The School of Greatness - The Science of Success: Harnessing the Power of Positive Thinking, Dopamine, and Mindset EP 1447

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

The Summit of Greatness is back! Buy your tickets today – summitofgreatness.comIn this powerful Masterclass episode, four leading experts delve into the intricate workings of the brain and how to leverage its capabilities to achieve greatness. Prepare to be inspired and equipped with the tools to seize control of your neurology and unlock the path to unparalleled success in this transformative episode.Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman is back today. He’s a professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology in Stanford and runs the Huberman Lab which studies brain functions, how our brains change through experiences, and how to repair the brain after injury or disease. He’s going to share his knowledge and expertise to help us all believe that positive thinking truly works!Award-winning behavioral scientist, Katy Milkman, talks about “temptation bundling,” where she links guilty pleasure with a healthy habit, when is the best time to make a new habit, the barriers that are holding us back from making positive changes in our lives, and so much more!John Assaraf is one of the leading behavioral and mindset experts in the world. He has written two NY Times Best Sellers, was in The Secret and has built 5 multi-million dollar companies. He shares why you should be concerned with your limited number of attention units and how you can start everyday ready to win.Daniel Z. Lieberman is a teacher, researcher, practitioner, and co-author of the book called The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity  — and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race. He discusses how to use dopamine in a healthy and productive way, a common mistake people make about love, and so much more.In this episode you will learn,The fascinating insights into brain functions, the plasticity of the brain, and strategies for brain repairHow to link guilty pleasures with healthy habits for increased motivation and positive changeThe importance of managing your limited attention units and practical tips for starting each day with a winning mindsetThe healthy and productive utilization of dopamine, along with debunking common misconceptions about love, sex, and creativityFor more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1447Andrew Huberman’s full episode - https://link.chtbl.com/1219-guestKaty Milkman’s full episode - https://link.chtbl.com/1219-guestJohn Assaraf’s full episode - https://lewishowes.com/podcast/i-train-your-brain/Daniel Z. Lieberman’s full episode - https://link.chtbl.com/1255-Guest

Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jaspreet Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sincero and many more. You'll also be able to

dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts and connect with others at our evening socials. So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there. The brain and the body are constantly in dialogue. I don't think people should try and suppress their negative thoughts i think there is great value however welcome to the school of greatness my name is lewis howes a 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. Welcome to this special masterclass. We brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's gonna be powerful. So let's go ahead and dive in. The question that you're asking is a very important one. It's actually

the question, which is to what extent does our subjective narrative, the story we tell ourselves actually mean something for the body? And to what extent does the body actually means something for the body and to what extent does the body actually mean something for the subjective narrative so this gets into some areas of work that we're doing now and so i do want to highlight that it's ongoing work but i think you know the old narrative meaning a few 10 years ago was that if you're feeling depressed just smile well if that worked right we would have a lot less depression than we see out there. Right, right. Now that does not mean...

Most people actually who are depressed just aren't smiling as well. Like when you change your physiology, doesn't it also start to change the way you think about yourself a little bit? The reason I call it a brain-body contract early on is that the brain and the body are constantly in dialogue. So, you know, the idea that when we're depressed, we tend to be in more defensive type postures.

When we're feeling good, we tend to be in more like relaxed and extended postures. All true. But it does not mean that just by occupying the extended posture that I'm going to completely shift the mind. That's a first step. Think about like two interlocking gears. It's one gear that turns the other, but then they need to kind of dance together before you can get the whole system going so how do you get it to dance together exactly so subjective there is one way in which subjective thought and deliberate thought is very powerful over states of mind and

body to answer your question can you think your way out of the ice bath being cold? So a couple of things that are important. First of all, just to go a little deeper on what thoughts are. Thoughts happen spontaneously all the time. They're popping up like a poorly filtered internet connection, but thoughts can also be deliberately introduced.

