Training the Brain for Calm, Clarity, and Performance with Kim Serafini

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down training the brain for calm, for clarity, and performance. To drop these value bombs, I have brought to Kim Serafini and the EO Fire Studios. Kim is the founder and CEO of Positive Prime, a neuroscience-based well-being platform, executive coach, best-selling author, and creator of innovative tools, helping people build resilience, clarity, and peak performance. Today, we talk about rethinking burnout, when willpower fails, the power of small inputs, positive prime session, and oh, so much more.

0:39John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Kim and our sponsors. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43 ,000 businesses, bringing your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get their free business guide, Demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more.

1:22John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Kim, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. It's actually BS. Now, let me explain. Successful needs to be your own definition by your own rules without you having sacrificed who you really are or indeed, and this is what I'm really an expert in, your body. So there's an enormous amount of, I would say, little t trauma on the journey. It does require courage. And I sit here with a cardiac pacemaker in my chest and I am an expert now in how do you actually develop brain resilience.

2:24So just as in fitness, when you train, you actually want to be at VO2 max or 80%, 90 % of it in intervals several times a week. What I mean by that is that you're really pushing hard. But then after four minutes, you've got to stop and rest. and the speed, the time it takes for you to get back to baseline, to harmony, to equanimity, to bliss, to your baseline, your recovery rate, that's actually fitness. Now in the modern world and on the journey to become successful, if you don't take care of how fast your brain, brain waves, return to base if you've actually had life life you, like you've been betrayed, you've made huge mistakes, you've experimented and it hasn't quite worked out like you thought it was going to.

3:32You've got expectations or assumptions that haven't been met. You've been distracted and interrupted. I'm telling you, this is like the life of an entrepreneur. It's not as sexy as everybody makes it out, right? But here's the crazy thing. All of those adverse events, they cause certain brainwaves in your head that are really unhelpful and unhealthy. However, when you are positively primed, when you positive prime, and we'll go into that, it literally switches and your brain falls into, drops into exquisite brainwaves, synchronization of alpha and theta with bursts of gamma, which are delicious.

4:22It's actually flow state. It's extremely hard to get into. Nobody will tell you the truth. it's extremely difficult and complex to actually have your brain in that state. But once you're in that state that is upstream of everything else that you want to need, it's exactly what then informs your nervous system, your cardiovascular system, your digestive system, your reproductive system, like seriously, every system that's important and your immune system. And I find so many entrepreneurs burn out. They have autoimmune diseases. They have higher rates of cancer. They have higher rates of cognitive decline because they hustled too hard.

5:14So I'm not popular for saying, you know what? Take a rest, be kind to yourself. and positive prime. And when you positive prime, guess what? Your brain is in this absolutely sensational state. It looks spectacular by the way, in EEGs and in a functional MRI machine with eye tracking and heart rate variability and skin conductance, you know, basically hooked up to you. So we know about your physiology, but that's where creativity lives. And that's where executive decision-making lives. And that's when your power and your potential is possible.

5:56John Lee Dumas:And Fire Nation, that's why we're talking about training the brain for calm, for clarity, for performance. And obviously, Kim, you're so passionate about this. You could go on and on all day about this one topic, but I'm going to keep you tight. I'm going to stop you from rambling because I want to move on to willpower and when willpower fails. What specifically does neuroscience reveal about changing behavior when motivation, when willpower simply isn't enough. You need to be in the state, brain state, and you need a resilient brain. You need to be able to recover really fast and convert yourself into that very productive, resourceful state.

6:40it's called being positive primed. I mean, the truth is willpower doesn't work when you need it the most. So you've got to look after your state first, your brain state first. That then allows your beautiful brain to make sure that your mind is marvelous and magical. And then miracles occur. I mean, I'm being serious, right? You actually need to be in the right state and And then discipline can actually follow. We can't do the things that we want to do. We truly can't. Transformation and change is actually not possible. It's so impossible unless we're in that perfect state. Now, that state is follow your bliss.

7:25But when you're struggling, it's really unfathomable to follow your bliss. That just annoys you, irritates you and frustrates you. So I'm going to say take some deep breaths, exhale out for longer than you inhale, grab yourself some wonderful water, go for a beautiful adventure in nature and get yourself some smiles. And even if you only smile to yourself, do you want to know something that's a really fun fact? If you just smile to yourself right now, beautiful, genuine, sincere smile, smile to yourself, remember something beautiful. Okay, smile. Do you know your body is now creating the chemical cocktail that is serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin, and it is literally giving your brain a hug?

