The Thoughts You’re Thinking Right Now Are DESTROYING Your Future | Ed Mylett

24:52I don't ever want to be that dude again. So I have literally named it this version of me that I can't stand. And then I don't like, and then I know isn't really me. And so when he starts showing up, Eddie Spaghetti, your meatballs are ready. Right? That was a whole thing that I used to say when I was a kid that I don't ever want to go back to. And so when he shows up, I've named the dummy and that dummy, and he is a dummy and she is, or he is a dummy that's feeding you these negative, nostalgic, weak thoughts. You call them out by name. And over time, you actually get a chuckle eventually, and it loses a lot of its power over you.

25:30So we have the two points of reference we have to do. The four key things that I'm just giving you today on top of a whole bunch of other stuff I name in my books is make sure you have possibility projections. Number one. Number two, take a phone fast. Number three, practice small box focus. Focusing in on small things will make you fully present. On the beach, pick a grain of sand in the beach and focus in on that one grain of sand. On the golf course, don't take in the whole golf course. Focus in right on the golf ball. And then if you can focus in on the T in Titleist on that golf ball, you've really got small box focus down.

26:06It'll also help you play better. And then lastly, fourth, name the dummy. Those are four strategies to move you from nostalgia, the past, history, memory, into the present moment focused on your vision, your imagination, and your dreams. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. I'm Ed Milet. Let me ask you a question before we begin today. Do you have any sense right now, like you feel like you're just overloaded and you're overwhelmed with information in your life?

26:42Maybe you're having a hard time getting focused. You get distracted pretty easily. Maybe your concentration sort of suffers a little bit, your memory issues. Well, my guest here today is an expert on optimal brain performance on learning on learning quickly and on maxing out your capacity to think and perform in your life and it was really born out of some tragedy out of some some difficult events out of his childhood he's turned those tragic events into becoming a world renowned expert on brain performance and today i'm really blessed because i've been chasing this guy for a while i've wanted him to share his brilliance with you the audience and i'm i'm grateful that he's here today because we're about to change your life and change the way you learn, think, and perform.

27:23So my guest today is the great Jim Quick. Jim, thank you. Ed, thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this so much. Me too, brother. We've had great conversations off camera. And I'm so excited because I know, there's some shows I know that we do that are inspirational. And then there are shows I know that are going to inspire, but also by the end of the program, people's lives are just measurably better and they can perform better and today is heavy note-taking if you're driving in the car you're going to want to hear it but you're going to want to get back and listen to the video or something too to write the notes down we're going to cover so I want to share something with you because it just happened this weekend and I just from my folks here too I think one of mine is that I am present with people yeah and I do observe people and so it's really interesting because I think that's one of the things that I love about doing the show and and it was fascinating because I never gave any thought as to where that came from because I mean your brain brilliance comes from the fact that you had this damaged brain as a child yet it's one of your great gifts and one of the great things you're intelligent at one of your your your geniuses and so this weekend somebody had asked me why do you think like on your show or even we were at a dinner you're so present you're listening where do you think that comes from and I didn't know I didn't I thought about And I said, you know, I'm not sure, but you know, it's interesting.

28:39My dad was, my dad's sober 30 years now, but when I was a little boy, my dad had a drinking problem. And I never knew as a little boy which dad was going to come through the front door at night. And so unlike most kids who would run up and hug dad, I would observe dad when he came home. And so when dad walked through the front door, I'd look at his physiology. I'd look at his eyes, his face, his lips. I'd listen to what his first few words were. And I think since I was about a four-year-old little boy, I was sort of through that unfortunate circumstance in my family, I developed this intelligence of being present and really being with someone and understanding them and connecting with them and seeing where they really were.

29:22And it's ended up serving me as a 47-year-old man with you here today. Wow. Isn't that interesting? And so many, for some of you listening, I would just say to you that sometimes some of your great genius could be coming from some of what you would think might be some of the more tragic events in your life. for difficult events. Just think about that. And the self-talk also. When I said, at age nine, a teacher looked at me and said, that's the boy with the broken brain for the whole class. And parents and adults have to be very careful because your external words become a child's internal words.

29:51Because every single time I did bad on a quiz, on a test, or not pick for a sports team, which was all the time, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain. That became my internal conversation. And I always tell people when they come to me and they say, I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I have a horrible memory. I always say if you fight for your limitations you get to keep them. If you fight for your limitations, you argue for your limits, they're yours, right? And here's the thing, your brain is like a supercomputer and your self-talk is a program it will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your supercomputer not to.

30:24They say the two most powerful words in the English language are also the smallest, I am. Because whatever you put after that, complete that sentence with, is going to determine your destination, your destiny. I'm so glad you're saying this because this is typically said by like, you know what I mean too, but motivational people are inspiring people. Now we've got a brain person, science telling you this is a fact. So your identity is this. So let's say at a simple level, let's say people want to change their behavior. They want to stop procrastinating. Yes. But their identity is I'm a procrastinator.

30:56Yes. Ooh, that's going to be a tough one. They want to change a behavior like, Oh, I want to stop smoking, but their identity is I am a smoker wow right that's gonna be a challenge right so here's the thing the reason I bring these distinctions up is because it takes the the self-loathing or the judgment out of it because you don't have to if you're not good at something you could say like oh you could address the level that that's holding you back finally below the level of behavior and this is a big one is the environment as a level of environment environment because you could the behavior is you want to stop smoking but the environment is around a lot of smokers because it's not here's the thing the The people you spend time with is the people you become.

31:33You know this. You teach this. Because your mirror neurons are always imitating what's around you. And that's the thing. So I want to sensitize you. Because often the people that hold us back are the people that love us the most. You know, because you don't mind. They're like, oh, you're going to another event. You're listening to another podcast. Why are you reading another book, spending all that money? And they can have good intentions. Because ultimately people are doing things for, you know, generally I believe, for good reasons. Most people. But they can be sincere, but they can be sincerely wrong.

32:00Sincerely wrong. And I love the I'm not this yet, right? I also want to just repeat things that just we just you're you say brilliant things one after the other And so this idea that as a parent your external dialogue becomes your child's internal dialogue is just riveting I mean, it's riveting and it's also true I think of leaders and companies do your external dialogue about your company or about that individual can become their internal dialogue So what you're saying matters so deeply there there are six primary questions we learned in school five W's and one H Right now watch this the identity level answers the question of who The beliefs and values answer the question of why the capabilities answer the question of how you do it The behavior is the what and the environment answers the question of when and where it is fully aligned And so I feel like we have natural genius and inside of us And if we when this is aligned with this when people talk about their mind and their body and their values and habits when they're all line things happen naturally and they're not have been forced and my goal for everybody who's watching and listening to this is that they're smarter than they think it's just we weren't taught how to do these things and when you're in congruence and in alignment things happen your natural superpowers if you will yes come out come out organically and are not forced boy that's man brother that's so good i'm processing all of this with you so i jumped on my boat this morning to get over here to the studio, got a compliment on my shirt.

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35:25They'll be mad at me if I don't ask you a tactical question. Absolutely. So can you give them, I'm going to get a couple more things, but thank you for taking the extra time. I'll get DMs and emails if I don't ask you. Tactically ask him a specific tactic to remember a name. So I have Max out. Perfect. Do you do an association when you remember someone's name? I do, I do. Really fast. I would say be suave. Be suave. I'll give you really quick B is believe right leaving p.m. Believe you can you're right So stop the negative self-talk, right? So that that's obvious The second thing is E is exercise We already talked about power of exercise practice because the bad news is it takes practice to learn someone's name the good news Not as much as you think good like I'm really good at names But after practicing for a couple months, it's just become second nature, right?

36:11Just like parking a car learning how to type you do without thinking the swab is this S stands for say the name when tactically when you meet somebody you say their name back to them Okay, because you make sure you observe it correctly the U is you use the name because it three or four times We talked about that the a is you ask about a name This is really great ed when you meet somebody whose name you haven't heard before You need not someone named Afzal or Rittiger. What can you ask about a person's name? You already said this you already said it's not travel entrepreneurship. What's everyone's favorite subject is themselves So what can you ask about a person's name?

