The School of Greatness - 400 John Assaraf: Unlock Your Brain's Full Potential (and the Neuroscience Behind It)

Episode Date: October 31, 2016

"Everything you do or don't do leaves an imprint on your self-worth." - John Assaraf If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/400

Can you believe it? Episode number 400 is here for the School of Greatness podcast. That's right. This is episode number 400 with New York Times best-selling author, John Assaraf. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I'm sitting here in the greatness studio, thinking about everything that it's taken to start the School of Greatness podcast from moving from Columbus, Ohio to New York City back in 2010.

Then moving from New York City to Los Angeles, going through adversity, struggle, selling a company, trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life What do I want to do with the next few years of my life? Who am I? What's the purpose? Why am I even here? Going through these questions, I feel like I go through those questions every few years. But when I moved to LA, I was going through a transition in a lot of areas of my life, through relationships, through my business, selling that off, through just trying to understand who I was as a man and a human being. And the School of Greatness was born out of my insatiable desire to learn, to learn, to discover, to acquire new skills, new information, and to tap inside the mind of those most powerful human beings in the world who are in the top 1% of their game in their industry.

And we are 400 episodes in. And all I can say is thank you. I am blown away at your generosity, at your love, at your support for dedicating your life to learning, to growth, to committing, to tapping into this podcast. Every time we release a new episode, some of you, this is your first time here. Some of you, you've been here for all 400 since the beginning. No matter where you came along the journey, I just want to say thank you. It means the world to me.

And it's kind of hard to imagine that we are 400 episodes in. I don't think when I started it, I thought I would ever get to 400 episodes. that we are 400 episodes in. I don't think when I started it, I thought I would ever get to 400 episodes. So it's because of you that we continue to do this, that we continue to seek out the best tools, information, and inspiration from the most inspiring people in the world.

And it's because of you. So thank you guys so very much. Send me a message over on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, at Lewis Howes, over on Snapchat as well. Let me know what your favorite episode is so far. Either say the number or the name. Just tweet me or message me anywhere on social media that you like with your favorite interview or episode so far. I'm curious to hear what it is for you. Now, today's interview is massive. For those that don't know who John Asriff is, he is one of the leading behavioral and mindset experts in the world with a unique ability for helping people release the mental and emotional obstacles that prevent them from achieving their very best in life and business. In the last 10 years, he's written two New York Times bestselling books that have been translated into 35 languages.

He's appeared on Larry King Live a number of times. He's been featured in eight different movies, including the blockbuster smash hit The Secret. And he's built five multimillion-dollar companies. of Neurogym, which develops some of the most advanced neuroscience-based brain training programs in the world, helping individuals and corporations maximize their fullest human potential. I just had a chance to have lunch with John actually a couple days ago at an event in San Diego as well. He came up to the Greatness Studio here in LA to do this interview.

We've gotten to connect more and more, and I really love his approach. Man, talk about wisdom. Talk about someone who just knows life a lot more than me, just understands business at a different level. He thinks differently, he lives differently, and his results speak for themselves. We go in deep here on a lot of different topics. themselves. We go in deep here on a lot of different topics. Almost every five minutes, I was looking over to Tiff, who's our video editor. And I was like pointing at her like, we got to clip that soundbite because there's so many golden nuggets in here. So make sure to

check out the full video interview and show notes at lewishouse.com slash 400. That's right. Episode 400, baby. And here are some things we're talking about. Number one, how to retrain your mind to break through a financial limit. So I was asking him about people who have a scarce mindset or who are stuck at a certain level of income. Maybe you're making $50,000 a year, maybe you're making $100,000, maybe you're making a million, but you haven't been able to break through to that next level. We break down the science of why you're held back and how to break through. This is extremely powerful.

We haven't talked about that this much on the podcast, on the School of Greatness. So make sure you dive in deep and listen in during that part. We also talk about the simplest, surest way to change your results. The big shift that is coming in neuroscience that will dramatically change how we learn. Now, a number of ways on how to build your confidence. If you feel like you don't have confidence, listen in then. Also, the difference between wanting and committing to your goals. Guys, episode 400 is here.

I hope you enjoy it. I hope you love it. I hope you share it with your friends lewishouse.com slash four zero zero. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only John Asaroff. Welcome everyone to the school greatest podcast. Very excited about our guest, John Asaroff in the house. Thank you so much for being here, my man. I appreciate it.

Hey, hey, great to be here. You are one of the leading mindset experts and coaches in the world, and you're a couple of New York Times bestsellers. You've been doing business for a long time. You've been on Larry King, I don't know, 50 times. You've been on every major media press outlet there is. You've done some incredible things, and I'm really glad you made it on the show. You know what?

I love being here. I see the work that you're doing in the world, and one of my goals is to inspire and touch the lives of a billion people, but it's not directly through me, right? So it's through the people that I come into contact with. You're doing some kick-ass work. I love it.

I appreciate it. And it's great just to share the mic with you. Yeah, of course. I appreciate it. We connected. I guess I've known about you for a long time, but we connected, I don't know, maybe a year ago, six to 12 months ago through a meeting that you did up here.

And I think that was the first time we met in person, right? But we've been connected via email before then. And I remember hearing about you from the secret days. I think that was the first time. And I think where a lot of people know about you, at least in my space, probably from those days, but you were, you've been working for a long time before that. And that was what, 10 years ago, the secret or? 2008. Oh my gosh. Unbelievable. Eight years ago, right? Yeah. Wow. Unbelievable. My, my, my son Kenan, you know, at the time, you know, was still, Kenan, at the time was still just in his early teens. And he's almost graduated college now.

Wow. Would you say that movie and documentary was kind of a tipping point for you? Or were you already doing a lot and you had the reach you wanted before then and that was just kind of the icing on the cake? Or what did that do for you? Well, it's interesting. I've just built companies my whole life. And so I have been involved in the personal development, you know, gathering wisdom, knowledge, skills, tools, resources from people who've just done what I want to do. So I really just learned from masters. And so I was never really in the

personal development field. My last company, or two companies ago, I took it public on NASDAQ, retired in 2000, and then wrote a book in 2003 called Having It All and became a New York Times bestseller. And I was retired, so I wasn't working. I just wanted to share the knowledge and share what I had learned about 20 plus years in personal development, going to every seminar, reading thousands of books, buying CDs, courses, hiring coaches, consultants. What's a CD?

That's right. What's a CD back then? You had the little cassettes. You were thinking, what's a CD? That's right. It's like cassettes, CDs, and now it's like just digital. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I just wanted to share some of the things that I learned, the good, the bad,

the ugly, the challenging, the embarrassing, the shameful. Just be real with people of what does it really take, right? That's the thing I love about your work is you've been a professional athlete. The sacrifice it takes. It doesn't make a difference if you're the most gifted athlete in the world. If you don't have the discipline and the work ethic, you're sitting on the bench. You're not going to make it. Yeah, you're sitting on the bench.

And there's so many people that have so much potential. And it seems like they're standing on the edge of it instead of leaping into it. So I just wanted to be a part of helping people. And in 2003, people started to ask me if I do events. I said no. And I had more people and more people ask if I do events. And so finally, my wife said to me, why don't you just do one here at the house?

And so I remember it was like June, July 2003. And I had a blog at the time that I was writing about once a week. And I just said to people, hey, I'm thinking about doing an event at my house. 33 people, $3,000 for three days. And within a week, people said, count me in. Wow.

So I did an event at my home and nobody stayed there. Sure, sure. And then people said, hey, you know, can we work with you, you know, to help us with growing our business, to help us with our life? And I said, well, I don't travel. If you want to work with me, you have to come here or we have to get on the phones and talk. And so I had three, four people saying, yeah, great. Help me. And so I started to help people.

I was like, wow, this is really fun. Do what you want to do from your home. Get paid to do it. Help a bunch of people. It doesn't get much better than that. Get paid a lot of money. Yeah. And so that really became the beginning of me getting into the personal development field and then seeing how can I take the knowledge, the skills, the resources, the tools that I have acquired over the years and then just share it with the world.

Yeah. I mean, there's so many people that just get into personal development and build a business off of that. But for years, you were building businesses and selling them. And then you got into personal development and build a business off of that. But for years, you were building businesses and selling them. And then you got into personal development. So you've been extremely successful and sustainable because you know how to run businesses in this. And that's why you continue to grow. Well, business is the fundamentals. Being healthy, fundamentals.

