious kid to becoming a three-time USA Memory Champion and performing before 400 million viewers in China. Despite these achievements, John faced severe anxiety and daily panic attacks, which led him to confront and release suppressed emotions. Today, he has transformed his struggles into strength, helping others unlock their true potential. In this episode, John joins Ilana to share how he overcame severe anxiety through unconventional methods, the importance of facing your triggers, and the powerful connection between emotional healing and peak performance. John Graham is a three-time USA Memory Champion, memory improvement expert, and a featured competitor on FOX’s Superhuman. He holds achievements like memorizing 229 names and faces in 15 minutes. As a speaker and coach, John helps others overcome anxiety, build confidence, and reach their potential. In this episode, Ilana and John will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (01:42) Discovering the Power of Memory (05:03) Mastering Memory Techniques as a Shy, Anxious Kid (08:46) Finding Fulfillment Beyond Accomplishments (11:53) Beating Crippling Anxiety in Memory Competitions (14:30) Building Mental Toughness Under Pressure (19:11) Competing Before 400 Million Viewers in China (22:51) The Hidden Cost of Suppressing Emotions (27:47) Getting to the Root Cause of Anxiety (37:53) The Secret to Remembering Names and Faces (39:54) How to Memorize Faster (41:44) Using Visual Stories to Ace Tests (43:00) Releasing Anxiety by Leaning Into the Pain John Graham is a three-time USA Memory Champion, memory improvement expert, and a featured competitor on FOX’s Superhuman. Known for his ability to memorize extraordinary amounts of information, John has captivated audiences worldwide. He holds achievements like memorizing 229 names and faces in 15 minutes. As a speaker and coach, John helps others overcome anxiety, build confidence, and reach their potential. Connect with John: John’s Website: memoryjohn.com/about/  John’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/memoryjohn Resources Mentioned: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer: https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Remembering-Everything/dp/0143120530 Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training

Kids are really, really good at memory. Why? Because they use their imagination. I'm 38 years old, and my imagination is as good as any seven-year-old. John Graham, three-time USA Memory Champion. I wasn't born with a gifted memory, photographic memory, anything like that.

It was all learned. As a child, I was very, very shy, reserved, cautious. So I thought, I'm going to win Grandmaster of Memory. So I trained for like four months, signed up for my first competition. My heart is pounding out of my chest and I bombed. I completely bombed in that competition. Every moment of your life that you've ever pushed away,

that you couldn't handle, it's still inside of you. It's depressed. I was having panic attacks every single day, multiple times a day. That's when I learned it was an emotional root issue. A lot of the people that will listen to this podcast, they're gonna sit in this board meeting and they have this great idea but they can't speak. What would you say to them? So how can I go in front of 400 million people and memorize 700 different things without collapsing to the ground? It's because... John Graham, three-time USA Memory Champion.

How cool is that? When somebody gives me their name, I don't even remember it for one second. Here he is memorizing like trisillion numbers in minutes. But John, you somehow taught yourself how to memorize. Tell me more about that. Yeah, I was working a boring cubicle job in Denver for a bankruptcy office. I mean, how much more boring can you get, right?

And I read an article about this book called Moonwalking with Einstein. And the subtitle is what grabbed me. It's called The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. So it was a book. It was a moment that grabbed my soul. Like it was a divine moment. I went to Barnes & Noble. I bought the book. I read the book.

So I was 27 years old at the time. I wasn't born with a gifted memory, photographic memory, anything like that. It was all learned. I took this book, I learned some techniques, and they're all visualization, imagination, connections, linking, making stories. I just went all out and I started learning like this was real.

People could literally memorize decks of cards within seconds. I ultimately was able to memorize a deck of cards in 21.5 seconds, like 52 cards in order, just to show you what's possible. I just took the book and ran with it. Then years later, I became three-time champ, Grand Master of Memory, International Performer, all from that, just learning how to do it on my own.

When I'm listening to this story, John, and I binge-watched some of your videos, to me that's mind-blowing because I'm the person that grew up without memory. That's my identity. I'm attaching to that identity. If somebody gives me their name, I don't remember it two seconds later. I ran away from any subjects that actually needed memory. So I made

sure to not go that route. And you just somehow woke up one day and decided to remember things. How is that even possible? I wanted to be somebody I wanted to be someone that everyone looked up to, and this was sort of an avenue for me. I thought, wow, I could be like a grandmaster. People will be in awe at what I do. I mean, it's funny because that's what happens now, right? People are in awe. It's not my motivation now, but yeah, I shattered my belief that I had a bad memory when I read

that book, because it is. It's just that it's a belief, right? We know how powerful beliefs are. But many of us don't know the alternative. We're not shown an embodiment of a person or someone who does that to know that it's possible. That's why this day and age is so powerful because we can pull up YouTube or this podcast and see,

oh my gosh, that's possible? That opens so many doors. So we're in a very wonderful time. That's what happened to me. That book just shattered everything that I knew. I thought photographic memory was a thing. I thought, I'd edit memory is a thing. It's not, it's largely a myth, believe it or not.