36:43How do you spell it? Where's it from? You know, what does it mean? I was doing this training at the the country's largest life insurance company Hundred people in the room the training director's name was Nankita. I was like in front of the whole group I was like, that's a beautiful name. How do you spell it? Where's it from? What does it mean? She paused. I was like, Nankita, what does it mean? She looked at all her co-workers and says she said it means graceful falling waters And I was like, wow, and then her co-workers gave that kind of reaction like a novelty I was like, wait a second. How long you worked here?

37:11She's like, you know, X amount of years with these people yeah, a lot of them are good friends who are at my wedding. I was like, out of the hundred, I was like, raise your hand if you knew that's what her name meant. Out of a hundred people, how many people raised their hand? Zero. Zero. And talk about caring, that became like a 10 year client. Because that's the power of a name, the emotion. So ask about a person's name. And then V in B suave stands for visualize. And here's a real tactical thing. We tend to be better with faces and names. Aren't you? Far better. You meet a lot of people. Sure.

37:41People come and you meet somebody, you say to them, I remember your face, but I forgot your name. You never go to someone and say the opposite. You never go to someone, I remember your name, but I forgot your face. That wouldn't make any sense. That's so true. Yes. But here's the reason why, for neurological, your visual cortex is a lot larger than other parts of your brain, so you tend to remember what you see. Now, if you tend to remember, there's a Chinese proverb that goes, what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. What I hear, I forget. I heard the name, I forgot the name.

38:06What I see, I remember. I saw the face, I'll remember the face. What I do going back to practice and exercise I understand so if you tend to remember what you see try seeing what you remember So quick visual aid is this play Pictionary a person's name For example is mark take a split second and put a check mark on their forehead and you're like Jim That's so childish who are the fastest learners on the planet children children. Yes How fast can they learn a musical instrument? How fast can they learn another language? Right there sponges and part of how they remember names is they make fun of people like they go to somebody you're like Like, you know, they go to someone named Jason and Jason the Basin, right?

38:41And all of a sudden, like, Jason's in therapy for years, not knowing, you know, because he was teeth. But that's how you learn. Banana, fana, faux fana. You learn through imagery, right? And they make fun. And so, remember, more emotion, too. Yes. Information you forget. Information combined with emotion. So, a person's name is Mary. Imagine you meet someone named Mary. Handshake breaks. Imagine she's getting married or she's carrying two lambs under her arms. And here's the thing. It overcomes in business what I call the six-second rule. If somebody tells you something important in a conversation or their name, you have six seconds to do something with it.

39:11Otherwise, what happens? You lose it. It's gone. Out of your working memory, short-term memory, it's gone. Got it. So this helps you to focus uniquely on both the person and also the name. So a person's name, so for example, is let's say Carol. Imagine they're singing Christmas carols. Yes. Right? A person's name is Mike. Imagine them jumping on the table, singing on a microphone for a split second. And then when you say goodbye to them 20 minutes later, you're like, oh, that guy was sitting on the karaoke on the microphone. What's his name? Mike. Right? Because it glues it. And then, by the way, it's a short term because once you know the person's name is Ed or Athena or Mike or whatever, what will happen is - You just named everybody here.

39:49Sorry, sorry. Once you do that, then the pictures disappear because you know it. You just need something to glue it because there's three parts to your memory. You encode the information, you store the information, then you retrieve the information. But most people can't retrieve it because they're not encoding in a way that makes it memorable. Oh my gosh. So you make it visual, you make it fun and interesting. So if first name is John, you can imagine whatever. Right, right. And then finally, that's the V. The E in swap stands for end. Okay. You always end the conversation using their name, saying goodbye using their name.

40:18Because if you could walk into a room of strangers and leave saying goodbye to 20 strangers by name, who are they all going to remember? You. That's a standout skill. Because it's not just what you know. Yes, yes, you can learn faster. It's not only who you know, but it's also who knows you. Who knows you. And who's gonna remember you. That's a standout skill. That is awesome, awesome. And the six second rule, if you don't use it, you lose it. So do something within the first seconds. That is brilliant. There are a few obstacles to effective reading. So let's go through them really quickly. Number one, what keeps you from reading slow is lack of education.

40:51You're not born with the ability to read. Nobody is. And so we learned it through class, through a training, right? But when's the last time you took a class called a reading? How old were you probably six six or seven years old? Right exactly So we are still every single person watching this for the most part We're still reading like we're a six or seven year old because that's the last time we had training in that one area Right the difficulty demand has increased tremendously, but we're still reading like a six-year-old So that's number one get the proper education lack of education number two lack of focus We could all relate to this you read a page in a book you get to the end just forget what you just read Of course your attention is everywhere your mind wanders you're thinking about the dry cleaning the clients everything the kids so here's the thing um You just mentioned that if you read faster you feel like you wouldn't retain as much and understand.

41:39I know it's not true It's not it's it's not because we weren't taught differently Right, and so what I would say is the fastest so I think it's a it's a myth being spread around by slow readers that if you read Faster you wouldn't understand as much because it's a lie and I and this is interesting because we have online Academy right about speed reading and we have students in over 180 countries so we have a lot of data We found the fastest readers actually have the best comprehension because they have the best focus Okay, so here's it as a metaphor your brain is this incredible supercomputer But when you read you feed this supercomputer one word add Time Metaphorically you're starving your mind.

42:20Okay, right? Even if we were to talk like that through this conversation, it would be like eight days to end, right? And what would happen to people? Very quickly, if they were talking that slow, their mind would wander. They would fall asleep. They would think about other things. They would just do. And isn't that, aren't those the same exact things that happen when you read? Yes. Your mind wanders. You fall asleep. You start thinking about other things. Yes. Because if you don't give your brain the stimulus it needs, it'll seek entertainment elsewhere in the form of distraction. Got it third obstacle.

42:52This is the big one sub vocalization. Yeah, okay This is the big one by far we're talking about your inner voice sub vocalization Means you ever notice when you're reading something you hear the inner voice inside your head reading along with you You're level hopefully your own voice. It's not like somebody else's voice the reading why it keeps you reading slow The reason why is because if you have to say all the words to understand them You can only read as fast as you could speak and that that this this is mind-blowing to me sub vocalization Vocal speech sub like a submarine inner speech if you're saying the worst understand what you're reading You're doing it not right because New York City You don't have to say the word New York City or computer to understand what those just like when you're driving You see a stop sign you don't say to yourself stop 95 % of the words do you understand what that stop sign means though?

43:38Yes 95 % of words are words you've seen before you don't have to pronounce the words You know leaders are readers right you read a lot Tony Robbins read a lot You know, like Oprah reads a lot. Bill Gates reads a lot like John F. Kennedy, you know leaders are readers. He was a very fast reader. He was said to have read every morning six newspapers with one cup of coffee. Most people it's the opposite. It takes like six cups of coffee to get through like a newspaper, right? And that's the challenge. But he's, you know, he's let's say, you know, he said they read 800 to a thousand words a minute.

44:07But if he could talk at the hour talking to you about 200 250 words per minute, they're like 700 words per minute. He's not pronouncing right. You don't have to pronounce words you've seen before. But that's how we were taught as a kid like a lot of what accelerated learning is just like success is unlearning Bad habits when you're a kid you had to say the words out loud because the teacher need to know you're pronouncing the words phonetically correctly But later on remember this your teacher said read quietly to yourself Read silently to yourself and that's when you should that external voice and you put it internal there It's been there ever since here's here's a point when we listen to podcasts or audiobooks How many people like to listen to it at 1.5 or 2x or 3x?

44:44And they can understand it too. You can't talk that fast though. And that's the thing, right? And so that's why sub-vocalization is saying, basically, if you're sub-vocalizing, your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, not your thinking speed. You can understand so much more, so much faster, but you can't talk that fast. It's a bad habit we picked up as a kid. So we did a whole podcast on how to reduce sub-vocalization. And our programs, like over 21, 30 days, is we teach people methodically how to do it because there's a difference than a tip than a training. Sure, of course. Fourth obstacle I would say, and then we go to solution, regression.