Having great relationship, fundamentals. It's not rocket science, but it is a science. And if you understand the science and you take action, then you can achieve the success you want just about in anything. Yeah. What do you think is holding people back from growing a business, starting and growing a business to a certain level? Well, initially what holds them back is fear. So fear of failure, fear of success, and then failure. Fear of disappointment, fear of being embarrassed, fear of being ashamed, fear of being guilty, fear of losing money, fear of filling the bank.

There's over 50 different types of fear that holds most people back, but they're unaware of it. It's like a silent, hidden enemy that's locked deep in their non-conscious brain. This is the area that I study. This is my life's work now, is understanding what actually drives the perceptions that people have about themselves and what's possible for them to achieve. And what's the difference between somebody says, yes, you know, I want it. I believe I can have it. I believe I could do it. But then there's another voice that they listen to more that says, but you're not smart enough, but you're not good enough. But what if you fail? What if you succeed? So there's voices in our head that most people have not learned how to really just pay attention to. Because the voices that you hear, the thoughts that you're having, the conscious

ones, and even the non-conscious ones that percolate up to consciousness, if you pay attention, you can manage where they go. Because that's what actually fires the electrical signal and the chemical response that drives behavior. And most people don't understand. It's like a spark plug. One spark plug turns the car on and you can push the gas and go. The other spark plug basically turns the car off and your brake is on. Most people don't think of their body, their mind as a system that they actually own. And so we haven't been given the user's manual for that.

So fear is one, but then it's all the non-conscious conditioning that prevents people from taking the actions that are needed. Like what are the conditioning that most people have, the non-conscious ones? Well, a lot of- This is from what we've learned from our parents and from peers. If we think about the era that our parents lived, okay? Great Depression, right? Very, very hard to make money.

Very, very hard to find resources. Very, very hard to do anything unless you're a professional. So our parents said to most of us, if you don't become a professional, you're going to struggle. You're going to struggle and suffer. And even the professionals said, okay, so become a professional and here's your ceiling of what you have. So we became conditioned to be worried of scarcity in a world that has no scarcity. We became conditioned to having certain beliefs about what's possible or not possible. So even now, you know, as we're sitting here and we've got this amazing election time.

Crazy. One of the things I've been thinking about is there are some people that believe that if Donald Trump wins, they're going to make a fortune. And there's other people that think they're going to lose everything. And I have a friend of mine who has got about $70 million in the bank that believes that if Hillary gets into office, he's going to lose millions. It's going to be really tough. And what really is going on in people's heads, it's all of their references, their beliefs and their perceptions that are locked away in the implicit part of their brain that is driving those thoughts and even the behaviors.

They may not even be aware of it. They're not even aware of it. Yeah. They can be, but there may not be. And so what we really have to go back to to focus on is it really makes no difference who becomes president or who doesn't. If you have the belief that regardless of what happens in your external world, you can navigate towards the success that you want. Right. That's a belief.

world, you can navigate towards the success that you want. That's a belief. And beliefs are the lens by which we actually see the world and by which we behave. And so if you want to change your results, don't focus on changing your behaviors. Change your focus on the beliefs that drive your behaviors. Right? Powerful. Yeah.

And so the next question, though, is, well, great. What kind of beliefs do I have? Right. It, is, well, great. What kind of beliefs do I have? Well, we have two types of beliefs. And this is where it can get a little bit heady. And that is when you start talking about my brain, it's an organ. It's like your heart is an organ. You can speed up your heart. You can slow down your heart.

You can speed up the brainwaves in your brain. You can slow them down. You can tune in. You can tune out. We haven't been given the user's manual for the most powerful tool that we're aware of. That's right. And so the great news, I know you being an athlete and a successful businessman, you have discipline. You cannot achieve results without some kind of discipline. You cannot. You can't achieve results. Achieve results without some kind of discipline. Exactly. And so we know that there's some fundamental truths to achieving success.

And every successful person will tell you, and Jim Rohn is, I know you love Jim Rohn, said you either pay the price of discipline or you pay the price of regret. Discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs tons. That's good. But the thing is, can you teach discipline? The answer is yes. How? You have to have a willing participant. And if the participant's reason why is big enough, if they know I want to achieve X, and the reason why, the motive for their action, motivation, the motive for their action is a reason beyond just themselves, chances are they will do more to achieve that success than if it was just left up to their own. But there are some people that are born with incredible drive. They just have this insatiable drive and they'll just, I'll do whatever it takes for the things that I want. And there's other people that want things,

but they just don't have this insatiable drive. And this is where, you know, I, as much as I hated school, I love to use schools and analogy in the game of life, whether it's health, wealth,

relationships, career, business, spirituality, fun experiences, you have to decide what level of the game to want to play at. Is it the great school level, the kindergarten level,

the high school level, the university level, the pro level, because each one of those levels requires a totally different mindset and totally different skill set. They're building blocks on each other. But if you are extremely talented, but you're not prepared to practice and rehearse and drill and fall and fail forward to the next attempt, you will never make it as a pro. You will never make it as a pro business person. You'll never make it as a pro husband or wife or athlete or musician.

You just never will. So just get used to that if you're not prepared to pay the price. If you are prepared to pay the price and you have the aptitude and the talent, now we're talking about there's some real potential here. And what we don't know is, you know, what's in your heart? Like, what is the fire that stirs you that you wake up saying, I will do this even when I don't feel like it. I will do whatever it takes to overcome my temptation for mediocrity, my temptation for excuses, my temptation for reasons and circumstances to hold me back, I won't allow those to be in my way.

And if you have that within you, you'll achieve whatever you choose. And so the question you asked before is how do you develop that? Start small. Start small. So if you don't have discipline, show yourself that you can give yourself one command and one follow-through. So you know what? Right now, I'm going to get up. I'm going to do two push-ups. Right now.

Not like later. Now. Can you give yourself a simple command? One sit-up. Right now, I'm going to go get a glass of water. You start with something ridiculous. I learned many years ago, reduce it to the ridiculous. So for reduce it to the ridiculous. So for reduce it to the ridiculous, I start, I said, can you do that? Great. Will you? Because that's the difference

right there is that's the razor's edge. The people who can, will you? Will you? Yeah. Great. When? Now. Now. Yeah. Right. So if you develop that skill and specifically from a brain plasticity, a neuroplasticity perspective, as soon as you do that, you give yourself a command and you take the action, you have just created a neural pattern that you can give yourself a command and take action. Now, that may just be one time. Well, what if you did that every hour by putting a little bell on your computer? And every hour, like if my computer was open, I'd have every hour, it would say, it's 12 o'clock, it's 1 o'clock. And I'd take 60 seconds just to be in control of my mind.

I don't care where I am. Stop what you're doing. Stop, take six breaths. Breathe. Just get centered. Am I on track? Am I off track? Am I doing something I shouldn't be doing versus a high impact activity that I need to be doing?

Every hour I've trained myself to just reset. I didn't always do that. So I just started with one a day. Right. Then two. Sure. Then three. Then it was working so well, I said, great, let's do this every hour. But more importantly is as soon as you become the person who believes in themselves, you see, soon as you become the person who believes in themselves, you see, everything you do or don't do leaves an imprint on your self-worth and self-esteem scale.

And you know it. Absolutely. You know it. Yeah. Every time you have that cake or that cookie, you either believe in yourself or you don't believe in yourself. Right. Yeah.

Every time you're voting with every decision, you're disqualifying with every negative belief, you're qualifying with every positive. Same with behaviors. So you start getting aware of, am I qualifying myself to move forward or am I disqualifying myself through what I say I want and what I do or don't do over and over and over again? Because thought patterns become emotional patterns, which become behavioral patterns. And our brains pick up on our thought, emotional and behavioral patterns and says, hey, you know what? You've done that one enough.

I'm just going to make that automatic for you. So all of a sudden, you know, if you're a person has lots of positive thoughts, but you suck at taking action, your brain says, let me make that a permanent pattern for you so you don't have to think about it anymore. But I'm also going to create some neural tension and I'm going to make you pissed off at yourself now. Now you're going to start talking to yourself about how you don't want to not take action, but you're still taking action.

And this is where we have this conscious, non-conscious ping pong match going on all the time. Yeah. It's actually complex, but it's actually pretty easy too. So if someone's listening right now and they're thinking, you know, there's a lot of things I want. You know, I want to get out of this relationship or I want the relationship. I want to have a better health.