It's a TV. We watch too much TV and movies to be convinced of all these things. I learned what the mind wants. The mind loves visuals. The mind loves emotions. The minds love places. Like, think of a restaurant. Think of a specific restaurant like Applebee's in your hometown. I don't like Applebee's, but think of a specific restaurant. You walk into the restaurant in your mind right now and you go, oh yeah, I remember the time the waitress spilled all over my dad or the time we had this memory or the birthday party, you remember it instantly because of that location, we

attach memories to locations as well. So I use strategies that involve using what the mind wants in order to remember massive amounts of information. And we can all do this. So I want to go there later. I would love to hear some techniques, but I want to almost take you back in time to John the Child. Did you see yourself as a child with good memory? How did you see yourself? Good question. I don't get asked that often. As a child, I was very, very shy, reserved, cautious. I intuitively sought out the secrets of the universe.

I was very different, and I never showed that with other people. I think I tried to fit in too much and that blinded me for years. I just wanted to be like everyone else, but internally and it showed up later in high school and college where I wanted to be somebody, I wanted to show my creativity to the world, but I was afraid and we can talk about that later. There's a lot of wounding anxiety internally that suppressed what I had to bring to the world, but I was afraid. And we can talk about that later. There's a lot of wounding anxiety internally that suppressed what I had to bring to the

world, but I always felt sort of like an alien in this world. And maybe I am, you know, in a way I thought that many things were possible. And I think looking back, maybe I forgot about that over all the years, just trying to fit in and be okay with the crowd. So talk to me a little bit about that, because again, as kids, we always try to fit in and be okay with the crowd. So talk to me a little bit about that because again as kids we always try to fit in but that actually sometimes pulls the wrong things from us and we become somebody that we are not necessarily and I think for you there's also it came with anxiety and other things. Talk to me a little bit about that John.

Well you learn or I learned and it goes along with wanting to be somebody, or I said earlier, I wanted to be somebody. I learned that when the adults around me had a look of disappointment, or the parents or whatever, that I was doing something wrong. And internally, you try to figure out how to avoid moments like that,

because they're painful. Being embarrassed or having someone disappointed in you or your choices or what you do or your grades is extremely painful emotionally. That's the crux of where anxiety starts, is you try to build your life to avoid moments like that. That's why we're always thinking ahead of how to play out this scenario or what to say to this person so we don't

give too much and are hurt on the inside. That developed my programming. And the best way to cope was just to be vanilla or neutral around people and not give my bold opinions or not to show my true self too much because what if that's embarrassing or what if they make fun of that or things like that. So I was a very, very reserved person for many, many years, even around close friends and family. And that's interesting because now that I see you, it's really hard to imagine this, but do you have a moment that you remember as a child where that anxiety or those panic attacks just overwhelmed you? The panic attacks started more within the last five years, so really late.

The anxiety was probably always there. When I was 13 years old, I had a chest surgery. My sternum was caved in. I have a chest pole. I always joked you could eat cereal out of it if I laid down. It was cool. Everyone loved it,

but I was very insecure about it. So I got it fixed through surgery. At the same year, I changed schools. Completely new school, lockers, it was eighth grade, all new teachers, all new environment. Here I was, I couldn't carry more than five pounds of books to class because of my surgery. I was healing and I had to leave five minutes

early to avoid bumping into people. It was extremely scary, anxiety-filled time. I remember walking to class, Mr. Bailey's Woodshop class every morning, and I would look outside and if there was snow on the ground, I had this irrational thought that my mom was going to get into a car crash because of the icy and that she was going to die and I would worry about her all throughout class. You could tell in a looking back, anxiety was very, very prevalent then because of how unsafe I felt in my environment and all the things that were going on.

Wow. How did you cope with that? because of how unsafe I felt in my environment and all the things that were going on. Wow. How did you cope with that? Or how did you learn to cope with that? Or maybe that's many years later. Talk to me a little bit about that, John. We cope with it in so many different ways. I think me personally was productivity and achievement, accomplishment.

I always needed to be doing something, earning something, achieving something, making something. There's nothing wrong with that. But always being busy and rushed and thinking about the future can be very much a coping mechanism for that, just to bury those feelings. Which is true and also the achieving things, and we'll talk about it later,

the achieving thing is something that, it's like a carrot that always moves, right? There's always one more thing to achieve. Those who are on YouTube, you will see some of the awards behind you. There's always something to achieve. And that pole is never, like you never really have enough opportunity

to hold on to that pole for more than one second because the target just moved for you. So if that's the thing that makes you happy, it becomes really, really tough thing to chase, I assume. I earned my third trophy, my third USA Memory Championship trophy about a year ago. And it was amazing feeling. You're holding in your hand,

it's like everything I've imagined and earned and I love it, I'm so happy. And then I put it on my nightstand that night. And I felt immediately a little empty. And I thought, I need to prepare for next year. I stepped back for a second. I said, this never ends, does it? Like I had a real life changing moment.

