THE ED MYLETT SHOW - The Neuroscience Behind Mindfulness w/ Dr. Amishi Jha

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know the INNER WORKINGS OF THE MIND are a particularly fascinating subject for me. I hope you’re ready for a BRAINY conversation this week because that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about with my guest DR. AMISHI JHA. There are so many questions when it comes to optimizing how your brain functions. Are you curious about how you can do a better job of paying ATTENTION? Are you curious why you get DISTRACTED so easily? Dr. Jha has got some revealing insights you’re going to want to hear. Dr. Jha is the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami where she is one of the leading experts in the world on the study of COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE. Dr. Jha is also the author of the newly published book, PEAK MIND Even though they’re critical success skills, many of us fall short when it comes to mindfulness and maintaining focus. As part of our discussion, Dr. Jha also weighs in with THREE SYSTEMS you can put into practice to help you improve these essential skills. We also talk about how you can DO AWAY WITH BIASES that are influencing your actions and what you focus on. As Dr. Jha explains, learning how to step back from your preconceived narratives gives you CLARITY going forward. Dr. JHA ties a lot of these ideas together when we talk about MENTAL TOUGHNESS through GREATER SELF-AWARENESS of your mind. We even get into how powerful your brain is through its ability to TIME TRAVEL and MIND TRAVEL. There’s so much we’ve learned about the brain, but so much that we don’t understand. Here’s one last thing to think about. What we do know, and as Dr. Jha proves, is that you can achieve BETTER LIVING through a BETTER RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR BRAIN.   👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈  → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK  ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE

This is The End My Let's Show. Welcome back to the show everybody. I'm so excited to have this lady here with me. I'm fascinated by her work. And because the applications in so many different areas of my own life, and I believe for the audience today, she's got a new book out called Peek Mind. She's a neuroscientist, professor of psychology, University of Miami, and I already like her. Amishie Ja, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. It's good to be here. So good. So I have

so many things I want to ask you and I'm going to cram it into one hour. So first things first, there's this fallacy evidently that we use only a percentage of our brain. There's, you know, you're 10% of your brain only a percentage of our brain. There's, you know, you're 10% of your brain, 32% of your brain. People love to throw these statistics around, but as I'm prepping and learning about your work, you say not true at all.

Oh, not true at all. Okay, tell me. No way. I mean, the brain takes up so much of our metabolic energy. Nothing is wasted. And the way to think about the brain is, is as a unit. Usually we think about bits and pieces

and communication between those bits and pieces, but it's really the configuration of the whole thing, just like a team. So you'd never say that, if you have all the players on the team, some may be more active than others, but you don't say the whole team's not playing the game. Same idea with the brain, it's entirely used.

Okay. And some parts may be actively suppressed, and other parts may be actually really activated. Do highly performing people have some functionality in their brain or a presence about them, that people that don't function at that same level have, or what separates them? Oh yeah.

It's a peak mind, what what separates them? Oh yeah. You should peak mind, what does that mean? To me, a peak mind has to do with the area that I actually specialize in attention. Okay. So a peak mind is a mind that has full access to its attentional resources. Nothing is lost or hidden.

And by the way, that doesn't always mean you're focused. Okay. It means that you know exactly in a moment-to-moment context where your attention is, even if it's awfully sh-doing whatever the heck it wants to do. Okay, so attention means I'm aware, I'm no longer focused on the task at hand, the initial task, and that's still being in full attention, is that what you're saying? I'm trying to understand that.

Yeah, yeah. So attention is this complex multifaceted system, and it really developed over the course of evolution, because we've got a very big problem. The brain had a very big problem, which is that, and we can see it if we just look around right now, there's so much information available to it. It cannot possibly process all of it. So attention provides a solution to prioritize a subset of the information, and then hone in on it to get fuller access. So we actually make sense of the world by sampling different pieces of it to kind of put together the entirety.

Okay. So, oh, here we go. This is already getting good. So I went right into the content without even positioning things because I'm so fascinated. But as you can now tell everybody, we're going to talk today about mindfulness and awful lot. And we're going to talk today about getting better at getting your attention focus. I use the word focus.

Use a different word. But so I'm watching one of your TED talks. And by the way, I want to encourage everybody to go watch them. The one I watched is awesome. At one point in the talk, you say, well, I basically got eight minutes left. You will listen to about 50% of what I'm about to say. And I thought to myself, well, the application of missing 50% of something, maybe listening to a talk, okay, whatever.

But what's that mean for an athlete who's in five-round UFC fight? What's it mean for a surgeon who's going to operate on someone's body? What's it operate for a soldier or a law enforcement person to lose attention for that percentage of time? So that's actually accurate that the average person is their attention is their 50% of the time. Yeah, I mean that's study after study after study. And what I mean by that is,

some of these studies are really interesting the way that they're done. And they're done in a very rudimentary way. We've got more and more sophisticated, but the initial studies, all that happened was you said, okay, you know, Ed, we've signed up for my study, yes. I'm going to text you any time of day during waking hours, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and the questions would be something like, what are you doing right now? And you get a little list of options, like reading a book, talking to a

person, whatever those options are, you click, and then the second question is, where is your attention right now? Is it on the task you're doing or somewhere else? And that kind of experience sampling suggested 50%. Gosh. But then we brought it into the lab and we had people do tasks that are potentially demanding. And even then, even though they know that they're there to do a task, 50%. You pay people to say, don't get distracted. Still, very high percentage. It's just the nature of the mind. And I think knowing that can be very empowering in some sense. Is there such a thing as multitasking or is that a fallacy?

In other words, can the brain do more than one thing at one time? Great question. I'm so ready to ask that. So if more than one thing is intentionally demanding, you cannot do more than one thing at one time. The term multitasking is actually a myth. The correct term would be task switching. Task switching. Yes, so what you're doing, and this is actually, frankly, one of the most exhausting things you can do to your brain is engage your attention and then after disengage it,

move it to the next thing, come back, and move it over and over again. Really? Yeah. Okay. And when we tell people this, you know, it's, people always get like, yeah, it takes me a while to get back into the thing I was doing.

So don't do that to yourself. My main like guidance for people. Okay. Don't have your alert son when you're trying to actually do deep work and focus. Because you're disadvantaged in your ability to actually do the task that you're trying to do. I mean, if already the baseline is 50%.

And now you've got to deal with things pulling you away. The chances of it actually being successful are even reduced more. So what's the solution then? In other words, you talk a great deal about mindfulness. Why don't we position that? I'm pretty familiar, I would say, that I practice mindfulness for a while, but not on the level into the extent nor with some of the exercises that you recommend. So is the solution in your, there's a generic

answer, mindfulness for you, and then why don't you elaborate on what that actually means? Sure. I mean, I think that, first I'll just tell you my personal bias, right? So coming into this, I mean, you could see me, I'm an Indian woman, the term meditation or mindfulness meditation. I mean, these were not things that I was unfamiliar with growing up. But I kind of didn't want anything to do with it. I was a true skeptic. In fact, I thought it was not a serious enterprise. And had other reasons for not wanting to go in the direction

of practicing meditation at all. Because of some sexist aspects of the culture, et cetera. I was like, no, not for me. So my topic, my expertise is in the brain science of attention, that's what I studied. And it was just a total life circumstances that even opened me up to the possibility of mindfulness entering my lab's works.

