Harness Your Unconscious Mind for Success | Dr. James Doty

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2:56And look at me, I'm nothing. And of course, that's a complete falsehood. Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets so you have the cheat code to succeed with people. Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research into the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it, in order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise, and we're going to show you how.

3:35I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. All right, let's kick off today's show. Today, I'm talking with Dr. James Doty, an inventor, an entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

4:07As a skeptic of manifestation myself, I'm excited to share this conversation around the leading science behind the power of your thoughts. Dr. James Doty is a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education with the Dalai Lama himself as the founding benefactor. Dr. Doty is deeply involved in studying the neural basis of compassion and altruism. His new book is titled Mind Magic, the Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything. We break down the systems in the brain responsible for shaping your beliefs and actions how you can harness the power of your subconscious mind to reach your goals faster, why you need to visualize your success in detail to make it a reality, and James shares his own experiences with the magic of our mind.

4:47Welcome to the show, James. Great to have you. Yeah, pleasure. We're excited today because with the science background of the show, I've not talked about manifestation. Oh, really? And I know with a lot of people, there's skepticism around it, myself a little included here. So I'm excited today to talk around the neuroscience and what mind magic is. So I think that might be a good place to jump in. What do you mean by mind magic? Well, I think what a lot of people don't realize is that they give their agency away. And what happens is so many people are looking for some sort of outside intervention that's going to make everything better or in some ways be magical and everything changes in their life.

5:29And in fact, as you know from the first line of the book, the universe doesn't give a fuck about you. And because there are no fucks to give. And so part of the book is, one, so many people, especially young people, don't know the difference between what they think they want and what they need. and the other was what I was just mentioning is that so many people are waiting for something in the universe to either guide them or give them what they think they want or need and so both of those things actually disempower you. So one aspect of this is to make you learn the difference. And, you know, in Western capitalist society, the narrative is that if you make money, have power, position, that suddenly you're going to be happy.

6:35And of course, that's a false narrative. And as a result, people get those things and they're miserable. And I can tell you from my own experience, having, you know, gone to medical school, become a neurosurgeon, become a successful entrepreneur, you know, I would climb each of these mountains, if you will, and then I would get at the top and I would wait for magic to happen. And I'm now whole. I don't have any shame. I'm not insecure. I'm not an imposter. And in fact, nothing changed. And I still had that sense of emptiness. And so the question is, how do you fill that emptiness? is. And this has sort of been my own personal journey.

7:21As you may know from my first book, I talk about my own personal background. And all of us, who we are today, is a manifestation to some extent of our past. And as a result, a lot of people don't appreciate actually the baggage that they carry, which impacts relationships, decisions they make, how they interact with others. And as a result, that creates unhappiness because they don't understand that baggage is influencing every action they take. And so one of the things, of course, is you have to become self-aware about that. And I think also, and this is one of the problems about manifestation.

8:11I'm sure you've probably heard of a book called The Secret. Yes. So, you know, The Secret has been extraordinarily successful. And the problem in my mind with it is that it is a narrative about what I want. And this is where it goes off track. Okay. Because when you focus on what I want, in some ways, you're selling to people a narrative that when you get what I want, everything will be fine and you'll be happy. And as I was just saying, the problem is that you get that and you're still unhappy. Right. So part of the book is, one, reclaiming your self-agency, meaning you recognize the power you have within yourself.

9:02It's not coming from outside yourself. And that's the power, one, to choose if you're going to be happy. and also recognizing that the way we evolved as a species, as you know, unlike other species, our offspring need to be cared for, which means that you have to respond to their pain, and whether that's because of hunger or physical pain. And for our offspring, we have to take care of them for well over 10 years, if not longer. Well, what is the driver for you to care, to expend the time and the resources? Well, the driver is that our evolutionary imperative has actually created a system that rewards us when we care.

9:56And while it involves a variety of neurotransmitters, the one probably the audience has heard about the most is oxytocin, sort of the love or bonding hormone. so when you care you get the release of this hormone which then results in your reward or pleasure centers being activated in your brain but it does more than that it's when you care your physiology works at its best and as you probably know we have something called the vagus nerve which is a nerve that is found throughout the body and arises in the brain stem but it has two parts. And one part, of course, is the sympathetic nervous system, which is associated with the flight, fight, or freeze response.

10:42And it looks at the world through the lens of scarcity and fear. And then the other is the parasympathetic nervous system, which is called the rest or digest system. And when that's activated, you feel open, you feel generous, you're much more thoughtful, You're much more creative. You're much more productive. And again, your reward centers are stimulated and your physiology works its best. And that's in the context of cardiac function, peripheral vascular function, as well as your immune system, your levels of cortisol, your stress hormones are decreased. And so we are designed to care. So when we focus on us, it actually, of course, in some ways is very much like the fear response.