I said, this never ever ends. And I realized all the money I was chasing, the tens of thousand dollars a month or whatever goal I had, or the travel, or the family, or the cars, all of that. Anything external from me can't give you lasting fulfillment or happiness or contentment ever. That's always been my driving force, achieve, get, acquire,

accomplish, accumulate, and it's always been my driving force, achieve, get, acquire, accomplish, accumulate, and it doesn't last. My life changed in that moment. It's not that those things are bad, it's not that I don't have those things, but to have that as your driving core force will never solve anything. All of this happiness that we could talk about, this is all internal,

it's an internal releasing of all the blockages in the way and the preferences that we have that block us from feeling that flow of happiness at all times. You are somehow growing up as kind of a shy individual, right, trying to fit in. You run into eventually, not even that early on, but you eventually run into this book that changes your life.

First of all, what made you say, you know what, I wanna tackle memory, right? Because again, we're all trying to always think what's next. And you had a steady job, boring, but steady. What made you say, you know what, this is the way to stand out. This is what I want to follow. I mean, this was not that long ago.

Yeah, that's a good question. I was sort of a jack of all trades at the time, meaning I was afraid to dive into one thing exclusively. Magic came to mind. Not that I was a magician or anything, but I was like, I want to be really cool. I want to have an ability that everyone drops their jaw, like wonders what I'm doing and like amazing.

When I read that book, I thought this is it. This is a superpower and not everyone knows about it. Everyone I meet to this day doesn't know about memory competitions in these fields. So I thought, I'm just going to go all out. I'm going to win Grandmaster of Memory, that certificate that's behind me. I'm going to win Grandmaster of Memory. That certificate that's behind me,

I wanted to win that in my first competition. So for that, at the time, I needed to memorize 1,000 digits in an hour in one of the events, 10 decks of cards in one hour in another event, and one deck of cards in under two minutes. I thought I could do that because when you read the book, you believe it's possible. So I trained for like four months,

signed up for my first competition. This was in China. That's another story. I'm traveling through China with my girlfriend, who's my wife now. Signed up. I'm sitting down at the first event, which is 30 minutes. We memorized names and faces on a piece of paper. There's like 300 people in the room memorizing, which basically looks like you're taking a test.

It's super intense. My heart is pounding out of my chest. Psychologically, I've never been that stressed before my life, never felt that much pressure. I almost got up and walked out. It was so intense. That's my story is how to overcome that, how to merge with that feeling.

But I almost gave up and I bombed. I completely bombed in that competition because there was a couple of core things I didn't know what to do, like how to review. So I started talking to some of the best people in the world. Nelson Dallas is a friend of mine. He's a five-time US champion. Boris Conrad from Germany. These people from all over the world were just gifting me insights.

Like you talk, meet people who know what they're doing as mentors, as friends, and I started befriending these people. Years later, I kept going. I learned from the mistakes I made. I learned how to train with that pressure, because the pressure was the number one challenge for me. It wasn't the memory techniques. I could do that.

I could visualize, I could store the information in my memory palaces. We talk about the techniques, but it was the pressure. It was sitting down and having your heart race out of your chest, having the voice in your head tell you, you already made a mistake, you're gonna F up, look at all these people, they're better than you.

And feeling like the mouth go dry, feeling the head go hot, all of those things I had to learn how to perform under that. I want to stop you here, John, because I think a lot of the people that will listen to this podcast, this is where they really need something, right? Like, they're going to sit in this board meeting and they have this great idea, but they can't speak, or somebody is now putting them in the spotlight and the words don't come out, or they come out, blah. This is exactly what a lot of people need to cope with.

It's that anxiety or that, how do I even concentrate at this level? How do I even get myself out of the pressure and actually perform. Two questions, what helped you then at that moment, the first time, but also you trained yourself to not get in those moments, I think, or at least I don't see these moments with you right now. So talk to me a little bit about what that looks like.

Yeah, this is the best question. I hope people really listen to this. At the time, I was told by another competitor, his name was Brad Zupp, a friend of mine, he trained in Starbucks. So he would go to Starbucks, he would get his memory gear out on the table and have people walking all around,

looking at him like, what's this guy doing? Having the noise and train under those conditions. So I thought, wow, that's really cool. I need to train under those conditions. Another champion, Ron White, he got a waterproof deck of cards and he would submerge himself under water, holding his breath and memorize,

under the psychological pressure. He actually hired a Navy SEAL to train him for the mental, psychological, physical pressure. So I took those to heart and I started doing them myself. I call this chaos training. So most memory competitors will sit in their room, they'll put these nice ear blockers over their ears, get nice and quiet,

and learn the techniques and memorize. There's nothing wrong with that. But clearly when you're in a competition or a TV show, there's massive pressure, you crumble, because you're not used to that. That's what wrong with that. But clearly when you're in a competition or a TV show, there's massive pressure. You crumble because you're not used to that. That's what happened to me. So I would literally get my stuff ready to memorize, my paper on the sheet, my timer ready.