I just want to frame that. That's interesting. It's very hard for people to know, especially when I walk on a military basis. They usually think I'm the mindfulness lady, and then the neuroscientist is the other person that's with me. I'm like, no, flip that. Well, what's interesting, not to interrupt you, but that's what I thought originally.

So when the opportunity to speak with you is presented to me, I went, okay, I've had some meditation people before. I'm actually more interested in the science part of it than I look into you, and I'm like, oh, hold on a second here. This is a person who comes from a scientific perspective. She's a neuroscientist. Now we're talking about mindfulness. Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, it's not something, and it was probably two or three years into me having my own lab that it entered my lab's landscape. And it really came because I was at a crossroads in my personal life. I was, you know, a young child at that point. I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And everything was sort of on paper and to the external world exactly as I wanted it, right? I got this dream job.

I have a beautiful family and we just bought a hundred year old fixer upper and West Philly and we're renovating it. And like everything was great and like the way that I had planned for it to be. But I had a real wake up call or two things that happened that really were like, uh, something's up. First, I lost feeling in my teeth from grinding.

That was odd. And then one night I was reading to my son and, um, meh. I had no idea what I was reading in the book. Like he asked me, he was like, maybe not even three years old. He stopped, put his little hand on the book and like looks up, like, what do we, you know, what does this word mean? And I'm like, I have no idea what I'm reading

And it was this kind of deep feeling of my goodness. I am not here at all. I am not paying attention to my life And if this is happening now and is this tiny like how was it gonna flow as he gets older and things as you know As you got teenagers things get more complicated. So anyway, just to say that I became like, I was on a hunt. I study attention. I'm an expert in this. Okay, let me just read something about how to fix this thing. Like, I'm distracted.

How do I fix it? Nothing in my field would guide me to what to do. And so we tried a lot of different things, even in the lab, because it sort of paralleled what the lab was studying at that time of we knew attention can be vulnerable to things like stress and threat, etc. But we didn't have any solutions there. So anyway, so it ended up just to give you a sense of mindfulness entered the lab. It was reasonable. Yeah.

I was at a seminar actually. This was about early 2000. So mindfulness was not a seminar actually. This was about early 2000. So mindfulness was not a term. Like I would have never thought at that point, 2021, I'd be talking to somebody that would say, oh yeah, I practice mindfulness. Like definitely not, something I thought would happen. But this colleague of mine, a very eminent neuroscientist

who studies something called affective neuroscience, the neuroscience of emotion. And he presented, he was like at the front of this large lecture hall, and he presented like two brain images on the screen, a very positive looking brain, meaning he had induced people while they're in the scanner to feel in a positive mood. And then a negative brain.

And I'm like, at the end of the lecture, I raised my hand, I was like, okay, how do you get that brain? You look like that brain, you know, like kind of just in a, and he was very flippant about it. He was just like meditation. And I was like, I don't think so. Yeah, no, I don't think so. And I talked to him later and he was in a serious initial stages of studies that now we've

all probably heard of with a depth monastics, monks. And so it was very intriguing to me. And I was kind of like, oh, but I don't want anything to do with this. This is not serious. And I had my own personal baggage. And I ended up walking into the pen bookstore and pulled a book off called Meditation for Beginners. And I just said, let me just check it out. It ended up that that book was by one, somebody that was quite dear to me now as a teacher. Jack Cornfield and Jack. So the book, I know the book. Yeah, and Jack has a little, it's a little tiny book

and has a guided CD. I'm like, okay, look, I'm skeptical, I'm skeptical, but I'm just gonna try it. I'm just gonna try it. It's like 10, 15, 20 minute practices. So I committed to it. And what I realized as it was happening, as I was going through this day after day,

and probably about a month or so in, I'm like, oh, this thing is entirely, the instructions are plainly about attention, and this thing is transforming the way that I pay attention. I felt more embodied, I felt more aware, I could notice the little grimaces on my son's face or maybe a concern, look in my spouse's eyes, like just everything became crystal clear

and more alive to me. And none of the stresses had changed. I mean, the pressures of my life were the same, but I felt more capable really at my peak. How quickly? About four to six weeks. That's what it was for me too, which I really am amazing that you're saying this

is that I had a somewhat similar experience where I had sort of the financial well-being of my life that had turned around. I'm living on the ocean. I've got all these things in my life that I wanted. And I just struggled with finding some peace. I struggled with being present. Clarity of thought.

And actually what I felt like too for me was like, I had stopped growing emotionally, psychologically, and mentally. Like I would, I was still producing more external results, but there was just a part of me that wasn't expanding, and maybe I was even regressing. I grabbed the exact same book. Really? Yeah, that's what's ironic about it. When you said that, I want to make sure it's the same author before I jump in.

Oh my goodness. Oh, it's amazing. I grabbed the exact same book, but as we're talking, I realize even recently, maybe I've not, state is dedicated to some of those practices as I could. So being with you is sort of inspire me to do it. A lot of times, you know, just I'm anticipating people may be like, okay, I've heard of mindfulness, I'll even do it, but I want to deepen the understanding.

And maybe even it might even actually motivate you to kind of try a little bit more regularly. Of what attention is and why it ended up being such an interesting solution for us to bring it into the lab because after this happened to kind of get back to the to where I was in my journey. After this happened, I was like, okay, this is pretty interesting, but I'm one person. This is an anecdotal self-study. So if this is for real, then let's put it to the test in the most rigorous way possible. Okay. And hey, I happen to have all the tools of setting attention.

I can actually bring this to the lab and we can do this seriously. So that's summer. Like a few months after I started this whole journey, I wrote my first grant to investigate this and put really literally, like, if this has any chance of actually being real, it will have to really be there in order for us to see it or else it'll just not show up. You know, with this kind of randomized control trials and having ensuring that we're very clear about the protocols, et cetera.

So anyway, so I just wanted to mention that that this is, this entered the lab because I was curious, but I was very open to the fact that it could be anecdotal. It could be just you. It could be just me. Because I would love to share a practice with you. And you'll find it very familiar, since you've been practicing mindfulness.

But the reason that I was willing to write the grant, and I think the reason I've been able to get grant after grant is because it truly taps into and asks these aspects of attention that the brain science says exist. But currently, at least at the moment that I started this work, there was really no insight into how to train each of these brain systems.

So it's like, we know they exist, we know they're vulnerable. The piece that I wanted to actually explore is, is it trainable? Yes. So, because that's when, as you know, I mean, that's where the expansion, the growth can happen. Right. So anyway, so let's just, I mean, I love the question that you asked me regarding attention

and you said the term focus. But that actually is just one part of the attention landscape. This is important to know before an exercise, so we know we're actually working on. Exactly. That's what I was thinking. I think that it helped me understand why I would be worth doing this, what seemingly is a very weird thing to do with, sit quietly and pay attention to your breath, which we'll break it down, but still that's essentially what it's going to come to.

Okay, so just one of the things I like to do because it helps me explain and understand even how these systems work. I'm already talked broadly that attention is solving a problem for the brain. It doesn't exist for no reason. It exists to emphasize certain aspects of our experience. And the metaphor I like to use that really is tied to the term you said, focus is of a flashlight. Right, so that's the metaphor.

