Neuroscience and Personal Growth: Unlocking Your HIDDEN Potential | Dr. Tara Swart Bieber EP 682

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0:38Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the Summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishouse.com slash tickets and get your tickets today and I will see you there. Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

1:02with neuroplasticity it's psychological work right but it's actually not it's actually physiological work and so i work with a lot of guys in financial services who you know emotional intelligence is a big thing that we need to work on and i've had you know these people who are very very successful genuinely be so frustrated I don't understand like what am I supposed to do people say I'm not nice to them you know um what what am I actually supposed to do so this is what I say to them imagine a field of grass and on day one you walk through the field and the grass is high and you know you're sort of flattening as you walk and then you walk there every day until you've trodden a little path into the grass and then you keep walking there until it becomes like a muddy path then you might lay some paving stones um and then you build a proper path that's what you're doing in your brain when you change any behavior and i remember when i learned danish which was super hard yeah and i you know i've mentioned to you that i prefer to eat healthily but i was literally taking like a can of coke or like a bag of Maltesers to the Danish lessons.

2:19And it was 90 minutes. And by about an hour, I would feel so tired and so hungry. Exhausting, isn't it? Exhausting, yeah. I'm learning Spanish right now. And I'm trying to change my language around it being exhausting and being hard. Because I think the more I say that, it's going to continue to reinforce that it's exhausting and challenging. So I've been trying the last few months to say, you know what, this is a fun experience. You know, this is an experiment. It's challenging, but it's a good challenge. And I'm learning every time. It's hard for me. And it's trying to add a positive reinforcement as opposed to, man, this is hard.

2:54Because it has been challenging up until now to learn Spanish fluently. And I also think I have this huge expectation, like I'm going to be able to speak like a native Mexican speaker. And I think sometimes we forget how far we've come. Yeah, acknowledging that is so important. Yeah. Can I give you a bit of inspiration? Give it to me. So I did eight weeks of lessons. I then went to Denmark for some holidays and I came back and had a lesson. And at some point she said, OK, great. You know, see, we're done for now. See you next week. And I was like, was that 90 minutes? So basically the 90 minutes have got I hadn't got hungry.

3:31I hadn't got tired. I'd got through the lesson and I realized I've gone past that tipping point of neuroplasticity. you're at the point where you're digging for gold and you'd like to give up and you just have to get past that point. It's like I've been there for like a year. But, you know, if you think about, I'm genuinely sure this will help you going forward. And please let me know if it does. If you think about it like building that pathway, building that brick wall, acknowledging that it's physical work sometimes takes away that frustration that you think you should just be getting it and you're not.

4:09Because I don't think you would blame yourself in the same way if it was like a sport. No. Exactly. Right. But it's like a physical workout. Yeah. Why does it seem like a physical workout when you're just thinking something and speaking and listening? Because it is physical work. You're building a pathway in your brain. You're not just thinking. Thinking doesn't happen without neuronal connections. So you're connecting neurons through synapses. You're myelinating pathways. You know all this stuff. and what does that do to the body when you're doing that to the brain it's the same as doing a workout it's using energy using up glucose yeah which makes you hungry or tired or whatever it might be and frustrated at points as well you know because so there's three physiological aspects to neuroplasticity myelination is literally just making a pathway a faster faster pathway so for example we have myelinated pathways to snatch our hand out of fire, but we have non-myelinated pathways for pain.

5:08Because if you immediately felt the pain, you wouldn't be able to remove yourself from the danger. And what you're doing in your brain now with Spanish is you're connecting up neurons that already exist through synapses, so you're making a new pathway for Spanish. Judging by how hard you're finding it, it's possible that you are in the memory centres of your brain actually inducing neurogenesis, which is embryonic cells becoming fully formed neurons and then connecting up through synapses with established neurons and then maybe getting myelinated. That's really hard work. So in the adult brain, so children can learn like five languages at the same time from a young age.

5:51And if you do have kids and you want to bring them up bilingual. Oh, I'm going to definitely do that for sure. Yeah. So you have to have a different parent speaking a different language or a grandparent or nanny or whatever, so that they understand daddy's English, mummy's Spanish. Otherwise, they muddle up the words. Yeah, so kids can do that easily because they've got lots of embryonic neurons. In the first two years of life, it's amazing. They go from being completely helpless to walking, talking. Right, right, right. For us, it's harder, but it's possible. Neurogenesis, which is literally embryonic cells becoming neurons, may not be happening that much in the adult brain, but the synaptic connection is happening a lot.

6:30What's interesting, I've never felt like I've had a good memory when it comes to books, things I'm reading in school. I think because school was so challenging and I always, the belief was I was tested poorly. And so it just reaffirmed that I wasn't good at it, right? Based on the way that school was created for us. But in sports, I could remember really well, right? So I could remember other things or if I'd meet someone and they told me some weird thing about them, like I would remember this, right? And I could remember it 10 years later. So when it was more physical and active, I felt like I had an incredible muscle memory, right?

7:08And I felt like I had incredible wisdom, but I didn't feel like I was smart. I felt like I understood people, but I couldn't remember something I read in a page two seconds ago. Like I would have to repeat reading something over and over again to be like, what just happened? What did I just read? I couldn't comprehend words, but I could connect with people and emotions and you know movement and things like that so I'm trying to figure out what's that way to learn Spanish through that way or anything new because I think one of the greatest parts about life especially uh you know after childhood is like creating new adventures and not staying stuck in the same routine but having new experiences new adventures and learning new things I love that you like to learn something new every year I think that's a secret to keeping you young and youthful.

7:58Two things I'd like to raise about that. One is that you've obviously done the work and become very successful, but there are a lot of people who would be stuck in that I'm not smart. And I was stuck in I'm not creative till I was 35. So I was told at high school, because I wasn't good at art, that I wasn't creative. And I completely believed that I wasn't creative. I didn't think I could do anything but be a doctor for the rest of my life. And through a series of events, you know, which even probably I am not aware of the complexity of, I woke up one morning and I thought, I never chose to be a doctor.

8:35My parents told me to be a doctor. I was told at school I was smart. I was so smart that I didn't just do an MD, I did a PhD as well. And I said to myself that morning, if I'm so effing smart what do I actually want to do with my life yeah and so you know that was the start of my life and and in within a short period of that I realized I'm creative I you know I might not be able to do a good painting although I actually can now um so the belief you know also changed me I started doing more art and stuff as well but you know I created a business I created new life I created at home. When I do my cooking, I'm creative.

9:17I mean, there was a time that I looked in the mirror. I had this narrative. I'm not a writer. I'm not an author because my PhD was so traumatic writing. It was like really what the worst thing in my life. And I looked in the mirror and I was like, Tara, you've got a bestselling, award-winning book that's translated into 38 languages. You are a writer. I know, it's crazy, right? So there's that whole narrative that even you and I have got things in our head, which are like, I'm not smart, I'm not creative. So, you know, think about people that haven't had the opportunities that we've had, or who don't know about neuroplasticity.

9:51That's, that's why it's, you know, my passion and my heart, because I just believe that that's such a key to unlocking things for so many people. Yeah.

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10:57Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.