I would get down, do 20 push-ups holding my breath. I would have already chugged a ton of water to make sure I had to pee like the moment I had to memorize. I would put a podcast in my ear as loud as I possibly could push it, and it was a podcast that I actually wanted to listen to that I hadn't heard before. So immediately, I got to pee, my heart's racing, I'm out of breath, I got the podcast mirror, I got my own voice in my head saying,

what are you doing? Your score sucks, you're already behind, you already can't focus. So I had all of that going on and still trying to bring my attention back onto what I was doing and let the training kick in, let the habits kick in. I would train that way. That is my secret for how I won my three championships, how I performed in front of

400 million people in China like you saw. That training is what I did. But here's the thing, that helped me get to the point where I realized what's the real root of this pressure. I realized, and everyone does this, every moment of your life that you've ever pushed away, that you couldn't handle something that was embarrassing,

a breakup, every moment of your life that you could not handle, in that moment, it's still inside of you. It's suppressed. So when we get poked by life, like you're in the board meeting or you're under pressure, those moments get poked inside of you and they come up, they arise. Anxiety, some people depression, overwhelm is a good one.

Overwhelm. What is overwhelm? It's you're being poked by all kinds of things. You can't handle this. You can handle this. You can handle this. You don't like this. You don't like this.

Overwhelm. The voltage is too much for you to handle. So all this stuff comes up in that moment. So what do most of us do? We do the exact opposite of what we should do. And this is what I teach people now, is this is how I overcame my anxiety, is instead of meditating to calm yourself down,

instead of going for a walk to clear your head, instead of listening to podcasts or anything to feel better, eating, drinking, smoking, and no judgment, right? Cause we all do it. Cause the voltage is so intense. We sit with that energy. Cause that energy, the suppressed emotions

is your suppressed potential. When you open up to it, relax into it, feel it, and allow it to surge through you, it processes out like it should have 30 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 20 years ago when it happened. So you process it out and you start increasing your capacity to handle more voltage. So how can I go in front of 400 million people and memorize 700 different things without collapsing to the ground?

It's because I've increased my capacity to handle life's voltage and those moments don't bother me anymore. And for those who haven't seen this, I'll just recap for a second. So you went to compete in China. It's a TV show watched by 400 million people. There were a trillions things to memorize, whether it's things that went into a lock

and the numbers of the lock. And like, I mean, it was just like overwhelming. And I looked a little bit at that. And even just, you know, it's a different language, the amount of noises, the amount of people, like even that would create mental stress without even the memory. Like I'm not even talking because I can't even fathom that. But even without the memory, just standing there is a freaking panic attack in its making. So you're saying that training is what helped you cope with that?

What went through your head knowing that 400 million people are looking at you? I mean, that alone is something that nobody gets to experience, really. The crazy thing is, so I had to memorize 100 different items that were placed in 100 different lockers, and each locker had a four-digit code that they locked it in. So pretty easy. The hard part for me was three days before the event, they told me, hey, you're going to have to memorize two things at a time.

We're going to give you two things, like a Rubik's cube and a picture. At the same time, we're going to put them in the lockers. At the same time, we're going to put the numbers on the screen at the same time instead of one at a time. On top of it being with the language, with all the people, I had to do two at a time in multitask and that was like, oh shit. That was intense for me because I was like,

I've never done that before, I don't know. But to answer your question, yeah, I'm on the stage and I'll be 100 percent honest with you. I've done all this internal work. But when I was on the stage, I felt the lights, it felt like 90 degrees in my suit. I felt the adrenaline surge through me because I realized I'm in front of 400 million people.

I heard all the noises of the crowd, I realized I'm in front of 400 million people. I heard all the noises of the crowd. I saw the cameraman in front of me. I saw the models walking in front of me holding stuff. I heard the translator through my earpiece that was, I actually draped it over my shoulder because I didn't want to hear them in my ear. I felt and I heard the voice in my head, all the stuff that every normal human being experiences. But with the work that I've done, I was able to handle all of that.

Here's the thing. Most people resist it. They don't even realize they're resisting it. That's where anxiety comes from. That's where pressure and all of these things is because we're like, Oh my gosh, I don't want to feel this. Put away. Stop talking.

Stop voicing. Like you try to halt it. If you halt the voice in your head or you push it away, you're resisting it and that actually strengthens it. So I've learned how to allow it, which sounds super simple, but it's not. You have to allow all of this stuff, all of this voltage, all of this voice to happen,

to do whatever it wants to do. You can't do that in that moment, but you have to cultivate that. And so all of this stuff's happening, but again, I'm bringing my attention back into what do I do so that I get right back into the zone and I know exactly what to do with these numbers and with these items and how to memorize it.

It's no problem. It's just if I get distracted in my mind, in my body and resist it, it's going to create problems. Yeah. Incredible. Even just watching it is overwhelming. I want to allude to what you just said, because I came from the Air Force. This is where I started and this is where we start suppressing any kind of feeling.

