THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Neuroscience: Harnessing Your Mind's Power with Dr. Doty
Episode Date: July 9, 2024Get ready to unlock the secrets of your brain's potential with one of the most fascinating minds in neuroscience, Dr. James Doty! In this episode, we're diving deep into the science behind manifestat...ion, breaking down the barriers between what you want and how to achieve it. Dr. Doty, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford and the founder of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, shares his groundbreaking insights into how our thoughts and intentions can reshape our brains. You'll learn: -The neuroscience of manifestation: Discover how your brain's circuits can be trained to help you achieve your goals. -The four key brain networks involved in manifesting: Understand the roles of the default mode network, salience network, central executive network, and limbic system. -Practical techniques to enhance your mental performance: Learn how to switch from stress mode to rest and digest mode, engaging your parasympathetic nervous system for optimal brain function. -Dr. Doty's incredible journey: From a challenging childhood filled with adversity to becoming a leading figure in neuroscience, his story is a testament to the power of the human mind. -The importance of self-compassion: Embrace your imperfections and understand the profound impact of self-love and acceptance on your mental health and overall well-being. This episode isn't just about understanding the science; it's about applying these principles to transform your life. Whether you're aiming to boost your mental performance, achieve your dreams, or simply find more peace in your daily life, Dr. Doty's insights will provide you with the tools you need. Join us as we explore the fascinating intersection of neuroscience and personal development, and start harnessing the true power of your mind today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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This is the Ed Myron Show.
All right, welcome back to the show everybody.
So my guest today, you ready for this?
She's the clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford. I was telling
him earlier, I think we have at least an 80-point discrepancy in our IQs and in
his favor. He's also the founder and director of the Center for Compassion
and Altarism Research and Education and I have to tell you, I love him because he
likes to sneak a cigar here and there and a little gin and tonic. So we have a
little bit of that conversation off camera as well.
Maybe more than a little.
Maybe more than a little.
He's truly a brother in that sense.
But I gotta tell you something, I'm having him on today,
not because of any of that, even though it's very impressive.
I'm having him on today because he's got a book that I love,
that I read cover to cover in two days called Mind Magic,
the Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything. We're gonna get into the neuroscience of manifestation and how it changes everything.
We're going to get into the neuroscience of manifesting things everybody today with Dr.
James Doty.
Thank you for coming here today, Dr. Doty and welcome to the show.
No, listen, it's a pleasure.
Now I have, I'm envious, which is a trait I try to diminish, but now I'm looking at
your background and I want to hang out there.
So, Well, you're invited as long as you bring the cigars I can tell you that.
I have a whole box of Cohibas from Cuba although I won't tell you how I got them.
But I don't want to know that but I want you to bring them and I'm gonna I'm
gonna manifest that somehow after today's podcast. So okay let's get into it.
You know manifestation is this topic that in personal development, MySpace has sort of always been kind of a woo woo type thing, kind of,
I don't know, like a new age type of thing.
And what I loved about your book is that you kind of take it out of that realm
and show us actually how our thoughts and our intentions can actually reshape
our brains to some extent or to a large extent.
So talk about just the beginning of how, in your case,
you studied this and the difference
of how it can make in our brains,
literally reshaping our brains
when we learn to manifest correctly.
Sure, I think some of your audience
might want a little bit of a backstory
of my own background, which was when I was first exposed
to this technique or process.
was when I was first exposed to this technique or process. And also how I understood the difference between what I think I want versus what I need, which is really fundamental. But I grew up in
poverty. My father was an alcoholic. My mother had had a stroke when I was a child. She was partially paralyzed, had a seizure disorder,
chronically depressed, attempted suicide multiple times.
We were on public assistance,
evicted from multiple residences.
Wow.
Yeah, and of course, as you can imagine,
that's not necessarily the manner
in which one starts a successful life path.
And in fact, many, many people who grow up
in those environments are lost,
even though they're intelligent, they're bright,
they have talent, but the pure nature of the burden
that that puts on people, for many people, destroys them.
Now, what made the difference for me was that,
oftentimes when my parents would argue
or there would be trauma or tumult at the house,
I would get on my orange Stingray bike.
You may have had one of those years ago
with the big banana seat.
Mine was orange.
But anyway, I would ride it as far and as fast as I could
away from my house.
And one time I ended up at a strip mall.
And there was a magic shop at the strip mall.
And that's the title of the book, which is Into the Magic Shop, a neurosurgeon's quest
to discover the mysteries of the brain and the secrets of the heart.
So I walked into this magic shop because I'd had an interest in magic.
And there was a woman there in her mid-50s.
But the thing about her was, and I'm sure you've met people like this, there are people
who you come across and immediately feel a connection.
You feel that you're actually talking to somebody who's listening, that they care about you.
And I was 12 at the time.
But I had been traumatized.
What people forget is children who grow up
in these types of environment, it's like a veteran
being in a war zone, because you never know
what's gonna happen, you're constantly attuned to threat,
and you cannot attend because you're always looking around.
And so this woman started talking to me,
and it turned out she knew nothing about magic, but she was the owner's mother who just happened to
be there while he did an errand. Regardless though we talked for about
20 minutes and after that she said you know I'm here for another six weeks if
you show up every day I think I could teach you something that could really
help you. And now I have to be honest with you if you're 12 years old I don't
know about you but I had a complete lack of self-awareness. And in that context,
I was also filled with a sense of hopelessness and despair. And I did agree to come. And
the reason I came though was actually I had nothing else to do and she had been giving
me chocolate chip cookies. So that was the primary driver. But anyway I showed up and the first thing she taught me
actually and this was before we talked about mindfulness or neuroplasticity
sort of in the public domain, it wasn't there but she taught me a mindfulness
practice and I never realized that I was tense all the time and so she taught me
a way to relax.
And again, if you're stressed and anxious,
it's hard to attend and be present.
So she taught me a technique to calm myself down
or emotionally regulate and to be able to focus.
And then she made me realize that the dialogue
that was going on in my head, which said,
you're not good enough, you're not worthy,
you don't
deserve love, was not truth.
And that's an interesting aspect of what we'll be talking about because people create these
limiting beliefs by telling themselves things, but it's not truth.