I want to have more money, whatever it may be. And they've been saying that for years and they feel like they've been consuming all the information they need to have, but they haven't been able to take action, maybe because their why isn't powerful enough, what would you say should be their first step? Well, the first step is to take one thing. I'm going to go back to one thing and say, great, let me move one thing forward. Why? Because that just changes the trajectory of the same pattern repeating itself.

And as soon as you interrupt a pattern and then you repeatedly interrupt the pattern, it's like taking a detour. And as soon as you take a detour one day, you're like, okay, that was okay. But your tendency is to want to go back to what's comfortable. But if you take the detour two days, six days, seven days, we know from a neuroscience perspective, it takes about 66 days to create a solid enough neural pattern that it'll go from conscious effort and thinking about it to a non-conscious pattern that has the beginnings of automaticity happening without your involvement. You're just doing. involvement. You're just doing. And so for me, what I do and for myself is I, uh, whenever I want to change something, whether it's a habit, whether it's a thought or emotion or behavior, I say, I'm going to work on this for 100 days, not 30 days, not 21 days, not 66, which is

right around there. I say 100 days. And then I focus all of my, just on that one thing for 100 days. Why can you give an example of something you've done sugar sugar sugar I'm a sugar me too I'm a sugar like if he was an alcoholic I'm a sugar it's so bad yeah so I I go like you know a week two weeks no sugar then a month I eat dessert every night 90 days me'm like – Like a cake and cookie and five of them a day and then – I can be very disciplined but it's either way. Yeah. I'm an extremist as well.

So it's all or nothing, higher off. It's like no in between. If you have one, you have a dead. Yeah. I don't have one cookie. If there's only one cookie, I don't know. I have like six or seven more. My cookie bills at hotels are $21, not three.

Sorry, I keep replenishing. Oh, man. So you take one thing, just one thing that you know may be a little challenging. 100 days. 100 days, just 100 days. So let's say you want to drink more water. 100 days, a glass a day. Conscious effort to one a day.

Whatever you did before, you'll still do, but one glass a day. So, you know, I started that with my assistant. I said, I want to drink, you know, like four of these a day, you know, like 32 ounces, whatever the case is. And so every, we got a mug and it's on my desk every time I walk in. And then I have some support from her saying, hey, remember to drink your water. So just do it. So the first two or three weeks, I feel like I'm going to drown myself in so much water.

But then it's like, okay, now I'm used to it. Now I'm drinking as much water as possible because the habit is there. And one of the rules that I love to follow is the habit is more important than the intensity at first. So don't worry about the intensity. Develop the habit is more important than the intensity at first. So don't worry about the intensity. Right. Develop the habit.

So can you take one minute a day to focus on how you will achieve a goal? Just one minute a day. Can you take one minute a day to focus on your health? Yeah. Can you take one day to retrain your brain? Yeah. Can I take one day, you know, or one action a day? And you start off with something, you know, and reduce it down to just a minute or two minutes or one behavior. If you can get that behavior to be a habit, it's easy to stack.

Right. Of course. It's just like the foundation of a building. Sure. Once you have the foundation, if you build it right, you stack. Yeah. And so every good discipline affects another

and every bad discipline affects others. What do you think about when you have a bad day or when you have a bad moment where you react and you're not on your game where you're calm

in a frustrating moment or someone on your team does something you don't want or traffic or whatever? How do you process that? Do you have bad days? Yeah. Yeah, I have not days.

I have bad moments, events. There's when we're – I want to separate like behaviors and emotions. So usually when people say they're having a bad day, sure certain things may have gone wrong or something that they tried to do didn't work out. All information and experiences are processed at the non-conscious brain first, and then it gives rise to something we call a feeling. So emotions are processed non-consciously.

The electrical and chemical reaction to that is called a feeling. the electrical and chemical reaction to that is called a feeling. So when I'm not feeling the way that I want to feel, I don't focus on the feeling. I focus on the cause, the neuroelectrical charge that's occurred in my brain. And in most cases, it's something that you're doing to interpret an event that's causing the neuroelectrical signal, causing the feeling. So in meditation, for example, why do you meditate? Well, obviously, it's great for a whole host of health reasons, whether it's less stress, less lower blood pressure, less cortisol release, etc. less, you know, lower blood pressure, less cortisol release, et cetera. But the one thing meditation does more than anything else is it gives you the ability to have a pause of awareness so that you sense what's happening at the non-conscious level and what's happening outside of you. and what's happening outside of you.

So when somebody behaves a certain way, it's processed at the non-conscious level, gives rise to your conscious mind for you to respond. And so when something happens, I like to be able to check in so that I don't react and I have the ability to respond. And if you do that enough through mindfulness, being aware, just being aware of exactly what's going on, then you have fewer and fewer of those times. So, you know, something happened last week. I was in a hotel room and I spilled some water

on a shirt that I needed for a wedding that we were going to. And my wife was like, oh, she was going off deep. And I was just calm. Yeah. And she goes, aren't you worried about this? I said, will it help? Right. Like, no, let's just figure out what to do.

The accident already happened. Why are we so wired to react in situations as opposed to be calm and say, well, this reaction is not going to serve a solution. Well, we have a misunderstanding of flow of information and the way information is processed. And so the reaction happens, again, at the reptilian non-conscious level. So every external stimuli, if you get into some of the brain, which again is my passion, is one of my friends, Dr. Evian Gordon, kind of the great model, he says, you know, the number one thing to

understand about the brain is safety and comfort first, right? So in the environment that you're in, whether you like it or you don't is irrelevant. Your brain finds that comfortable because it's the homeostasis, but safety first. So any loud noise, any type of real or imagined present or future pain based on the interpretation at the non-conscious level brain to the emotional brain. And it's only later logically understood if we take the time to be aware of it. Be aware of it. That's why people react so much in traffic instantly. That's right. Instant reactions. Yeah.

But here's something you could do quickly. It's called a reframe. So let's say you're driving in traffic and let's say somebody cuts you off and you've been sitting at the same spot for 20 minutes like I did this morning. And somebody – you're maybe looking down at your cell phone because you have some time because you're parked. Right? And somebody cuts you off. So you could automatically react and go, son of a bitch.

I can't believe he just did that and just used all of this energy, the cortisol, epinephrine, adrenaline that's flowing through your body and causing stress in your body. Or you could say, well, what if that person just found out their dog died and they're really trying to get home quickly? You go, okay, I guess it's okay if she or he cut in front of me. Right. Or they just got a call from their mother, their mother fell. Yeah. Would you change the way you felt about it?

And the answer is, yeah, probably. And the reason, because you changed the frame. So you can learn how to create frames for yourself, how you see the world, how you see failure, how you see effort, how you see your habits, how you create frames in advance that actually serve you through awareness and response versus reactivity. Yeah. And that is what a lot of people who, for example, I'm going to go back to professional athlete. What do you learn how to do? Respond in a variety of different ways in advance or through practice so that when it's game time, you're just unconsciously doing what you do. Yeah, especially like, you know, I used to react a lot. Whenever I felt like anyone was attacking me physically or verbally in the game, I used to react.

I'm going to beat people up and hit people and respond. If I got hit in a weird way, I would always want to have the last say, the last hit. And my coaches would always train me because I would always get flagged. The person who's the second person is the one who gets flagged, not the first person who does the foul. And so I started to train myself and visualize, okay, this is going to happen in this game. Like someone's going to punch me in the nuts. Someone's going to bite me. Someone's going to do this.

And I can either be calm and focus on the next play or I can respond and have a penalty for our team. And I started to train my mind seeing it in the future as it's already happening. And that really supported me in not reacting. And that's actually one of the best ways. It's a cognitive behavior therapy process where you practice in advance anything good or anything challenging. And what's really amazing, some of the latest research on goal achieving is the ability, you know, in the past I used to teach and also do visualize my goals. Whether it was my body, health, relationships, money, charity, whatever. I used to visualize the outcome.

And some of the latest research now shows in addition to visualizing the outcome, visualize the obstacles. And in the past, when we talked about this law of attraction, no, don't visualize the obstacles, you attract them to it. No, no, no. Your brain's way smarter than that. So if you have, whether it's a belief that's in your way,

a story that's holding you back, a circumstance, references, something that's holding you back from achieving X. So take a look at whatever it is that you already know is holding you back. I don't believe I'm worthy. I don't believe I'm smart enough. Don't believe I'm good enough. Don't believe I'm good enough.