So the minute something comes up, you diminish it. repressing any kind of feeling. So the minute something comes up, you diminish it. And you continue to cultivate this, like push aside, push aside, push aside, right? And I do love, you know, I think somebody told me that feelings like puppy, you know, they're like gonna come and get your attention. And if you actually give that attention, you know,

it's actually gonna wag its tail and go away. But if you don't, like it will continue coming up and it will actually come up at three in the morning, you know, exactly when you don't need this. It took me again, because I was so wired to push aside, push aside, push aside. That was a very hard one. So if I didn't do well in a public speaking opportunity or something or a test or whatever, you know, if I didn't do well in a public speaking opportunity or something or a test or whatever, if I didn't do well, our instinct is pushed aside.

I'll just ignore it. I'll try to toughen up and then it will creep in at three in the morning and I will try to shove it again. And I think there's something about what you're saying about actually sit with it, give it some attention, feel it for a second because it will go away. Do you have a story that this is where that just became so vivid for you? Because I'm sure this is coming from a very personal deep story. Well, I can tell you it's not a puppy wagon's tale. It's highly

uncomfortable when emotions show up. The real wrong ones. But you're exactly right. They will come up stronger. It's like kicking a can down the road. You kick the can down the road because you have anxiety, but you meditated so you feel calm and you feel, okay, distracted, but really you just kick the can down the road. The next day, you're going to have two cans in front of you, or it's going to get louder and louder and louder.

For me, it got to the point where I was having panic attacks. I was having panic attacks every single day, multiple times a day, and just completely debilitating because I was resisting so much. And really that's what anxiety is, is you're resisting the flow of life. At the deepest root, I had all of this suppressed emotion. There's not one moment in my life that caused all this, right? It was just an accumulation. It was a pressure cooker where I wasn't letting anything out.

I was resisting it all just like you said. I was upstairs up here where I am now laying in bed with my daughters outside playing in the yard wanting daddy, but I couldn't handle it. If you've never had a panic attack before, there's a range, there's a spectrum. They can go from a surge of adrenaline, oh my gosh, what's wrong with me,

to I'm going to die. I know I'm going to die. One of the times, my arm went numb or constricted. I thought I was having a heart attack and I started getting dizzy. I started feeling my heart rate go up. One time, the left side of my face went completely numb, and I thought I was having a stroke. So people who think like you're in your head. It's just anxiety. No, it's like it mimics these

Physiological things it's terrifying to believe you're gonna die. So There was a time I was at the chiropractor office to answer your question and I started feeling a panic attack come on. It felt like an adrenaline surge, surge of voltage just go up. All of a sudden I become extremely vigilant. What's wrong? I'm just completely scrambled in my mind trying to figure out what's happening.

I remembered what I had been practicing of how to relax through it. Relaxing every muscle in my body that was tense because the tension is what holds it in, you know, when you talk about putting it back down. Relaxed my body. In that moment, I said, okay, let it happen. I've already had panic attacks enough to know that I'm not gonna die.

They're awful. But I relaxed, I allowed it, and it surged through within seconds, and it was gone. And I had never transmuted that much energy in that short of time, like completely transmuted it. It was insane. I changed my life because I realized I could do that, maybe not every single time, but in that moment, I proved what was happening.

I proved that this stuff is inside of me, it wants out, and if I allow it to go out, it will move through me, just like it was meant to 30 years ago or 10 years ago or yesterday whenever I suppressed it or suppressed all of these moments. And so what I realized, and the reason people don't want to feel their feelings, especially men,

it's like, what's the point? How much stuff is in there? But what I teach now is all of that energy, emotion, whatever you want to call it, the side of it is your suppressed potential. Every time you allow that voltage to move through, you process out, you accumulate information or wisdom or data that's suppressed inside of you that was stuffed away years ago.

You actually, again, expand your capacity. Was there a specific event that caused suddenly these panic attacks? Why did they start? I was doing a lot of feeling work, let's call it, internal work. It wasn't the greatest feeling work. But I was opening up some stuff and all this energy started moving through me. And I started getting really clouded in my head. I didn't know what was going on. I thought I was burned out.

I thought something physiologically was wrong with me. So I started experiencing all of these physical symptoms. I went to a neurologist, I went to get a CAT scan because I started having panic attacks, because I'm like, something's wrong with me. I got an MRI, and the MRI results got emailed to me without a doctor looking at them.

In those results, it said that I had a brain aneurysm. I freaked out because now I'm going through all this health stuff, what's wrong with me, what's causing this, and now they're telling me I have a brain aneurysm. It told me the dimensions of it, how big it was. In that moment, I freaked the F out. I thought, I'm going to die. I said, oh my gosh, I got to remain calm all the time.

But this is before I even talked to a doctor. I should have talked to someone first, right? So I started ignoring everything that was uncomfortable. I said, I have to remain calm at all times. I can't let anything bother me. And as you know now, that made it intensely worse because I was stuffing and stuffing and stuffing and stuffing and stuffing. And I exploded.

It was a weekend and I just started having panic attacks. I got good news that there was nothing wrong with me, by the way, so I'm good. It's an okay thing. Nothing's wrong with me. But the panic attacks, even after I got that news and that relief, they were happening every day now because I had conditioned that neural pathway.