45:17It's a very bad habit we picked up as a kid. Regression is back skipping. You ever notice you read something, you go back and reread words, or you reread a whole line by accident? Yes. You know, upwards of 20, 25 % of time can be spent rereading words. Okay. So how do you, now I'm going to give you just one tip on how to overcome this, which will make a big difference. This tip is going to help you read 25 to 50 % faster with better focus. Now that's a huge return because like on average our online program 300 % increase. That was a great conversation and if you want to hear the full interview be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify.

45:50Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to Max Out with Ed Milet. Super excited to bring this gentleman to my left here today because if you take his IQ and you take mine and you average them together you may actually get an average IQ out of the two of us here. So this is Dr. Joe Dispenza, and Joe is, I think he's a peak performance expert is what I would really call you. I think you help people reach their peak and their ability to perform in their life. But he's really an expert at the mind-body-spirit sort of connection and helping you really be a happier version of yourself.

46:20And so we're going to talk about all the details of that today with you. So, Joe, thank you for being here. You're welcome. I'm happy to be with you. That's wonderful. And we are at Bulletproof Labs, by the way, in Santa Monica, California, which is one of the most impressive places I have ever been in in my life in terms of the cutting edge of human performance as well. And so check out Bulletproof Labs when you get an opportunity to do that. So let's max out our time here together. All right, let's go. So you say all kinds of things that I'm fascinated with, but I think you're fascinating because you've become this expert in a field that's very unique really to you.

46:50And the way you explain things, people always want to know how to perform better, how their brain works. And I think you show them how to do it, but also why it works. And I'm fascinated by that. But you didn't start out in this industry, right? So before we go to all the great stuff, how the heck did you become you? Like I've read about you. You were actually a chiropractor prior, correct? Yeah, I started out as a chiropractor. So tell everybody about you just a little bit. Well, let's see. I got started on this. I think most of the time when we wake up, we need a wake-up call. and I was in Palm Springs, California.

47:26I was in a triathlon. I was on a biking portion of the race and I was making a turn and I was passing two cyclists on the corner and there was a cadet, a police officer, kind of pointing at me, waving on to make the turn, like this. And he had us back to the oncoming traffic. So when I made the turn, a four-wheel drive Bronco going about 55 miles an hour caught me from behind and catapulted me out of my bike. Oh, my gosh. Anyway, when you land that hard on your rump or on your back, the force of that compression takes the columns of the vertebrae and compresses them. So I had broken six vertebrae in my spine.

48:03And I had bone fragments on my spinal cord. And the very top segment, the eighth thoracic vertebrae, I broke T8, T9, T10, T11, T12, and L1. And T8 took the compressive force and I flexed. And so when I flexed, it compressed that vertebrae more than 60%, and the arch where the spinal cord passes through broke like a pretzel. So I had multiple compression fractures of my thoracic spine. I had bone fragments on my cord because when you compress a volume of something, the volume has to go somewhere. So it went back on the cord, and the neural arch of the thoracic vertebrae was compressing the cord as well.

48:44Oh my goodness. So anyway, a typical procedure for something like that is called the Harrington rod surgery. And they cut off the back parts of your vertebrae. It's called a laminectomy. In my case, it would be from the base of my neck to the base of my spine. Got chills. And then they screw in these stainless steel rods and the action of screwing into the bone causes a cantilever. It kind of pulls the column off the cord in some cases and opens up the nerve supply. And then they take bone fragments from your hip and they paste it over the top and they hope for the best. And so I had four opinions from four of the leading surgeons in Southern California.

49:25And it was unanimous that I needed that procedure. Now, I was in a lot of pain. I had some neurological problems. And they told me if I didn't have the surgery, I would never walk again. So I decided against the surgery and I thought I didn't want to live handicapped. I didn't want to be in a wheelchair and I didn't want to be addicted to pain medication. So I thought I might as well take a chance here. So I didn't really know what I was doing at the time. I was going to say, the chance on what? Did you know what the alternative was? Well, I think that I believed that this voice kept coming up in my head saying, the power that made the body heals the body.

50:03and I thought, well, God, this power is an intelligence, and intelligence is consciousness, consciousness is awareness, awareness is paying attention, it must be paying attention to me. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Did you think this way prior to that incident? Yeah, to some degree. I think that most of us are philosophical to some degree. You know, we have a philosophy about life. But when you're initiated, that means you have to initiate that philosophy. So I had to take what I knew and weighed against what I didn't know. And I think one of the worst places we wind up as human beings is indecision.

50:40And so I had very, very strong authorities telling me, you're never gonna walk again, you have a head injury, I don't know why you're deciding against the surgery. If it was my son, it would be on the operating table. Anyway, I checked out of the hospital and I began the process. I wasn't going anywhere, I wasn't doing anything. I was laying face down and I said, I'm not going to let any thought slip by my awareness that I don't want to experience. And if this intelligence is truly a consciousness, I have to be present with it. And so what I did was I just started reconstructing my spine and my mind, vertebrae by vertebrae.

51:19And then, you know, I'd start off doing that, and the next thing you know, I'd start thinking about, should I sell my home, should I sell my practice? And I realized that the template, the design that I was creating wasn't complete. So I'd stop, start all over again, get frustrated, then it would get harder. It sounds like me when I began meditating. Yes, the same thing, yeah. Because meditation requires being present, and that's a skill. You've got to practice it. So I didn't have a teacher at the time. I was just going off my intuition. And it would take me three hours to go through the whole entire process just to complete it.

51:55And I'd start all over because I wanted it to be a complete model. So six and a half weeks of just a dark night of the soul. Because I think when we're traumatized or we're under stress, we tend to focus on what we don't want to have happen and what we do want to have happen. And I think in survival, we're always preparing for the worst case scenario. So it was a battle that I couldn't get my mind to do what I wanted to do. At the end of six and a half weeks, one day, I went through the whole entire thing without breaking my focus. and I swear it was like hitting a golf ball right in the sweet spot.

52:27It just clicked, and I clicked. And from that moment on, my body started to heal. That's incredible. I started to have less pain. My neurological symptoms were diminishing. And the moment I started to correlate the changes that were happening in my body with what I was doing inside of me, I started doing it with more passion and more enthusiasm. Anyway, I was back on my feet in 9 1⁄2 weeks. I was back training again at 12 weeks. Come on. I was back in my practice and, you know, they told me that I would have to wear this body cast for a year, six months to a year. And, well, gosh, I put it on once and took it off and said, there's just no way I'm going to wear this.

53:09And so I just made a deal with myself. And the deal was, in those lonely nights where I couldn't sleep, if I'm ever able to walk again, I'll spend the rest of my life studying the mind-body connection and mind over matter. And pretty much that's what I've been doing. That's amazing. So that's the, see, I'm a layman. So I start out introducing you as a peak performance person. I see everything through performance, I guess, right? But that's incredible because the sophisticated version is that you're this, you've studied this convergence of like neuroscience, quantum physics, epigenetics, sort of the convergence of that, right?

53:40What would you say you do? In other words, if someone said to you, because I know we talk a lot about healing, but what would you say? Someone says, what do you do? What would your answer be to that? I get that question every day, every week when I'm on a plane. Someone sits next to me, they go, so what do you do? And then I wind up talking to them for four hours. I teach people really a way to live a better life and to heal themselves of past scars, to provide the tools for them to realize that they're more than they really perceive themselves to be. And I believe that your personality creates your personal reality.

54:18Can you elaborate on that? I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, so your personality is made up of how you think, how you act, and how you feel. So the present personality who's watching this show has created the present personal reality called their life. It means then if you want to change your life, your personal reality, that means fundamentally you have to change your personality. That means you have to start thinking about what you've been thinking about and change it. You have to begin to become aware of your unconscious habits and behaviors and modify them. Then you have to look at certain emotions that keep you anchored to the past and decide if those emotions belong in your future.

54:56And I think after all these years, Ed, I think that most people try to create a new personal reality as the same personality. It doesn't work. You know, you literally have to become someone else. So the process then, most people, they're thinking the same thoughts. They're making the same choices. They're demonstrating the same behaviors. They're creating the same experiences that stamp the same networks of neurons into the same patterns, all for the familiar feeling that they call themselves. And if you keep doing that over and over again, there's a principle in neuroscience that says that nerve cells that fire together wire together.