Don't believe I'm skilled enough. I'm too young, too old. I'm too this or too that or not enough of this, not enough of that. So address that and say, okay, here's an obstacle. I'm going to visualize that obstacle being real, and I'm going to visualize just moving it aside and me moving towards my goal. The very act of acknowledging that releases the neural tension around. If you do that over and over and over again, what your brain starts to see is, yes, there was a struggle.

And so it's worthy of me creating this neural pattern around this new effort. Most of what we're doing is, you know, we're being, we're on autopilot. We're just eking through the day, you know, on on autopilot and so the brain loves anything that makes it curious the brain likes anything novel the brain likes a challenge so earlier you're asking me about you know one of the brain training companies other than ours i said does it work i said yeah it's a workout for your brain and if you can strengthen the neural patterns of you seeing yourself with an obstacle and overcoming it what do you think that does to your self-confidence and certainty? Builds it up big time.

Builds it up. So if you actually do the work and develop those patterns in your brain, as you're doing the stuff you need to do in the physical world, you just strengthen those neural patterns, and that's what becomes your habits. Yeah. And that's where it becomes really fun because you can develop the habits and the skills that you need that you'll actually take action on versus having knowledge and skills in your head. Now, I feel like you've been testing things for decades now with all the research and the work you've done. So what does your morning routine look like now?

What's, you know? So today was a little bit different except for one thing because I drove from San Diego to LA to be with you. But I wake up, I pee, I do my meditation. 20 to 30 minutes every morning. I don't care where I am in the world. And what do you focus on during that time? I do a variety of different meditations. So there's meditations that I can do where I'm just observing my thoughts.

Now, a lot of people think, well, I'm not supposed to have thoughts when you meditate. Says whom? There's hundreds of different ways to practice awareness. See, meditation is the art of awareness. Awareness internally, awareness externally, but also the various millions of layers that exist in the physical and the non-physical world. So this morning, I did a meditation with some ocean sounds. And so it was about 5 o'clock.

I woke up this morning, sat in my little sofa, my feet propped up, and did a 20-so-minute meditation in the dark with the ocean, just listening to the ocean, just paying attention and going into a trance-like state where after two or three minutes, I disappeared. My body was part of air and space. So today, I was using sound to get into that trance-like state. Other days, I'll do a mantra, whether it's, you know, a lot of people know transcendental meditation. So it's the OM mantra.

So you just take a deep breath in. Then as you exhale, it's a OM. And the question is, why would you do that? And the answer is, anytime you can give your brain a rhythm, it will entrain to that rhythm. That's one. Anytime you could pay attention to your breath, inhale and exhale, you turn off the parasympathetic nervous system. You turn on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and relaxation and your calm state of flow versus your sympathetic nervous system, which is the stress response

system of adrenaline, norepinephrine, cortisol, et cetera. So when you get the serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine going, and you're in that state of calmness, you're able to enter deeper levels of consciousness and awareness. So you're able to observe a thought. You're able to hear your heartbeat. You're able to sense different things that are being risen in your body through thoughts that you're having. So you can actually start to see when I have this thought, here's the sensation in my body. And you start to get so attuned to what's happening, what stimuli is happening within you that's producing these sensations that cause you to either take action or not retreat or move forward.

You can start to get a feel for how the mechanics work. So I'll do that. Sometimes I'll put on some of the Tibetan monks and chant with them. So I use sound, no sound. I use breathing. I use open eye, closed eye. Five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes. So I practice the art of being in control of my breath.

Not breathing. Just being one with the entire universe and feeling this other than normal state of consciousness that we're used to. And it's not sleep. And it's not conscious awareness. You're in an altered state of awareness. And you can enter deeper and deeper and deeper layers of energy, which everything is made up anyway. Everything's connected. We have this, obviously,

our physical body, but the space between you and I right now, there's just vibrating packets of energy, right? And so you're able to access different layers of all of the intelligence and information that already exists in the universe versus the memories that we have in our brains. And that's magical. I love this. Why are you so wired this way? What makes you so obsessed with this information and sharing it with a billion people? When I was five, six, seven years old, I moved from Israel to Montreal.

I spoke Hebrew, but not English or French. And for two and a half years, I felt dumb. I felt like I wasn't smart enough and I wasn't good enough and I was made fun of as a kid. That led to me being involved in street gangs from the age of 12 to 16. In Montreal? In Montreal. Wow. We trafficked drugs from Florida.

We did break-in entries. We had a little street gang, about 12 of us that just got into a lot of trouble. My path was either jail or the morgue, one of the two. And there's a lot of successful people that have that kind of a story for some strange reason. And at 19, I met a mentor. His name was Alan Brown. He was a real estate developer. Still in Montreal.

No, this was in – I moved from Montreal after years of turbulence. I finally broke free and moved from Montreal to Toronto, which is about 350 miles. Gotcha. In Canada still. Canada, yeah. And May 1980, I took my real estate course. June 20th, 1980, it became Licenses of Real Estate. And the reason I did is I met a man the weekend before that my brother introduced me to who was into personal development.

And he was into, you know, Zig Ziglar and Dennis Waitley and Brian Tracy's, you know, 35 years ago. And he introduced me to this world of, you know, the mind. Introducing me to the world of changing my beliefs, changing my habits, changing my perceptions of first, who are you? And he really helped me see that the spiritual greatness within everybody, the intelligence that's within everybody, he had me start with getting in touch with that. And it was very philosophical and didn't have the evidence that we have today on affirmations, visualization, meditation, mindfulness, subliminal programming, habit creation, all of the different methodologies that we've all heard about, whether it was the astronauts that went to the moon initially that trained their brains or the musicians

that have or the athletes that do. The science now is just so phenomenal on what is actually happening. And so as I was building my own companies, I built my companies by training my employees, not on the skills that they needed, but on how spectacular they were as human beings and the greatness was within them. And if they trained their brain to have the belief that is, they may not have the skill or the know-how, but if you have the belief that I can, I will, I must. You can build a habit. You can start taking action.

You can build a habit. You can start to, if you think about this, I don't care if you, if we asked any question on health, wealth, relationships, career, business, spirituality, we wanted to find the answer to something. Yeah. We could Google it and within minutes have everything we want to know. Tutorials, everything we need. Tutorials, videos, audios, how to, step-by-step, blueprint, color, coordinate, whatever you want.

So our problem isn't how-to. All the how-to exists. How to build a business exists. How to be a great lover exists. You know? It all exists. How to get in shape. Right.

So I wanted to focus on, you know, how do I help more people take more of the action they know they should be and want to. It all started in 1992. After I got into real estate and I traveled the world, I ended up buying the franchising rights for Remax for the state of Indiana. I was 26 years old. I bought the franchising rights for Indiana, moved to Indiana. Wow. And I remember being interviewed

for the Indianapolis Business Journal and the guy said, what are your goals here in Indiana? 26 years old, I was wearing, you know, I remember a brown pinstripe suit. I had glasses on, even though I didn't need glasses. I just wanted to look older. And I said, we'll do a billion dollars in sales in Indiana.

And the gentleman said to me, he says, are you certain of that? I said, well, that's my goal. He says, well, there are two largest companies that have been here for 100 years. Don't do a billion dollars combined. And my cocky, young self, I said, well, we'll do it first. They're not me. Three weeks later, the Indianapolis Business Journal, and I have it at home, it says, sets $1 billion goal. Wow.

May 1992, we hit $1 billion in sales, five years later. Wow. And we were stuck, which is a great place to be stuck. But it wasn't because we didn't try hard. We were stuck because people started hitting the upper limits of their financial blueprint, the upper limits of their beliefs, the upper limits of their habitual ways of doing things. So regardless of how much more information we gave them, they just were at their limits. They didn't believe they could make more. That's right.

Well, and again, when we talk about beliefs, there's two types of beliefs. There's belief that I say to you, sure, I could do that. Oh, yeah, man, I want to do that. But if there's an opposing belief that the implicit part of the brain saying, but you're not smart enough, you're not good enough, you're not worried enough, you're afraid of failure, afraid of this, you're afraid of that, you won't do it because the non-conscious controls the entire game. And so we started to retrain our agents' brains after we did an event. 75 agents paid, I think it was $2,000 or $3,000 to go through a six-month brain retraining program.