So I had a panic attack when I was driving over a bridge on the way to a restaurant once. And every time I drove over that bridge again, which is by my house, I had another panic attack. I had a panic attack in my kitchen. So when I went down to my kitchen the next day, I had another one. These moments trigger and trigger and trigger. That's why people's walls cave in, is because you're training your brain and neural pathways

to recognize, oh my gosh, that's a scary moment. And so my walls just started closing in, even though I was physically okay. So it's crazy that these things can develop. And that's the time that I realized I needed to drastically change every approach that I was doing. That's when I learned it was an emotional root issue, how to lean into it, how to feel it,

how to let it surge through me, along with a couple other things that I teach which are regulating your nervous system. I also help people release some of the bigger boulders inside of them. You know, the biggest events in their life that really are holding them down. What's interesting, John, is that I almost feel like to some extent there was this John who was going to all these competitions and he's a champion and he, you know, claims the awards and everybody's looking at him as this,

oh my God, did you see John? And he presents USA in China and he does all these really cool things. And on the other hand, on the personal side, it sounds like there was John that was trying to figure out how to be himself and a great dad. And there was somebody inside that were trying to get all of that together. Am I hearing this correctly?

Yeah. On the surface, that looked amazing, like many of us do at the top, quote unquote. We got it all together, but you were going through your own struggles. I didn't realize I had anxiety. Since I was 13, I probably had it. I just thought that was normal to be in my head, to survive in my head,

to feel dread every Sunday evening because I'm going to school on Monday or going to work. It was a normal thing for me. I feel to shut down and feel overwhelmed, to get paralyzed when I got overwhelmed, all those things. That's the thing, Ilana, is I tried all the mental stuff to overcome it. Everyone listening is probably trying some sort of

reframe your thoughts to a positive or go meditate to calm yourself down, or do self-care, or exercise, or journal, or do hypnosis, or supplements, or some type of mental ritual, like I was. I'm a mental genius, some people call me. I love the mind, I love performance, I love the brain, but the brain isn't the answer. The brain, the mind is not the root cause of

all of this internal stuff that we're dealing with. It's an emotional root issue. I also need to share that with people as maybe you're trying all this stuff like I was, trying to make it look like everything's okay in the inside, but you're also dealing with pressure, with the boardroom or anxiety when it comes to school, or the overwhelm of having to deal with life.

All of that is emotional root issue, just like I had. It's completely normal for a human being to feeling those things. It's just the things that we're trying these days, the mainstream conventional performative methods won't get to the real root of it. And that's the real, the mission I have these days is to share that part of it. Amazing, because you saw how it was handcuffing you. You were basically a subset of what you could be because of these limiting emotion or suppressed emotions that you had, I assume. You don't step out into the world and do the things on your heart all of the time,

because you're paralyzed, you're afraid of the reaction it's going to get. Everyone's like, oh, you're afraid of other people. People say, oh, don't worry about what other people think. Oh, if I just believe that, I'll overcome that. But no, at your core, you're afraid to feel embarrassed, that uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment. That's what you're afraid to feel embarrassed. That uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment, that's what you're afraid of. Not what people will say online,

but the feeling, so it's all emotional root. But when you release that emotional root, when you feel through that pain and you release it, you become what I call unbotherable. That's why I'm here sharing all these details because I don't give a rip anymore. I'm here to share all these vulnerable stories. It doesn't scare me anymore like it would have years ago. I'm unbothered by this stuff.

And so that's really what's going on for everyone out there. It's not a mental belief that you need to change. It's an internal root, emotional roots, suppressed issue that's holding you back. Amazing. And do you think there's something, and again, it sounds like there's a lot of things that you went through personally

that brought you to where you are. Do you think there's a moment where you've seen how that built you to who you are right now, or to decide that this is what you want to teach? I get asked this a lot of like thinking about my childhood or thinking about that one issue. I haven't found it yet. I haven't found that one thing.

And that's actually good news because people don't need to find that one thing or the real root of the moment or the pattern from your childhood or what your parents said to you or your teacher to figure out exactly. And you really, really don't. And I truly mean that. That's why I'm totally against cognitive therapy. And I know, you know, that's pretty bold to stay on here, but it won't get to the root.

Is digging for that stuff will only create those neural pathways, like I said, that I caused the panic attacks for me digging in the past. But how do you access these emotions to free them? Because everyone wants to know how to do that. That's the real key. Every single moment in your day that bothers you is a portal. I call these portals to higher potential. This is what I teach. If you're bothered or triggered by something in that moment, a portal opens, so to speak. Now you have the opportunity to step through,

to feel that stuff, to allow it to move through you, to expand. So if I'm bothered by someone who cut me off in traffic, right, almost an accident, and I get rage and I, oh, tense up, in that moment, I can relax, allow it to move through me. There's a couple other things that you can do. If I process that out,

that means that whatever was inside of me is released. That thing that's inside of me, the reason you were bothered by that person cutting off in traffic, isn't because of that driver, it's because of something that happened five years ago, 10 years ago, 30 years ago inside of you. If I'm overwhelmed at the day in my to-do list,