55:30So people begin to hardwire their brain into very finite signature into these automatic programs. Turns out by the time we're 35 years old, we become a set of memorized behaviors, emotional reactions, beliefs, perceptions, unconscious attitudes. that function just like a computer program. So when people want to change, they're using 5 % of their conscious mind, and they can think positively all they want, but the programs are running subconsciously, telling them that they're negative. So the only way to do that then is to get into the operating system. And getting into the operating system where those programs exist requires then people beginning to do some inward work.

56:11If you sit down and you disconnect from your outer world, you close your eyes, we play some music in the background, you sit your body down and not smelling anything or tasting anything or experiencing anything or feeling anything. And you're not thinking about or anticipating the future or remembering the familiar past. That moment, that elegant moment where you fall into the present moment is where the magic happens. And so after looking at enough brain scans in the process of studying the transformation, yeah, I call that getting beyond yourself. Because when you disconnect from your present personal reality and personality, now you're ready to create something else.

56:54And so what thoughts do you want to fire and wire in your brain? What behaviors do you want to demonstrate? and the act of rehearsing the behavior begins to install the neurological hardware in your brain, primes it to look like the experience has already happened. Yes, yep. Let's step back for a second. I want to stay on that. I want everyone to be with us. So a couple things you said, because you said a ton there, right? And so this is, I want everybody to catch a couple things here. A basic thing, a base model, is that people don't think about what they think about enough. In other words, just taking a second to think about what you actually think about is a breakthrough experience.

57:28It's just something that simple, right? And we have, you can correct me, but we have somewhere around 80 ,000 thoughts a day. Is that about right? And at some point, 70 % of them, I just want everybody to understand this, are the same thoughts. 90. 90 % of them. So 90 % of those thoughts are the same thoughts on a daily basis. And we wonder why, if we really are what we think about, why our lives continue to sort of perpetuate themselves over and over again. You got it. Okay. You got it. And so we have these patterns. You've talked about beginning to consciously choose and decide what these thoughts and behaviors are that you would like So is there a way specifically maybe one technique you give today outside of some of the seminars and books that we're going to talk about in a minute?

58:05But how do you break that pattern and how do you become conscious of getting new thoughts that serve you that create that person that you want to be? Look, it's really simple. Okay Your brain is organized to reflect everything you know in your life. Your brain is a record of the past. It's an artifact of everything you've learned and experienced in this moment. The feelings and emotions are the end product of past experiences and we can remember experiences better because we remember how they feel. So most people wake up in the morning and they start remembering all their problems and those problems are connected to certain people and certain things at certain times and places.

58:40The moment they start thinking about those problems, they're thinking in the past. Those problems have an emotion associated with them and the moment they start feeling those emotions, the body as the unconscious mind doesn't know the difference between an experience that's creating an emotion and the emotion the person's fabricating by thought alone. Now thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body. And how you think and how you feel creates your state of being. So most people's entire state of being when they start their day is already in the past. So you have a choice.

59:14The choice is you're either defined by a vision of the future or you're defined by the memories of the past and when you decide to say okay I'm gonna change and you decide one thing I'm not gonna eat this food I'm gonna wake up earlier I'm gonna do something aerobic I'm not gonna have sugar after six o 'clock whatever it is the person whatever choice a person makes the moment you make a choice to do something differently and the hardest part about change is not making the same choice as you did the day before get ready because it's going to feel uncomfortable it's going to feel unfamiliar there's going to be some uncertainty and unpredictability and that's the moment the game is on yes so then most people their their body has been conditioned emotionally to be the mind so now the so the the body says wow i'd rather hang on to my guilt than take a chance and possibility i'd rather live in fear than trust in the unknown.

1:00:13So once the person feels uncomfortable, the body goes, whoa, wait a second, we're out of the program here. And body starts influencing the mind. That's right. So it says, start tomorrow, you'll never change, you don't have the money to do this, you're not good enough, your mother told you you were this, your father's fault, it's your ex's fault. You know, all of the voices that come up. Now here's the deal. If you respond to those voices those same thoughts as if they're true by the way They're always going on behind the scenes of your awareness, but now they're amplified because you're outside your comfort zone You believe in that thought that thoughts gonna lead to the same choice Which is gonna lead to the same behavior which is gonna create the same experience and produce the same emotion and the person's gonna say This feels right.

1:00:57No, no, no that feels familiar going from the old self to the new self is a neurological, it's a biological, it's a chemical, it's a hormonal, it's a genetic death of the old self. And people will say to me, in that void, in that unknown, I can't predict my future. And I'll say to them, the best way to predict your future is to create it. Not from the known, but from the unknown. So close your eyes now and think about that vision. Once you start thinking about that vision of your future, you're activating the creative centers in your brain. And naturally, you begin to think about putting yourself in the scene.

1:01:34Yes. And the act of doing that when you're truly passionate and truly present, the moment you're defined by that vision, when the thought in your mind becomes the experience, you begin to feel the emotion of the event before it's made manifest. Now, you're giving your body a sampling, a taste of the future. And now, if a thought and a feeling create a new state of being you're combining a clear intention with an elevated emotion and now you're beginning to change your biology and you're seeing a whole new landscape that you could never see before because you're no longer viewing your future through the lens of the past.

1:02:12I love this. Now this requires then something really specific because most people will wait for their wealth to feel abundance. That's right. They'll wait for their success to feel empowered. They'll wait for their new relationship to feel loved. They'll get all these things when. Yes. So think about that. The absence of getting those things causes people to live in lack their entire life. That's right. And so they're waiting for something outside of them to change how they feel inside of them. And if they're not creating a new life, then they're not applying the proper principles. Then they keep all their manifestations, all their dreams at arm's length.

1:02:51Think about this. If you get up feeling gratitude, if you get up feeling empowered, if you get up feeling whole, if you get up feeling unlimited, why would you worry about whether it was going to come or not? You would feel like it already happened. How do you do that when you are stepping into the, you know, if you give us one strategy, one thought, one technique that keeps us, is it just, for me, candidly, for me, it's just always been because you're explaining to me in a much more deep level things I've understood through my own experience, right? Everyone that's listening to this has had an experience where these formulas, these concepts, and these ideas have worked for you.

1:03:26They have. You've all had an experience like this. For me, it's just being conscious of it. For me, it's literally, for me, taking control of it and being conscious. How would you answer that? Well, I absolutely agree with you, Ed. You're absolutely right. We're wired to create. This isn't something that you have to try to do. You just have to get beyond the memory of your past and all the associations to create a new future. Now, theoretically, that sounds really easy, but everybody's done it at least once in their life. What happened? You get a wild idea. You get a crazy idea, and you think, what would it be like to be happy?

1:03:59What would it be like to be in love? What would it be like to be rich? Whatever it is. Yes. And all of a sudden, you ask that question, and you turn on the creative center in your brain. That's right. It turns on. Yes. And now the frontal lobe is the boss. It's the CEO. It's the symphony leader. And the frontal lobe, as an executive, has connections to all other parts of the brain. Now, when you ask that question, it's got to answer it. So it's got to look out over the landscape and see what kind of raw materials do I have? Well, you only have a few things, knowledge you've learned and experiences you've had.

1:04:29So it begins to call up different networks of neurons, and it begins to seamlessly piece them together. And you get a vision in your mind that's called intent. And if you're passionate, you start to feel the feelings of when it happens. Now, you're giving your body that energetic boost. Now, everybody's done this. The moment you've said that, no one can talk you out of it. No person, no thing, no experience. You're possessed by it. So then what happens next? You start writing down all the choices you need to make, all the things you've got to do, all the goals and experiences you want in your future.

1:05:03And every time you write one of those goals or experiences down, you start to feel more of those emotions. And now you're basically assembling more of your future. Now, the astute person does something really amazing. They start learning more information. You want to be wealthy? Study wealthy people. You want to be healthy, study healthy people. As you begin to gain more knowledge, you're adding more stitches into the three-dimensional tapestry and you got more raw materials to dream in new ways. Now, here's the part that is the most important. Take out a piece of paper and say, what thoughts do I have to stop thinking?