And Dr. Doty, let me ask you a question.
Is this Ruth?
Are you referring to Ruth?
Yes. Okay. So I want to just unpack that just for a second. First of all, I so practical and real and it's in the book and by the way
Because this book is so thick with so many different things in it
We could do a four-hour podcast and you should still go get the book because
The few things that we'll be able to cover on today's show don't do the book justice, but I I learned a lot and I actually wrote down
The process that ruth took you through for my own benefit
and so would you mind at least kind of going over some of that process for everybody because candidly for me I sat in
this room yesterday and I wrote out that process for myself to use to calm myself down even
at this age. So would you share some of that please?
Are you talking about taming the heart or opening the heart and taming the mind and
relaxing the body? Yes, relaxing the
body part is what resonated with me. Yeah, well people who grow up in these
challenging environments, again it's like you're a goldfish in a fishbowl but the
water is dirty and if that's all you've lived in you have no idea that the way
you're feeling or acting or how you're responding to the world
actually is not beneficial for you. And like so many veterans who've been in the war zone,
they not only have trauma from being in the war zone, but they have post-traumatic stress
disorder. And so one of the things you ultimately have to do is you have to emotionally regulate. And this is because in these types of situations,
your sympathetic nervous system,
your flight, fight, or freeze response
is chronically activated.
And you don't appreciate it,
but all of your muscles are tight,
you're always looking around.
So the first thing she taught me
was a traditional mindfulness practice
of relaxing the body. And literally
we went from the tip of the toes to the top of the head. Now I have to tell you, he's
a 12 year old. I had no self-awareness and you know I was doing this, I showed up, but
I'm sitting there going, wow, what is really going on here and frankly I was going this is sort of bullshit but but I did it and what I found was that I did relax and I was
much more calm and I wasn't like you know constantly having my muscles tight
and and then she taught me a technique I called taming the mind in that book and
this was the ability to focus in this case on a candle but you can do it with the mantra or you can do it with simply an object but what it does is it
helps you not respond to the endless negative chatter that goes on in your
head and and it also you learn that there is chatter and this is what I was
talking about earlier which is this negative self-dialogue. And unlike traditional mindfulness as is practiced today, what she did there was though to give
yourself positive affirmations, which changes that dialogue and decreases the sound of it.
One of the way mindfulness works is you don't respond to these negative events going on past your head. In this case though, you respond to them by reversing the
statements to one of positivity. And then once she did that, she taught me a technique
of opening the heart. And what I mean by that is I didn't realize how much I was suffering.
And oftentimes when people suffer,
you have this negative dialogue going on
and you begin to believe it.
And the body or the mind, if you will,
doesn't know the difference between truth or non-truth.
And what I say, or what I mean by that is,
if you sit there and say, it is not possible, I cannot,
that in turn turns into truth.
Because if you say it's not possible, then there's no way it's going to happen.
But conversely, if you develop a mindset of infinite possibilities for yourself and
understand that you are the determinant, because this negative dialogue is fundamentally
as if you're laying down a brick each time and you're creating a prison for
yourself and as those walls get higher it gets darker and the thing though is
that you have the key to let yourself out of the prison and once you realize
that that changes everything and very much related to this book we're talking about today Mind Magic it's
understanding how powerful you really are and so many people give their self
agency away by listening to other people and as a species we have what we call
negativity bias,
where negative things have a tendency to stick to us.
So once she allowed me to be, if you will, self-compassionate
and accept myself with all of my imperfections
and understanding that that is OK,
it also made me realize that everyone is suffering
and that I oftentimes like so
many of us we make a projection of how we think people are responding to us but
oftentimes and again it relates to this book we don't appreciate that a lot of
people's actions at an unconscious level relate to their background growing up that they carry baggage with.
And that baggage determines every interaction,
it determines oftentimes the job or profession they take,
it determines the relationships they have.
And so once she made me recognize that others are suffering,
it also gave me another gift which was,
I used to have a lot of anger and hostility towards my parents,
not because they didn't love me, but because they were not there for me. And once I recognized this,
I understood that they did not have the tools to help themselves.
So it made me be much more thoughtful of kind. And then what happened is I
realized that once I, one, stopped beating myself up,
and two, hearing this hostility or negativity about me,
it changed how people interacted with me.
And once that happens, I realized that actually,
if you create that correct type of energy
or what you're putting out there,
actually people do wanna help you.
And at the end of the day, that changed everything.
And ultimately, which is actually the basis of this book, is she taught me a manifestation
or a visualization technique.
And in the first book, I gave some fundamental principles, but I didn't go into all the detail.
And I realized after a lot of emails and letters
from people that that was a key thing that people wanted to understand. But they wanted
to understand it not from, as you said, the woo-woo pseudoscience part of it. They wanted
to understand the fundamental neuroscience of it and how you can manifest maximally if you will or have
the greatest potential to manifest your goals or dreams or your intentions and
but that has to do with actually not the woo-woo side or the law of attraction or
thinking the universe is going to somehow intervene if you have the right
mindset it comes down to one claiming your self agency or intervene if you have the right mindset, it comes down to
one, claiming your self-agency or the power you have, but also doing
fundamental practices that will actually increase the likelihood because you have
to have what we call these cognitive brain networks to function at their best and
there's certain ways to do that but the most important part is you have to get
out of the stress mode into the rest and digest mode or the engagement of your
parasympathetic nervous system. Okay so let's stop it let's jump in there just
for a second so so everybody one of the things I want you to take a look at too
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I got to tell you, you know, I get asked all the time, what's the one thing that
most of the guests that have been on this show have in common?
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one thing that dr. Doty points out in the book that you should all know that I
love that he says early on in the book is that the universe doesn't care one
way or the other you're already good at manifesting.
You're already doing this. Just typically you're manifesting a lot of the things you don't want that you're worried about, that you're
fearing. You're acting out of trauma already. You have some of these skill sets because these brain centers already exist for you.
And some of you doing a little bit of digging, we'll talk about HRV a little bit later, but
going from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic state has everything to do with your ability to manifest.
Just from a science standpoint for the people that want like, you know, the meat. In the book, you talk about the fact that manifesting primarily takes place in four large circuits in the brain. So I can go through them but I'd prefer you go through them a little bit. We can go back and forth.