it has nothing to do with my to-do list. It has everything to do with all of the stuff from years past that I'm holding inside of me. So you don't need to figure out, oh, where's this overwhelm coming from? You just need to feel it when it comes up. What you just said, I think is really, really important for listeners to understand. And this is maybe extreme ownership or really looking in the mirror, but when you're snapping at somebody or you're snapping at your, or you're snapping at your kids, or you're snapping at your spouse,

usually it's something that is going on with you, because you could have had exactly the same circumstance and react completely different, right, if you were in a different state of mind. And I've seen it on myself, right, when I was in a really bad state. I was snappy at my kids, I was snappy at my husband, my health deteriorated. I was snappy at my kids, I was snappy at my husband, my health deteriorated. I was a mess. But the truth is I was a mess because I was personally a mess,

not because they were any different, right? But I reacted to it very, very differently. And I think that is really, really important to reflect and look in the mirror and saying, why am I reacting this way? So I love that you teach that because I think this can be a really scary moment for people in the mirror and saying, why am I reacting this way? So I love that you teach that because I think this can be a really scary moment for people

if they're trying to figure this out on their own. And again, you're teaching something different than our instincts, right? Again, our instinct is to push aside, push aside, and you're almost forcing us to live through it and feel the emotions that come out with it. I want to take you for a second to the memory piece, just because I know a lot of our audience will also be really, really curious because again, there's these two very different Johns,

but I think they're all together too, because the reason where you're able to be so successful is because you are able to overcome the panic attacks, to overcome the anxiety, be able to focus. So they're kind of merged together, which is really, really interesting. So I wanna take you back. If somebody is just listening,

how do you teach yourself to remember? Is there really a technique? Is it something that everybody should try to learn and why are we not learning this in school? Yeah, I know. Initially, I thought it was like a conspiracy theory, like they're suppressing the truth from us, but like, I don't think a lot of people know about this, right?

Kids are really, really good at memory. Why? Because they use their imagination. I'm 38 years old and my imagination is as good as any seven- 7 year old. That's part of it, is I've cultivated. It's not that I'm training my imagination, I'm allowing it to come back because we all have it. It's just an inability that we block and like say, oh, be serious, be logical, right? That left brain type of dominance of the world. So a technique, let's talk about memorizing names, which you said you're horrible

at. And I was too. Before I became a memory champion, I was absolutely horrible at names. To memorize something, one of the key techniques is to turn that piece of information into something visual, create a story with it, and connect it. So with a name, you want to associate that name to someone's face or their body, right? So now let's create a story. I'm going to use Ilana. So when I look at the name Ilana, I want to turn that into an image or a story. And immediately I think of ill, because it starts with ill, right? Ilana. So I imagine maybe that you're ill and you're puking on a, you know, whatever, on a microphone.

Or on your butt. So here's the thing, it's completely weird and over the top, but that's why it's memorable because it made you stick. Now, everyone's going to remember that. Or like John, John people think of like a toilet. It's the name of a toilet in the US, a John. So imagine a toilet seat around my neck and you got my name, right? Or you think of your uncle John with his arm around me like we're friends or whatever.

You make that type of connection to remember it. How do you do it so fast though? The whole point is that you go through a ton of names or if you go to a networking event, you meet, meet, meet, meet, meet. How do you go through this so fast? Is it something that you train basically? Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll give you a secret or a real nugget here. And so just to brag here on the names thing, to give you an idea, in the U.S. championship one year, I memorized 229 names and faces in 15 minutes.

This is all like on pictures on paper and names. I was not able to do that initial. This is not a natural thing, just using the technique I gave you. There's two ways to do this. I would say a slow way, which I just gave you the technique, most people try it this way, or the fast way.

The wrong way, the slow way is left brain. Meaning, okay, I look at Alana, I think of all the possible ones. I could do, okay, ill. I could do Alon. Like I know someone named Lonnie. I could do I-L-L. Like that's ill-a-noise. I could do... So what you're doing is you're doing a Google search in your brain. You're looking logically through all the correct or the best answer. You're looking for the best answer. Think of how many of us wanted to have the right answer. Will this work? No. You're judging and you're thinking and you're analyzing. That's really, really slow. Or I could look at Elana and trust the first thing that comes to me. The instant it downloads in, it's like creativity. It just comes in and I trust it.

So I've trained my brain, I've trained myself to trust the first thing that comes into my mind. That's how I go fast, is I just trust, I trust, I trust, I trust, I trust instead of Google searching through my brain for the best answer. Do you think this should be taught in schools? Do you think it's possible to teach these things? Oh yeah.