So if you're in a darkened path, you know, you have this beautiful ocean view here, you wanna go for a little walk in the evening, you might take a flashlight with you. Why? Because wherever it is that that flashlight is pointing pointing you're gonna get privileged access to that Okay, so same thing with attention when we attend to something like right now if I'm looking at your face I'm getting granular information

regarding your face and everything else is sort of becoming a Fuzzy in the same way that wherever we point that flashlight, everything else is darkened around it, same idea. And that's a very active process that the brain is doing. The brain is enhancing the neural activity of the part of space I'm focusing on, and actively suppressing everything else around it. Yeah, that's good. So that part is, I think most people can understand the term focus is a very common thing. The cool thing about this flashlight though is it's not only about the

external environment, but it's about the internal environment as well. So if I say, think about what you had for dinner last night. Can you do that? You can. You can do that, right? So what happened in that moment? Before I said that, probably it was not on your mind. Oh, so good. So you had it come to mind in your memory and then basically you were shining the flashlight on the memory and all of a sudden it's in your conscious experience. So think about the power of this focusing capacity. I mean, I do refer to it as a type of fuel because we need it to have a train of thought. We need it to experience emotion and regulate emotion and we certainly need it to connect with other people. But still, that's only part of the puzzle.

But I hope that at least the flashlight thing makes sense. That is it. I'll never forget that. Well, I'll never forget that as long as I continue to practice mindfulness. If I don't potentially, I will forget that. Okay, so I won't forget that. What an unbelievable analogy because you made me pull a visual, a file up almost in my brain that was suppressed. It was the one that went to the background.

Yeah. And once we shine the light on it, this is so good. Okay, so now that we're at this space, I'm obviously you now have proven scientifically that this is trainable, expandable, almost like a muscle on a bicep, that if it's trained regularly, it can become stronger and grow.

Yeah. So, if I'm in, I know when most of my audience knows if I want to go to a gym and I want to build my bicep, they kind of have a general idea here's an array of exercises you can do to build out. What is one of them that we can do to build this? I'm gonna, you're gonna be mad because I'm gonna say, wait, hold on, but there's more. I feel like I'm trying to send you Ginsu knives or something. But because it's really like the body and you know that if you only work certain muscle groups, there's others that will atrophy.

And there is a cross-training aspect to this. So I want to make sure we cover the other aspects. Let's do it. Well, that's part of the training. Of attention, right? So the focusing is one piece of the puzzle. But attention is this multifaceted component and there's two other systems that I think are really worth mentioning. The other system is something I call the flood light and it really is formally called the alerting system of the brain. It's almost you could

say the exact opposite of the flashlight. Whereas the flashlight is narrow and selective, the flood light is broad and receptive. There is nothing you should be privileging. The only thing you're privileging is what is happening right now? So you're privileging time, like right now, in this moment, what is the most important thing? And you know, we use this system all the time. You're driving down the road, you see a flashing yellow light, and you're a construction zone, or a weird traffic pattern.

You know what that feeling is of like broad and receptive. I don't know what weirdness is going to happen, but I'm here for it because I might need to take action like that And then I'll be able to direct the flashlight where it's needed But I have to have that preparatory kind of broad receptivity. Okay, so flashlight flood light flashlight flood light right both really important and the third system is Actually and this will sound familiar to once I start talking about it It's actually something called executive control

Okay, and it's we use that term executive because it really is like the executive of a company. The job of this executive system is as a manager to ensure that the goals we have and the behavior we engage in align. So the analogy I use there is a juggler. So essentially, all the balls need to be in the air. As a leader in an organization, you know that you're not gonna go in and do every task, but you need to make sure there's a rhythmicity,

there's a appropriateness to all the things that are being done. And this juggler basically guides the action of these other systems of the flashlight and the flood light. So now I think with those three in mind, we can talk about the cross training aspect of one of the practices. That's very, very good.

Yeah, I appreciate that background because I'm thinking about the... For me, when I listen to things, I know people think differently. I'm constantly thinking of the application. Yeah. So when I hear the science or the exercise, I know you, that's why you're work so wonderful. I'm thinking of the application. Right. I'm thinking of people, like for example, when you talk about the flood light, I'm thinking

of people who overuse their flashlight. Do those sometimes are people who are good at certain tasks, or certain behaviors, but they have an inability to see the room. You got it. They have an inability to see the context of things sometimes. And so this flood light aspect, I'm thinking, what part of those are am I pretty good at? I don't know so much about the juggler part.

I think that's probably the part maybe that I struggle with, but I am pretty good, I think, of coming in and being able to have that flood light and seeing the bigger perspective and then narrowing my focus down to what matters. And so the application as you're listening to this is really, really fascinating stuff because you could be unbelievable at focusing

in certain aspects of what you do in your life, but you're missing the bigger story, the bigger context, the bigger vision. Then there's other people, I think you can see the big thing, but maybe they're weaker at being able to narrow their focus for the period of time they need to, to engage with somebody, or to be present with them,

or to persuade them, or to knock a button the whole, or whatever that might be. So that is fascinating. I love that, yeah, I think that's a really great, like connecting the dots. But the other thing to keep in mind is, need all three systems and they need to be functioning together.

Fluidly. They don't function at the same time. In fact, technically in the brain, they battle each other for prominence. So you can't be in both a floodlight and a flashlight mode. And we know this, right? So you're immersed in reading something or listening to something. Somebody walks in the room and says your name. You're like, it takes you a second. Because the flood light is essentially being dampened down. The receptivity to the environment is dampened

down. So I think that the, the, the, can I give you an example of that? Just in sports. Yeah, please, please, yeah. Because I think the transition between those, I'll call them states. Yeah. The transition between those states is something that I think people that perform at a high level have an ability to transition better. So I'll give you an example. An NFL quarterback walks up to the line of scrimmage. What they're doing is they're in the flood light state at that point because the flood light

state is they've got to read the field. They've got to read the defense. This is almost like walking into a board meeting, but in a quarterback sense when I'm working with them, they're walking in, they're surveying the entire field. What's the defense? Where's the linebacker? Is this person blitzing? They're looking at the flood light.

It's their ability to then deduce and make assessments about the flood light state they're in. And then as the ball snapped, move into the flashlight and hone in on the open wide receiver. That's the application for a quarterback, right? And so, and then the juggling part is pretty obvious of what they have to do during that play. So you should be listening to this or watching this thing about the application in your life as a father, as a mother, as a

business person, as an athlete. So I just want to make sure that we're sort of going to application, just give them one example as we do. It's such a, I mean, it's so cool, the resonance between even the terminology we used when we trained the University of Miami football team, scanned the field, eye on the ball. And, you know, these are very similar terms to what we were saying in the reason that they should be practicing these particular practices. So, absolutely, these are things that are relevant. I love what you said regarding assess the situation. And I want to just say one more thing regarding that. That happens often when we assess, right? When I say observe

or be receptive to what's happening, there's an aspect of that that has to be, ooh, free of a particular perspective of what you think you're seeing. So if you come in and you think, oh, I know what this team is going to do, then you're going to read that field very, what, you know, the playing field, very differently then, if you're like, I don't really know what this team is going to do. Then you're going to read that field, playing field, very differently, then, if you're like, I don't really know what they're going to do. I've got to really be able to get all the data of what's going on because I'm not sure. I'll probably figure it out as stuff starts happening of what the other team is attempting to do.