But this is just for all of you to know that this is neuroscience. This is not, you know,
Hufu stuff here. This is actually happening in different centers and circuits in your brain.
And there's actually four of them that he quotes in the book. I'll start the first one,
the default mode network, which of course I had no idea what the heck that was.
But why don't you take us through what the other three are and explain that to us A little bit sure. Let me just make a comment. Obviously this book says it's about the neuroscience. I got a
LinkedIn message from somebody said, you know, I bought this book
I really hated it because it went so much into the neuroscience and I'm like going wasn't that the name of the book?
Read the background of the guy who wrote it. What do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But anyway, you're absolutely right.
So as a preface to doing that, though, let me just say, and you mentioned it, all of
us are manifesting all the time.
What we don't appreciate is what we're already manifesting or what we've manifested.
And what I mean by that is so much of who we are, if we don't understand how we got here today, then that we, we, because we have to change our habit, our mindset and our deep
seated beliefs.
And I'm sure you've seen the situation where somebody will sit there and say, you know,
I don't understand what's happening to me.
You know, it seems as though this pattern keeps reoccurring.
I've married the same person and they're abusive and they're an alcoholic or whatever the negative
commentary is.
And that's because they have no insight or self-awareness of the baggage that they have
carried through childhood that is actually manifesting because you have these deep-seated
patterns of behavior that you don't appreciate.
And you should also appreciate you can change those habits.
So, but getting specifically to answer your question, there are these four areas of the brain.
And to have them function at their best, you cannot be in your engagement of your sympathetic
nervous system or this flight fighter fear response.
It will have a negative impact, although it's not to say you may not be able to manifest,
but you may not be manifesting what you need to manifest.
So you have to be engaged in the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest are digest system,
because your cognitive brain networks, of which the default mode network is one, function
at their best in that state.
So the default mode network is what happens or is activated when you daydream or you mind
wonder, but it's very self-referential, but it's also the place where you define who you
are.
This is critical to have this image that sits in the background of what you want to be or
how you want to be.
Then the interesting thing is the other network that's really critical here is what we call your salience network.
So from your default mode network, you create a narrative that then activates the salience network.
So salience is meaning something mouthwatering or something when you think about it, it activates things you want, right?
And so it results in the subconscious being activated related to what you want or your
intention or what you're trying to manifest.
And once you're able to stimulate that, and I use the example of a bloodhound. Once you're able to give
the bloodhound the scent, then this activates the attention network so that
there's a laser-like focus of your attention on manifesting that and then
through the salience network, the bloodhound starts searching around for it.
And the salience network, if you will,
is on alert all the time during your waking state.
And once you're able then to define that intention
and activate your attention,
then the situations that many of us call synchronicity
or coincidence occur because then your executive control network,
which is in your frontal areas,
and has access to memories, experiences,
and in some ways like the CEO who determines
how you respond to this unconscious or subconscious desire.
And then it occurs.
And let me give you a couple examples.
I'm sure you've been at different parties or events
where it's really noisy.
Yet, if your name is said, you turn to it.
Even though it's completely loud, nobody else heard it,
you turn to it because that is a fundamental part
of your identity.
to it because that is a fundamental part of your identity. And so the same is true also as an example.
I'll see a patient who may have some sort of brain condition and let's say a meningioma.
And the person will sit there and they'll say, you know, I have never heard of that before.
Wow. You know, this must be really rare, but I'll see them six weeks later and they'll go, it's the most amazing thing.
I've run into six people with the exact same condition,
right, because you have embedded that now,
whether you want it to or not, into your subconscious.
And this is the things that can get embedded through fear,
through wanting to do something positive for yourself.
And I'll give you another example.
There's a project that I've been working on
for several months, and it's very esoteric.
And I was at a coffee shop, and it was completely noisy.
You couldn't hear anything, yet out of the din of all of that,
I heard two words that were critical to this project,
which would not have ever been normally out there or I wouldn't have responded to.
I went over, introduced myself, it turns out they're working
on the exact same thing and now we're working together on it.
And this is the type of synchronicity or coincidences
that repeatedly occur when you unleash your subconscious.
Because what the subconscious wants the conscious
Is ordered to have happen if you will
So those are how those networks work and if you question about the synchronicity, I'm just curious about this
Is it the fact that those things always existed around you or potentially did but you were oblivious to them because they weren't embedded and
That now that they're embedded you're seeing hearing or feeling those things that were always potentially within your awareness but you were unaware of them or is there some sort of pull power that's taking place that's creating
these synchronicities? I would say they're always there we just never are tuned to them. Right? And so, because you have to understand,
our mind is always having to struggle
to what we attend to, right?
Our actual attention is quite limited.
Although most people don't believe that.
Even driving along, and I'm sure you've had the experience
where you're driving along and you start thinking
about something, and then you're like 10 miles down the road and all of the stuff that was going on you can't even
remember. Yes. Right? Yes. And so and there's a classic experiment which I think I mentioned in
the book called the it's the Grilla experiment or something like that but you'll find in the book
but it's amazing it's these two teams are playing basketball. One is in a black uniform, the other is in a white uniform. And what the
experimenter asks is either, tell me how many times the people in the black shoot a basket
to get a point. Or the other is how many pass the ball throughout the whole thing. So it turns out in the middle of this video,
there is an individual dressed in a gorilla suit
who actually walks through the entire game,
through the group who are shooting the baskets,
and over 50% of people do not even notice it.
So crazy.
Can you imagine somebody in a gorilla suit
right in front of you and you don't even see it?
You do talk about that in a lot of people's lives. That's their contact. That's the relationship they need.
That's the key to their success and it's walking by them all the time.
But they're so obsessed with these embedded thoughts they've got that their attention network isn't even seeing the things that could deliver to them.
So here's the hard question. I got a bunch of them, but
How does one I know you talk about it in the book, I don't want to give away all the secrets. However, how does one begin to embed the things they want to manifest in their lives? Obviously, I was taken back in the book by how much it's state oriented for you. In other words, the state that our bodies are in. I've always in in my own practice and coaching people, always just sort of went right to the technique of the visualizations, never really caring for the state that one's in, in order to be open to creating these new neuro pathways in their brain.
