The One You Feed - Srini Pillay

Episode Date: August 5, 2014

Srini Pillay M.D. Founder and CEO of NeuroBusiness GroupSrini Pillay, M.D. is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Invited Faculty at Harvard Business School. He is also the Founder and CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He graduated with the highest number of awards during his residency training at Harvard. He is also a Certified Master Coach. His specific expertise is on helping companies reach their goals by coaching strategy acceleration, change management, innovation, sales optimization, stress management and many other corporate goals. He has 17 years of experience in brain imaging and has an international reputation as a human behavior expert with special emphasis on stress and anxiety. His latest book is: Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear.  In This Interview Srini and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.The power of possibility.The difference between conscious fear and unconscious fear.What brain science tells us about unconscious fear.How unconscious fear is a major factor in our lives.The CIRCA method to manage unconscious fear.Chunking your issues into smaller, more manageable pieces.Ignoring the mind's chatter.Giving your self a reality check.Remembering that "this too shall pass"Keeping our thoughts on what we can control.Focusing our attention on positive things for some amount of time."Yoga Rage"Turning on the default node network.Dealing with "bottom up anxiety".How to handle emotional flooding.Being willing to make mistakes and be wrong.How simple action can be the highest form of intelligence.Taking small risks by tinkering.Using preemptive perception to make better decisions.Embracing the complexity of who we are.How we are wired to manage disappointment versus achieving fulfillment.Probability vs possibility thinking.Mimicking the exceptions rather than the rules.Srini Pillay LinksNeuroBusiness GroupSrini Pillay on TwitterSrini articles in the Harvard Business ReviewLife Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome FearYour Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great LeadersSome of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:Kino MacGregorStrand of OaksMike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're going to do a cognitive exercise, then probably what you want to do is something like acceptance. Some of these words, they kind of make you want to puke. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.

Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Dr. Srini Pillay, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and invited faculty at Harvard Business School. He graduated with the highest number of awards during his residency training at Harvard,

and his latest book is Life Unlocked, Seven Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear. Here's the interview. Hi, Srini. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me, Eric. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on. I'm fascinated by a lot of the work that you're doing in the neuroscience field and tying that to both how we function in our lives and in the business world.

Yeah, you know, it's a huge passion of mine, the neuroscience itself, but really also because I think it's important for me from a human behavior perspective. I think the thing I'm most enjoying about neuroscience right now is that everybody has a brain. And so it doesn't really matter what you're doing, whether it relates to corporations or your own life or food or fashion or the arts, the brain is relevant. And so I think for me, because I myself have had such a diverse range of interests, it is particularly exciting for me to be able to apply this brain science to a number of different fields. Yeah, it is a fascinating, very fascinating topic. I might debate that everybody has a brain,

if you look to your right to my co-host here. But got to insult him from time to time. Yep, that's what we do. So our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed

and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks, and he says, grandfather, well, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off and ask you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you're doing. I think a lot. So I think from a number of different perspectives, I think I can relate this to my own life and relate it to the people I work with. Maybe I'll tell you a little bit about the work that I'm doing because I think we're just about to let the world know what we're actually doing, because the website doesn't really tell people what we're doing. So my background is in brain science and in psychiatry. And what I've done is started a company called Neuro Business Group that's really dedicated to helping people overcome their psychological obstacles using targeted methods in brain science so that they can live happier and more productive lives.

And we're using these methods in corporations. So we have, you know, NBG corporate, but we also have a self-help division. We have an education division where we're working with kids and with teachers. We have a lifestyle and culinary division where we're working with food and fashion. And we have an arts division as well. And we have products and services in these different divisions that relate very much to this parable in terms of what you're feeding people and what we're feeding ourselves over time. So I'll give you a brief answer first and see which direction you'd like to move the conversation. I think, you know, in my own life, I think that probably the thing that I've most been inspired by is a sense of possibility.

And for a number of different reasons, I think a large part of which was just the lovingness of the family that I grew up with, I really believed in a very expansive sense of possibility. And so I fed that wolf a lot. wolf a lot. And what that means is when you decide to feed the wolf of possibility, you're also deciding that it's okay if you fail, it's okay if you're wrong, it's okay if you were just being delusional about something. Because I think as soon as you get information along your course, along the path, you can redirect yourself to the destination that you want to get to. you can redirect yourself to the destination that you want to get to. So from the highest level, I think it's really feeding the wolf possibility that I think was a very positive thing for me.