But that is a very important aspect because we default into that sort of story-making or conceptual elaboration. Can I ask you about that? Because now you're really going down the road I love, and then I'm fascinated by. We have these predisposed belief systems like you just described. We believe when we walk into a room there's a certain environment or certain treatment, a certain scenario, a certain, or our inability to see something also, right? Does our brain somehow then help reveal to us what it is that we believe most clearly in that environment with that flood lighter, that flashlight?

The reality, I think we have to consider is that in many circumstances, in many high stress, high stakes consequences, we have no idea what the conceptual overlays should be. And it can be quite problematic to assume you do. And can I give you an example? I want it. Yes, I'm sorry. So this is an example actually from a colleague, actually a dear now friend who happened to be a,

then he was a colonel, he's now a three star general. And he gave me this example, this is, again, in the initial stages of talking about mindfulness and why it matters. He got it immediately, and I'll connect the dots back to the practice that you asked about. So he's describing this scenario in Afghanistan actually probably now 20 years ago. Well, let's see, no, not 20 years ago, maybe 15 years ago. Right at the beginning of the whole episode there, and they got intelligence that on this mountaintop is a Taliban encampment.

And their job was to deal with them. Basically, there were planes flying above and he was told, you give us the word and we're going to drop a bomb, get rid of these bad guys, so he wanted to as the leader. And ensure that this is the right thing to do. That was totally the story. All the intelligence that told them that.

So they're going up the mountain to actually confront this group of people that they heard were there. And ahead of him were a couple of scouts. So he's like behind, they're going up front. And the scout says, yeah, look, we have see men. We see young men in this age range. They're standing outside the quarters of where they're staying and all

looks good. Yes, it's exactly what we think it is. So the leader was about to say, yeah, drop, go ahead, drop. Then the next sentence comes in that changed everything. The soldier said, I see no weapons. And that was like a, that's not typical. And then, and then they said, I see no weapons. I'm just gonna go tackle the guy.

And so he runs in, tackles the guy. And then a few seconds later, is angry women come out of the tents? Like, what are you doing to our family members? Oh my gosh. It was not a Taliban in camp, but it was a better one tribe that had been coming there for hundreds of years. Thank God.

Thank God. Thank God. You're a thing, aren't you? And so the insight for this military leader was, ah, he had intrinsic mindfulness. He was able to drop the story and see what is. He saw what wasn't there, which most of us don't do. Yes. So this is what I think in addition to these attentional aspects,

this is what we can get into with mindfulness, because mindfulness is about paying attention to our present moment experience. Right. Without conceptual elaboration, without a story or editorializing it, and without having emotional reactivity to it. Okay, so we're going right there, but I want to go back. You said true and false to what I said.

Yeah. And I like knowing where I'm false, that way I'm not false to. Or what was incorrect about what I asked you. It was not that or what was incorrect about what I asked you. It was not that there was anything incorrect. If you go in to a situation, thinking you have a story that's gonna guide you, absolutely, 100% you are correct,

that attention will be biased in favor of the story. Yes. But that can be not beneficial always. The only part of what I was saying was that, it can have consequences. You were painting a beneficial picture, but that's not key. Yeah.

I actually teach it in the in the latter, meaning I actually think most of the time it's true. Then I take it back. No, no, no. What I wanted to make sure is that this idea of what we do, I believe strongly guides our attention in an environment. I'm 100%. And that's the part that I don't believe, just to be clear, I think most people aren't wired

for it to be their benefit. I actually think that most people are wired. So that's what you meant by false. It can be a negative. It can be negative. Maybe not true or false, it's positive negative. Right.

And the negative, I completely agree with is that if I walk into an environment, I always fail. I always find a way to make a mistake. You will gravitate towards the environment, the circumstance, the person, the whatever it is. Your flashlight begins to focus towards that, if that's your story going in, correct? 100%. Let me just, like maybe I want to emphasize how right that is.

That is the power of story and narrative. And that's why we have to be very aware of the narrative that we're telling ourselves because it is guiding perception, it's guiding decision making and it's guiding action. And so you totally got it right, that that biasing component is important. This is sort of, I just love you, because this is sort of the basis of what I teach. Yeah.

Is that this story guides perception. Now you can prove it with the neuroscience more than I can. But so I'm so glad to hear that it wasn't true or false that it's actually positive and negative because to be really candid with you, I believe that you can learn all the skills of being an entrepreneur or a mother or an athlete or a father, but if you don't begin to take control of the story

of your life, of what you believe about yourself, what you believe about what's possible, you believe about an environment that you really have lost control over your ability to produce the results that you want. And so I'm so glad that you're- You are extremely insane. In fact, I have a whole chapter called, Drop the Story.

Oh gosh. Because it's not just that we should be aware of the story. We have to also have the capacity to drop it. And that's an extra level of a skill. Because sometimes having no story allows us, so we're like, back up. Yeah, so great. Being able to understand that you have a story will at least distance you enough so you can reframe the situation. Yeah, I love your terminal.

Being able to drop the story allows you to defram. And when you defram, you can build up in a different way. And that, I think, is the next level of what we're talking about. It's like, truly take in the data without any kind of conceptual overlay. That is not typical. We don't do that. That's really interesting. So, I've always thought, you better replace that story.

You're saying that's not, it's not imperative to do that. But you guys should drop the current story and allow sort of the information to dictate what the story becomes. So, some examples. Give that part more, because oftentimes we'll reframe and then we're in another story. But really, saver extend the period of time where you are data gathering. And I hear this from one of the people I talk about in the book is a lawyer. And he talks about this all the time.

I have to be able to get the broad data of the experience or judges, same thing or in any business context. If you're not quite sure what's happening, allow the deframing to occur, that will give you better insight into the reframing that then occurs. Do you think someone, gosh, this is, I'm loving this. I actually, we were joking earlier

that we wouldn't go three or four hours. We may go a little bit longer because I'm absolutely loving this. I actually, we were joking earlier that we wouldn't go three or four hours. We may go a little bit longer because I'm absolutely loving this. If you've had some success too, that if it doesn't come with a dose of humility, that when you begin to walk into every room and every room and I think you've already figured it out, you already know this stunt's growth as well because what you're saying is it blunts you taking in new data and new information. Correct. Correct. You get it. You totally get it. You are denying yourself better data, more data to inform the decisions that happen. So don't do that. Don't do that to yourself, right?

Give us the exercise. We will build enough. Give us. Okay. So this is like, I'm going to give you a longer one just to describe the steps and then we'll do a like one that you can do anytime all the time. Okay. So this is like a basic mindfulness practice and I call it, again, tied to what we're talking about in the book and attention, to find your flashlight practice. Great. Because oftentimes it's not that we can't focus, it's that we don't know where we're focusing in any moment. That's true.

So the instruction would be, and I guide people to kind of ramp up to about 12 minutes a day that our data suggests is beneficial. Do this. But to start out, like, do 30 seconds of this. Commit to that for a few weeks and see how that goes. So the practice is essentially find a quiet, comfortable spot and take this time seriously. Even if it's 30 seconds or a minute, sit in an upright alert posture, like a dignified, and if we do it now, it's just like upright alert dignified.