So could you give us like a practice or a couple of the practices that somebody can begin to implement. I think
right now this part that you may share, I think you could change a couple million lives
right now with just a process oriented structure for somebody to begin to embed the things
that they want as opposed to the ones that they're operating out of trauma or fear in.
trauma or fear in?
So let me make a couple statements before we go there. One is, you have to understand,
and I mentioned this a little bit earlier,
what are you already manifesting?
Two is to understand the difference
between what you think you want and what you need.
And I think actually, as you mentioned earlier,
you can get things, but it's not always what's best for you.
And the reason I bring this up is,
in the Western narrative of success,
which for many people, quote unquote, equals happiness,
the narrative is to be happy,
you have to have money, power, and position.
Once you get those, therefore your life now is fantastic,
you'll be happy and you will get all the other stuff
that will continue that happiness.
Now the problem with that narrative is that
what people don't appreciate is that oftentimes the things that people
believe they want are based out of impoverishment of spirit or a belief that when others see
them having accomplished this or that or get things that they will get external affirmation
that will make them feel happy.
And in fact, as a 12 year old with Ruth in this magic shop, she actually had me write
down a list of things that I wanted.
And of course, from my poverty background, and this was the baggage that I carried with me,
it was I wanted to live in a mansion and 20 or 40 some years ago, 50 years ago, it was I want to
be a millionaire. Now it's a centi millionaire, I guess. I wanted a Porsche. I wanted a Rolex watch,
all these external validations of quote unquote success. And I ended up getting every
one of those things. You know, I became a doctor and I became a doctor not that I didn't
want to help people, but it was also I am a doctor. I'm important. See, look at me,
right? And I had all of my friends telling me how great my life was, yet here I have a mansion overlooking the Bay
and Newport Beach and Southern Cal.
I have a villa in Florence.
I have a penthouse in San Francisco.
I have a Porsche, a Ferrari, a Range Rover, a Mercedes,
a BMW in my garage.
I'm dating starlets.
I'm flying in private jets.
And I was never more miserable
than I had ever been in my life. Yet I had manifested everything that I thought I wanted.
And so the problem is people get focused on things that aren't going to help them because
they think that these types of things are what are going to create a life of happiness,
which is what everyone ultimately desires. And so you have to understand though that once you change your narrative, not because
of what you think you want in that sense, because it's not about you.
And unfortunately, society has created this narrative that you should chase what I want.
I want to be famous.
I mean mean look at
what we've done with our children. If you ask high school students what is it
you want to be? What are the four main things? And this encompasses over 75%. I want
to be an influencer. I want to be a millionaire. I want to be a celebrity. I
want to be a professional athlete. I mean...
Very different in the Western world compared to the answers you'll get from other countries,
that they're a great study between the contrast of those two.
Yeah, exactly, because it is a completely different narrative,
because we have a very aggressive structure that promotes that narrative of conspicuous consumption,
and how if you just get these things, you're going to be happy.
So you have to change that, because that activates the sense of I want actually activates your
sympathetic nervous system.
And in some ways it limits you.
It's not to say you can't get what you want, but once you start changing your narrative
to understand how we evolved as a species, which is to care not only for our offspring
because they require it, but when you care for others outside of your small circle,
that activates your parasympathetic nervous system,
which does several things.
One, it stimulates your reward centers.
Two, your physiology fundamentally works at its best,
and in fact, your longevity is increased.
But also when you look through the world,
through that lens, you
understand the superficiality of many of these other things. And you understand also that when
you care for others, it has a very positive effect on you both mentally and physically.
And as the Dalai Lama says, if you want to make others be happy, be compassionate. If you want to be happy, be compassionate.
So looking at that lens, and so now to more concretely answer your first question, what
are the techniques? The techniques are fundamentally, how do I gain access to my brain to make it work for me and not get lost in things that I don't need
are not helpful for me.
Now one of the things, and we've been talking about attention a little bit, is also understanding
that how we walk in the world, how we analyze things, what we respond to has to do with input from our sensory
organs because that connects us to our external environment.
So we receive about 10 million bits of information from our sensory organs every second.
Yet we on a conscious level only respond or have access to about 50 to 100 bits of
information. So 99.999% actually are associated with maintaining homeostasis of our bodily
functions. But the reason I mentioned the small percentage is this is information we can control on a conscious level and then we can actually
embed it into our unconscious to a process which I call value tagging. And in some ways,
this is our ability, if you will, to place our intention in the filing cabinet of our subconscious, which
then gives the unconscious, that bloodhound I mentioned earlier, the ability to look at
that file, smell it, get the scent, and start running around trying to help you manifest.
The techniques to do that though, to get access to your mind is a
training program which is very much like a meditation or mindfulness practice because
you have to be in the right mental state. So you have to calm the mind, you have to relax the body,
you have to look through the lens of compassion if you will, because that's when your body, and
I say your body, I mean your mind and your body are functioning at their best.
When that process occurs, all these cognitive brain networks, which we talked about a little
bit earlier, function at their best. I want people to realize that when we talk about manifesting,
this process is not 100% guaranteed. It's not like, hey, listen to Jim Doty, now you're going to get
100% I guarantee everything you want. What it does though is one, it makes you understand what
you've already been manifesting. Two, it gives you clarity of
intention about what you should be manifesting. And this is through relaxing the body,
taming the mind, focusing your attention, embedding that intention. And then that
creates the greatest possibility for you to manifest your desires or create the life that you want.
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Now I'm sure you've talked about, uh,
Oudamonic versus hedonic happiness.
We have not please talk about it.
What the hell Ed?
I told you there's an IQ discrepancy. That's what you're doing here, my brother.
I can't wait to hear this.
Yeah.
I know and I know a lot about this because of your work and other work I've done, but we've not talked
about it on the show. So this is going to be interesting.
So if we look at oftentimes this term happiness, there's what we call hedonic happiness, which
is hedonism, if you will. And this very much relates to what I want.
And in fact, unfortunately, there was a movement
in our society that's now spent a few decades
where there was this narrative that if you were in a race,
any kid who in the race gets an award, right?
And not recognizing one,
that creates a sense of entitlement,
even though you didn't do any work to get there.