Those 75 agents increased our sales by $100 million. Wow. And we said, okay, we're going to teach this to the entire company. Yeah. So we went from $1.2 billion to $4.5 billion in sales a year in three years by working on this versus what they needed to do. And so I became really pretty well versed in understanding a little bit about the brain. And then after I was retired in 2003, after building a couple of companies, I took Bamboo.com. We took public in 1999.

And I wanted to just teach what I'd learned. And I started getting involved with some of the top neuroscientists, neuropsychologists in the world, quantum physicists, molecular biologists. I want you to understand the mechanics of how it all worked. So when I visualize in first person what's happening in my brain and where. When I visualize in third person what's happening in my brain and where. When um repeat an affirmation that i don't believe and i hear a little voice in my head saying bullshit why does that happen that's not true and then what are the systems that get activated as soon as you believe it's not true and then can we learn to override them the answer is yeah it's it's an organ and we're just getting

the user's manual now for better than ever before yeah and i'm fascinated with biology i'm fascinated with neurochemistry i'm fascinated with the mechanics of if this circuit goes on, what does it do to this circuit? So if the fear circuit goes on, does that basically shut down the motivational circuit? Yeah, that's exactly what happens. So when the spiritual circuit lights on, you believe, let's say, God's on your side if you happen to believe that. Then guess what? You've just created a majority in your brain, and it'll override just about any other circuit in the brain. Right. And so, so there's the mechanics of, of it that I'm fascinated with, but then I'm also fascinated with, you know, technology and the movie, the matrix.

It's amazing. Yeah. I was just going to mention that. Yeah. The movie, the matrix was the beginning of, okay, so we can, and we already know that we actually can transfer information from one cell to another. So we can, and we already know that we actually can transfer information from one cell to another. So we already know that. And so now it's a matter of how, right? Not Lewis Howes, but how. And so I'm fascinated with, you know, where are we with augmented reality? Where are we with virtual?

Where are we with nootropics? Where are we with whether it's electrostimulation into the brain? Where are we with accelerated visualization, accelerated emotional immersions into a virtual reality or mixed reality? And you see, I can notice already my voice is just getting because that's where it's all going. Yeah. Right. So in the next five years for sure to 10 years, no question about it, you'll be able to visualize an experience in your brain a thousand times in a minute or 10,000 times in a minute. Really? How?

Well, because your non-conscious brain is picking up information at the rate of 400 billion bits of information per second. You're only aware of 4 to 40 bits of information per second consciously. And you're only aware of 4 to 40 bits of information per second consciously. So all of the information is being pummeled into the non-conscious mind anyway. And then it deletes, distorts, or sends a signal up for you to be aware of. Well, if you can get the information in the brain and you could trigger the brain plasticity switch on, which is mostly off after 10 years old, then the non-conscious brain is going to do what it did as a baby. That's why baby sleeps 20 plus hours a day. It's creating so many neural networks for what they hear, see, smell, taste, touch, experience,

that it starts to formulate their map of reality. Well, we're about to go through a massive, massive shift in what happens in our brains over the next 20 years. And that's because of the ability to input information. A lot of people are stressed right now. Why? Text, phone, mobile, radio, TV, Facebook, Twitter, all this, it's just nonstop stress in the brain. And when the brain feels stressed, then obviously cortisol, cortisol, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine kick in, and that's a stress hormone.

Well, it's like having, you know, your finger on the electricity button all day long and just not, not stopping. So you start to burn fibers, um, your nerves. And, and so there's, there's a major shift that's going to happen, especially with virtual reality. Just remember the combination of virtual reality, augmented reality. I've been in some scenarios recently where it's unbelievable. I was in Israel just a few months ago, and I was in a lab in Israel with some virtual reality goggles on, some sensors on my body.

And they basically put me, my consciousness, into a baby. So that when I looked everywhere, I had my arms were baby's arms, my legs were baby's arms, but I was me. And so my body basically disappeared. I took on the feeling of being in a baby's body. And I know on one part of my brain is going, this is not happening. And the other part of the brain is going, yes, it is. No, it's not.

Yes, it is. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it's not. My brain is going, this is not happening. And the other part of the brain is going, yes, it is. No, it's not. Yes, it is.

No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it's not. And we'll be able to put ourselves into these immersive experiences directly focused on the non-conscious brain to rewire it. So somebody is afraid of public speaking, afraid of heights, afraid of failure, afraid of success. The games that are going to be coming out, the experiences that will be coming out where you'll be able to have your virtual reality, you know, just glasses on. They're not going to be as, you know, as big and clunky as they are now. That's like the telephones, you know, cell phones from 1970. They're big and clunky and weighed five pounds.

Now, you know, you have a computer in your hand that has got more power than the computer we use to put a man on the moon. Right. the moon. And so the evolution of where that's going is any experience, any time, real feeling associated with it that ties into all the biometrics of your body, your heartbeat, your sweat glands, your blood pressure, everything will be monitored to be able to create maximal upload into your brain for you to absorb it. So you want some confidence? You'll be able to create maximal upload into your brain for you to absorb it. So you want some confidence? You'll be able to go into a confidence chamber in your mind and build some freaking confidence because confidence is nothing more than a series of neural patterns

that have been reinforced. If it's nothing more than a neural pattern that's been reinforced, why not figure out how to accelerate the neural pattern creation in optimal conditions? Yeah. Are you going to develop this? Oh, that's what Neurogym is all about. Yeah.

With the virtual reality? We're going to have the best programs like that in the Neurogym. Yeah, yeah. That's the whole vision. So if somebody has a fear of failure, great. Let's create some simulations that they could play in their living room. And let's see if they want to invite 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 friends around the world. So that's where it's all going.

And so if you can get the information into the brain, then the brain can code it. And if it codes it at the implicit level, then it will change behavior and perception. Amazing. I'm curious. I want to ask you a question in a moment. I just want to hook people about how if they're stuck at making a certain amount of money, how they can break through that mentally in a moment. Sure.

But I'm curious first, why did you get into gangs and the trouble so much early on? Did you not have the home life you wanted or was it just a part of being accepted by peers or why? Had a great mom and dad, even though they didn't love each other. They were wonderful parents, both individually. Great brother, great sister, great family home. Had food on the table every day, had a roof over my head every day, had clothes on my back.

So lots of love. When I was younger, I just didn't feel like I fit in. And so there's a group of kids that just didn't feel like they fit in. And then we just hung out together. And then the people that were the misfits back then, I was voted most likely to fail in life by my high school team. So even by then I was getting into so much trouble. I was hanging around with the people who just didn't have their self-confidence. And I didn't feel smart enough in school. I didn't feel like I was good enough in school.

Even though I was athletic, I played basketball. And that was my only claim to fame. But I cheated to get out of high school. How so? It's a funny story. A kid came in from Massachusetts. His name is Ted Karolis. There's a whole other story that happened about three months ago. If we have time, I'll get into it. But he came to our school.

He liked playing basketball. He wasn't very good at it. So I started helping him train for basketball, lifting weights in my garage and running and teaching him some basketball skills. And in turn, he helped me with math. And on the final day of our math exams, I had no idea what the hell I was going to do. And I didn't know how I was going to get out of high school because I needed to get my math grades. And so he wrote on a piece of paper that's about two inches by two inches and rolled it up like a little snot ball, 50 answers to the questions with a engineer pen. After he took the test. He took the test. He sat behind me in the gym and he just flicked it on my desk.

I took it out, watched where the teachers were, wrote out the answers. I ended up with 92% on my final math test I got out of high school. Wow. Strangely enough, this was in the 70s. I haven't heard from him or seen him in about 30 years or so, however long that is. About three months ago, my staff gets an email from a guy that says he thinks he went to high school with me. And so I call him up and I said to him about two weeks earlier, I tried to reach him on Facebook because I was going back to Montreal. And he's like, oh my God, well, I saw

your ads on Facebook. And that's why I realized there's not many people with the name Asarap. So he called the office and then I've been giving him all of my programs, thanking him for getting me out of high school. He's an engineer. Oh my gosh. He's making six figures a year. I said, well, let's help you get to a million. That's amazing.