For instance, right now I can say, okay, have a thought that just decide to write your name. And you can do that. I'm going to decide to write my name and you can do it. So that's a deliberate thought, which says that you can introduce thoughts. So I think it's very hard to control negative thoughts directly by trying to suppress them. Generally, they tend to just want to continue to geyser up all the time. But we can introduce a positive thought.

Can you think of two thoughts at the same time? Probably not. So you can only have one thought at a time. Right, but they come very fast. But it comes and goes. So you have to constantly be intentional and deliberate about what you think. Otherwise, a spontaneous thought will pop back in.

Based on your experience, based on sensory, based on how you're feeling or perceiving something, your environment. It's just going to keep popping in. Right. So how do we deliberately have a positive thought more often? Right. So I'm a big fan of wellness, and I think it's a great community. But it tends to run in absolutes, and there aren't a lot of operational definitions, as we say in science.

And what I love about your question is you're asking for really getting to the meat of things, asking for the operational definitions as we say in science and i what i love about your questions you're asking for really getting to the meat of things asking for the operational definitions one of the most dangerous ideas in wellness and in popular psychology is that your body hears every thought you have what a terrible thing to put on people you know what what what a challenging thing i don't think people should try and suppress their negative thoughts. I think there is great value, however, to introducing positive thought schemes. Now, the reason is not because I think it's just because I think so, but because there's actually a neurochemical basis for controlling stress and actually making stress more tolerable and extending one's ability to be in bouts of effort. And that relates to the dopamine pathway.

So the molecule dopamine is a reward. It's released in the brain when you win a game, you close a deal, you meet the love of your life. Someone likes your photo. Someone likes your photo, the great love of your life, you complete something. But most of our dopamine release is not from achieving goals. It's actually released when we are en route to our goals, where we're in pursuit of our goals,

and we think we're on the right path. This is why a lot of people get depressed after they achieve a big goal, because they feel like, I'm supposed to feel something greater. I felt this thing for two minutes, and now that's it? That's right. High achievers know to attach dopamine to the effort process.

To the pursuit, the day-to-day tasks the the growth the lessons the losses Like everything right? Well, and it can be to some wins along the way But growth mindset which is the academic discovery and laboratory discovery of my colleague Carol Dweck at Stanford is the hallmark of growth mindset It's really two things one is I'm not where I want to be now But I but I will I'm capable of getting there eventually. The other is to attach a sense of reward to the effort process itself. In fact-

Don't reward the result, reward the effort. That's right. And if you look at true high performers, people that are consistently good at what they do, they don't peak and go through the postpartum depression and crash and come back, and their life is a cycle of ups and downs, but really

people who are on that upward trajectory consistently those people attach dopamine to the effort process and actually carol's one of her original studies on the discovery of growth mindset was these kids that love doing math problems that they knew they couldn't get right so it's like the people love puzzles but in this case they knew they couldn't get right. So it's like the people love puzzles, but in this case they knew they couldn't get it right, but they love doing it. And incidentally or not so incidentally, these kids are fantastic at math when there is a right answer,

because they feel some sense of reward from the effort process. Now the cool thing about dopamine is that it's very subjectively controlled. We can all learn to secrete dopamine in our brain in response to things that are in a purely subjective way. Our interpretation. Our interpretation.

But it has to be attached to reality. So one should never confuse... What is real? Right. So if you're thinking about the effort you're expending, so let's say somebody right now is financially back on their heels and they're setting up a new business, for instance, and it's hard. If they can take a few moments or minutes each day to reflect on the fact that the effort

process is allowing them to climb out of their hole potentially that it's giving them an opportunity that it's somehow they are on the right path or they're or if they're not in movement along that path or at least oriented on the right path they're not lying in bed all day they're taking a step they're taking a step if they can reward that process internally two things happen first of all the brain circuits that are associated with building subjective rewards and dopamine get stronger. So you get better at that process. And second, and most importantly, dopamine has an amazing ability to buffer adrenaline and buffer epinephrine. And what I mean by that is there was a study that was published in the