And it negates the fact of life,
which is there are winners and there are losers.
You have to show up, you have to do work.
Otherwise, you're not gonna get what you want.
And so this is a very, very important aspect.
But when you focus on I want,
the very nature of that I want has to results
in stimulation of your sympathetic nervous system
because it's out of fear.
You have to have this to show others you're okay.
You're chasing after external affirmation.
Now I've said this sometimes and people sit there and go, you mean it's wrong to have
materialistic desires?
And I say, no, that's not what I'm saying at all.
And I'll explain that in a sec.
The other side of this is what we call eudaemonic happiness.
This has to do with service and meaning. Okay, and if you compare the two, one gives you happinesses, which is transitory and shallow.
The other, and this is when you activate
your parasympathetic nervous system,
your rest and digest mode,
results in purpose and meaning
because you're being of service to others.
And that's when all your brain networks
function at their best, thereby giving you the greatest possibility of manifesting your intention.
But getting back to having things, my statement is not to sit there and say, one, it's horrible to have things.
I will assure you, I live in a nice house. I drive a Porsche. I have a Mercedes, there's nothing wrong with that.
The difference is where it is wrong
is if you look at that, that is your identity,
and if you lose it, you have all this fear and anxiety
and insecurity versus how I look at it,
I won, am very appreciative, have immense gratitude,
thoroughly enjoy it, but if it's gone tomorrow, it has zero impact on who I am,
who I see myself as, or my level of happiness. And so that's really the key difference.
Can I ask a question about that?
Yeah. So let's talk about the money thing for a second.
Let's go right to there because there's a lot of people listening to this or watching
this right now.
Like, well, wait a minute.
Like you've said, I would like to make a lot of money.
Does that mean that I'll say it my way, then you correct me.
That the intention that you attach to the desire to accumulate that money has an awful
lot to do with the probability of you ending up possessing it meaning I want to make 10
I want to have 10 million dollars saved
Let's just say that's one of the things I want to manifest
But I want that 10 million dollars so that I can show you my Ferrari. I can show you my house
You'll think great things about me. That's one person
So they've worked on manifesting their 10 million dollars that way another person works on
Calming their body getting into that state, and they
want to acquire the $10 million so that they can be philanthropic with it so
that they can care for their family, that their children and grandchildren grow up
in a safe place and a safe environment and get good educations.
Are you suggesting that the intention attached to the desire you have has a
lot to do, not only which way I understand
the difference in the two levels of happiness,
but also in the acquisition or the actual manifestation.
Does the intention attached to it have something to do
with our ability to then have our attention networks
open to seeing the things we're supposed to see or hear?
No, I think you did an excellent explanation.
That's exactly right.
Okay.
And this is in some way some of the examples I give how you have to reframe what it is
you want.
If you sit there and say, as you gave that example, I need that $10 million so I can
have the big house and stand in front of it with my Ferrari parked there.
Everybody looks at me.
And this is what influencers do, right?
They create
this narrative to imply that their life is perfect. You know, they have the filters on,
they have all the makeup, they create these, you know, fake backgrounds or are in a place
where they rent a place to look at like it's their mansion. And everything is a lie. That's
right. Yeah. I mean, you are living a lie. It is not who you are. And you have to pay the price for that because you can't have calmness about yourself
because you know, deep down, you're a fraud.
And when you chase these things and it's only about what I want,
that's where the problems occur versus if you reframe it.
And I give an example of a young lady named Anula
in the book. She was an immigrant from Sri Lanka. Her parents very much wanted her to
be a doctor, as did she, but her real driver was, I need to do that to make my parents
happy. And she had this immense anxiety she created for herself, which actually resulted in her not
performing well. And she didn't get into med school after three times. Now, the interesting
thing about that is based on my first book, where I talk about my own challenges getting to the
medical school, because I had a 2.53 grade point average while the average grade point
average in the medical school was 3.79 and I did not even have enough credits to graduate.
And I had as I'm sure you've experienced, quote, friends or family members saying, you're
never going to get into medical school, right?
Now, fortunately, I don't listen to anybody fundamentally
because I have a great belief in myself
from what this woman rooftop me.
I challenged that and that could be another story,
but I did get into medical school, right?
But it was because it wasn't, I'm doing this for somebody.
It was a profound belief that by being a doctor, I could be of service, help people do the
right thing.
It wasn't, I'm going to be a doctor, I'm going to be a neurosurgeon so that I can make a
lot of money and live in the big house and meet the attractive chicks.
It was, I am here to be of service to help people.
That's a completely different narrative
and it's a completely different narrative
how your mind responds to have you manifesting.
What's the green zone?
So in some ways, it's what we're talking about.
How do you create, if you will, the physiology
that maximizes your ability to have you manifest?
And that means when your cognitive brain networks
and your peripheral physiology are functioning at their best.
And as we were talking about earlier, being able to,
and this is oftentimes through a meditation practice.
And let me preface this by making the following statement.
I'm sure you're probably familiar with the Blue Zones, this work by Bob Buettner, or
the work of the 85 year ongoing Harvard study.
Robert Waldinger wrote a book called-
The show.
Yes, Longevity and Happiness, right?
That's awesome.
And the thing is, if you look at that as an example,
you go back and look at the Blue Zones,
these imitate the way we lived several hundred years ago.
And how was that?
You were born into a community, small community,
you died in that community,
you lived with a
multi-generational family, everyone in the community knew you, they knew the
good part and the bad part, yet they still loved you unconditionally and worked
to make you a better person. So you don't have the narrative going on in your head
saying that you're not good enough.
And you understand that you deserve love even though you're not perfect.
In the modern world that we have created, you are under immense pressure to perform.
You have to have a job. You have to live somewhere. You have to have food.
And the sad thing is so many people are terrified of being judged by others.
So this creates this constant activation of our sympathetic nervous system.
So you have to be able to transition or move from activation of that to activation of your
rest and digest system or your parasympathetic nervous system.
And one of the best ways to do that is through a meditative practice.
Now when I say meditative practice, unfortunately a lot of people go, I can't meditate, I've
tried it, I can't sit like this.
You don't have to do that to meditate.
And in fact, sometimes for type A people, they get into their head where there has to
be the right way to do it.