1:05:37You know, I can't, I'll start tomorrow, I'm too hard, I don't feel like it, I have a headache, I gotta go to sleep, I'm tired. List those thoughts and become so conscious Yeah of those thoughts that you would never let one of those thoughts slip by your awareness unchecked by you Can I say something about that? I want to jump in on that one of the powers of writing those thoughts down as you completely Eliminate and weaken their influence over you they become minimized when you write them They lose their power over you when you grab control of them by writing them down to Significantly powerful exercise is to write down those thoughts from a neuroscientific standpoint What's called metacognition because the moment you can observe the thought and become conscious of it You're no longer the program.

1:06:16You're consciousness observing the program, and you begin to literally objectify your subjective self, and now you're pulling out. So then write down the choices you have to stop making. Look at the things you have to stop doing. Do you complain? Do you make excuses? Do you blame other people? What do you do? List those things and be really honest with yourself. What experiences do you have to stay away from from certain people at certain times and places? Stay away from them so that you are not in the environment that triggers it. And now here's the most important point. Okay. Write down those emotions that keep you anchored to the past because those emotions are literally residue from the past chemically.

1:06:56So then the moment you start feeling suffering, the moment you start feeling guilt, the moment you start feeling unworthy, the moment you start feeling despair, the moment you start feeling any of those emotions, you're back in your past. Yes. And you can't see the future. You're thinking within those emotional states. And we've looked at enough brain stands to say that when you think within a certain emotion, you're gonna make your brain worse Our thoughts are physical. Mm-hmm. What are thoughts when they happen in your body the power of this? The stronger the emotion that you feel From any condition in your environment the more you pay attention to the cost So the higher the threshold of the emotion the more the brain narrows its focus on whatever it is in the environment Does it and the brain takes a snapshot and that's called a memory?

1:07:41so now people think neurologically within the circuits of the past experience and they feel chemically within the boundaries of those emotions you say to the person well what happened the person say this person did this to me that person did that then this happened and the latest research on memory says that 50 % of what you talk about in the past isn't even the truth that you you don't have the same brain then so you make stuff up which means now you're reliving a past that you didn't even have just to embellish it to produce the emotions to reaffirm your limited limited state very short intermission here folks i'm glad you're enjoying the show so far don't forget to follow the show on apple and spotify links are in the show notes you'll never miss an episode that way welcome back to the show everybody i'm excited to spend some time with you today covering something that you all ask about often which is the topic of visualization and i I think it's a topic that most people don't understand, nor do they take advantage of.

1:08:38One of the key strategies in my entire life of producing the results that I've been blessed to produce has a lot to do. One of the key strategies is visualization, mental rehearsal, and understanding how to do it, understanding the power of it, and the reasons why you should be doing more mental rehearsal, more visualization. You know, I'm blessed that I've had an opportunity to coach a lot of top CEOs, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and yes, a lot of athletes. athletes and whether that be a in the UFC and the MMA or a golfer baseball player I get asked often what do you work on with a lot of these athletes and although we work on a variety of different things one of them is visualization because it's really an accepted practice in sports that you visualize things but most people you can ask yourself this to begin how much visualization do you do in a directed intentional way in other words you're visualizing things your problems your worries your fears you're visualizing an appointment let's just say but how often are you doing that proactively?

1:09:33Are you using it as a strategy for peak performance, a strategy for bliss, a strategy to be more productive and serve more people? Mental rehearsal and visualization is one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself. And it's a great hack to producing the results that you want, because the truth of the matter is you are more than likely producing right now what you've already been visualizing. And so taking control of that and harnessing control of it is a really, really big deal. And why? Because we all have fears. We all have insecurities. These fears and insecurities will find a way to express themselves one way or the other.

1:10:09And so if we can't take control of our fears and our insecurities and we don't build up mental rehearsal and visualization of the things we want, the things that give us confidence, one or the other are going to end up expressing themselves. That's why it's so important that you really learn to take control of your mental rehearsal and visualization. And why is that the case? Here's the deal. You move towards what you're most familiar with in your life, okay? So there's a degree of familiarity in our lives that we move towards what's comfortable, what's safe, what's most familiar to us because it requires the least amount of thinking.

1:10:44Your brain really wants to operate and conserve energy as much as it can. So the more things it can do habitually without having to think, the easier it is on your brain. And so it's constantly trying to get you to move towards what's familiar. And so if what's most familiar to you is your fears, your worries, your anxieties, your insecurities, you will move towards them. If you wonder whether that's accurate or not, we try to avoid things that are unfamiliar to us. People have asked me, oh my gosh, I saw that golfer. He had a putt to win the golf tournament from five feet. and he missed it. And he missed it for two reasons.

1:11:17Either he was very familiar with the mental rehearsal and the visualization he or she was of missing and they programmed that fear in so they moved towards what was familiar and which was missing the putt. Or they didn't do any mental rehearsal whatsoever and when they got into that pressure situation, their brain was not familiar with that environment, with that situation, and so it wasn't able to function at its optimal level. And so the reason that we want to make sure that we're doing mental rehearsal and visualization regularly in our life is so that when we get there, we're familiar and we're likely to move towards that result we've already visualized.

1:11:52If we don't, if we only take visualization about our fears and worries, which is what most people do, you will move towards those because you're familiar with them as well. Or the absence of any preparation, when you walk into a meeting to give a presentation, you've not mentally rehearsed the result. You've not visualized the result. If you've not done that, you've left it up to your own devices and more than likely because you're unfamiliar, your brain cannot perform at its optimal level. So that's why mental rehearsal preparation, because your body doesn't know, your subconscious mind does not know the difference between what's real and what's imagined.

1:12:26And so the more you rehearse it, the more your brain believes, your mind believes that you've already done it, you've already accomplished it. So when you enter the environment, you enter the situation, you will gravitate and move towards what's most familiar. Think about it this way. How much thinking do you do when you walk into a room full of strangers? Right? You walk in, you don't know anybody in there. You're pulling up to an event and you don't know a soul. You're going to walk into a room with 50 or 100 people. You're doing some thinking, aren't you? You're thinking about, well, would I introduce myself?

1:12:53Is my hair the right way? Did I do my makeup correctly? What's a story that I could tell tonight that's funny? What if they ask me this? Your anxiety and nervousness level goes up no matter who you are, right? Because of the unknown, the unfamiliar. And so what happens is you just start thinking and going into pattern mode. You're going into mapping mode because where you're going is unfamiliar. Now, compare how much thinking you do when you walk into a room like that compared to just walking through your front door to your house where everybody's familiar. Do you really even have to think about it?

1:13:25When you walk from your kitchen to the living room where your family is, do you do any thinking whatsoever? Does your heart rate go up at all? Is there anything in your body that's changing from a neuro biochemistry standpoint? No, you're almost doing zero thinking because you're familiar with it. And so in life, if you can begin to become that familiar like you are with your own family and friends, with your dreams, your goals, and your ambitions, or maybe it's as simple as just a specific result in one occasion, the more you've done that, the more you're not going to have to think nearly as much in process information.

1:13:58This is really called mapping. And so life is really better when you don't focus on what's going on around you, but you focus on what's going on inside of you. Okay, so think about that for a second. Life is always better when you don't focus on what's going on around you but you focus on what's going on inside of you. So there's this great story that my producer was sharing with me. He's a big soccer fan about Wayne Rooney who's one of the most legendary players of all time and he said he would take his visualization to a level that blew most people's minds and he would literally get with the equipment manager before a game and ask him what uniform are we going to be wearing?

1:14:33and so he would get the actual uniform and know what it looked like. He would also want to know what music they were going to be playing when they came out, when they were getting ready to play. He would want to know the exact song and then he would also want to know the weather. So he would then get back and the night before the games would visualize that uniform, would visualize that music playing, would visualize that weather so that when he got there, it was all familiar to him. You know, a lot of athletes and people ask me, should I only visualize me getting the yes because I'm mapping, making the putt, making the putt, making the putt, or hitting the shot, or having the knockout, or closing the sale, or getting whatever it is that you want.