And first step is just acknowledge, notice, shine the flood light on your experience that you're breathing right now. Then what you're going to do is hone in on something that actually notices prominent in your experience of breathing. So do you notice anything that feels prominent? Like the coolness of air maybe by your nose or maybe your chest. It's actually the sound I'm making.

Okay, great, yes. But the sound, that's a great one too. That's where you're gonna hold the flashlight. That's your attentional target for this short practice. So direct that flashlight right there. Keep it steady. You can close your eyes if you want to, whatever you choose, just to limit the sensory input. And if it hasn't happened yet, it surely will.

Your mind will wander. And all you do in that moment is notice it. Ah, the mind is wandered away. Next step, take that flashlight, redirect it back to that same attention target. And repeat. So it's essentially focus, point that flashlight, notice, use the flood light, redirect, get the juggler to do its job. Oh my goodness. You know one, can I ask about that? Yeah, please.

When I first started this, there was like a judgment when I drift away. Oh, now it's a sort of win. It's a win moment. It's actually a win because it gives us a chance to redirect the flashlight, right? This is so important because I don't know, maybe you, maybe you're further along than me,

but in the beginning I was like, gosh, man, I'm gone this for like 24 seconds and I'm out. But you're actually saying that's actually a gift when we drift away because it allows us to build this flashlight, I'll call it a muscle, so to speak. Yeah, absolutely. That we're coming back. It's really good.

But now I hope it makes sense why I wanted to describe those three systems because we hit all three in this. It's good. And I think it's really important to not think of the wandering as a problem the wandering remember We start out talking about 50% of the time. It's the nature of the mind I didn't say and if you happen to be one of those weird people with mind wanders like us normal people on how that you have mind

Wonder I didn't say that I said when your mind wanders because it's gonna wander very sure Just bring it back and not doing that with the added story, the added reactivity is so important. You know, I was just thinking of the, I did a lot of work when I was younger and I do now with kids, and I have so many parents almost judge their children further. He can't stay focused in the classroom.

He drifts away. And I'm just thinking right now, like what a breakthrough this might be for some parents who are listening, who are able to realize that that's, actually everyone is at 50 percent. Maybe your kid reveals it more than other kids do. Doesn't conceal it as well. Right. Maybe it manifests in talking out loud as opposed to scribbling on a sheet of paper,

so it's more apparent. But this is something that even with, do you believe it? Is there a particular age where you believe a child might be able to begin to build this? I'm calling it building a muscle because everybody can relate to that. Yeah, yeah, no, I think it is. It's practice, it's strengthening. So the first thing to say is that this brain system of attention is one of the slowest to develop. We don't fully develop this capacity to we're about 25.

And one of the reasons is it relies on the furloughs, which are the slowest brain region to develop. So it does kind of drive me nuts sometimes, and I feel for parents when they're, but when they're not happy that their children aren't paying attention or their responses pay attention, they're not gonna help at all. And in fact, understanding that that's the thing that is,

it's your child is not paying attention because they don't know that they should often, is that they don't know where their attention is, just like we are saying we don't know. That's good, that's good. So I think that the thing to really, and by the way, yes, absolutely, there's a huge enterprise of offering mindfulness training in a developmentally appropriate manner, to children as young as preschool. We can do these in very useful ways for children, but what you're having them cultivate is not just focus, focus, focus.

It's, where are you right now? Where are you? In a friendly, self-supportive way. Is that where you want to be right now? When you talk to yourself in that manner of like, where am I right now? Is that where I want to be? All of a sudden, the world doesn't feel as dire. Like, oh, I'm over here. I think I want to be, all of a sudden the world doesn't feel as dire, like, oh, I'm over

here. I think I want to be over there instead. I think that's what I should be doing right now is being over there. It's a different relationship. And if you, the younger that we can get people to start understanding that this is befriending your mind in a way that allows it to be used to your benefit, that's fascinating to me. Punitive to yourself. Yeah, that, I'm just thinking I'm sitting here as a 50 year old man, I've done different forms of meditation, mindfulness, I'm relatively productive human being,

and I'm confessing to the audience that oftentimes I'm going 24 seconds and I'm out of my attention where my attention has changed rather. So the idea that we're concerned about our eight year old who might have the exact same, or does have the exact same scenario that I do. I'm just curious, there's been any data,

are kids even more than 50% where their attention moves, or would you assume that because those frontal lobes aren't as developed, or is it pretty much the same? Here's the tricky part of having assessing that with children, by the way. What does it take for you to even know

if somebody's on task or off task? Right, they have to have the awareness, and it's something called meta awareness, awareness or attention to your attention. That is also a developmentally slow process. So we're getting a fuzzy read on them. I mean, we could take them into the lab and look directly at their performance on tasks.

And yeah, they mind wander a lot. Their attention can be off, often, you know, off task often. But I don't think that's the thing we want to help cultivate, which is the counterintuitive thing, and I mean, I've referred to it in the book, it's like a peak-mind pivot. It's like, we think that we have, if to focus better, we think we need to focus on,

we need to train ourselves to focus. And I'm saying, no, to focus better, train your mind to notice when you're not focused. Gosh, very good. So, you know, that's a totally different set of, you're exercising the flood light and the juggler. The flashlight will do its thing.

It knows how to do its thing, but really pay attention to the understanding of where your mind is moment by moment. I did that during your TED Talk. You actually say something similar during your TED Talk, and then I thought, well, where am I now? And then I'm back with you. And then where am I now? Then I came back with you. And then where am I now? And then I came back with you. And that's it.

You know, 24 seconds. If you're truly going 24 seconds, you are, we got to bring you to the lab because that's really good. I made the number up. It's probably more like 2.4 seconds. I don't know. But I actually asked a colleague of mine

who'd been practicing mindfulness for 30 years because I was getting, in the initial stages, when I was just trying to understand what this thing is, I was like, I'm not going very long before my mind wanders. And will that be the thing that will extend as I practice more? That was my thinking. That's a reasonable hypothesis. I might, if it's five seconds now, maybe it'll be 10 and 15 each year, I might get longer

before it, wandering. And I was very humbled by what he said. He said, 30 years of practice. He said, seven seconds. No kidding. And, but you know, so at first I'm like, oh great, why am I being bothering? Like it's still gonna be seven seconds after 30 years,

but what he said next really helped. He said, you know, what has happened is that my mind now, instead of being completely lost in a fantasy or a doomsday scenario, and I love that it was almost poetic. He's like, it's like I've seen the ripples at the distance of the placid lake. And I was like, oh, he really knows his mind. He can tell it's like tug.

He doesn't have to go full on into, you know, next vacation has been planned way. You're trying to do five minutes of a mindfulness practice. That felt so much more like, he knows his mind, he knows where it is, with that level of granularity. And in some sense, this is the part that I think is also really interesting, especially as we talk about athletes and military service members and special operators, et cetera.

It's this sense that you develop, because you know your mind, a sense of, I'm gonna use the term, mental toughness. It's like, I know the space, I know the lake, it may not always be plastic, it's usually for me, like a rough, stormy place. But I can take anything. Like, my mind is here for it.