All you have to have is a sense of calmness in a quiet space, be self-reflective, and
then go through this exercise of how to relax the body.
And you can do it through a breathing exercise, which then will automatically shift you over.
And once you're in the rest and digest mode,
you're not looking at the world through the lens of insecurity
or I need.
You're looking through the lens of human connection and oneness.
And this is why this work by Bob Buettner in the Blue Zones
or the work of Robert Waldinger and the Harvard Adult Development Study are critically important.... Can we talk about... Okay, go ahead. I want to ask you...
No, no, no. The breathing part of it, like what I got out of the book for the breathing part of it,
and again, like please correct me when I'm wrong, is that, I mean, it's not complicated. I've learned
to meditate over the years and I can't empty my mind and quiet it now, but I very much relate to the people who suggest, look, I'm just type A, I'm wound up, I'm getting going, I'm charged up,
like just to sit there and empty my mind, I can do it for about two seconds and then I'm toast.
What has worked for me in my life is breathing techniques, and I like what I read in the book that seemed to me very simple.
Is the big key in breathing, at least that you suggest in the book, and again talk about this just for a minute, but
is breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. A, am I right about that? B, why does
that matter how you do that? But is that what you, is that what you're meaning when you just said
the breathing techniques to calm the body? Yes, yes, no, that's exactly right. And that actually has an effect on your vagus nerve.
And your vagus nerve rises in your brain stem
and is distributed throughout all the organs in your body,
especially your heart.
It's a two-way street.
And the very nature of that exercise,
the diaphragmatic movement,
actually shifts you into that mode.
Now, there are some people,
you don't have to sit with your legs crossed
or your hands up like this, you can lay down.
Actually, for many people,
and it's creating an intention environment
where you don't have all these distractions going on. So you're allocating
time to be in a place where you can simply be with yourself. And for many people, simply walking
in the forest, walking in nature, lying down in a relaxed environment where you don't feel any
threat or demands on you. Those are the real key aspects of being able to activate or stimulate your
parasympathetic nervous system. Can I say something about that? It's two things. One is everybody,
I want you to take note of that breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.
As long as it takes, he suggests in the book until you've sort of entered that calm state.
The other thing that I just want to second because it's frustrating to me,
with a podcast where I had someone on, we're talking about building muscle and we said oh you know
walking is an exercise and it was out of context we were talking about building muscle. I have to
just tell you all that for me when I get into this you know state where I am able to do my
visualization my program it's almost always for me when I'm actually walking. It's one of the most
beneficial things not only is it exercise clearly but it's also where I find myself in the most calm state.
I'm blessed that I can walk along the ocean or walk in a forest or what have you, but for me,
as much as important as my breathing is, it's the environment. And one of the things you talk about
in the book is being in the same place oftentimes. The cratis space, whether that be when you're on
a walk or a particular room you're in, where that space is actually a place that can put you into
a particular state as well, correct?
That could just be your living room with the TV off, but the same place repeatedly can
also put you into that state, correct?
Right, right, because it's creating what, and again, in some ways we're talking about
habit formation, which we can talk about in a bit. But when you do that, when you walk into that space or take that walk in nature, whatever,
you automatically then go into that state.
And that's very, very important.
And you don't want to do it where, okay, I'm going to do this.
I just had an argument with my wife.
Now I'm going to go and try it because now you've got all the stuff going on in your
head. Nor can you do it if you're drunk or whatever.
You need to have things in a situation where you're, again, creating the environment where
you can create the place for you to connect with yourself.
And that's hard for people.
It's I think in this world harder and harder because of our phones, because of the digital
era, because of how busy we all are, to your point.
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And so this idea of habit, maybe it's a general question, but I think if I don't ask it, I
think people go, why didn't you ask him this?
So habitually, you've used the word visualization and I have my, you know, thing I do where
I teach people my version of this in my book and with the people that I work with privately.
But you know what I get asked an awful lot?
How do I visualize?
What does it mean? I think most people don't realize they're probably already doing it
But if someone was to ask you they got a private coaching call with you. They said okay, I want to visualize
What does it mean?
Can you give me something simple to do that helps me understand my eyes need to be closed am I seeing actual picture?
Like what what what does this mean visualization?
well, I will tell you that there is a small percentage
of people who cannot visualize.
And visualization is actually,
and whether you close your eyes or not,
the ability to create a picture in your head
of what you want.
And whether that's seeing yourself in a white coat,
being to be a doctor, or whatever it is.
And that's a key to it. And you know we
talked about the woo-woo and the pseudoscience that's attached to
manifestation, but like so many things there is truth fundamentally in some of
these things. You just need to separate out the woo-woo and the pseudoscience.
So this is about creating habit because if you will, what fires together, and this is how we lay down
neural pathways and how we strengthen them through repetition. And thus, we talked about
And thus, we talked about the data we get in from all of our sensory organs, right? Well in some ways, we want to strengthen that vision or that intention.
Well, how do you do that?
You use every one of your sensory organs, pretty much, to overlap each other repeatedly
to lay down that intention into your subconscious to create these neural pathways.
So what are they? You make your list. It could be one thing, it could be 10 things. You
think about it, you write it down,
you read it silently, you read it aloud. In your mind, you see yourself as that let's say being a doctor and what happens is
usually when you start you don't have a clear picture it may be sort of this dull picture you're
looking through a window that is maybe foggy but the more you repeat it that window gets clear and
clear until you actually see yourself as the doctor you you're wearing a white coat, you're in a hospital,
and so you're strengthening those neural pathways, which then allows the activation of your subconscious and the salience mode network and the attention network now to focus on that goal or desire? Question about that.
So first off, I love the multiple sources, write it down, see it, et cetera.
I'm curious about the emotional part of it.
I was able in my life to acquire wealth, and I can tell you that when I was young, I did
want a Lamborghini or a big house, but it's-
Me too.
Yeah.
Well, it's not all that uncommon and a great thing. And I'm a capitalist through and through having said that a lot of times that
wealth comes and goes the wealth that stuck for me is when my visualizations in
my case and helped me understand whether this is just something in my case or
there's some relevance to this became a bit more emotional.