I think in my work with people, you know, what I've noticed is that my own limitations have also informed some of the work that I've had with people. So, for example, I worked in a brain imaging lab at Harvard. I'm still affiliated with Harvard. And I learned a lot working there for 17 years. But I think one of the wolves that I fed that was negative for me is that I questioned and over-questioned my desire to be an entrepreneur. And as a result, I stayed in that lab for 17 years rather than leaving earlier. And while I fully appreciate and I've leveraged that disadvantage because I learned a lot in the extra time I spent there, I don't necessarily think that that was necessary. And so the way that I like to use both of those

examples is when I work with people, I really like to help them connect with the ability to feed a sense of possibility and also to not feed the wolf of fear. And so because I used to direct the anxiety disorder service, you know, a lot of my background experience is really in helping people figure out what to do about this wolf of fear because it's such an intimidating wolf in part because that wolf is problematic when you see it, meaning when it's conscious, but it's also problematic when it's unconscious. Yeah, let's explore that a little bit more because that's one of the things I picked up in your work that I thought was really interesting was you talk about, obviously, you know, if I see a snake, I feel afraid, and I know I'm afraid. But you talk

a lot about, and you can go into the science of it, about how we are, our amygdala, which is a part of our brain that registers fear, is registering fear often that we're not even aware of, and that that takes a toll on us in a lot of ways that we don't know about. So could you expand on that? Sure. So there are a number of different, the way we study the phenomenon is we ask people to lie in a brain imaging scanner and then while they're lying down, we show them images of fear or threat. And then we look at what happens to the brain when they're looking at that image and what

happens when they're not looking at it. happens to the brain when they're looking at that image and what happens when they're not looking at it. Now, if you show someone an image for 30 to 150 milliseconds, they're going to know that they saw that. And so when they look at that, what we see is that the amygdala, the anxiety center in the brain lights up. So that teaches us that conscious fear, you know, anything you're afraid of, whether you're afraid that you may not make the mortgage, whether you're afraid that you're not going to be able to live long enough to see your grandchildren, whether you're afraid that life's just going to be meaningless and purposeless, whatever these conscious fears are, actually activate the amygdala. However, if you show someone a picture for 10 to 30 milliseconds, that's really not long enough

for the brain to register it so that you know that consciously. And so when you actually think about that, when you actually show someone a face for 10 to 30 milliseconds, they have no idea that they've seen that face. Usually we quickly follow that with a neutral expression for 150 milliseconds. And we'll ask people, what did you see? And they'll say, I saw a neutral face. So they have no awareness that they've seen the fearful face or the threatening face. However, when we look in the brain, this actually activates the amygdala as well. In fact, the amygdala is so sensitive that even in people who are blind, people in whom the seeing center is actually knocked out in the brain,

these people, if you show them a fearful or threatening face, the amygdala lights up as well. And the reason that happens is that that fear enters the eye, it activates the anxiety center, but it doesn't get interpreted by the seeing brain. So what these experiments tell us is that even when we're not aware of fear, it still activates the amygdala. And so what a lot of studies have shown is that a lot of us have had early life experiences that we associate with fear. You know, maybe a certain kind of

person, a certain kind of location, spiders. I mean, there are all kinds of associations that we make. And these associations are like lifelong relationships for a lot of people, because they form really tightly. And as soon as you get anything, any exposure to anything that reminds you of it, you actually activate the amygdala as well. So people, obviously the fear is unconscious. So it's not like to yourself, you're saying, hey, I think I've got unconscious fear. You know, that's a problem. What we can do is infer that we have unconscious fear because the amygdala or the anxiety center of the brain connects to the thinking center of the brain. So in that center, that's where we think,

where we make decisions, where we innovate. In that center, there are connections directly with the amygdala. So when you have unconscious fear, it activates the amygdala and it starts to disrupt. The earthquakes there send aftershocks to the frontal lobe where you're thinking. And so as a result, you're not able to decide, assess risk, innovate. And so what you generally find is you hit a wall or you find that you're making the same mistake over and over again. Or you find that you just can't figure out what's happening. Or you find that you just feel like you're stuck somewhere along the way. So when you have these sensations, one of the things that this research