He's like, oh my gosh. I said, listen, this is, for me, this is the most phenomenal gift I'll give you. You got me out of high school. That's hilarious. And so it was a great – That's cool. It's a good story. That's fun.

And who was more influential in your life, mom or dad? My dad was a cab driver, an extremely hardworking man. 5.30 in the morning, goes out, busts his ass. He had incredible will and willpower. And so I saw some things in him that I really, really resonated with. But he was not – he went to grade five, wasn't really educated, so didn't understand the world really well, didn't understand business, didn't understand. He was extremely happy. His only rule every day was if he woke up,

he was happy. That was his only rule. That's a good rule. He asked him, how am I? He goes, what do you mean how am I? I'm alive. I'm happy. And never made a lot of money, made 25, 30 grand a year. Always had too much month left at the end of the money. My mother also went to grade three, but very wise, very loving, very into family, very into friends, family, bonding with people. Money was not that important, but family was, and her children, the values were. And so I learned a little bit from both. And my mother, unfortunately, has been a manic depressive individual for 60 years. So she takes pills. She's living in an assisted living home.

She's fragile and tiptoeing through life, hoping to make it safely to death. My dad's 86. He's flying next month to Barcelona to get on a cruise for a week. Wow. Polar opposite. They separated? Yeah, many years ago. They stayed together until the kids all left, which is very typical. Like most parents.

Very typical. Then they separated. He went his way. He moved back to Israel. My mother stayed in Montreal because that's where my sister is. And so I talked to her five, six days a week. Say, hey, how you doing? Talk to my dad three days a week or so. And just stay close. But I learned a lot from them. The one thing I remember is, it's funny you say this, we talked about sugar earlier. I was 12 or 13 years old. I came home from school with information on cigarettes.

And both my parents smoked two to three packs a day. Oh, my gosh. A day, right? And my father looked at it, read it, picked up a cigarette, smoked a cigarette, was finishing reading it. He says, okay, I'm done. He's never had a cigarette since. He had the information. He had the information while he was smoking a cigarette. He says, okay, I'm done. He's never had a cigarette since. He had the information. He had the information while he was smoking a cigarette.

He says, okay, I get this. He quit. Two packs a day. Three packs a day. And they fought about how my mother continued smoking. He stopped smoking that one day. So one of the things I got from him was, where does this ability come from, knowing what we know about nicotine and the addictive properties of it? That's unbelievable. So it showed me that, you know, I don't know how old he was at the time, but it's, you

know, it's going back 43 years. So, you know, he was in his 50s or in his 40s. Wow. So he just made a decision and stopped. Powerful. And so he gave me a really powerful lesson of the power of decision and conviction. Right? And so that was a great lesson from him.

But my mom, the biggest lesson is just love. She was just love. It's love. It's just family. It's all about love. It's all about love. Is there anything missing in your life right now? And if so, what is that?

There really isn't right now. I've just come through a really challenging time. I was in business with one of my very best friends of 30 years. And we started a company together in 2006 or so. And he ended up with severe diabetes and had a stroke and had a heart attack. And it went, you know, everything just went hell in a hand basket, lost lots of money, lots of employees. We had about 70 plus employees.

We let them go, closed the company down. I had friends of mine who put $2 million into the deal. I put a couple of million dollars into the deal and it was, you know, all my intellectual property that developed over 60 years was basically held up in a legal lawsuit that I had with one of my shareholders and investors. And it was a very challenging time. Wow. It was, you know, reputation, IP, start from scratch. Assets.

Assets. Relationships, everything. Yeah, a lot. So it was a challenging, very, very challenging time. Yeah, a lot. So it was a challenging, very, very challenging time. And fortunately, because of my meditative practices, staying aware of what is not buying too much into that, I just started building a new company over the last four years. And I've got 30 amazing team members now in our company at Neurogym. My wife is great.

My kids are awesome. My health has never been better. I became vegan about five years ago. Stopped drinking alcohol seven years ago. Gave up sugar about three weeks ago. Let me know how long you keep it up. I made a decision now. It's a year.

One year, no sugar. One year, no refined sugar. No sweets. No refined sugar. If there happens to be honey on something, then a little bit is fine. No refined sugar. No cookies, no cakes, no chocolate bars, no soft drinks, nothing.

Well, right now, I don't have any cravings whatsoever. Zero. Wait till the holidays. You know what? I just came back from Montreal, and I was there for the holidays, and the dessert table was about as big as this, and I just said no. And a week before, actually four days before that, I was in Las Vegas at

Encore at the buffet. And I actually took a video of everything that was there. And I said, now, what I did beforehand is I pre-committed. Before I went to Las Vegas, I said, now, when I go to the buffet, here's what I will do. When I go to this restaurant, here's what I will do. So I pre-committed in advance, played it over in my mind 10, 15, 20 times, put myself in the situation in my mind. And then when I was there, it was easy breezy because I'd done it 10, 20, 30 times. So I did that.

And so when I went to Montreal, usually I go to Montreal and all hell goes to lose my mother. She's baking every day. Not anymore. My sister's taking over. Oh, yeah. So the food that's there and the desserts that are there, breakfast. The poutine there too. I love poutine. Oh, yeah. So good. But the desserts that are there. The breakfast. The poutine there too. I love poutine.

Oh, yeah. So good. But the desserts for me was the hardest part. But it was like easy breezy. That's amazing. Teach me thy ways. I don't know if I'm ready to commit for the year. You've got to be ready, I think.

And you actually, you mentioned something about the word commit. My first mentor, this was June 1982 1982 he had me write down my goals health wealth relationships career business fun experiences charity except everything uh one year three years five years 25 years he had me a whole weekend write goals i'm like i was 19 i was like god this is a lot of work yeah and when i came back after the weekend, he said, okay, great. Are you serious about these? I said, yeah, I've spent the whole fucking week doing this. I'm serious about it.

He says, great. Are you interested in achieving these goals or are you committed? I said, Alan, what's the difference? He goes, if you're interested, you come up with stories, excuses, reasons, and circumstances why you can't or why you won't. If you're committed, those go out the window. You just do whatever it takes. Yeah. And I remember being petrified of the difference.

I was petrified. I'm sitting there. There's a man. He was looking at me. I was sitting in a chair. He's looking at me. Wonderful man. And he put his hand in front of me.

Are you interested? Are you committed? And I was like, wow. Now I've got to tell him that. I forget if I tell myself and then I lie to myself and tomorrow I don't. But here's a gentleman that's trying to help me. Asked me if I'm interested or committed. I said, well, I'm committed.

He says, great, because if you're committed, then I'll help you. Because if you're not committed, I can't waste my time with you. And he helped me. That's amazing. My first year in real estate at 19, I made $35,000. My second year, by starting to retrain my brain, every day he had me visualizing, he had me cognitively priming my brain to see my goals. Every day I would take my goals out and I would run my fingers across them. Then I would close my eyes like he taught me.

And he says, now read it and then see yourself doing it or achieving it or being it. Then read it and see yourself doing it and then run your fingers across it and feel the electrical signal from those words coming into your brain and cementing themselves there. Every day I would do that for 15, 20 minutes for a year. 35,000 first year, 151,000 second year. Amazing. 20 years old. And I said, nobody can take that away from me because I know it works.

And not only did I learn it for myself, but then I taught it to my employees in my company. We had 1,500 agents in Indiana, plus all the staff in the offices. At Bamboo, we had 1,200 employees there. And now I've taught these principles to our clients and, I mean, tens of thousands of clients all over the world. Yeah. And I think some people get mixed up with the law of attraction thinking that that's all they need to do. But then you spent 10, 15 hours a day executing and staying committed to it. The law of voyeur.

Yeah. When all the challenges came every day, you were committed to overcoming them. That's right. And building great habits and routines and taking massive action. Yeah. Yeah. When all the challenges came every day, you were committed to overcoming them. That's right. And building great habits and routines and taking massive action. Yeah. And when it comes to the problems that come up every day, I mean, it's like weather. It's sunny for a little bit. It's raining.

It's hailing. It's windy. It's not. That's life. And that goes back to where we started a little bit earlier about the frames is if you expect things to always be great, you're delusional. If you expect things to always be bad, that maybe might happen. It might happen.

And so it's a matter of learning the frames and how do you frame stuff. So even when I was going through these challenging, challenging times on a lot of fronts, the frame was still good. Yeah. The frame was still good because I know it's just a chapter. Yeah. It's going to pass. Yeah. And I know that. It's going to pass. It'll pass.