journal Cell, excellent journal, Cell Press Journal press journal a couple years ago showing that with repeated bouts of effort we use and we release more and more epinephrine it's kind of adrenaline but in the brain with more effort with every time every time you put in effort so every time you make look for this let's keep it if I were to keep it in the business context every time you make write that email every time you let's see it's a person who's a craftsman or a craftswoman every time you're working in the in the shop and doing that every bit of effort you're taking a little bit of money out of this epinephrine account you're spending epinephrine at some point those levels of epinephrine get high

enough that you you feel like quitting it feels exhausted this was done in a beautiful study actually where they control the visual environments and they have the subjects exert effort and they can control the visual environment so sometimes the effort of taking steps and moving forward this is actually kind of pushing forward and kind of swimming motion would give them the sensation that they were actually making progress and other times it was an exercise in futility where they would just keep the the visual world stationary and they would expend effort and they didn't think they were going anywhere

epinephrine's climbing climbing climbing and eventually they quit now dopamine is able to push back on that epinephrine and give you anyone the feeling that you could continue and maybe even the feeling that you want to continue. And you've seen this actually, football is a good example. Two teams play, say the Super Bowl, both teams are max effort the entire time. Max effort. The team that wins suddenly in a moment has the energy to jump all over the place party for days they can talk i mean they they they exhausted right before that well that wasn't glycogen or stored energy of any

kind except it was neural energy and what happened was effort is this adrenaline adrenaline adrenaline adrenaline eventually people quit they just quit the dopamine is able to suppress that and so then you're expending effort, but you're doing it from a place of feeling like you have energy for it. So we need dopamine to keep the effort going. Is that what I'm hearing you say? That's right. Dopamine is not just about reward. It's one of the biggest misconceptions. Dopamine is about motivation and drive. It's like a jet that propels you along a path. How do we get more dopamine? You practice subjectively releasing dopamine in your mind. Like how? Okay, so That's a great question. First of all, there are ways you can get more dopamine release through thoughts or through drugs or through supplements I want to be really clear. There is a drug. There are two drugs actually that will cause massive release of dopamine

They're called cocaine and methamphetamine actually, that will cause massive release of dopamine. They're called cocaine and methamphetamine. The problem is- That's what gets us addicted, because it feels so good. The problem is, exactly, the problem is cocaine and methamphetamine stimulate so much dopamine release

that the drug becomes the only source. It becomes the goal and the path. It becomes the path and the destination. And you look at people's lives when they do a lot of cocaine and methamphetamine, and that baseline on their life goes down very, very fast. Because there's no reason to work hard at anything else because you feel good. That's right. And that's the greatest feeling you'll have.

So why do anything else when you can have that feeling? That's right. And if you think about, remember these neurochemical systems, adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, epinephrine, they weren't designed to keep us safe from tigers and to hunt and gather or to build fortune 500 companies they were designed to do anything they were designed to be generic so that depending on our circumstances we could adapt so in an animal context an animal that let's say is hunting or it needs food for its young, it's gonna feel agitation, that's stress,

that's cortisol, it's like hunger. My babies might not eat, I might not eat. Maybe it's looking for a mate. It's gonna feel agitation and start looking and roaming and searching. Foraging is called in the animal behavior world. It's foraging. At some point, it might catch a smell of something,

a potential mate or berries or a stream if it's thirsty. At that moment, dopamine is released and now it has energy to continue along that path. Whereas there's a specific pathway in the brain that's involved in depression and disappointment that if it goes to that place and it turns out it was the wrong path, there's a signal that actually suppresses dopamine so that you don't repeat that mistake again. So you don't give up. That's right.

You just don't repeat it again. That's right. And those events that... So it reminds you like that's not the path to go down. That's right. Interesting. And we're sort of veering towards neuroplasticity here, which is the brain's ability to change itself in response to experience.

Dopamine is one of the strongest triggers of neuroplasticity because it says those actions led to success previously, you're gonna repeat those. Those actions led to failure previously, and don't repeat those. So dopamine triggers us to stay on the right path. That's right. So you asked how do you do this?