teaches us is rather than trying to think yourself through it, reflect on the possibility that unconscious fear exists, and then try to reverse that. And there are a whole lot of ways that we have that we help people sort of institute in order to reverse that. And there are a whole lot of ways that we have that we help people sort of institute in order to reverse that by directly accessing the amygdala or the frontal lobe through a series of exercises, which I'm happy to tell you about if you're interested. Sure. So let me see if I can summarize that. You're saying that we, in our lives, we bump up against situations that are frightening for us. They trigger something in us. We're not consciously aware of it. It triggers the amygdala, and that then is interfering with our overall effectiveness. It's making our inability to think clearly and

make decisions is being hindered by that, even though we're not aware of it. And that's triggered in these situations you described where we sort of run into the same barriers. There's something in those situations that's triggering that fear. Is that a pretty good summary of what we just talked about? Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly it. So I guess let's talk a little bit about how do you, what's a good way to recognize that? You alluded to it a little bit about when we find ourselves stuck in the same situations. Maybe we could just spend another minute on ways to identify. And then let's go into some of the things people could do to once they, if they think that's what's happening, how do you work on something that you're not even conscious of is happening? Sure.

So the overarching concept is what I mentioned, which is that if you find that you're hitting a wall in your life with anything, you just can't make headway with your work, you can't make headway in relationships, you're finding that you're feeling stuck or you're finding that you're making the same mistake over and over again, that you're feeling stuck or you're finding that you're making the same mistake over and over again. It's really wise to suspect that there's unconscious fear and try to change that. So in my own practice, I have a therapy practice and a coaching practice, what I'll find is, you know, if I'm working with CEOs, they'll be unable to hit their quarterly targets, you know, over and over again, even though at a logical level, they feel like they're trying to, they're doing everything they need to do to get there. And so they can't really see where they're

going wrong. And at that point, we start to bring up this notion of, you know, is there something going on under the radar that could be impacting you? You know, when it comes to, in my therapy practice, there are a lot of different things like, you know, for example, people will indulge in risky behavior, you know, sexual behavior, substances, things that they don't even necessarily want to do consciously. And they know the advantages and disadvantages. They can say it out loud. But then all of a sudden, between sessions, they come in and they're like, I don't know what I was doing. I was just surfing the net. I was thinking, hey, I'm just going to chill out. And the next thing I knew, I was involved in the situation. And they're like, I don't know what I was doing. I was just surfing the net. I was thinking, hey, I'm just going to chill out. And the next thing I knew, I was involved in the situation. And I was like, oh, man, how did I get involved?

I hated doing it. I hated getting there. I hated everything about it. And I felt like I couldn't stop. And so we could just take the approach of, well, let's go there and try to have the cognition, think yourself through it. But if you just say that generically, it's not that helpful. So in terms of how you can help people through the situation, we've developed a paradigm and it's a very big issue, but I'll just sort of mention one of the brief things we do. We developed a paradigm that we defined by the mnemonic circa, C-I-R-C-A. defined by the mnemonic circa, C-I-R-C-A. And each of those letters stands for something, and each is based on a tremendous amount of research that shows that you can actually reinstate the balance in the anxiety center and in the thinking center to help you manage this

differently. The first C stands for chunking. So a lot of times people are overwhelmed by a task that they have at hand. You know, oh my God, how am I going to get my personal life together, get my work life together, get all this stuff together. And so when you present your brain with so much information, your brain freaks out. And so part of what we teach people is how to break information up into smaller pieces so that they can actually chunk it and feed the brain in a way that makes sense. So you don't, in that case, you know, it's another metaphor for feeding the wolf. You're not just taking a whole big chunk of something and saying, yeah, eat it. You're basically saying, okay, let me cut this up in digestible pieces so you can actually eat that.

So the I stands for ignore, which is ignore mind chatter. And, you know, all of us talk about feeding wolves. You know, we all have these mental constructs and ideas about who we are. Am I good? Am I bad? Am I guilty? Should I have done that? Should I not have done that? What's the right thing? What's the wrong thing? I mean, at any one point in time, humans have all these ideas floating around in their heads. And so one of the things we've learned through mindfulness is that if you focus simply on the breath rather than listening to that story, the brain just makes up stories all the time.