And I know that by taking all of my attention units and that's actually something we didn't talk about today is every morning when you wake up, you have, let's say, let's say it's 10 attention units.

If you're using two or three or four or five or six of them on why you can't. What's an attention unit? What do you mean? An attention unit is your, your ability to stay focused. Uh-huh.

And your ability to stay focused is happening at the conscious and non-conscious level. So if you're processing stuff in the back of your mind of something you're angry at, something you're mad at, something that's stressing you out, or you don't have enough money, or you don't have the right relationships or the contacts or whatever, if you're stressing out about that stuff and that's eating up your attention units, that's like having your computer, okay, using up most of its energy in what's behind that you're not using. And we all have a certain amount of attention units every day. And so one of the things that you asked me before that I can come back to on the rituals

is using the attention units in a way that is highly, highly productive versus wasting a lot of time. And so my ritual, we started earlier, I just remembered that, is wake up, meditation, exercise, plant-based protein smoothie, followed by reviewing my goals. Every day you review your goals. Every day, five minutes. The goals for the day, the month, the year. Everything.

I review my overarching goals. I could do that fairly quickly because that's my longer range goals. I could review the emotions that I want because I'm committed to having those emotions every day and feeling a certain way every day. And then I take a look at from, you know, five years out, three years, one year, 90 days, 60 days to today. And so I just review it. And what happens- Give it on a piece of paper, the iPad. Laminated and on my computer.

Really? Yeah. And I have it in a booklet also. So when I travel, it's really easy. Do you have it with you? No, no. It's a pretty big- Oh, gotcha, gotcha. It's like a little manual. You'll have to send me a photo so I can see it. Yeah, I'll send you. It's called My Exceptional Life Blueprint.

I like it. And so the question many people may ask is, why? Why would you do that? Well, because you're having 35,000 to 50,000 thoughts a day, right? And your brain isn't certain like what's really important and what's not. But if you instruct your brain that something is really important, whether it's something you don't want or something you do, it will actually pay attention to you. So by priming my brain early every day, here is what I want you to focus on. Here are the emotions I want you to express through me.

Here's the behaviors that I need to take. Then I am on a daily basis setting the course for what I want my brain to focus on. I am cognitively priming the pump. And if I do it one day, that's great. If I do it 60 days, 100 days, my brain goes, hey, I'm just going to make this freaking automatic because I want to conserve energy. Right. Right?

I'm just going to make it automatic. So not only will you focus on it consciously, but I'm just going to make everything happen behind the scenes to help you see, think, and feel things that are congruent with what you're trading your life for and what you want to achieve. So I'm just using the system better. Right. I love this. Okay.

Final few questions. I want to go back to the question about the financial mindset because there's a lot of entrepreneurs who are listening or those who are looking to make more money. Maybe they're at the five-figure months. Maybe they're at the six-figure year level. Maybe they're at the seven-figure and they felt stuck for a while. How do we retrain our mind to break through that financial mindset limit? Yeah. There's something in the weight loss industry field called a fat set point. And every brain has a fat set point.

And it basically states that you have a set point just like a thermostat that's programmed in a room to have a set point. We have fat set points. We have financial set points. We have relationship set points. We have these set points that we become accustomed to achieving. And then all of the supporting evidence, the stories, the themes, the plot lines, the perceptions and behaviors all must match the set point. And so you can ask yourself two questions. Number one is how did that set point get there? And then how do I change it? Right?

So how it got there is through all of your conditioning, through what you've read, what you've done, what you've experienced, what you've been told, what you've seen. All of that has created your financial set point based on your story. And so the first thing to recognize is the set point can be changed. And the question is how, right? And that's the million dollar question. So number one, what drives behavior more than anything else? It's not skill. It's not knowledge. Skill and knowledge is potential power. But what does drive behavior more than anything else is beliefs. I think I'm capable of achieving double my income. We'll just use double my income. But there's another belief that opposes that. That causes what we know as neural dissonance.

So it creates a chaotic vibration in the brain between the conscious and non-conscious mind. So the key is to get alignment between the new goal, which is a conscious pattern of thought that you can choose in an instant and the non-conscious part of the brain around that goal. So how do you develop a belief, right? So it's a pattern. So if I gave you a sentence and you said that sentence one time, you probably, great, be a sentence like when I was like hearing a line in a song one time. But if you heard a line in a song repeatedly, 20, 30, 40, 50 times, and you had other associations with that to reinforce that pattern, then you would start to develop a non-conscious pattern through that. So we know that using, let's say, visualization, you're actually bypassing the conscious mind and you're accessing the visual cortex of the brain.

It's a non-conscious process, the visual processor. And so if we take words and we affirm them and we feel them and we visualize them, repeat them 100, 200, 500, 1,000 times, now we start to create a pattern at the non-conscious level that basically reinforces a conscious desire. And so that's really why I developed Neurogym. That is, that's the only reason why, because we know that's what we can do and should do and it works. And I just created the tools, the technology and the tools to do it faster than anything else in a variety of different evidence-based ways. So you start to see yourself at that new goal. You start to impress a new belief

that seems foreign, unfamiliar, maybe even a little stupid at first. Ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, no, I'm not earning a hundred grand a year. Yes, I am. Well, no, you're not. And there's this battle and you have to move from ignorance to awareness. So what do I mean by that? If you don't understand that every brain has an error detection mechanism within it, okay, what is that? Anytime you veer out of your comfort zone, the fat point setting or the financial setting, anytime you veer out of it, the first line of defense is self-talk that's negative. That's the first thing that pops up because your brain is going, that's not true.

So it's detecting an error between what you said as an affirmation or even what you just visualized or even what you just did against the predominant neural patterns that exist. So it's an 800-pound gorilla initially fighting the flea, right? Right. Dan Heath's book. And so what we want to do is we want to get the conscious goal, the vision,

aligned with the non-conscious pattern. And as soon as you align that, you have neural coherence. And when you have neural coherence, that's like hearing your most favorite band playing your favorite song, and you're just like, that's the best bliss it's just bliss yeah if it's not bliss you're out of coherence and so the key and why we start off

early with meditation is awareness of how do i tune in my vibration how do i let go of that unempowered self-talk that sentence that thought that thought that I had, or that disempowering. It's an unpleasant feeling. Beliefs aren't good or bad. They're only pleasant to unpleasant at varying degrees. When we're out of coherence, it's unpleasant unless our life is on the line and safety is there. For the most part, a fear of failing. Where's that coming

from? We failed our whole lives successfully, but the meaning that we're giving, you know, what people will say, what people will think, you know, how I'll be embarrassed or ashamed. Those are all the things that you need to really get in tune with. And when you do that and you start to use affirmations and, um, you know, we just developed a mechanism using auditory brain stimulation to take the most powerful beliefs, the guided visualization, guided meditation, subliminal programming to help people. I love it. I love it. A couple of final questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

Final questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently? To have just turned 55 in the healthiest spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical place in my life. To really have a deep connection with God. And I'm not religious. God to me is the source of all supply to everybody. So just to really feel that. To have an amazing partner in my life, my wife.

I've been through two divorces, been married to my wife now for 11 years, been together for 17. My son's Keenan and Noah, just 19 years old, 21 years old, just champions of life. That's cool. My mom and dad are still alive. My brother and sister and I are happy and healthy. And I've got a thriving business doing what I love. So it's a really good place of just being grateful for, you know, not f***ing up my life with all the opportunities that I had. Right, right.

You know? But being ready to, you know, enjoy the next chapters, the challenges, the good, the challenging. I'm in a really good position to sail the oceans of life, regardless of how big the storms are. Even as I say, it's like, no, no, I don't want any more big storms, but I'm well equipped to captain the ship a lot better now. What's one skill you haven't mastered yet that you want to master? to captain the ship a lot better now.

What's one skill you haven't mastered yet that you want to master? Something that has really been on top of my mind is being somebody who loves to write and somebody who loves to teach and share. There's an art and a science to persuasion that I haven't mastered. I'm pretty well versed in it, but that's a science of really being able to affect the neurochemistry in somebody else's brain with what you say and how you act.

I went to see a play last night and I'm sitting at a play and it's a musical with my wife and eight other friends and all of us were crying. You know, because the story is so good. So the art of storytelling more. It's a good skill. The art of storytelling. Those that can do that are unbelievable. It's a skill. Yeah. You're just going right into that. That's cool.