So to really make it concrete. And is there such thing as too much dopamine well if you're not on drugs so cocaine amphetamine are bad because they lower the baseline on life they make people very focused on things outside of themselves that's the other thing that dopamine does it can be positive or negative but when we have dopamine in our system we tend to be outward facing and in pursuit of things in our environment. You can look at somebody on cocaine and realize that that's the extreme version of that. But, you know, I love social media for the reason that you see the molecules in the memes. So it's like, get after it. You know, what do sharks do on Monday? Or I can't remember the specific things.

Or then they're the, like, sometimes it's just time to chill. Well, that's a different molecule. That's serotonin, right? And then dopamine is the get after it molecule and epinephrine is effort so if we were going to break this down really concrete we'd say adrenaline and epinephrine are about effort just effort with no subjective label on them good or bad effort whether or not stress or you're pursuing something you want to do it's's just, it's exerting effort. Dopamine is about reward, but more so about motivation and pursuit of rewards. What is the difference between a habit and a behavior and which one should we be focusing on more in order to get to where we want to be, changing our behaviors or changing our habits? A habit is a subset of behavior. It's a pretty narrow subset, actually, if you look at the true scientific definition. So Wendy Wood of University of Southern California is, I think,

the world's expert on habit. And she would define it pretty rigidly as something you basically do automatically without almost consciously realizing you're doing it, right? Like you sort of make the coffee in the morning with the coffee maker, you hit the button, so you don't even remember. Brush your teeth, you're just like showering. You shampoo your hair, right? And you're like, did I do the shampoo already? I was thinking about something else.

You go to work and you don't know how you got there. You're like, what? Because you're on autopilot, right? So that's like, those are the really rote activities. Like you hand sanitize if you're working in a hospital and you didn't even notice you did it. Did I do that already those are habits i think um there's been a lot of excitement and growth of uh like in in the popular press the idea that a habit is anything that you want to repeat

and i think that would actually a lot of the things that we think of and that we talk about casually as habits are probably more in the category of routines, which is different. Like often it's like if you're going to the gym, is it really a habit? You probably remember deciding to go to the gym. Maybe you do it at a consistent time. Maybe you do it a lot. But I would start calling a lot of these things more like routines if you want to talk about the non-academic. At any rate, you know, a little bit like inside baseball, You know, a little bit like inside baseball, who cares? But I do think it's interesting there's distinction in the processes that drive one versus the other.

I study behavior, which is like a super category. It's even above routines or habits. And it's just all behavior change requires different behaviors to happen. Some of them are going to be on autopilot. Some of them are gonna be on autopilot, some of them are gonna be routine, and some of them are one-time decisions that have big implications for your life. So I actually think having all of those categories in mind when we think about change is really important

as opposed to narrowly focusing on one or the other. So what is the definition of a behavior? Ooh, that's an interesting, like what is a behavior? A behavior is an action you take. Like really everything is behavior. If it's inside your head, it's not a behavior. Then it's like a judgment. But any, any actual action you take is a behavior. Any action you take. So what is,

what are the most common behaviors that we have that I guess hold us back? And then what are the most common behaviors that we have that, I guess, hold us back? And then what are the behaviors that ultra-performers... Okay, I thought you were going to go with most common. I was like, breathing. No, the most common behaviors that hold us back. Yeah. And then the most common behaviors of the ultra-high performers, successful in business and sports, what are those behaviors that they tend to lean into versus the ones where

people are stuck? Let me start with some of the most common behaviors that keep us stuck. Yeah, I think common behaviors where we get stuck are, and this is like, what are the most common New Year's resolutions? They're to change those behaviors that we get stuck on. So the most common things we get stuck on are things related to our health, right? We aren't making good decisions about what we eat, what we drink, whether we smoke, whether we're physically active. Those are really common points where we get stuck. Our finances, right? Making good financial decisions on a daily basis about how we spend our money, how we save, who we give our money to. Those are places people often get stuck. We can get stuck in bad social loops. We sort of started by talking about relationships. So I think that's another