And we tend to believe those stories when those stories are not even real. So the eye basically helps you to bring your focus back to your breath. And as a practice, it can be really helpful. Yeah, the episode we released just yesterday to bring your focus back to your breath. And as a practice, it can be really helpful. Yeah, the episode we released just yesterday is a guest, Dan Harris, who's a ABC News correspondent. And he wrote a book called 10% Happier,

and it talks about meditation. But he originally wanted the title of the book to be The Voice in My Head is an Asshole, which is, you know, which, and the book is very much, right? Like, you got to disidentify from, from those constant, that chatter that doesn't, doesn't, that is so habitual and doesn't mean anything. Yeah. And, you know, it could be anything from sort of like just the worst things, you know, because your brain just comes up with all kinds of things about you. So, you know, it can be like really, or it can be somebody trying to recover

from a hangover. They get up on a Monday morning and they're like, oh man, I'm a horrible person. Like, what did I do? And it's like, well, I didn't do anything, but I just feel like a really bad person. Right. Because your brain's sort of withdrawing. It doesn't like what's going on.

And so it starts creating these narratives. So learning how to quiet down those narratives is a really important thing. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really?

That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The third is reality check, which is essentially this too shall pass. And it's about reminding people that when you're in the midst of a catastrophe, you often feel like, oh my God, like everything, you know, the sky is going to fall down. So part of, and it sounds obvious when you're not in the catastrophe, of course it's going to pass. But when you're caught up in that storm of fear, it often feels like it's going to last forever. And so teaching people to remind themselves that this too shall pass, the reality check can be really helpful. The fourth thing is a control check. And it's really about reminding yourself that that's like the serenity

prayer, which is essentially that there's stuff you can't control, there's stuff you can't control. And rather than feeling like you've got to control the whole ocean, try to figure out how to surf the waves. Because life really is too complex to try to control every single element of it. And so once you can try to figure out what you're going to be surfing and how you're going to be surfing it, life actually takes on a very different kind of feel to it. And the last is attentional shift. The A is for attentional shift. And what that is is about what you're feeding.

Because a lot of people will tend to, you know, when you're afraid, it actually biases your frontal lobe or your thinking brain to look for threat. So you're always looking over your shoulder. You're always trying to figure out what's going to get me next. And the brain has like a flashlight, which is the attentional center, and it's always placing this flashlight on threat or essentially feeding any kind of threat stimulus. So you've got to really train your brain to spend a certain amount of time looking at other stuff.

Distraction, just as a pure technique, has been shown to reinstate the balance in the amygdala and in the frontal lobe. So I think one of the things you teach people is if you really want to be miserable, it's very easy to be miserable. You just have to look at the news or look at how many people are suffering in the world. There are good logical reasons to be miserable for your entire life. So one of the things I like to say to people is you have to create some kind of balance that you feel. And by balance, I don't mean, you know, perfectly instated, but some kind of measure of time where you say, I'm going to think of good stuff. And

I'm going to think of good stuff, not because I'm not going to force myself to say life's amazing. And I'm a positive being. And I've got what I sometimes refer to as yoga rage, which is like I'm so angry, but I'm going to smile. And I'm going to be like, because I'm self-possessed. It's sort of like, you know, I'm really self-possessed. Wow, it's really great to meet you. And then the undertone is like, and I hate you and I hate my life. So, you know, when you force yourself to do that kind of thing, it's not that helpful. So it's just about saying,

listen, you know, I'm awake for X number of hours. If I think only of problems, it's just, it's just going to be feeding my brain bad stuff. So why don't I actually think about stuff I like to think about or do that makes me feel good? And that's what the A is for. So those five things actually have a lot of research backing them up that show that when you're having this unconscious fear and you don't know it, and what's happening is you're not able to make good decisions or you're stuck in your life, just trying that out can actually really help you. And so that's one of the ways in which we start to tell people to think about it. But there's a lot more about it that we can talk about. There's a lot more about it that we could talk about. I think you might have just summarized 32 episodes of our show in a five-letter acronym there because those topics, those themes come up over and over and over as we talk to guests. Thinking about what am I thinking about?

What are the actions I'm taking? Breaking those actions down. Taking action even when we don't feel like it. Those things come up over and over. That's a really great acronym. So what do you see? Are you able to see a lessening in unconscious fear? Have you taken this back through the brain scans and see that these techniques, what they're doing to decrease that unconscious fear?