What I taught you with the names is a linking method. I'm connecting the name, I'm creating an image for the name and connecting it to the person, to you. You can do the same thing with vocab words. Think of like foreign languages. The foreign word, the national word, and connecting those two in a story. I'll give an example like piscina means pool,

a swimming pool in Spanish, piscina. So I always like piscina sounds like peace or piss, piss, like pissing in a pool. If you imagine pissing in a pool, you got piscina, and I'm sorry to offend anyone. I'm not sorry. People should know that in school, like a simple visual story method, a technique to remember vocab or definitions or things, especially like med students, right? Or just people going through a really hard test. So yeah, it should be in schools. We've tried, many of us who know about this, but the school system, the government's so

archaic and dogmatic that they don't change. It's another battle. That's another battle. And probably some of the things that you teach today is also should be probably part of school and not learning to just push aside, push aside. John, we always end a conversation with an advice to your younger selves. If you look back, what would be some of the things that you tell yourself? Gosh, I'll give you my first good answer is I wouldn't change anything.

I wouldn't tell him anything because the anxiety that I went through, the panic, sounds awful, right? To go through most of my young life, suppressing and being vanilla and hiding my true self, why would anyone wanna go through that? But it was actually the greatest gift that I've ever given myself. To go through that, to overcome it, to realize the true root, to overcome it, to unleash myself and my potential,

I wouldn't be where I am today, meaning I wouldn't have accomplished all of the magnitudes of things that I've done without that pain, and without that struggle, and that overcoming, and now the ability to help others pull through it. I wouldn't have the tools or the knowledge that I'm sharing on this podcast. I wouldn't be on this podcast today sharing this message and touching at least one person's life, inspiring someone.

When I think about this, I wouldn't go back in time and I wouldn't talk to her. Maybe what I would do is just give them a hug and say, trust yourself, you've got this, keep going. I wouldn't even tell them that because where I am today is very powerful because of what that young man, that boy, endured and went through. It wasn't a bad thing.

It was just what I needed to be on my highest mission and my destiny where I am today. Incredible. So let me take this up a notch, John, because I love this answer. If somebody is listening and they are feeling anxiety, panic attacks, we see a lot of it now. I mean, we have people that are unemployed and they're afraid.

We have people that are financial in fear, people that got really, really hurt because of layoffs. Like we've seen a lot of pain right now. I also gonna say, yes, we see a lot of coping with alcohol. We're definitely seeing a lot more abuse in different ways, which is really, really sad. So let's assume that they're listening to you, John, what would you say to them? I'm not going to save everyone with what I'm going to say, right? Cause it's, it's just the brutal truth of it is like you said earlier, it's

100% our responsibility, our ownership that even when I was five years old and someone yelled at me and I shut down, it was my choice as a five-year-old to stop that energy from flowing through me. I know that's brutal to say, but it's the truth is we have a decision now. If you're feeling anxiety and you know now, listening to me that the root cause is

suppressed emotions built up over time like a pressure cooker. Now you have the opportunity to fully feel through that, to release it, to process it. In that, number one, you overcome the daily high stress, overwhelming anxiety that you're dealing with like the dread, the paralysis, the fatigue, all of that can be overcome.

Not saying you won't get nervous for a test or feel anxiety at moments, that's normal human emotion. But if you step in and move through it, because you basically have two choices now, is you can move through this, face it. Not face it in the external world with a sword and your might and your will,

but to feel all the voltage. You can go that route or you can continue to bury it in productivity, to bury it in working, to bury it in, like you said, smoking or drinking or overeating or pornography or any type of vice. There's no judgment on that because we all go through that, we're humans. But I want to inspire you guys, now that you know the root cause, let's lean into it so that you we're humans. But I want to inspire you guys, now that you know the root cause, let's lean into it so that you can overcome it.

Instead of battling it thinking, just like with my memory, I thought, oh, I wasn't never going to have a good memory. No, I'm showing you right now it's possible for you to overcome this too. The same demons that I went through, the same panic, the same anxiety, it's the same root cause. We went through different childhoods and different

things, but it's all the same accumulation that's building up inside of you that you can now move through if you choose. Incredible. And that is the power. So for me, this story is about hope, and it's about the fact that there is a way out. There is a way to become the best version of yourself. There is a way to create that into the moment that will define you and catapult you to bigger things. And you just need to choose the right direction versus to let it suffocate you and to live in that victimhood that you found yourself in. And it's a choice. That's a choice. All the stuff that's happening to you that you're feeling isn't a bad thing.

That's your mind telling you. There's no such thing as good and bad. All of it. Let's accumulate all of this stuff that's inside of you. I'll access all of it. Not just the good, not just try to feel good all the time, because that's the reason we're going through all this. But we have that choice.

It's just choice at this point. We all have free will. That's why half the people listening to this will dive in like inspired, right? And maybe another half will just keep doing what they're doing. That's okay. You know, eventually, like you said, it will get loud enough in their life where they will be forced to make another choice. Absolutely love this, John. So thank you for sharing this inspiring story. Seriously, like I think a lot of people need to listen to it and a lot of people need to take action. I think knowing that there is a better way is just so fundamental and it's such a big

piece of the hope and the possibilities and the future. So thank you for sharing all of this. You know, I wouldn't have shared it years ago, but I'm happy to share it now because it's really powerful. You know, it really, really is a lot of fun. So thank you for asking these questions for people to bring it forth too. Love this.