1:15:10Should I only visualize the positive things? That's a really interesting thing because the way your brain works, it actually probably serves you most to be always visualizing the positive result. I do think that it's okay sometimes in life to also visualize something that isn't favorable. So in other words Because it's going to happen So do I let my athletes about 10 % of the time I will say okay let's just Let's hit a bad shot We've hit a bad shot What happens in our body Now we're walking to that shot How do we deal with it And so they now are able to deal with something That's inevitable Or if it's one of our fighters And I go listen you just had the first You know it's bad round He got to you You took a couple shots Looks like he lost round one You're sitting on the stool Bam how do we shift that and visualize from there because if you don't visualize some of the unforeseen circumstances that take place and your response to it, in my opinion, when that happens and it's unfamiliar territory, you're lost.

1:16:09But if you say, no, I've been there before. I've missed this putt before. I've missed a shot before. In sales, it's okay to visualize them not always saying yes, but objecting and giving you a reason for not doing it. They may have a question or a concern, right? So I don't think it's a negative thing sometimes. I don't want to pattern this where it's a pattern I've created, but I think it's okay to, in sales, visualize getting a no or an objection or in a sport, having a failure happen, and then from there what you need to visualize. So that when the inevitable happens, because life happens, you're going to miss a sale.

1:16:46You're going to not hit every putt. Not every at-bat is going to be a base hit, right? Not every shot is going to be in the basket. And so it's okay to say, okay, I just missed the shot. What do I visualize from there? So we're not really visualizing the miss. We're visualizing it's happened, what feels in my body. I know what that is. Now, what do I do? And so because you'll watch in sports, most of the great athletes, it's not that they don't miss. It's what they do after they miss. It's not in life whether you're going to miss or get rejected or have a difficult circumstance or situation. It's what do you do when it happens?

1:17:19And so I think it's okay that you spend a little bit of time in that zone and then your visualization is your way out of there. So we're not visualizing misses. What I'm suggesting is, is that you're visualizing, okay, I've just missed. Now visualize the way out, mentally reverse the way out. I think you can spend a little bit of time on that, just like the great Wayne Rooney did. I'll tell you one more story, and I don't know whether this is accurate or not. I don't remember the man's name, and I'm sure I'm messing the story up, so forgive me. But I think the premise of the story and the point that it illustrates is valid.

1:17:54And so the story goes, I was told this many years ago, that there was evidently a soldier who had spent some time in a POW camp. And when he was there, in order to keep himself sane, frankly, he would mentally rehearse and visualize himself playing an entire 18-hole golf course, round of golf. And again, this is just a story that I was told. I hope I'm giving it justice. and the point of the story is that it illustrates the power of visualization and even if I'm off by the facts a little bit you know indulge me a little bit here but he would visualize playing each shot throughout the day mentally rehearse and visualize it and and many years later when he got out of the POW camp he went home I believe it was to Texas somewhere in the Midwest and his body was totally atrophied he had no muscle mass left he had lost considerable weight he had been obviously hurt and injured and beaten when he was in the camp.

1:18:50And one of the first things he asked to do when he got on his feet was to go play golf. And the story goes that he went out and that first round of golf shot even par. And afterwards they asked him, how in the world did you do that? You've lost 50 pounds. You've had all these injuries. You've had this terrible mental battle you've had to go through. And he goes, it's easy. I haven't missed a putt in four years. Because what he had done is mentally rehearsed when he was playing those rounds, making that putt, hitting that shot. Now, whether or not that's an accurate story or not, I don't know. But what I can tell you is that it's illustrative that I've seen something like that in many athletes and many business people's lives where in spite of external circumstances, they've controlled the inside so well that when they, like I've said, they focus on the inside, that when these variables happen, which is life, a failure, a setback, an unforeseen situation, that they're comfortable because they haven't missed a putt in years when they visualize their way out of that.

1:19:47And so inside of you, you can visualize. So give yourself the gift on a more regular basis of mentally rehearsing the meeting you're going to go to. Do it three, four, five, six times and actually sit in that visualization. Ask yourself questions when you visualize, by the way. The way you get better at it is you do more of it. In the beginning when we're visualizing or mentally rehearsing, we're not very good at it because we haven't done it before. We get distracted easily, or we don't even realize, we don't even take control of what we're seeing. But begin to ask yourself, when I visualize, do I see it in black or white or color?

1:20:17I mean, make some distinctions about what you're seeing. Can I feel things? Do I smell things? Do I hear things? Can I take this picture that I'm seeing, this result I want to produce, this award I want to win, this situation I want to get out of a date that I'm going on, this potential sale that I've got, this baseball I want to hit, this putter. When you watch it, start to ask yourself and take a look at what you're seeing. Like for example, where's the camera? That'd be interesting, huh? Do you see the camera where you're looking at it out there? So you see it from your own perspective or do you see it from the person's situation who's watching you?

1:20:56Do you see it from above? Just taking a minute and you go, wow, I never thought about that before. Well, think about it. It'll help you take better control. You know, when I work with athletes, when they're baseball hitters, I'll often ask them, I'll say, close your eyes and visualize, hit a line drive up the middle. And they'll go, great, I did it. And they'll open their eyes. I go, okay, good. Where was the camera? And they're like, huh? I said, where was the camera? I don't know. I said, well, let's close your eyes and do it again. I said, the camera could be a lot of different places. The camera could be you in the batter's box and you're singing out at the pitcher in the field.

1:21:24It could be like you watch baseball on TV because you're familiar with it. And it's behind the center field fence looking over the pitcher into the catcher. It could even be the view you get on deck. But the first thing is to at least see what you see. Now you have a chance to play the video. And so I'll ask them, can you see what you see? Yes. Okay. And they say, well, no, but it's for me in the batter's box. Awesome. So then we know, and we go much more detail than this, but it's beginning to just see what you see, hear what you hear or don't hear, smell what you smell or don't smell, right?

1:21:54For the most part, most people can very quickly go, oh, I see things in black and white or I see them in color. And then just start to take control of what it looks like. And then the only other thing to ask yourself if you want to really reinforce a visualization is you could speed it up a little bit or you could slow it down. You could zoom in if you wanted to. And the more you just kind of play with your ability to visualize, the more it becomes a muscle. Zoom in, zoom out, change the color, add some music to it, right? Speed it up, slow it down. And then just repeatedly see something over and over again.

1:22:25It'll serve you. And so it's something that I teach the athletes that I do. It's not very complicated. It's just basically starting to take control of your mind's eye, of what you think about. You don't have to be very specific with it. It could just be the same thing you see every time. But the more you prepare, you will begin to move towards what you're most familiar with. And what's great about that is anxiety level goes down. And your brain, your subconscious mind, it doesn't know the difference between what you're imagining and what's actually happening. And so you actually can get a hit every time you're up to the plate.

1:22:55You can make a putt every single time you stand over it. You can get a yes. And the more specific, when you start with a visualization, oftentimes in the beginning, they'll be very general. But the more you get good at it, maybe it gets more specific where you can even see when you've helped somebody out in your business, them thanking you and the smile on their face. Maybe you can begin to feel what it feels like with their gratitude. I'll have athletes often. I'll say, did you make the putt? How did it feel? Fist pump that thing. Lock it in. right? So the more you do it, the more it grows as something you build as a habit.

1:23:26It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. But I'm telling you, life is a whole lot better when you focus on what's going on inside of you as opposed to what's going on around you. And the more we just get internal, we begin to take some measure of control over the mental images we're feeding ourselves, the more we can produce a result that's in congruence with our goals. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

1:24:00Now on with the show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm so excited to have this lady here with me. I'm fascinated by her work and because the applications in so many different areas of my own life, and I believe for the audience today, she's got a new book out called Peak Mind. She's a neuroscientist, professor of psychology at University of Miami and I already like her. Amishi Jha, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. So good. I think that if you've had some success, that if it doesn't come with a dose of humility, that when you begin to walk into every room and every environment and think you've already figured it out, you already know, this stunts growth as well because what you're saying is it blunts you taking in new data and new information.

1:24:41Correct. Correct. You get it. You totally get it. You are denying yourself better data, more data to inform the decisions that happen. So don't do that. Don't do that to yourself, right? Give us the exercise. We've been building that. Give us more. Okay. So this is like, I'm going to give you a longer one just to describe the steps and then we'll do like one that you could do anytime, all the time. Okay. So this is like a basic mindfulness practice. And I call it again, tied to what we're talking about in the book and attention, the find your flashlight practice. Great. Because oftentimes it's not that we don't, we can't focus, it's that we don't know where we're focusing at any moment.