Yes. There's been a ton of research that's been done to look at this. And what happens is the amygdala basically gets quietened down, and then the frontal lobe starts having blood redirected toward it so that it can do what it's supposed to do. So that's sort of two of the major things that happen. The mindfulness stuff also turns on what we call the default mode network, which is really something I call the purring center of the brain. It's just usually the couple of different regions that are connected that are always purring. And when you

focus, it turns that stuff off. But when you have this mindfulness, it turns it back on, you become more creative, you find creative solutions. So I would say that among the different changes, it's really sending blood back to the frontal lobe, decreasing the activation in the amygdala, and then turning this creativity center back on with the mindfulness so that you can start to find solutions that you want to find one of the things that you said in your book that i really liked and i think it's important to these things because we we're certainly a culture that wants five easy tips to never be afraid again right and and you taught you've got a line that says making a positive effort one time will not suffice to overcome the evolutionary priority the brain gives to fear. So I think you're getting at a couple things there. One is maybe you could talk to us about why the brain prioritizes fear, what you mean by the evolutionary priority, and then expand on that idea that this isn't a one-time thing. Sure. So essentially, the fundamental wiring of the brain is constructed

in a way to help us survive. So we have all these survival circuits. And part of the reason it's so hypersensitive to threat is because from an evolutionary standpoint, when there were wild animals roaming around and there was so much more, that was unknown and so much more exposure, our survival circuits used to help us. But keeping these survival circuits at that level of tension in today's environment is overkill. And so a lot of times what happens is people still have this kind of wiring in place, but they're not able to do anything about it. And sometimes someone will take something

like Circa and just do it once and say, yeah, I guess it was kind of helpful and that was that. But the wiring in the brain is pretty well cemented. The bad news is that it's really hard to change it. The good news is that you can. And we're finding increasingly that you can actually rewire the brain. In fact, things like mindfulness, for example, actually change the gray matter and white matter in the brain. So we actually know that you can change this, but repetition of these positive habits, repetition of feeding the stuff you need to feed is really what is so critical in trying to change behavior. Having said that, you know, there are a number of caveats, and maybe I'll mention one at this point, because sometimes people are frustrated by this approach

because they feel like, you know, I don't even have time to think, you know, the fear just comes out of nowhere, and I'm freaking out. And then I'm not going to be like, well, let me try to chunk this up. And then why don't I just, you know, try to do a reality check or a control check. And we now know that cognitive regulation, which is basically controlling thought, fails the stress test. So if you have some kind of background, if you had a fight with a partner or spouse, if you just open your email box and you're freaking out because you get 10 terrible messages, trying to then go into this five-step procedure can be really difficult because your brain's already figuratively on fire. So in that case, probably the only technique, the one to turn to is the I, which is the mindfulness piece,

because we call that bottom-up anxiety. And bottom-up anxiety can actually get worse when you try to control your thinking. So if the anxiety builds up as a result of something, you're not sure, you're not sure if you're going to get fired. Once this builds up, you can use these regulation strategies like circa. But if it comes out of nowhere, then you want to actually start with something like mindfulness. Nevertheless, to connect it with your question, you really, regardless of what you do, you want to make it a repetitive practice so that you can rewire your brain through that repetition. So that's, that's excellent. Let me go back to what you just said there, right before that, which was around, the term I've heard used is when you get flooded.

When you're, when you're flooded, you're no longer capable of good cognitive thought, your brain is, but you know, the logic center is, is out of whack. And so what you're saying is when that happens, going to the mindfulness thing, going to some sort of breathing exercise is the way because you're not going to be able to talk yourself out of rationally once you're at that flooded point. Right, absolutely. And so mindfulness and other kinds of, if you're going to do a cognitive exercise, then probably what you want to do is something like acceptance. Which again, you know, I mean, some of these words, they kind of make you want to puke because they're like, you know, what are you going to do? Like, let's find ourselves like accepting ourselves. And so it makes you feel sort of annoyed because you feel like you have to be some kind of ascetic or spiritual advisor walking around a mountain. And so it's definitely that