And frankly, that's developing that same flood-like capacity. I am here. I'm present for it. I'm not gonna be thrown off. I'm steady in the middle of whatever's going on. Very good. You know, I think some of the most self-confident people I know are just more self-aware.

And I think that's actually what you're describing. There's an awareness of self. I'm loving this and I want to keep going. So, I want to ask you about you describe things in visual terminology a lot and I'd like to think that I am a visual person also although I don't know There's such a thing. I'm wondering if part of that self-awareness is are some people more predisposed to be kinesthetic or auditory or visual in their in the deductions they make in the observations that they make and Is that something to be cognizant of about yourself when you're in a state of in the deductions they make, in the observations that they make,

and is that something to be cognizant of about yourself when you're in a state of attention that you are not just, I feel like I'm very visual, but maybe every single person is, or are there more auditory, predisposed people, kinesthetic, and you will. Yeah.

I mean, the jury is out. Most people say now that the notion of learning styles or specific modalities is not all that well supported. So I would say, we don't know yet, if that's actually the case. But frankly, the bulk of the brain as human beings compared to our little dogs that run around, so dominant with vision. But you brought up something that I want to actually,

I want to kind of ping that. Because that, what you described, is not what I'm talking about when I use the term meta-awareness. What you just described, very powerful thing to do is something we call meta-cognition. So both of these are tied to self-awareness. But meta-awareness is a different thing. So meta-cognition is essentially knowing your tendencies,

knowing your styles, knowing your decision-making capacities, your strengths, your weaknesses. I mean, everything you just prescribed would be really great to know for your metacognitive style, for example. And yes, it can definitely, there could be differences, maybe not tactile or visual, but there are definitely differences in the way people operate metacognitively. So you may be a maximizer in your decision-making versus a satisfy, you know, there's these different orientations. But I'm not talking about that.

What I'm talking about, when I talk about the flood light, because remember the flood light system is really about the now. And meta awareness is awareness of the moment to moment processes and contents within your mind. So it doesn't really matter from the meta awareness point of view what your tendencies are. What is going on right now? Where is your mind right now?

And I think that that what's important now kind of orientation is so important in performance context. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter what you're doing. I'm like, what's going on now? Is it bad to be dreaming in the future? Is that a better good? I don't even like that terminology, but.

Useful. Yeah, is it useful? Okay, better. That's a great question. I'm so glad you asked me that, I don't even like that terminology, but yeah, it's a useful, okay? That's a great question. I'm so glad you asked me that because I don't want it to seem like I'm saying, always be here right now. No, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying.

In fact, this capacity to mentally time travel, just like you did with your, what did you have for dinner last night, right? It's so useful for us. In fact, it may be the thing that defines us in our evolutionary advantages human beings, right? It's so useful for us. In fact, it may be the thing that defines us in our evolutionary advantages, human beings, right? We can displace ourselves in something called time travel, right? We can rewind the mind, we can fast forward the mind you heard about me talking about that a little bit in the TED talk, but it's not just about time traveling. It's also about mind traveling. Okay, what's it mean? Mind traveling is essentially putting yourself

in the shoes and mind of somebody else. So both of those are really, really powerful things to do. When we talk about mindfulness, it's a solution to a vulnerability and our capacity to do both of those things. So the problem with time travel, though it's extremely useful for productively reflecting or planning, it becomes problematic under certain states.

And I do think of the athletes, like my heart goes go out to them often times when I see mess ups, right? Like you did something, you totally messed up and it happens. You glitched. If you can't stop rewinding the mind, you are no way going to be able to succeed in the next moment. So how do you get yourself to not rewind the mind, you are no way going to be able to succeed in the next moment. So, how do you get yourself to not rewind? Very good.

Right? Or... I mean, that's really good. Yeah. And I think that the other part is you may be in a...neccessarily the athletic setting, but in our...like even during COVID, like if you can't stop catastrophizing and worrying about the future... You got it.

You're stuck, you're gonna be, probably have a lot of anxiety. So the reason we want, and frankly, the same thing goes with mind traveling. If I'm constantly preoccupied about your view of me, social anxiety is gonna set in. So the reason mindfulness became such an important solution for me going back to why we study in my lab

is because each of those things, verminating about the past, a traster phrasing about the others, overly caring about the viewpoints and evaluation on yourself, hijack attention, it depletes attention. Gosh, it's okay. You're just scribing from a scientific standpoint all the things that people listening to this go, I know this is true. And I think this, the rewinding thing, man, it's just huge. So many people are in the rewinding and just beating themselves up and repeating the same story over and over again.

But the other thing that I've figured out is that oftentimes stress is time travel in the future. That meaning that it's not so much the speech you have to give or the sale you have to close or the putt you have to hit that is stressing you out. It's you projecting into the future the negative result of it and then on top of that what other people are going to think or say about you when you miss the putt when you don't close the sale. Exactly. You describe both the mind travel and the time travel, right? Those are what I would really call the kryptonite scenarios. Like, you're really, what all of that is doing is attention is still being used and you're

draining it out, you're draining the fuel in spinning in those directions. So how do you, you know, it's easy to say, well, don't do that. Get back to here and now. It's easy to say it. It's very hard to do because the tendencies are so strong. So you got to train for it. Just like anything else that's hard to do. You were going to give us one other, I think you were going to give us one other one.

Let me give you another training. Let's get peak mind. Let's get the book so that we also get the whole thing. That's the whole idea. But one more of them would be I'm driving in my car and I'm like, I want to get me one more. The car is a perfect example. You didn't even know I was going to go there. This other practice is just called the stop practice. Literally STOP and do it while you're driving. Do it while you're walking. Do it at any time you want. Stop is stop. Like whatever the progression of your life is in that moment, halt it. Take a breath and that's this conscious breath aware that you're doing in. Observe, oh, proceed, be. So, it's just, it's a many mindfulness practice and I really think it's useful because

you know where your flashlight is at the end of it. I know it's right here right now, I'm back. So use stop signs, use red lights to remind yourself to do that over and over again. So good. I'm just thinking of something. When you actually me to do that, I actually did it with you. And I actually noticed a couple things in my visual space that have been here the entire time that I didn't see.

That interesting. Yeah. And we're going a little bit deeper probably than I should, but there's a lot of things that your brain does on habit mode, correct? If I'm driving to work and I take the same off-ramp every single day, my, I think my brain is storing energy by doing something that's habitual. That's how I've always

understood it anyways, that I'm taking that same off ramp, whether I'm right or wrong, it doesn't matter. Okay. The point that I want to make about that is that for me, I think for most people being present is even though yes, there's a benefit to being in the future and rewinding, there's a benefit to being reflective and reminiscing in the past and gaining wisdom from it. But for most of us, that's not a struggle for most people. The struggle for most people is being present. And that's why this is so important what you're teaching here. And for me, there's so many things in a given day that mindfulness practices make me just aware of being present that I'm curious as to, in practical application, how much time a day, I know there's no formula,

but if you were to say, hey, Ed, I'd recommend to you. It's 10 minutes a day, it's five different times a day, it's once a day, do it the same time of the day, doesn't matter when you do it. What would your advice be on just building this practice? As the habit aspect? Yeah. Well, I mean, the last line of the title

is Invest 12 minutes a day. So that gives you a sense of, and that number comes out of many studies that have suggested, you know, if you get to that mount, we tend to see benefits, and the more you do from that, the more you benefit. But if you don't quite get to that, it's almost like, is going for walk in my neighborhood,

walking my dog, gonna build my physical fitness. Probably not. It's not gonna be bad for you, going to build my physical fitness. Probably not. It's not going to be bad for you, but you're not going to get to that level. So here's the answer to the question of, so the when would be, and you can get a deeper understanding of why I say 12 minutes if you read more about it, but just know that it comes from a lot.