11:33And as a result, you activate the various components of that through the vagus nerve, the synthetic nervous system. Well, you can manifest, and the techniques that The Secret and some of these other books talk about are not necessarily wrong per se, although they're more efficient ways to get access to those centers in your brain that will increase the likelihood of you manifesting. But when you're focused on yourself, that is not the best way to manifest, nor is it one that I think will help you in the long run. Well, one of the key points in the book, and we can delve a little bit more into your past, is this concept that when many of us manifest things, we manifest islands and cars and external events in our life happening to, in our mind, be that marker of success, status that other people respect us for.

12:29And you experience that. And as you said earlier, it didn't make you happy. So where do we think – where do you think most of us go wrong with that manifestation around those external things versus what should we be focusing on with our manifestation to actually be whole, to be living a rich and fulfilling life? Well, it's exactly what I was alluding to earlier in the sense that we have been brainwashed by believing a narrative that success by Western capitalist definitions equals power, position, wealth, or things. Yeah, things. And then when you get those things, you're not happy. Or at least you're transiently happy, but it is not a deep.

13:15It's not lasting. Lasting happiness. Conversely, when you do activities for others, that gives you meaning and purpose, which results in a depth of happiness, if you will, which is quite different. but in many ways is the one that will stay with you and actually define you as what you should be as a human being. And this is the difference between hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic happiness is seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. And the neuroscience is quite clear. That's quite transitory. When you do the opposite, when you're of service to others, where you look at the world through the lens of being of service, two things happen.

13:59One is obviously you are outside of yourself. You're benefiting others, which goes back to our evolution as a species. When we care for others, we physiologically and mentally benefit. But it also changes how you see the world because the things you think you want, such as wealth, position, and power, don't seem as important or you recognize are not important. You recognize them for what they are, which is, yes, it can give you transient pleasure. But I believe what humans really seek is a deep-seated type of pleasure and one that is long-lasting, one that when you reflect on it, you have this warmth within you and you feel good about yourself.

14:50And then you can see the results because of the impact you have on others. And I think that is a very, very powerful thing. And as I was saying, when you are able to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system, it has magical powers. Not only does it make your physiology work the best, it actually increases your longevity. And why is that? If you look at the science associated with these areas called the blue zones or you look at the study that's been going on for 85 years at Harvard, the Harvard – I think it's called the Adult Development Study, but people typically call it happiness study.

15:29And this is now run by Robert Waldiger. But what are the important lessons from that? Well, the important lessons are that when you actually think of others, act in regard to others, it has all the positive effects I was just mentioning to you. And the reason is it relates again to our evolution. We talk about the blue zones as these five areas in the world. But actually, if you go back a few hundred years, that is how humans live. They lived in community. You were born there. You died there. And everyone knew you. And the thing is that we talked about imposter syndrome briefly. Everyone knew you.

16:10They knew the good and the bad. And they still loved you. And they were there for you. And they supported you. And they created a community where you felt supported. So you didn't have this voice inside of your head saying, I'm not good enough. I'm an imposter. People are going to find out about me. And so what happens is you develop these deep relationships or connections to individuals, and that is sort of the superpower of our humanity. That makes everything work better. And that's why manifestation, when it relates to being of service, is also the most powerful way to manifest. Yeah, well, what I would love to unpack is what's going on with these neural networks.

16:55So I know we've talked a lot about the default mode network. You write in the book that there are other networks that we want to tap into to make manifestation as impactful as possible. So if you don't mind just walking our audience through the networks and what we can do to really have a stronger impact on what we are manifesting. Sure. When I talked about activating the parasympathetic nervous system and the physiologic benefit, which relates to these cognitive networks, part of it does in some ways relate to controlling your mind. And one thing that's extremely popular is mindfulness types of practices.

17:29But what this really tells you is that within each of us, we have this incredible power, which so often we give to others outside of ourselves. And I'm sure you've lived through the experience of you have this idea to do something or something you're just excited about. And then you share it with friends or relatives. They go, you can't do that. That's impossible. And it's horrible, right? Because you're so excited and anxious these people tell you these things. And as a result, many people just give up because they believe it. And the mind doesn't know the difference between truth and untruth.

18:06And if you put in the narrative in your head that it is not possible, that becomes truth. Conversely, if you look through the lens of anything is possible, I'm responsible. Now, this isn't to say that, you know, if you have these horrible external circumstances, magically they go away because you say, I'm empowered. But what it does do is it gives you a change in attitude which actually changes your physiology. And this is why we see, as an example, you look at Wim Hof or some of these Tibetan monks who can control their body temperature or their heart rate or other physiologic responses. theoretically, these function independent of us.