what I will say to people is a good first step is to actually say, you know, what's going on? And what are my expectations from my human self? Because a lot of times this ideal that we construct in our heads really doesn't exist. And so, you know, I really believe in excellence in our life, but I think that perfection is a real problem. It makes you slam on the brakes all the time. And so your whole life becomes one jerky episode after another. And sometimes you just want to go through the bad traffic and you'll figure a way out at the end of that. So part of what I say to people is if you're not in the mood to take your attention or flashlight and place it in your breath, and frankly, some people find

that just weird. Part of what I would say to them is, well, let's just think about what you think you should be doing. Like, you just got 20 emails that were bad. They're freaking you out. You know, you're a sensible human being. If you looked at that, and you were like, wow, I feel so happy that I got like 20 horrible emails, you might even be concerned about a person like that. So, you know, I think that if we can learn a greater degree of self-acceptance and we can learn that the most we can do is to really proceed through life in an active way, know the things we know and do the best we can. I think that's a huge first step rather than saying, listen, I got to be in control of this. And why am I not in control of this?

rather than saying, listen, I've got to be in control of this, and why am I not in control of this? And I think part of the problem is that a lot of public appearances are all about people saying how I conquered this and how I got through that. And you look at Facebook, it's enough to depress anybody. It's sort of like, oh, yeah, this is me at the party. I was looking so happy. People are like, what's wrong with my life? But nobody actually has a life like that.

And so what I say to people is just reframe that gently. I think the big thing here is really when I saw the parable and I was thinking about the wolf, part of my own insanity with the brain is that I just love the brain. And when I look at people, one of the big issues is that they're not kind to the wolf that is the brain. They're just harsh. They're like, listen, I should have done that. Nobody's saying don't be disciplined. Nobody's saying don't want the best. Nobody's saying don't try, use effort. But you can do that in a kinder way toward yourself. And I find that in my own practice, even a lot of people who have stopped destructive behaviors still hate themselves. And that hatred shows up in the form of something else in some other way.

And so I think the kindness piece, being kind to yourself and your brain, really does matter in the long haul. I agree. I think a lot of times if I would never talk to other people, sometimes the way that I talk to myself. I would never talk to other people sometimes the way that I talk to myself. And I think that there's this idea that if we are hard on ourselves, that that will drive better behavior, although almost all the studies seem to show that doesn't really work, that hammering yourself all the time does not produce the needed change. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer.

And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman.

And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

One of the things that you you talked about that I wanted to go back to there is you mentioned the idea of stop and start and worried about being wrong and

I've heard you say before that we'll do an edit here because i can't find it for a second but i'll make it sound like you know what you're doing yeah that would be that's why you're here oh here it is all right you um one of the things that you say that is important and a line line I like you say, move before you know it's okay, which I think ties very much to that idea of perfectionism or expecting to always get it right. You've also talked about how much more creative you're able to be and how much more likely you can hit your goals if you're willing to admit or if you're willing to be wrong. And I think those things tie together. Do you want to lead us through some more of that? Sure. In fact, the next book that I'm writing this year is all

about that. So it's cool that you picked up on that particular sort of subject. A couple of different things. So one is that we often assume that we get to where we want to get to because we know how to get there. Partly because we conveniently forget all the times that we were lost. So a lot of successful people will say, oh, the way you do this is you go to A through A, B, C, D, O, E, and you get to the end. But I'll often say to business people, if I gave you Steve Jobs' entire business plan, like every single concrete step that he took? Do you think you could build Apple? And most people would say no, of course not, because there are ineffable things that have

not been reported. So a lot of times, simple action can be the highest form of intelligence you can give yourself. Sometimes thought is not enough. So the first thing I would say is, when you're stuck thinking, remember that you can try out something, start with a low risk move, see what's going on, and then move on. Now, the basis of this is really from something that there's a concept that's called tinkering, which is essentially, you know, some of the theories around evolution sort of teach us that the body has always, you know, the body existed and then the environment had certain signals and then the body had to adapt to that. So, you know, if you're in a high altitude place, your body has to adapt to figure out how to breathe in that environment.