I did, I just want them to be the same. I know, I know, but I'm just saying, but your question regarding when to do it, and the habit issue is the best time to do it is when you're going to do it. And that's kind of maybe a cop out, but literally the key to anything. You'd probably say the same thing regarding physical excellence, right? The key is advancing your capacity to create it and incorporate it into daily routine.

And so what I suggest for people, like I just said with what we were doing, the short practice, if you think you can do three minutes, set the goal of a minute and a half and get the win. I did it. I did it. I did it. And you'll get to something that you already do. You know, my recommendation is, is something that you know you're going to do every day without

exception, maybe right after you brush your teeth in the morning or maybe right before you have your cup of coffee, sometime that you know you're gonna do it. And what I would suggest to just to play around with when that works for you is to try it at different times of the day. What many people say when we say try the morning, you know, just play around the time of day, is like people say things like,

I love the taste of my coffee so much more. It's like I've actually tasted. Gosh, it's so true. I can't, I can't. You know, so. And why are you depriving yourself of that? Right? Why are we rushing through? I mean, you're going to have the coffee anyway. Why not have a little bit more pleasure with that experience?

So, yeah, I have to just say though, I was going to tell you off camera, but I'm so glad you said this because I forgot. Yeah. Which is that I just want to give everybody the gift of this that I'm, by the way, I'm no more nearer where you would be or other people, I don't think there's rankings either, by the way, it's not a judgment thing. But my sensory experiences, just in general, have been so dramatically increased by this practice. And people always say to me that there's this duality,

maybe one of the reason they even like me is that maybe I'm sort of like a maybe a masculine dude, but I'm very emotional and very sensitive. I don't know that I've always been that way, but like I do find that I experience my emotions on a deeper level over the last decade or so that my laughter is a little deeper and more joyous. The taste of food is a little bit more pleasurable. My acknowledgement and noticing beauty around me and the nuances and specificities of it

and not just the visual, but smells and wind hitting my face. I know this sounds ridiculous to some people. It's just richer because of this practice. Never mind being far more present and productive. And I think also for me, peak is such a word that I've used over and over. When I'm fully present, it appears to me that I've got better access to my vocabulary, better access to insights in reading somebody.

Would you similar experience for you? I mean, for sure. And it can be life-saving in many ways. And actually, you know, you describe the plus side. And I think it's so great. It's like almost like, you mean, I can just have more joy by being here more? Yeah, you can. But there's another part that I think is very important in the context of our action and our humanity. We're also more present to the suffering of other people. We're also more connected to other people. We also have more sense and respect for the humanity

of others around us and for the environment. And I think that at this particular point, kind of in our human history, consciousness. We need to be more aware of what the heck is going on. We have very little time to like try to make things better for our planet, for example. And also with all the injustices happening, and I was talking recently to somebody regarding

this notion of burnout, and so many people are feeling so burnt out out, can mindfulness help with burnout? And the answer is yes, mindfulness can help with burnout. But, you know, actually, in the context of a conference I was at with critical care nurses, now we know over COVID, that has been a group that has been very, very crunched, right? And the question was, can mindfulness help with burnout? And I said, yes. And they said, but then the system, that the organization of the scheduling is the reason I feel burnt out. And I was like, yes, but there's no way

you're gonna demand change or even conceptualize how to create. If you don't have the capacity to see what's going on. So just use that as the next step to give back to those who may not have this capacity yet. It's like, as the more present we are, the more we can enact change and empower other people to do the same. It's so, you're so right.

And I know you know you're right, but people have told me that the last 10 years or so, I'm just using practical experience for me. You're more patient than you used to be. That's sort of more like a symptom almost. It is more what you have described, which is that I try to be present with people and see them and hear them and experience them more than fix them like I used to and try to truly empathize and understand their experience and their reality. And I've always felt, since I started this,

like I wish more of, I don't care what political part of your probe, I wish more political people had that ability for empathy and understanding and just stopped and listened to people and didn't assess it all the time. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that I attribute some, if not most of that, to these practices. Because obviously I'm a performer, peak performer, expert person supposedly,

but it's the other benefits of doing this that have enriched my life far more than the fact that I've made more money because I'm more present with people or these other things. I'm actually curious about this. What about memory? So is it that my memory can be improved

because of this, because I was actually present in more moment, so I have better recall, because my attention was where I was more often, or is it that there's something happening in my brain where I'm developing the ability to recall and remember things better. Pretty good question, huh? Yes. Right, so, because you could say, well, yeah, your memory's better. Well, maybe that's just because I was more present, or is there actually something operating in my brain

where there's a new mile in forming in my brain? I don't know. Well, first of all, this conversation is changing your brain. I mean, I don't just mean because it's some kind of massively transformed thing. Every experience, mom, every experience we have impacts the way our brain functions. So there's no like, there's no divide between

experience and brain changes. They're just happening concurrently, right? So yes, it is the case. So you're such a great intuition about neuroscience. It's awesome. So yes, it is the case that the more we can get, the more attentive we are, the more granular, fine-grained the inputs are for our memory. In fact, attention is the gateway for memory.

If you don't pay attention, there's no way that you're going to have the experience of encoding episodes in your life, gaining new information. Now, there are aspects of our memory that are outside the scope of something you need attention for after it's well-learned. So, for example, if I tell you, tell me across the board of a keyboard what the letters are. I mean, I can tell you, but if you give me a keyboard,

I can type it. So, that's an example of something we call procedural memory, which is, you actually don't need your attention for that, but for episodes and knowledge, you need attention to input the information. You also need your attention to pull it out. So remember we were talking about the flashlight and your dinner meal. You had to have clarity of directing it to call up the right thing. So it is on both ends of that. And frankly, there's another thing to think about,

which is that you call it, what did you call it, myelin? So yes, it ends up that long-term memory is a structural change within the brain. It actually becomes like fixed-hard in terms of neural connections that occur. That process is helped by having clarity of mind and actually just kind of to really tie the loose ends of this conversation together. We current models suggest maybe that's where all this mind-wondering is actually happening. It may be a memory encoding process. The reason the brain pumps out thoughts isn't because it's just trying to mess with us,

it's because that's the way episodic memory encoding happens. It's a replay button that just happens by default, and as it keeps replaying, things kind of harden into long-term memory. Oh, this is so good. I, of course, I wonder if anybody did a peak mind. I wonder if they get your book.