In other words, the emotional charge was higher,
meaning my intent shifted where my picture started to be
me seeing myself wealthy enough that I could pay off my mom and dad's house.
And I remember being able to visualize my eyes are closed when I'm doing it now, but I remember visualizing and seeing my dad being very, my dad, I actually played out where my dad wouldn't accept
it at first. And then my dad finally thanking me and the pride that my dad had in other words
I didn't just have it one way. I saw it from multiple different perspectives
But I found that in my own case. I feel like I really changed my brain when I attached emotion to it
Is there validity to that? Well, I think it's not so much
Well, obviously you did attach motion to it, but it's not just the emotion. You were doing it through the right lens.
How can I care for others?
How can I be of service?
And when you do that correctly,
there is nothing more profound than helping somebody.
Now in your case, it was your father.
But imagine you're saying,
one of the reasons we talked about this earlier,
I want $10 million because I grew up in this place You're saying, you know, one of the reasons we talked about this earlier, you know, I
want $10 million because, you know, I grew up in this place and there was a lot of poverty
and poor children.
You know, I want to create a homeless shelter where I feed, you know, people and I help
children.
Right.
Well, what is better than that as a human being?
Right.
And this is what people forget.
Listen, I love driving a
Lamborghini or a Ferrari, although I don't know how tall you are, but
Lamborghinis are really tight for me. I don't have that problem. I'm okay. I don't have one anymore. I
don't have the desire anymore to have something like that, but I know what you mean.
Yeah, but my point is that you don't get that type of stuff from
driving a Ferrari
or having a Porsche or whatever.
You enjoy it, it's wonderful,
but that's not the it anymore,
especially as you grow up and you realize
that those things are just empty things.
They can't give you that emotion, which all of us want.
It's like having somebody who loves you.
When you connect with somebody, when somebody holds you,. It's like having somebody who loves you. When you connect with
somebody, when somebody holds you, when you give love to somebody, that is deeply emotional.
That's where we're meant to live. That's how we were designed as human beings. So when
you do actions that allow for you to do that, you get this incredible feedback. And again,
as I said, the Dalai L Lama says if you want to help others
and make them happy be compassionate if you want that be compassionate you uh by the way everybody
in the book I just want you all know this and you have to get the book to get all this but
there's actually a six step process in the book so I can just tell you the steps are
um reclaim your power to focus your mind step two two is clarify what you truly want. Step three is remove the obstacles in your mind. Step four is embed the
intention in your subconscious. Step five is pursue your goal passionately. Step
six is release expectations and open to magic. I wanted to ask you about step six
because this is something that I really debated in my own mind and with people
that I coach for a very long time.
And that's this notion of being very goal-oriented, yet releasing from outcome.
Releasing from expectations. It's one of the most nuanced areas of manifestation of producing the life you want.
That's even debated in my own mind, in my own work sometimes, right? So there's this idea,
we better have goals, we've got to write them down, we've got to visualize them, we've got to see them,
yet there's an unbelievable power in surrendering from the expectation or the outcome at the same
time. Can you discuss that? Because I think this is one of the most interesting parts of manifesting,
because sometimes I think the goal and the expectation creates the pressure and the
anxiety and the fear of what are people going to think about me if I miss it and then someone
never ends up achieving because they're so goal obsessed. Does that make sense? No, no, I look,
your insights are right on. I mean, this is the problem is that there's nothing wrong with having
goals. The reality though is none of us in our lives are able to achieve all of those goals and
we're going to fail.
Now I try never to use that word.
I simply look at it as that was an interesting experience.
Yes, and I learned something.
But here's the problem.
There's the one group which you saw or group or person which you mentioned, which is absolute complete 100%
focus to the exclusion of everything else.
Then you get to the top of the mountain and you're by yourself.
And so you have external affirmation from people saying how great you are, but as we
talked about earlier,
that and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee. You're there alone. And then what you sacrifice
to get there in terms of the carnage many people leave behind, it could be divorces, it could be
not having relationships with your children, it could be separating from people you've grown up with or loved you.
What type of a goal or what have you really accomplished there?
And frankly, you've accomplished nothing.
The other side of it though, and we're talking about some of the nuance here,
if we look at the two extremes of our lives, all of our lives,
and one is being able to accomplish these goals. Nothing is better to have accomplished
a goal. You feel, I worked hard, I deserve this, I sacrificed not everything, but you
sacrificed, you had to get up at six in the morning, you had to go do this, you had to do that.
That is a great feeling, but the challenge is that it is transitory.
If you chase these feelings all the time, you have attachment to these goals, then that's
going to ultimately lead to unhappiness because you can't be in that state all the time.
Conversely, what are the things that people avoid?
They avoid pain and suffering.
Well, the reality is you cannot avoid pain and suffering.
But like the other aspect of it, that's transitory.
But what people forget is, do you learn the greatest lessons in life
about who you are, what is within you,
the strengths that you have from being over here?
You learn them from the other side,
when you are suffering, when you have to overcome something,
when you sort of get perspective about who you are
and what it is within you that allows you to achieve.
So there's this aspect though,
that I would say is this idea of evenness of temperament,
where you appreciate these other great things
that can happen to you, you're not attached to them,
you enjoy them while they're there,
but if they don't happen, you don't beat yourself up,
you did the best you could.
Conversely, when there's something
that's not so wonderful
happening, you also though realize it's transitory and that with time, what we thought was the
most horrible thing that we ever went through, we now reflect on it after a period of time
is having to go, you know, I'm really glad that happened. I learned so much about myself, right? And so having what we call equanimity
or this evenness of temperament is a critical aspect
because what we're trying to do here is one,
emotionally regulate too, which is critical.
And this, you know, we're talking about
the power of your mind.
How you respond to things is your choice.
There is not somebody out in the universe who decides how you respond.
The stoic Epictetus, who was a slave, he basically said, I cannot control my external circumstance.
I can only control how I react to them. The other aspect is a narrative or a quote that is attributed
to Viktor Frankl. Have you read Viktor Frankl's work? Yeah, Man's Search for Meaning. And the
reason I say attributed to, there's a quote about between stimulus and response, there is a pause,
and within that pause lies your freedom. It turns out
that Wayne Dyer actually gave that quote, and he attributed it to Franco, but no one
has ever been able to find that in the writings of Franco. But regardless, the point of that
though is that that's true. And so we have to take a pause, and then we actively make
a choice how we respond. As an example, I'm sure you've been cut
off in traffic by somebody, right? Now, I'm sure women never do this, but what a man does
is usually they use a hand gesture and maybe use a one or two word expletive.