place we get stuck, whether it's we're not, we feel like we're too shy, we're not meeting enough people, we're meeting the wrong people, we're in the wrong relationships. That's another area where we get stuck. I think education and career are sort of, I'd put them because they're like one follows the other and that's another category. Like if you're a student and you're trying to achieve, but we often get stuck on not really studying rigorously and putting the time in and the focus in. And then that converts to work where we're not being as productive as we could be. We're not setting ourselves up for success. ultra performers or the elite who are accomplishing all their goals and pursuing their dreams what are those behaviors that they do really well so this i have i have never gone and

interviewed the ultra performers and said like list for me all your behavior so instead of answering your question perfectly what i'm going to do is tell you some of the behaviors that research shows lead to great outcomes. And then certainly I have seen lots of top performers where I go, oh, they're totally doing that. It's great. So I think one of the most important things is like leaning on structure as opposed to expecting to just sort of follow the Nike just do it mantra. And by the way, when you talked about how you're training for your marathon, I noticed you immediately went to all the structures. Schedule, structure, accountability, coaching, investing like money into it all. So there's more investment in it. So it's like,

you've got to show up. Yes. That is like, for me, it's so ingrained in me that if you want to accomplish your goals, you've got to schedule these things you've got to do on a daily basis and make it like- Break it down. What's the daily goal? What's the daily thing?

When are you going to do it? What's going to cue you to do it? Who's going to watch you do it? Everything, everything. All that detail. What's at stake for you? What's at stake for other people? What's the higher purpose that if you don't do this, who are you going to be hurting?

And who is literally holding you accountable, right? Absolutely. You've got your coach involved. So those are the kinds of things that... So structure is one of the leading academic, the research that shows which will help you get more results. Yes. And there's so many pieces of that. And each one of them we could unpack and talk about studies from...

Please break it down. Okay. A big one is too often people say, I just have this big goal. You know, this big, I think if I set a big audacious goal, and by the way, that's good. It's good to set stretch goals, but then you've got to break it down, like into the, you know, what are you going to do this week? What are you going to do today?

What are those component parts? And people get a lot further research by Albin Jura, the late Albin Jura of Stanford, great thinker, sort of did some of the pioneering work on this. We just did a field experiment where we tested with thousands of people who wanted to be volunteering 200 hours a year and they had committed to that goal. And we found that just sending them reminders not to volunteer 200 hours a year, but to volunteer four hours a week, led to vastly better performance. Just that really simple change even in the way you communicate about this. When you invite someone to start saving $5 a day instead of $150 a month,

you get vastly higher take up. Interesting. Identical, so just little framing shifts where you think about let's break this down into the bite size component now it's harder to procrastinate on it you can see how it's doable it doesn't feel overwhelming she's saying if my goal is to save a hundred five dollars or invest 105 a month or whatever this is are you saying it's not the best approach to say i'm going to invest 105 a month but i'm going to do $5 a day. Yeah. So I can't remember what the scale is. Yeah, it's $150 because it's like 30 days roughly in a month.

$150. As opposed to saying I'm going to save or invest $150 a month, trick your brain into saying I'm going to invest $5 a day. Right. You're saying by doing that, what should happen? Many more people raise their hand and say, I can do this. You're saying by doing that, what should happen? Many more people raise their hand and say, I can do this. 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, you know, 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. 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, of health reasons, whether it's, um, it's, uh, less stress, less, you know, lower blood pressure, uh, 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. 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, fuck. 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. 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 gives rise to automatic feelings. So the signal is sent from the reptilian or lizard brain to the emotional brain, and it's only later logically understood if we take the time to 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 know,