That heart-centeredness of people. So being able to touch people. I tend to be a little too logical at times. I want to get more into the... and I have a totally comfortable opening of my heart and talking about everything. Just telling that story. Sure, sure. I want to go to the science. Yeah, of course.

This is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. Yeah. So if it's the last day for you many, many years from now, you've achieved everything you want. You've learned everything you want to learn. And all your books and work has been erased for whatever reason. And your friends and family give you a piece of paper and a pen and say, well, you write down the three things you know to be true about everything you've experienced in life that you'd pass on to us. What would be those three truths? One, love yourself.

So learn how to love yourself. Number one, uh, you can achieve anything you set your mind to achieve and be a go giver as much as you are a go getter. There you go. I like it. Uh, what should we be connecting with neurogym.com? Obviously something everyone should go to and sign up for, but you have a brain a thon, correct? Yeah. For, for neurogym, the, uh, website is my neurogym.com. My neurogym.com. If they go tourogym, the website is myneurogym.com. myneurogym.com. If they go to Neurogym, they'll meet somebody who has a rehab company in Canada that's rehab for brain injuries.

So it's myneurogym.com. But we have a Brain-a-thon that's coming up. And it's a free event online. Yeah. Basically what happens, a lot of people are fascinated with the people that I'm hanging around with, the top brain researchers in the world, the top mindset and emotional experts in the world. And so I started doing this Brain-a-thon a few years ago. And so this is going to be our fifth annual Brain-a-thon. And so it's myself and usually six or seven world-renowned brain experts.

So we've got, you know, the upcoming one. We've got Dr. Srini Vasanpile from Harvard. Won more awards than any other student at Harvard Psychiatry ever. Brilliant. He'll be on with me. I've got Larry King is actually going to help moderate a couple of the sections with me as well. I've got Dr. Daniel Friedland, the former chairman of the Integrative World Health Association, brilliant neuroscience researcher.

Dr. Evan Gordon has got an MD and PhD specializing in the non-conscious brain, the stuff that a lot of people talk about in an airy, fairy way. This is top five experts in the world that's going to be on the show. I've got Sharon Pearson from Australia who's the CEO of the Coaching Institute who really helps people let go of their stories and excuses and

circumstances they think are holding them back. I've got Mark Waldman written 12 books on the brain, spirituality, letting go of your fears, you're letting go of your doubts, letting go of the negative self-talk that holds a lot of people back.

So we've got a whole bunch of these individuals plus a whole bunch of our clients that will be on, four or five of our clients that we're sharing. Here's how they're retraining their brain. Here's how they're shattering their financial glass ceilings. But it's so much more than that. Because once you understand that the power center is right within you and you learn how to just use the tools a little bit better. We've got the most powerful three pound tool in the world with no user's manual.

And so we teach people, here's the latest research. Here's how you can apply it to your life, be healthier, happier, make more money, get a better job, get a raise, start your business and do better by retraining your brain to be totally in aligned with your goals and dreams and learning. How do I stay focused? How do I stay motivated? How do I stay on track? How do I develop the habits that will empower me? And how do I do the things that inspire me instead of the things that expire me? There you go. Your brain-a-thon. Your brain-a-thon.com. Awesome. We'll have it linked up and all that information along with a new book you have coming out. We'll have that linked up and all that information along with the new book you have coming out.

We'll have that linked up. Awesome. So make sure you guys get on the Brain-A-Thon, get the new book. What's it called again? The new book is going to be called Innercise. Innercise, yes. Instead of Exercise, Innercise. I like it.

I like it. Definitely get on board with what John's doing at MyNeuroGym.com. Your Brain-A-Thon. What's it called? Your Brain-A-Thon. Yeah. YourBrainAthon.com to sign up for our upcoming brainathon with me and the other brain experts. There you go. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, John, for your incredible ability to commit to transforming your life and inspiring others to do the same. Again, the 19-year-old in you who made that decision to commit has transformed millions of lives around the world because of that decision, because of you constantly being a seeker of truth and information to support yourself and others. It's an incredible,

it's just amazing what you've been able to create for yourself and to be such an inspiring symbol. Everything from your health to your attitude, to your energy, to your intelligence, to your love. It's a symbol of what's possible for everyone else. So I want to acknowledge you for all the gifts you bring to the world. I took my mess, turned it into my message. I like it. I like it. I like it. The final question is what is your definition of greatness? Hmm. You know, that's a great question. I think feeling and knowing that you've used your life in a way that makes yourself proud, that you're proud of. You felt like, what a journey.

And I left it all out on the field. You know, I just left it all on the field. That's my own greatness. You know, it was knowing that I used my life in a way that I left it all out on the field. I just left it all on the field. That's my own greatness, is knowing that I used my life in a way that I left it all out on the field, the bruises, the bangs, the trials, the tribulations, the highs, the lows, that you used it. You used it. For me, and that's actually, I'm going to just back,

I made a commitment to myself that i will never meet my maker and feel like i should have done more so i'm willing to go through whatever to never ever feel that i don't want to be one of my friends that i've had who've squandered 20 30 40 years of their life i don't want to be the person says i wish i would have i of their life. I don't want to be the person that says, I wish I would have, I wish I could have. I don't want to be that person. I won't. So there's a part of me that, you know,

and this is something that will give people a good frame. I'm afraid of that. So there's two ways to look at fear, right? So a lot of people, when something's, you know, they're afraid of, it's pushing them backwards. And I chose to take fear and put it behind me to push me forward. So that's how you could take your fear and turn it into your fuel. Right?

So I just choose to reframe it. I don't want that. I'm aware of that. Great. How do I use that to move me forward? So it's just a shift in how I perceive it. And so I want to learn. I want to grow.

I want to love. Like I don't want to feel like I could have loved more. I could have given more. I could have become more. I could have tried. I don't want to ever feel that the day I die. And any day that I do, I just get out of it. Come on.

Nope. Today may be the day you die. Sure. There you go. Today may be the. Nope. Today may be the day you die. Sure. There you go. Today may be the day. This moment may be the moment you die. So, nope. That's not going to happen.

So, it's a really wonderful motivator for me. Fear is a great motivator for me. There you go. John, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. There you have it. Episode 400 is complete. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here.

If you want to watch the full video interview, go to lewishouse.com slash 400. Also, guys, our YouTube channel is blowing up. We've got all these interviews and episodes over on YouTube. That's right, youtube.com slash lewishouse. I'm also vlogging once a week so you can see my adventures from Iceland to India to New York to wherever I'm traveling to. I'm doing behind the scenes vlogging. That's right. I'm showing you my perspective sharing with you what's in my head, what's going on in my life, business, what I'm thinking processing, and we're editing it up into a vlog on YouTube once a week.

So go check out subscribe to my channel, YouTube slash Lewis Howes, and make sure to sign up for the Brain-a-thon with John as well and get in that game and learn more about how to optimize your mind and brain also. You guys make me smile so much. So thank you for being here. We are almost at 25 million downloads.

That's right, we're a few hundred thousand downloads away. 400 episodes, almost four years in, 25 million downloads. We're in the top 100 on iTunes. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much. If this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe to the podcast over on iTunes and leave a review of what you thought about this episode or the podcast. If this is your 400th time here,

then send me a message and let me know. Send me a DM on Instagram. If you've listened to all 400 episodes, I'm going to think of something to give you back in return just for your incredible support and loyalty for learning and growing and being part of this for 400 episodes. And make sure to connect with John as well.

All of his info is back at lewishouse.com slash 400. Guys, if you are not using Headspace yet, make sure to get on Headspace. It is what I use whenever I feel fear, anger, stress, anxiety, or if I can't sleep, I turn on Headspace and I put on a 10 minute guided meditation. I'm telling you, meditation will transform your life. And Headspace is a meditation app made super simple, super easy, and effective. I don't care who you are, how old you are, if you think meditation is dumb or not, I'm telling you, this is so simple and easy to use and so effective. Their app has been downloaded over 7 million times, including me.

I'm a subscriber. I'm a buyer. I'm a customer. And it's super simple guys. 10 minutes a day is all you need. Learn more at headspace.com slash greatness. Again, headspace.com slash greatness.

And with that guys, thank you again for being here. Episode number 400 is complete. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music