8:17John Lee Dumas:Now, Kim, that really moves us into the power of small inputs because I love that. Just being able to smile doing those things. So really kind of break it down for us. Like why? Why do small repeated inputs rewire the brain faster and more sustainably than the long, intense interventions that a lot of people think you need to go through. Because at the end of the day, we're human. So I'll give you a classic. We have a reptilian brain and eons ago, when you and I were in our cave, we were friendly to each other. And what our research at the Brain Computer Interface Lab at the University of Technology, Sydney, and for Americans, that's like MIT.

9:00What we actually saw was that when people are under threat, now let me define threat for you in the modern world, anything that is unfamiliar or new, and the entrepreneurial journey, 99 % of what we do is innovation. It's out there on the leading edge. It's all new. Okay. So listen up. We literally are processing threats in that survival mode fight or flight that we've been lied to. It's not fight or flight as the only options. We as humans, we have been looking for friends first. It's friends first. Do I have support and help? Do I have support and help? That's what I'm looking for. That's what you're looking for.

9:48When we have friends, collaborations, cooperations, co-creations. And interestingly enough, you can get yourself into the state that has you leaning into that just by smiling, literally smiling. It is a hug for your brain. Your brain literally reads that as a safety cue. Now, any safety cue down shifts threat. important if you want to be in flow in action in your power expressing your creativity contributing to the world your genius your gifts your talents your skills tiny little things breathing drinking water getting a hug done consistently because none of this lasts we brush our teeth twice a days for oral hygiene because we can't leave it two days, right?

10:43You can't leave it two days to get a really good quality hug. Hug someone, anyone. Sounds a bit cheesy, but it's true.

10:53John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, this isn't difficult. It's smiling. It's hugging. It's doing the little things. These things can make a huge impact. And we're going to be diving into being calm in real time, the performance advantage, and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Trying to get a traditional bank loan for your business, it's slow, it's complicated, and it rarely moves at the speed you need. With tighter lending standards and more hoops than ever, you're often left waiting when you need capital now. That's why I want to tell you about Revenued. Revenued is built for small business owners who need fast, flexible access to working capital without relying on your personal credit score.

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13:11John Lee Dumas:NestSuite.com slash fire. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. website builder and hosting funnel and landing pages email marketing automation and workflows calendar booking payments and subscriptions even course and membership hosting everything works together seamlessly plus award-winning 24 7 support so you are never stuck and when you go through my link at high level fire.com you unlock my full bonus stack a 30-day free trial of high level with full access a private 50-minute coaching call with me weekly live office hours with me a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more.

13:59John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Kim, we're back and I want to talk about regulation as a performance advantage. I mean, why do you think leaders, teams, and even entire organizations, why do they need to prioritize nervous system regulation to perform at a high level long-term? Okay. So the statistics are in, we can actually just increase by tiny percents. I love the tiny, right? One, two, three, four percent. But do you know, when we are dysregulated, not only are we discombobulated, we cause conflict, we don't feel safe.

14:43If we're not feeling safe, we don't take bold actions. The interesting thing is that productivity and absenteeism, they are giant trillion dollar issues for the global economy. And so when we are positively primed, we are indeed more efficient. That's a fact. We flourish. I have just been working with Professor Matthew Lee. He is at Harvard. He's one of the heads of the Human Flourishing Program. They've just spent more than$40 million researching what helps us and being positively primed does. So I have devoted the last 10 years to creating a very elegant way to positively prime yourself within three minutes, only three minutes, and then we did the research that shows what happens inside the brain.

15:38It's reliable. It's dependable. when you can't be in the forest or out in the wild, you can have it with you. Your actual eyes process information, just as one of your senses, incredibly rapidly. Like within 13 milliseconds, you've actually processed the meaning of a photograph. That's really fantastic. If you're sitting in an office, you're surrounded by noise, you're under pressure, you're overloaded, you didn't get enough sleep last night, you are dysregulated. If your nervous system is not balanced in terms of parasympathetic-sympathetic in harmony, you are literally not able to act in appropriate and adequate ways.

16:22You can't fool yourself. You're not fooling anyone else. And the interesting thing is, is that everybody you lead is watching you so that they can actually feed off your own calm, serenity and confidence. And so Positive Prime is something you view for only three minutes a day, but you do personalize it, which makes it potent. You must personalize it. That's where the magic is. Our software allows you to very quickly upload your own photographs. We have brilliant AI, so you can actually do the future you. We've got an excellent interface that actually takes one of the photographs of you and then turns it into you in Antarctica with the penguins or you eating croissant in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris or you with me down under in Australia cuddling a koala.

17:17So you personalise these Positive Prime sessions. There's hundreds of topics for you on patience, on overcoming procrastination, on being more profitable, on loving yourself. I could go on and on and on. There's actually, of course, one on atomic habits, which is something I'm sure that everyone here in this community loves.