The reason that I want them to get the book is because I think the application of what you're teaching is different for many different people. And I love things that have broad applications. So I think if you're an athlete, you want to read this book. I think if you're someone who wants to find a little bit more bliss in your life and be more present, I think this is a an athlete, you wanna read this book. I think if you're someone who wants to find a little bit more bliss in your life and be more present, I think this is a book that you should have. And I think just having an overall understanding

of oneself is why I think this work is so fascinating. It's why my audience knows, I love every interview that I do, I don't talk to people that I don't wanna share with the world, but there are certain topics that just fascinate me, because I like to understand why some of the things I teach work. I understand some of it. And you're helping me so much with that. Now, the last thing I want to ask you, by the way, I have like 83 more things that I want to ask

you, but I want to ask you about two things to finish, which one big question, but one, what does pressure do to our ability to pay attention? Does there an impact on it? Does it focus us? Unfocus us? Does it depend on the person? How does pressure or perceived pressure impact attention? That's a very good question.

Okay, so yes, it is, it definitely has a relationship but it has a lawful relationship. So pressure is not, it doesn't have a unitary effect on attention. So just think of a U and turn it upside down. That's essentially the shape of the curve. It's something called the Yerke's dots in function. And you've got, let's call it stress or pressure on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis. So pressure is low. Performance is going to be pretty low.

Interesting. There will be a point at which the pressure will continue to grow where you're going to be at your peak performance. And if you continue to push yourself beyond that, you're going to start ramping. It's a regression. Yep. So here's the interesting thing about that. So there is a sweet spot. And we know what that is for us often. It's like, oh yeah, this, like I'm going to be able to knock it out of the park in this moment. I have the right set of factors. The problem, and a lot of people, especially in the elite

contacts, don't really understand that. And in particular, people like first responders, special operators, et cetera, that there are real consequences for when you're on this part of the curve, it can be life or death for many people. Even if it feels like it's the right amount of pressure for peak performance at one moment in time, if you maintain that same level of pressure

over weeks, months, it's gonna degrade you. There's a regression. So it will push you into the degradation part of it. So I think that's also really important. I know often people are like, but I'm used to this kind of demand. They're not used to it for weeks on end. You know, and frankly, that's what a lot of the medical staff are saying. They're like, I could perform, you know, even if it was a full word, I can kind of manage it. You didn't have to do it for 19 months. And so that we have to have, this is actually, I would

love to build, just say this almost as a public service enough. We have as have, this is actually, I would love to build, just say this almost as a public service announcement. We have as a culture a lot of attentional hubris. We think we can pay attention and we cannot. But if I ask you, do you think that the guy behind you that's on his cell phone trying to drive is paying attention to the road? You're like, no way.

Well, then why do you think you are when you're doing the same thing? Very good. Right? So it's like, no way. Well then why do you think you are when you're doing the same thing? Very good. Right? So it's like, really remember that and have attentional humility. Understand that? And also take care of your attention in that way.

Like, you really check in, like even if I can focus at this level, am I still as focused as I was before? That's the knowing it. And that's not about, by the way, going back to, it's not metacognition anymore. It's metawerenous. We're not feeling right now. I get that distinction now. Yeah. Do you, by the way, going back to, it's not metacognition anymore, it's metawareness, we're not feeling right now. I get that distinction now.

Yeah. Do you, by the way, want to answer a question? Yeah, it did, and I wanted to, I love the fact that, because I think some people try to avoid pressure or stress, what you're basically saying is there's an internal benefit to a certain degree, over a certain duration that focuses us

too much the other way. It's kind of like you walk out on stage. There's a certain level of butterfly or desire or awareness or anxiety that's actually sort of healthy that you're in this peak state so to speak, a peak mind. And then there's a state where it becomes problematic where it's too much. And I had a few experiences recently where I just went a long time under duress and stress and I found myself in a couple of the film on a television show right now. I just went a long time under duress and stress and I found myself in a couple of the, I'm filming a television show right now. I just, there was just a day where I was just not,

I used vocabulary for some reasons, because I communicate so much. Just my struggle to pull adequate and articulate vocabulary out of myself was just really sputtering. And it was just basically what you said. I was under that stress and duration that was longer than was beneficial to me. And that's when I guess you've got to be able to be aware

and intentional about it. Last thing, by the way, I love this conversation. I really do not want it to end. I'm just trying to be respectful to you. And my audience at some point, because they're used to a certain length show because we really have not got into so many of the things that I want to, I'd love to have you back.

I'm just gonna be something that we would do again. But just a basic thing to start. So, we've done, you've done pretty complicated. We've gone in and out of different topics. But someone just listed you. They said, look, I'm going to get peak mind. And I would like to be more present. I would, let's just to start. You've given me lots of practical things today. But if I ran into you in a coffee shop and it was Starbucks and we were sitting here having a cup of coffee and Someone just said where should I begin? Where should I begin? I'm at the end of the interview now, but where should I begin? We're gonna leave everybody now, right and your final thing to them would be this is where I would start

And this is what I would think about or here's a strat whatever you would answer that. Yeah, that's answer that. What would you say to them? It's a great thing. I think the one thing I'd want people to take away from this conversation and any insight to then promote taking action is pay attention to your attention. And I really mean that. I mean watch yourself in that way. And do it by the way from a distance, which is gonna sound a little bit weird.

Like, almost, we call it, I mean, and it's called formally dissentering, but like, as a bird's eye view. Get above it. Like, get above it and look at what's going on moment by moment. Oh, she's really feeling a lot of anxiety right now, or, oh, and even name yourself. Like, you know, Amishie actually is feeling really nervous

right now, or Amishie feels a little bit sad. Part of the reason I'm saying to do that, and that is a way of paying attention to your attention because you're like, oh, this is what's going on moment by moment. The reason to do that at a distance is because then you can't remember what I said. You cannot have your attention in two places at once. But pulling yourself out, distancing the flashlight a little bit, you're going to get more clarity of the whole scene. Then you can take action.

And that's just sort of like, just try that out in your daily life. And then I would say really do read what I have to say in the prescription I offer because I wrote this book really out of wanting to take it out of the lab. We found so many people had benefited. And I wanted it to be a benefit to a lot of people

because frankly, it's not just soldiers, athletes, and medical people that have stress in their lives, all of us do. And it's not just them that have periods of time where there's enduring challenge. We all will at some point and we may not know where it comes. So when it comes, so it's like train your attention like your life depends on it. Amisha, you're awesome. And I was just thinking, you know, the work from my audience is what you've just said. And here's the one thing everybody, in this day and age, when there's so much information available to you. And then there's what I would call sort of new or more breakthrough information, like what you're sharing. Your job is not just to digest the information. The work in our lives now is more

not finding the information because there's brilliance in this book. It's the application for you. How are you going to apply it? And what areas do you apply it? For me, the applications of peak mind are in almost every single area of my existence. When I say almost, just because I think it is every area of my existence, it's making me a better friend, a better interviewer, a better speaker on stage, a better businessman, I think a better father. And just I'm happier as a result of it. And so I'm really happy you were here today and you came to my home to do this.

So thank you so much. Oh, thank you. It's a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. Today was really good. All right, everybody. Please make sure you get peak mind. This is the fastest growing show. All the data shows this on the planet. That's because so many of you share it. And it's getting all kinds of accolades and notoriety right now as many of you know, simply because of all of you.

And the way that the show is spreading to people, I'm so grateful for it. I do this as a service to you because I believe we can make a difference in the world. And I think today's show proves that we can do that. So God bless you all, max out. Take care. This is the At My Let's Show. you