1:25:16That's true. So the instruction would be, and I guide people to kind of ramp up to about 12 minutes a day that our data suggests is beneficial to do this, but to start out, like do 30 seconds of this, commit to that for a few weeks and see how that goes. So the practice is essentially find a quiet, comfortable spot and take this time seriously, even if it's 30 seconds or a minute, sit in an upright, alert posture, like a dignified, you know, if we do it now, it's just like upright alert dignified and first step is just acknowledge notice shine the flood light on your experience that you're breathing right now then what you're gonna do is hone in on something that actually you notice is prominent in your experience of breathing so do you notice anything that feels prominent like the coolness of air maybe by your nose or maybe your chest.

1:26:07It's actually the sound I'm making. Okay, great. Yeah, the sound, that's a great one too. That's where you're going to hold the point, the flashlight. That's your attentional target for this short practice. So direct that flashlight right there. Keep it steady. You can close your eyes if you want to, whatever you choose, just to limit the sensory input. and if it hasn't happened yet, it surely will, your mind will wander. And all you do in that moment is notice it. Ah, the mind has wandered away. Next step, take that flashlight, redirect it back to that same attentional target.

1:26:50And repeat. So it's essentially focus, point that flashlight, notice, use the floodlight, redirect, get the juggler to do its job. Oh my goodness. You know one, can I ask about that? Yeah, please. When I first started this, there was like a judgment when I drift away. Oh no, it's a total win. It's a win moment. It's actually a win because it gives us a chance to redirect the flashlight, right? This is so important because I used to, I don't know, maybe you, maybe you're further along than me, but in the beginning I was like, gosh, man, I'm gone this for like 24 seconds, then I'm out. But you're actually saying that's actually a gift when we drift away because it allows us to build this flashlight.

1:27:31I'll call it a muscle, so to speak. That we're coming back. It's really good. Now I hope it makes sense why I wanted to describe those three systems because we hit all three in this. And I think it's really important to not think of the wandering as a problem. The wandering, remember we started out talking about 50 % of the time, it's the nature of the mind. I didn't say, Ed, if you happen to be one of those weird people with mind wanders. Like us normal people don't have that. You have mind wandering. I didn't say that. I said, when your mind wanders, because it's going to wander for sure. Just bring it back.

1:28:02And not doing that with the added story, the added reactivity is so important. You know, I'm just thinking of the, I did a lot of work when I was younger and I do now with kids and I have so many parents almost judge their children for their, he can't stay focused in the classroom. He drifts away. And I'm just thinking right now, like what a breakthrough this might be for some parents who are listening to this to realize that that's actually everyone is at 50%. Maybe your kid reveals it more than other kids do. Doesn't conceal it as well. Maybe it manifests in talking out loud as opposed to scribbling on a sheet of paper.

1:28:35So it's more apparent. But this is something that even with, do you believe it? Is there a particular age where you believe a child might be able to begin to build this? I'm calling it building a muscle because everybody can relate to that. Yeah, no, I think it is. It's practice. It's strengthening. So the first thing to say is that this brain system of attention is one of the slowest to develop. We don't fully develop this capacity until we're about 25. And one of the reasons is it relies on the frontal lobes, which are the slowest brain region to develop. So, you know, it does kind of drive me nuts sometimes.

1:29:07And I feel for parents when they're not happy that their children aren't paying attention or their response is, pay attention, it's not going to help at all. And in fact, understanding that that's the thing that is, your child is not not paying attention because they don't know that they should often. It's that they don't know where their attention is. Just like we are saying we don't know. Wow, that's good, that's good. So I think that the thing to really, and by the way, yes, absolutely, there's a huge enterprise of offering mindfulness training in a developmentally appropriate manner to children as young as preschool.

1:29:42Really? We can do these in very useful ways for children, but what you're having them cultivate is not just focus, focus, focus. It's where are you right now? Where are you? In a friendly, self-supportive way. And is that where you want to be right now? When you talk to yourself in that manner of like, where am I right now? Is that where I want to be? All of a sudden, the world doesn't feel as dire. Like, oh, I'm over here. I think I want to be over there instead. I think that's what I should be doing right now is being over there. It's a different relationship. And the younger that we can get people to start understanding that this is befriending your mind in a way that allows it to be used to your benefit.

1:30:19That's fascinating to me. Instead of being punitive to yourself. Yeah. I'm just thinking I'm sitting here as a 50-year-old man. I've done different forms of meditation, mindfulness. I'm a relatively productive human being. And I'm confessing to the audience that oftentimes I'm going 24 seconds and I'm out of my attention. Well, my attention has changed, rather. So the idea that we're concerned about our eight-year-old who might have the exact same or does have the exact same scenario that I do I'm just curious. There's a bit of any data our kids even more than 50 % where their attention moves or would you assume that because those frontal lobes aren't as developed?

1:30:52Or is it pretty much the same? Here's the tricky part of having assessing that with children by the way What does it take for you to even know if somebody's on task or off task? Right? They have to have the awareness in something it's something called meta awareness awareness or attention to your attention that is also a developmentally slow process so we're getting a fuzzy read on them i mean we could take them into the lab and look directly at their performance on tasks and yeah they mind wander a lot their attention can be off often you know off task often but i don't think that's uh the thing we want to help cultivate which is the counterintuitive thing and i mean i refer to it in the book is like a peak mind pivot it's like we think that we have to focus better we think we need to focus on, we need to train ourselves to focus.

1:31:34And I'm saying no, to focus better, train your mind to notice when you're not focused. Gosh, very good. So, you know, that's a totally different set of your, you're exercising the floodlight and the juggler. The flashlight will do its thing. It knows how to do its thing, but really pay attention to the understanding of where your mind is moment by moment. I did that during your TED talk. You actually say something similar during your TED talk. And then I thought, well, where am I now? And then I'm back with you. And then where am I now? And then I came back with you. And that's it. You know, 24 seconds, if you're truly going 24 seconds, you are, we got to bring you to the lab because that's really good.

1:32:11I made the number up. It's probably more like 2.4 seconds. I don't know. But I, you know, I actually asked a colleague of mine who'd been practicing mindfulness for 30 years, because I was getting, in the initial stages when I was just trying to understand what this thing is, I was like, I'm not going very long before my mind wanders. And will that be the thing that will extend as I practice more. That was my thinking. Like, that's a reasonable hypothesis. I might, if it's, you know, five seconds now, maybe it'll be 10 and 15 each year. I might get longer before it wandering. And I was very humbled by what he said.

1:32:40He said, 30 years of practice. He said, seven seconds. No kidding. And, but you know, so at first I'm like, oh great. What am I being bothering? Like, it's still gonna be seven seconds after 30 years. But what he said next really helped. He said, you know, what has happened is that my mind now, instead of being completely lost in a fantasy or a doomsday scenario. And I love that it was like almost poetic. He's like, it's like I'm seeing the ripples, you know, the ripples at the distance of the Placid Lake. And I was like, oh, he is really knows his mind. Like he can tell a slight tug. He doesn't have to go full on into, you know, next vacation has been planned while you're trying to do five minutes of a mindfulness practice.

1:33:23That felt so much more like he knows his mind. He knows where it is with that level of granularity. Yeah. And in some sense, this is the part that I think is also really interesting, especially as we talk about athletes and military service members and special operators, etc. It's this sense that you develop, because you know your mind, a sense of, I'm going to use the term, mental toughness. It's like, I know the space. I know the lake. It may not always be placid. It's usually for me like a rough, stormy place. But I can take anything. Like my mind is here for it. And frankly, that's developing that same floodlight capacity.