17:41John Lee Dumas:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the truth is we have all been trying to focus on getting rid of our limiting beliefs and improving our mindset and diving deep into positive psychology, and that's where I was 20 years ago until I realised that the brain and the state of the brain and those brain waves, those really fantastic, like alpha and theta with bursts of gamma is what we get in deep meditation. It's also what we get in prayer. We know this. It's like being in the gap. It's where you actually place your wishes, your hopes, your dreams when you're fantasizing or you're daydreaming or you're allowing your imagination to help you, when you're visualizing, but most people when they're visualizing or they're really focusing on their goals and what they want to accomplish, they're holding on too tight.

18:38It's almost like your brain waves in that state are like these beta waves, high beta. It's almost like you want it too badly, too much, and so it literally doesn't allow your brain to be in this wonderful, beautiful, wild, beautiful flow state that gives you the answers that are right.

19:02John Lee Dumas:Kim, I want to talk about training calm in actual real time. I mean, this is all around the topic that we're getting into right now, but like how could our listeners build calm, build clarity, build resilience on demand, even in these high pressure, fast moving environments that so many entrepreneurs find themselves in? I'd love to be able to say you can do it without our intervention, but I can tell you the science has proven and I presented it at the Society for Neuroscience. You actually need positive prime. It's one of the greatest tools you can have in your toolbox. Break it down for us. It's just a fact.

19:38It is. It's just a fact now, right? So you can train. You absolutely can train, should train, must train for that calm, but it starts in your brain. You must positively prime yourself with a personalized session. And I would start with John Lee Dumas's EOF code. So without being cheesy, there is a beautiful session. You can personalize with the wisdom from this show. All you need is the code EOF. You use that. There's a free trial. You can get started. It's simple. You go to positiveprime.com and then you use EOF and you get a special bonus. You get a session that has been co-created by the star of this show and me, right?

20:27So that will train you in calm, guaranteed, I promise. And the science and the research that we did have proven it so. And I don't say that lightly, by the way, because it took an enormous amount of resources, time, patience, courage, and taking a huge risk to actually get a fine, reputable academic institution with a really good reputation for science and rigor and excellence to actually do the research, right? So what if my baby had been proven to not work? That was what I was facing. But actually, I was pretty calm about the ingredients in our formula, in our algorithm. I'd spent nearly 30 years in change management consulting in mergers and acquisitions in large corporates and hanging around organizational psychologists.

21:24And I am also a woman who, after going to Tony Robbins, I went back and studied as a osteopathy exercise physiology specialist in the United Kingdom. And I had an amazingly successful business in the spa industry, our longevity, wellness, you can think of it, all the health retreats and the beautiful day spas in the resorts like at the Four Seasons. And so thousands of therapists have done essentially the certification that I did in the spa industry for a treatment called lithos therapy. And I've trained teachers in India and in the Middle East and in Australasia and so forth. So the ingredients were really about me putting something that's very affordable, very accessible in people's hands, on the go they can train themselves for calm because most people will not go and live in a cave in India or in China as a pure Buddhist or a pure Hindu.

22:26Most people can't afford it either. They've got lives. You've got children to school and mortgages to pay and you've got a fantastic business and you want to keep the doors open.

22:37John Lee Dumas:And I can vouch, Kim, I can vouch that Fire Nation has those things. They're busy. They're listening to this on their commute, you know, during their workout, et cetera. So give us that final call to action. If Fire Nation is listening right now and they're really resonating with everything that you've been talking about, you know, with performance advantage, training calm, positive prime sessions, small inputs, when willpower fails, what is your call to action for our listeners today? What do you want them to go do? Be kind, be loving. the actual goal you're looking for is peacefulness. That's success.

23:12You put your head on the pillow at night and you know you did your very best. You haven't been beating yourself up, no self-criticism or judgment. You actually really like who you are and who you're being. You've been generous. You've helped people. You've served them with excellence and quality. and you're actually like the host that's guiding you here today. You're committed to others. That, that will bring you peacefulness and that is worth pursuing.

23:44John Lee Dumas:And Kim, how can Fire Nation connect with you directly? What is your call to action if they want to learn more, get trained? Go to positiveprime.com, positiveprime.com, start a trial. we will reach out to you. Make sure you click yes, I want the tips and hints and use this code EOF. Fire Nation, you are the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with KS and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, what Kim just mentioned, the code EOF, go to eofire.com, type Kim in the search bar and the show notes page will pop up with all the links, everything that you need.

24:30John Lee Dumas:And Kim, I just want to say genuinely, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. I'm so grateful. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Kim for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest, and I'll catch you there or on the flippity flip side. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43 ,000 businesses, bringing your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth.

25:14John Lee Dumas:If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get their free business guide, demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com