18:50But what it shows you, you have the power within your mind to control these things. And you also have the power, and this is actually, I'm sure you've heard of Epictetus or some of the Stoic philosophers, external circumstances oftentimes you cannot control. What you can control is how you respond. And in some ways, that's the nature of happiness too. You know, there are people who have very challenging circumstances and you meet them and they're joyful and happy. And you go, what? How is that even possible? Then you meet other people who have everything in the world and are absolutely miserable.

19:28Well, what's the difference? The difference is the choice inside their head. And so in terms of manifesting, there are multiple aspects of this. The first one is what so many people don't appreciate is we are battered by information from our sensory organs that are overwhelming. Now, 99.99 % go to maintaining homeostasis of our bodily functions. And this is about 10 million bits of information a second. But on a conscious level, we have control, if you want to use that term, of about 50 to 100 bits. So how do you take on a conscious level that information you want to embed into your subconscious to have it manifest?

20:14Now what I would also say, there's a process called value tagging. And in some ways that's exactly what we're talking about. We are creating something of value that is meaningful to us. And now how do we embed it? So there are these cognitive brain networks. And one which was mentioned briefly is a default mode network. And this is when our mind wanders. It's self-referential. But also, you think about potential tasks or events you want. But the key is getting access to your salience network and your attention network. And what happens is that when you value tag something, you make it salient to you.

20:59Okay? And once it becomes salient, your subconscious then acts as a bloodhound to be attuned to events in your surroundings that potentially can help you manifest. But it also, again, is very much related to the attention network because that's what gives the fine focus to things. As an example, I'm sure you've been at a party or some event where there's a lot of noise. But if you hear your name, you suddenly turn. It cuts above. Right. And why is that? Because on a deep level, your name or identity is always with you and you're always attuned to that. And so this is the same with the power of manifestation.

21:42As an example, there's a project I'm working on and I was at a coffee shop a few weeks ago. And it was very noisy. But suddenly I heard these two individuals talking about the exact same thing that I was interested in. And, of course, I turned to that, and then I went over and introduced myself and connected with these individuals. But the point is that was embedded. So like a bloodhound, the salience network was looking around saying, you know, how can we make this happen or I make this happen? And then once it reaches that level, then, of course, your executive control network, which is the to-do side of the house, if you will, and it gives you access to memory, prior experiences, et cetera, then that goes to work to actually have it manifest.

22:32So it's not to say having a selfish desire gets blocked in all levels of manifestation. It's to say that the highest likelihood of you manifesting, though, if it is focused on the other. And the other good thing about that is, though, you realize oftentimes what you believe you want to happen isn't in your best interest, or you change how you look at the world when you're of service to others. And many times the things you thought you wanted are not what you actually need. Right. You know what drains your energy faster than a bad networking event? An overpriced phone bill. The big wireless companies love taking your money.

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25:38Use code charm at monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code charm. So default mode network is us starting to dream, visualize, think about things that are could be important to us to dream. Sometimes it's negative, Sometimes it's positive. Once you value tag it, then you're now telling your subconscious mind, okay, let's look for this. This is now important to me. And then we can start to act on it. So it goes from daydream, thinking about what success looks like to actually motivating our subconscious mind to move towards that success that we're looking for.

26:18No, that's exactly right. And how do you strengthen that? Well, you strengthen this by techniques which I outline in detail in the book. In fact, there's a six-week course at the end of the book. But many of it is familiar. You write it down because what you want to do is make it more and more impactful. Well, if you use all your sensory organs to do that, that's one of the things you do that. So write it down. Read it to yourself. Read it aloud. And then relax and think about you being that or getting whatever that is. and each of those things strengthens this. And the more you do it, as you know, there's a saying that what fires together, wires together, right?

27:03And so the more you strengthen that pathway, the more likely it is to be deeply embedded and the more likely it is that your salience network or that bloodhound will seek it out. And this is where this concept of synchronicity comes in. You know, you don't appreciate, well, like, well, that's amazing. I was just thinking about that. Well, it's because it's been tagged. And, you know, on some level, everyone is always manifesting or trying to. It's just like an athlete. If you've never done that before, it sort of works here and there, maybe, maybe not. Right. And the more you practice, the more likelihood it is to happen.

27:41Okay. So let's walk through the steps because, number one, I think is really challenging for a lot of us right now in this hyper-distracted world of notifications dinging as we heard and everything else going on. We have to tap into our focus. and actually start to move into, okay, well, what is it that I really want? So what are your suggestions for those of us who feel distracted, feel pulled in so many directions, and maybe don't feel as focused as they need to be? Well, I think you probably described 99.9 % of us. Making friends as an adult is hard. Technology is isolating. Bars, clubs, and other social events revolve around partying.

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