And so the body takes in information and it keeps on changing, so it tinkers with it until you can get to the next stage. Now, if you have no action and you're waiting for some nirvana to land on you, then it can lead to nowhere. But if you take one step forward toward your destination, you are one step forward or you're going towards something where you're going to learn that you're wrong. Standing still doesn't really get you anywhere. So I think

that particular line is really about when you make a move before you know. There are a couple of things that could be helpful. One is what we call preemptive perception, which is sort of everyday intuition, which is that the brain often registers what you need to do before you know what to do consciously. So if you have some kind of hunch that you need to go somewhere and it's not some majorly dangerous thing, you can actually move toward that. And you can move toward that and say, well, you know, I wonder where this takes me. Also, a lot of times when we first start moving toward something, we learn something along the way. Like, you know, a lot of times I'll come across college students will say, I have no idea what to do. Like, I just

have no idea. And they're expecting that all along from their first year, they're expecting that when they get to their major, and if they major in biology, that they're actually going to want to be a biologist. But they graduate and they're like, you know, I don't really like biology, and I don't really want to be in a lab. And I don't know what to do with this. I kind of want to play guitar. And so it's like, well, you know, what's my biology degree going to do for me? And then they'll stay in this intellectualized position where they'll be like thinking about this, you know, what's my, what's the connection? Should I leave? Rather than figuring out a context in which to play guitar and then play it. And then once you do that, you may actually find that something comes to you.

And so what I will often say to people is that our stuckness often lies in our intellect. But we are born with a motor cortex. And we are born with the capacity to act. And we have the capacity for intuition and that life is sometimes most effectively run with constant course correction. And that requires a number of competencies. It requires self-forgiveness. It requires tolerance of mistakes. It requires failing more than you succeed. And it requires really reaching for the big wins so that even if you fail 100 times, the big win is where you'll end up. I believe a lot in just getting started, in just doing something.

chances align in such a way that they maybe can go and do the thing that they want to do versus finding a way to start doing the thing that they're doing where they are. I mean, the classic example is somebody, people who say, well, I want to be a writer and it's, well, write, right? Then if you just start writing, then you're a writer. The rest, whether you can do that for your full career, those things tend to figure themselves out. But contemplating being a writer is not useful. Writing is useful in that case. Completely. And you really do come up with alternatives. Like, you know, I still play the piano, I still compose music, but I always feel a little bit sad about the fact that the level of expertise I had feels like it's waned over time. But then GarageBand came and saved my life.

We are, well, one of the fun things we love about this show is that all the transition music and the intro and the outro music, the two of us, Chris and I, make. And a lot of it we do on this iPad here on GarageBand. It's just a blast. It's really fun. I just created an audio series, and I made the intro and outro music, and I was like, this is cool that I can actually do this, and I have some sense to it,

and I feel connected with what I want to be connected with. And then I have all kinds of other ideas about, well, if I'm not going to produce that level of music, I can do what I'm doing on GarageBand and then connect with musicians and see people who've continued that tradition, how I can interact with them because I really like those worlds. So, you know, I think you find things that may not be what you originally conceived of, but that which can be fulfilling if you dare to make that move. Yep. I think it also points to the idea of it's not all or nothing.

You don't have to either be a professional musician and that's all you do or you never touch an instrument again. There are middle grounds in a lot of the things that we do in our lives. because I enjoy them is a helpful thing. And I was thinking earlier, and I kind of wanted to circle back to it when you were talking about the mindfulness piece and the breath. The other thing I was thinking about is in those stressful situations, particularly if you're not very used to following the breath or doing that, sometimes just anchoring your mind on anything is a helpful thing. So in those situations, if I'm not really somebody who can follow my breath, maybe I can just really intensely follow a piece of music that gives my brain something to anchor on. That just came back up in my mind as we were talking about music. I think that's absolutely true. You know, I think that people often will just think they have to

focus on what's in front of them. But focus and unfocus often need to travel together. They need each other. And so if you take your mind off of something and then follow a piece of music, it's a pretty cool way to get your mind to start wondering. I think there were two things, ideas that I had when you were saying what you were saying. I was thinking two things. One was, we often assume, even the self that I'm coming to this interview with, like, you know, there's a certain level of authenticity and a certain level of connection that I feel to the questions and intentions that you have that's there. But I think for all human beings, the self is often in hiding. You know, it's often sort of hanging out, waiting for you to wait so that it can come out and check out what's going on.