you're maybe looking down at your cell phone because you have some time because you're parked on that. Right? And somebody cuts you off. So you could you could automatically react goes son of a bitch i can't believe he just did that and just use all of this energy the cortisol epinephrine adrenaline that's flowing through your body and causing stress in your body or you can say well what if that person just found out their dog died 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. Or they just got a call from their mother, their mother fell. 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. 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? Resp respond in a variety of different ways in advance or through practice yeah so that when it's game time you're just unconsciously doing what you do especially like you know i used to react a lot whenever i felt like anyone was attacking me physically or verbally on the on the game in the game i used to react and i'll 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 right 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 right the first person who does the foul yeah and um so i started to train myself and visualize okay this is gonna happen in this game like someone's gonna punch me in the nuts someone's gonna bite 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 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 shows um in addition to visualizing the outcome visualize the obstacles and in the past when we talk about this law of attraction no don't visualize the obstacles you attract them to no no no your brain's way smarter than that so if you have whether it's a belief that's in your way um a story that's holding you back a circumstance 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 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 because 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 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. 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? Oh, great. 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 five o'clock. I woke up this morning, sat in my little sofa, you know, 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, like I disappeared, like my body was part of air and space. So today was 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, and then as you exhale, it's OM. And the question is, why would you do that?

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, etc. 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 So I use sound, no sound. I use breathing. I use open eye, closed eye, five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 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. 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 um 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. 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, I became licensed as a real estate agent. 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, 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, you know, 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, and 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 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 about everything 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.

And it all started in 1995, 1992. After I, you know, got into 1992. After I, you know, got into real estate and I traveled the world, I, I ended up buying the franchising rights

for Remax for the state of Indiana. And I was 26 years old. Wow. And 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 a hundred years. Don't do a hundred million dollars, a hundred or a billion dollars combined. And my cocky young self, I said, well, we'll be the first. Three weeks later, the Indianapolis business journal, and I have it at home. It says sets $1 billion goal. Wow. May 1992, we hit a billion dollars 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 limit. You believe they can 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 at 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, you're afraid of this, you're afraid 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 I 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 an organ. What do you see as the future of where we're going? And if someone truly wants to live a happier, more fulfilled life, what can they do in the face of the next decade of just distractions? Yeah.

I don't think it's going to get easier for anyone with the accessibility to addictions, things, access, the now gratification. Yeah. You know, think back to our prehistoric ancestors. Can you imagine going out on a hunt for a woolly mammoth? How much fun that must have been. It'd be scary, fun, exciting. Oh yeah, like you're with your buddies, like the tribe.

You all depend upon one another, you all got a role. It's life or death. You could come home dead, you know, you're gonna bring home meat. I bet that we don't experience anything like that our whole life that was as much fun as that. Related to that, like everyone, I started out life poor as a poor medical student. And now I'm financially more comfortable. And there are things I miss about being poor.

Isn't that interesting? Have you noticed that? I was sleeping on my sister's couch for a year and a half. Uh-huh. No money, broke, eating mac and cheese and leftovers from her. Yeah. I didn't have a car, so I'm walking everywhere and just like living by, I don't know, a couple hundred bucks a month. Yeah.

And there's something about that time that I'm like, God, it was so exciting to see like what could I create from this space of nothing? Yeah. You're strategizing. Yes. Little wins are huge. Huge. Someone said yes to me with me.

Here's like all these things. So as our society progresses farther and farther away from scarcity, we lose those opportunities to have these incredibly big wins that are going to change our life. And so we overeat on junk food. We spend time with these trivial nonsense pleasures on our cell phones because the big things are no longer in our life. It's no longer about finding sources of food to survive. It's now about, you know, how many views am I going to get with my latest post? It's not the same thing.

So what can we do over the next five, 10 years as these distractions are going to become more prevalent? We've got to think about meaning. We've got to think about what is meaningful. So for me, you know, writing books has become so meaningful and it's nice and hard. And sometimes it makes me miserable, which is good. You've got to find something that's hard, that will involve failure because that's how hard it is. You can't choose an easy life. Really? Yeah. What happens if we choose an easy life? We become miserable. We become miserable, bored, fat, sick, diabetic,

all of those terrible things. Do you have a chapter or a place in here that talks about meaning and finding meaning? It's my next book. That's the next book. That's the next book, yeah. What is that one about the unconscious mind? It's about the unconscious mind, yeah.