And because you've been activated, right? Your sympathetic nervous system has been activated.
You're angry, you're responding to that moment.
But if I said to you, instead of thinking
that this guy's a jerk and is selfish
and just trying to screw you,
if I said to you, the person driving the car,
sitting next to his wife, who's eight months pregnant,
her water's broken, she's
bleeding. He's tried to get her to the hospital. How do you change? What are you thinking now?
You're going, oh my God, geez, what a jerk I was to do this. This person's trying to get his wife
to the hospital. I would do the exact same thing. Yet here we did in one microsecond between you and I, we changed how we looked at the world.
Brother, I love your work. I have to tell you that I'm a big believer and you prove this stuff scientifically that
when you attach a different meaning to an event you create a different emotion, you have a different life.
And so oftentimes everybody, one of the things that he's saying to you here, right, is listen, sometimes you have to go,
what would I need to believe about this so
that it served me?
When an event like that takes place.
The other thing I have to tell you brother, I've heard two people use the
word equanimity ever on my show and it's you and I have a whole chapter of
my book with the title of equanimity and I have to just acknowledge, you
know, how much I really love your work.
I I'll ask you the last question just because we've run out of time.
By the way, I would love to have you back on. Let's do it. I truly would. These are the kind of
conversations that I really enjoy having to share with to my audience. And so the
last question is kind of a two-parter. Number one, someone's listening this and
they're going, this is great. I need to go to work on this. I'm gonna create new
neural pathways. Currently though, I have a bunch of thoughts that don't serve me. I want you to just discuss your
overall viewpoint of what thoughts are in our heads and then if you could back up with okay,
so this is what thoughts are really going on in your mind, what a thought is. And then lastly,
in addition to that, a practice we haven't covered yet to help somebody begin that transition of change and just something other than the relaxing of the body, the visualization stuff, just some other tool you pull out of this vast kit you share in the book that could serve somebody that they could take with them today before we leave.
Well, people believe that the thoughts they have going on in their head are independent, have just come to them, and that they're purpose-driven.
And the reality is that, as I was saying earlier, all of us carry baggage from our childhoods.
And that baggage oftentimes gives us a narrative in how we respond in the world.
As an example, and this may seem somewhat obtuse,
but let's say you're on a diet.
Well, if you drive by In-N-Out Burger
or someplace like this, and you said,
I'm on this diet, I'm not gonna do any of this stuff,
and you have eaten In-N-Out Burger and you absolutely love it.
You drive by the restaurant, you smell it, you suddenly turn in and you're going, what
the fuck just happened?
I just had this In-N-Out Burger, I've been on a diet, right?
And this is like thoughts in some ways.
You think they come from you and they have some relevance.
Oftentimes they have nothing to do with you.
As an example, if you have a negative interaction with somebody and then you go meet your wife,
the conversation oftentimes you're having with your wife has nothing to do with your
wife.
It has to do with the fact that you were irritated by this other conversation and similarly to
being distracted by the smell of this burger. But my point is that you have to be able to
understand that one, we are reactive, two, we have this negativity bias. And I think
one way to change your thoughts is to be self-compassionate. And what I mean by this is to give yourself
positive affirmations so that you're decreasing the sound of this negative dialogue and diminishing
how often these things affect you. And you have to understand, and this is a challenge
for a lot of people, all of us carry shame or have a shadow where there are parts of
us we're embarrassed about, things we've done, things we hope no one ever finds out about
us, and we're terrified of that. And then we try to create all these narratives to cover
that. The most important thing we have as a human being is to be authentic, care
for others, and open your heart. And what I mean by that is so many of us fear that
we're going to be judged by somebody else. But have you ever heard of this concept called
Kent Sugi? K-I-N-T-S-U-G-I.
I have not. So Kintsugi is from Japan and it was something that was developed in the
15th and 16th century. So pottery used to be very expensive and if it broke people,
and usually royalty had it or wealthy people, it would be repaired to hide the fact that it was broken. But later that broken pottery was repaired with a golden
glue. And the metaphor of this is you're no longer hiding the cracks that each of
us have, the phalates, but you're otteried them. You see, all of us have, the failings, but you're ordering them.
You see, all of us have had these types of struggles. All of us have made mistakes. All
of us have been broken. We've had to come back together, but there's nothing to hide
about your brokenness. You sit there and you hold it and you acknowledge it and you accept it and you're not afraid,
you're not trying to hide it.
And this comes together with another Japanese aesthetic, which is this idea of what is called
wabi-sabi, W-A-B-I-S-A-B-I.
And this is understanding the nature of our existence.
It is imperfect, impermanent, and always incomplete.
So you have to be able to one, accept yourself as you are and realize that even with all the things that may have happened or all these negative things that you believe about yourself, they're simply thoughts that you have created and
regardless you deserve to be loved, you deserve to be cared, you deserve to be
hugged, you are perfectly imperfect and it's okay. What a remarkable
conversation today. I'm so grateful. I didn't think I'd have a neurosurgeon,
a neuroscientist come on my show
and finish with talking about that you deserve to be hugged.
But I'm really grateful that he did.
You're a wonderful man.
You're brilliant, but I really believe your big heart
and your kindness and your generosity
exceeds even the big brain that you've got.
And I enjoyed today so much.
Thank you, Dr. Doty, very, very much for today.
Well, Ed, I hope we have a chance to speak again.
Actually, I would love to not just chat here,
but actually to get to know you a little better
if you have any time at some point.
I would love that.
I'm going to have them give you my contact number.
But I was thinking, I'd like to do the next one in person.
We'll have a cigar here in the saloon and chop it up in person next time. I would love that.
Okay my friend.
Okay everybody, make sure you go get Mind Magic, Dr. Doty's book right now,
The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything.
I think you got a sense today that it's worthy of your time and
hopefully you'll share today's podcast everybody.
God bless.
Max out.
This is the Ed Myland show.