And so the other piece that I'd want to add to this is that in addition to just doing something, you know, partly because everything and its opposite is kind of true in the world. It's also important to have a sense of patience with yourself and recognize that who you are often wants to be met. But the world feels kind of threatening to most people. And so we put our best face out there. But I've often found that people are always immensely surprised when they realize the complexity of who they are, because they've just hung out in rooms and watched a fireplace or looked out a window. And suddenly you get this feeling of, yeah, like some amazingly fulfilling moment. And what feels fulfilling is that the complexity of who you are is there. And that complexity is like all sorts of good stuff, all sorts of bad stuff, and all sorts of everything. But the

fullness of it actually has this permission. And when you have this permission is, I think, when you can be most effective. You know, a lot of people ask, well, how come I can't be successful enough at this? And part of it is that because you're leaving half of yourself out of the equation, just because you have what you think is this weakness, it doesn't mean it needs to be left out of the here and now. We need to invite that part of ourselves to the table and check it up and say, hey, what's going on with this behavior? It's clearly not serving me, but I appear to want to be doing this over and over again, rather than banishing it away from your life to invite it into your life.

I think the other thing that what you said reminded me of was a phenomenon called repetition compulsion, which is a disturbing phenomenon at a certain level. It was a group of psychologists were hanging around and were actually sort of noticing what they thought was sort of strange behavior, which is that kids in carts would throw out their toys and then start crying. So they were like, already that's like a weird behavior. Why would you throw out your own toy and then start crying? And then they were like, they look at their mothers for help and their mothers would bring the toys back. And then they'd be like, yeah, I'm so happy.

That's so awesome. And then when their mothers turn around, they would throw the toys out again. And so they'd be like, well, just, it's a strange thing that we would be wired to throw our own things away, cry about it, have someone help us, give it back to us, and then we throw it out again. Like, what is this? And so one of the leading theories around this psychologically is that we are wired to master disappointment rather than to seek fulfillment. And so when we're talking about what to feed in terms of the wolf, we're really talking about if you have the wolf that represents mastering disappointment,

you're going to become the world's best person at handling things that suck. Whereas if you seek fulfillment, you're really going to try to do something that's actually going to fulfill you rather than make you feel like, man, I'm so good at being disappointed. Like I'm just the master of being disappointed. In fact, I seek it out all the time so that I can experience how good I am at it. And it's amazing how many people get stuck in this mindset of mastering disappointment. And so I just mentioned that because something that you said,

and I think the way you said it also sort of reminded me of the fact that so many of us get lost in this non-distinction of mastering disappointment versus seeking fulfillment. And I would want to say that to deliberately seek fulfillment is important. And we shouldn't just assume that the brain's going to do that automatically.

And that's back to the idea of embracing possibility. Yeah, absolutely. Because possibility, you know, I often say to people, like I'll ask people, you know, how many people want to live an exceptional life? And they'll say, you know, everybody will say, of course I want to live an exceptional life. And you ask them, well, then why aren't you leading an exceptional life? And they'll say, well know, everybody will say, of course, I want to live an exceptional life. And you ask them, well, then why aren't you leading an exceptional life? And they'll say, well, you know, it's not that likely. There aren't that many people who live exceptional

lives. And I'll say, well, that's probability. And exception, by definition, is low probability. If something is an exception, and you want to live an exceptional life, then you're telling me you want to live a life of low probability, which is what you're telling me, which is fine. So your life doesn't have to be highly likely. In fact, when it's not, when you want to mimic the exceptions rather than the rules is when you can begin to enter a world of possibility. And so I think the way out of probability thinking is possibility thinking. And possibility thinking is where your belief forms a blueprint that informs the action center of your brain about where to go, because it informs the GPS, which is the posterior parietal

cortex. The GPS gets a map from your your belief and it communicates that map to your action center that takes you to your goal. So we often just wait for a conscious instruction, like, how do I get there? I don't know. And if you say, well, just believe or hope, people are like, that's nonsense. And they're right. Hope alone will not get you somewhere. But belief and possibility does have the ability to generate a map or blueprint for your brain so that you can get to your goal. And to enable you to take the action you need. That's right. Well, we're at the end of our time here, Srini, but this has been a really enjoyable conversation and definitely right down the heart of the plate on things we talk about

this show and about Feeding the Good Wolf. So thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to seeing your next book when it comes out. Thank you very much. Bye. you can learn more about this podcast and dr srini palay at one you feed.net slash srini that's s-r-i-n-i