What is the unconscious mind versus the conscious mind? It's about the unconscious mind. Yeah. And what is the unconscious mind versus the conscious mind? A lot of people have seen these pictures of the mind as an iceberg, right? Where there's this little teeny part above the surface and the huge mass is below the surface. That's the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is responsible for everything that goes on inside our heads that we don't have control over. Emotions, excitement, enthusiasm, interest. Most people don't think about this.

You don't control what you're interested in, you know? How do you, I mean. Really? Do you, so somebody like football? Okay. I personally don't like football. There's nothing I can, well, I kind of do, but not that much. But there's nothing I can do to make myself passionate about football.

Here's the thing. I'm do to make myself passionate about football. Here's the thing. I'm going to challenge you on this and tell me if I'm wrong. I never liked soccer. I played it growing up and then I stopped playing it when I was a sophomore in high school and I started playing football. And I was like, I never want to watch soccer. The only time I was interested in soccer was during the World Cup when I was like, okay, I can get behind everyone going out and like watching game and supporting the USA, right? But I never wanted to watch until a few years ago. I was just telling one of our producers here, Mike, that I went to a couple LAFC games. They're LA football club soccer team, right? And I was like, this is incredible. The

energy, the experience. I got to know the players and I was like, became interested in the sport of soccer. And I was like, I want to go to more games. So how became interested in the sport of soccer and I was like I want to go to more games Yeah, so how does that like what does that mean then if I'm not interested, but then I become interested in something, right? So we talked about um, we talked about this pastor who took a month off and boom the idea hit him Yes, that came from his unconscious mind. He didn't dig it up, right? It came to him. You went to the soccer game and you were given a gift. You were given the gift of excitement. Yes. You didn't work for that. It was fun and exciting, yeah.

Right. That was a gift for your unconscious mind. And that's why trust is so important, that we have to trust that these gifts will come. If we try to squeeze our unconscious mind and force it to give us things, it's going to rebel. We've got to kind of go through saying, look, I'm not, I've got a co-pilot. Or maybe I'm the pilot. Maybe the other guy's, maybe I'm the co-pilot. Maybe the other guy's the pilot and in charge. But it's a realization that you cannot control everything, that you have to be open to gifts that come from the unconscious mind. So it's kind of like being curious about life. Yeah. I'm going to try this thing. I'm going to check this out and see how it makes me feel.

Yeah. Yeah. Can I tell the story I wanted to tell? Yes. So I did this TEDx talk, right? Yes. And it's a big deal. Yeah. And I practiced- Four years ago, wasn't it? Yeah. I practice that every day for a month. That's great. Great speech. Thank you. Thank you. Every day for a month? Every single day. Well, five days a week. When I went to work, first thing I did first thing in the morning is I ran through that speech. All right. So I get there, we do a dress rehearsal, get up there and I'm giving my speech. I draw a blank halfway through. Nothing.

I'm sweating. Dress rehearsal. Dress rehearsal. I got nothing. And I'm terrified. And there's a dinner that evening, and I skip the dinner. I go back to my hotel room, and I'm memorizing, memorizing. So now it's the day of the thing, and I'm about to go out.

And I realize, I say, look, I didn't shirk. I wasn't lazy. I did everything I could and it wasn't enough. Wow. And so I said to my unconscious mind, we're all in this together. Be a pal and help me out. You know, I acknowledged that I didn't have control. And I was happy with that when my unconscious mind came through for me.

That was great. But it came through for me as a friend, not as a servant. I didn't order it. I asked it. So what happens to people who are extremely controlling in their life versus people that are more in surrender? Yeah, those controlling people don't do well. Really?

And a lot of times, you know, the unconscious mind has a sense of humor. You know about the Freudian slip, right? Yes. A lot of times the Freudian slip will reveal a truth that you were trying to hide, but the unconscious mind says, tough luck. You said this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So people are always trying to be controlled. The unconscious mind is constantly sabotaging them. So people are always trying to be in control. The unconscious mind is constantly sabotaging them. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

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