1:34:05I am here. I'm present for it. I'm not going to be thrown off. I'm steady in the middle of whatever's going on. Very good. You know, I think some of the most self-confident people I know are just more self-aware. And I think that's actually what you're describing. There's an awareness of self. I'm loving this and I want to keep going. So I want to ask you about, you've described things in visual terminology a lot. And I'd like to think that I am a visual person also, although I don't know that there's such a thing. I'm wondering if part of that self-awareness is, are some people more predisposed to be kinesthetic or auditory or visual in their um in the deductions they make in the observations that they make uh and is that something to be cognizant of about yourself when you're in a state of attention that you are not just i i feel like i'm very visual but maybe every single person is or are there more auditory predisposed people kinesthetic visual I mean, the jury is out.

1:35:02Most people say now that the notion of learning styles or specific modalities is not all that well supported. So I would say we don't know yet if that's actually the case. But frankly, the bulk of the brain as human beings compared to our little dogs that run around, so dominant with vision. But you brought up something that I want to actually kind of ping that. Because that, what you described, is not what I'm talking about when I use the term meta-awareness. what you just described very powerful thing to do is something we call metacognition so both of these are tied to self-awareness but meta awareness is a different thing so metacognition is essentially knowing your tendencies knowing your styles knowing your decision-making capacities your strengths your weaknesses I mean everything you just described would be really great to know for your metacognitive style for example and yes it can definitely there could be differences maybe not tactile or visual but there are definitely differences in the way people operate metacognitively.

1:35:57So you may be a maximizer in your decision-making versus a satisfier. You know, there's these different orientations. But I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about when I talk about the floodlight, because remember, the floodlight system is really about the now. And meta-awareness is awareness of the moment-to-moment processes and contents within your mind. So it doesn't really matter from the meta-awareness point of view what your tendencies are. What is going on right now? Where is your mind right now? And I think that that What's important now kind of orientation is so important in performance context.

1:36:32Yeah Because it doesn't matter what you're doing. I'm like what's going on now? Is it always important to be in the now in other words? Is it bad to be dreaming in the future? Is it a bad or good? I don't even like that terminology, but useful. Yeah. Yeah. Is it useful? Okay, great question. Yeah I'm so glad you asked me that because I don't want it to seem like I'm saying always be here right now Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. In fact, this capacity to mentally time travel to just like you did with your What did you have for dinner last night? Right is so useful for us In fact, it may be the thing that defines us in our evolutionary advantage as human beings, right?

1:37:08We can displace our ourselves in something called time travel, right? We can rewind the mind We can fast forward the mind you heard about me talking about that a little bit in the TED talk But it's not just about time traveling. It's also about mind traveling. Okay, so mind traveling is essentially putting yourself in the shoes and mind of somebody else. So both of those are really really powerful things to do. When we talk about mindfulness, it's really It's a solution to a vulnerability in our capacity to do both of those things. So the problem with time travel though, it's extremely useful for productively reflecting or planning it becomes problematic under certain states and i do think of the athletes like my heart goes go go out to them oftentimes when i see mess ups right like you did something you totally messed up and it happens you glitched if you can't stop rewinding the mind you are no way going to be able to succeed in the next moment so how do you get yourself to not rewind very good right so or let me see that's really good yeah and i think that the other part is you may be you know not the uh necessarily the athletic setting, but in our, like even during COVID, like if you, if you can't stop catastrophizing and worrying about the future, you're stuck.

1:38:26You're going to be probably have a lot of anxiety. So the reason we want to, and frankly, the same thing goes with mind traveling. If I'm constantly preoccupied about your view of me, social anxiety is going to set in. So the reason mindfulness became such an important solution for me, going back to why we study in my lab is because each of those things, ruminating about the past, catastrophizing about the others, overly caring about the viewpoints of an evaluation on yourself, hijack attention. It depletes attention. Gosh, it's so good. You're describing from a scientific standpoint all the things that people listening to this go, I know this is true.

1:39:04Yeah. And I think the rewinding thing, man, it's just huge. So many people are in the rewind and just beating themselves up and repeating the same story over and over again. But the other thing that I've figured out is that oftentimes stress is time travel in the future. Meaning that it's not so much the speech you have to give or the sale you have to close or the putt you have to hit that is stressing you out. It's you projecting into the future the negative result of it. And then on top of that, what other people are going to think or say about you when you miss the putt, when you don't close the sale.

1:39:36Is that not true? Exactly. You described both the mind travel and the time travel, right? Those are what I would really call the kryptonite scenarios. Like you're really, what all of that is doing is attention still being used and you're draining it out, you're draining the fuel in spinning in those directions. So how do you, you know, it's easy to say, well don't do that, get back to here and now. It's easy to say it, it's very hard to do because the tendencies are so strong. So you gotta train for it, just like anything else that's hard to do. You were gonna give us one other, I think you were gonna give us one other one.

1:40:06Oh yeah, right, so let me give you the other one. And then by the way, let's get Peak Mind. Let's get the book so that we also get the whole thing. That's the whole idea. But one more of them would be I'm driving in my car and I'm like, I want her to get me one more. Well, the car is a perfect example. You didn't even know I was going to go there. This other practice is just called the stop practice. Literally S-T-O-P. And do it while you're driving. Do it while you're walking. Do it at any time you want. Stop is stop. Like whatever the progression of your life is in that moment, halt it. Take a breath, and that's this conscious breath, aware that you're doing it.

1:40:43Observe, O. Proceed, B. So it's just, it's a mini mindfulness practice, and I really think it's useful because you know where your flashlight is at the end of it. I know it's right here, right now. I'm back. So use stop signs, use red lights to remind yourself to do that over and over again. So good. I'm just thinking of something. When you asked me to do that, I actually did it with you. And I actually noticed a couple of things in my visual space that have been here the entire time that I didn't see. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. And we're going a little bit deeper probably than I should. But there's a lot of things that your brain does on habit mode, correct?

1:41:21Like if I'm driving to work and I take the same off ramp every single day, I think my brain is storing energy by doing something that's habitual. That's how I've always understood it anyways, that I'm taking that same off ramp, whether I'm right or wrong, it doesn't matter. The point that I want to make about that is that for me, I think for most people being present is even though, yes, there's a benefit to being in the future and rewinding. There's a benefit to being reflective and reminiscing in the past and gaining wisdom from it. But for most of us, that's not a struggle for most people. The struggle for most people is being present.

1:41:52And that's why this is so important, what you're teaching here. And for me, there's so many things in a given day that mindfulness practices make me just aware of being present that I'm curious as to in practical application, how much time a day? I know there's no formula, but if you were just saying, hey, Ed, I'd recommend to you it's 10 minutes a day. It's five different times a day. It's once a day. Do it the same time of the day. Doesn't matter when you do it. What would your advice be on just building this practice? As the habit aspect? Yeah. Well, I mean, the last line of the title is invest 12 minutes a day.

1:42:28So that gives you a sense of, and that number comes out of many studies that have suggested, you know, if you get to that amount, we tend to see benefits. And the more you do from that, the more you benefit. But if you don't quite get to that, it's almost like, is going for a walk in my neighborhood, walking my dog going to build my physical fitness? Probably not. It's not going to be bad for you, but you're not going to get to that level. So here's the answer to the question of, so the when would be, and you can get a deeper understanding of why I say 12 minutes if you read more about it, but just know that it comes from a lot of...

1:42:57I did. I just want them to know. A lot of research. I know, I know. But I'm just saying, but your question regarding when to do it and the habit issue is the best time to do it is when you're going to do it. Okay. And that's kind of maybe a cop out, but literally the key to anything, and you'd probably say the same thing regarding physical excellence, right? The key is advantaging your capacity to create it and incorporate it into daily routine. Yeah. And so what I suggest for people, like I just said with when we were doing the short practice, if you think you can do three minutes, set the goal of a minute and a half and get the win of I did it.

1:43:32I did it. I did it. And you'll get to something that you already do. You know, my recommendation is is something that, you know, you're going to do every day without exception, maybe right after you brush your teeth in the morning or maybe right before you have your cup of coffee, some time that, you know, you're going to do it. And what I would suggest just to play around with when that works for you is to try it at different times of the day. What many people say when we say, try the morning, you know, play around with the time of day, is like people say things like, I love the taste of my coffee so much more.

1:44:01It's like I've actually tasted it. Gosh, it's so true. You know, so. And why are you depriving yourself of that? Right? Why are we rushing through? I mean, you're going to have the coffee anyway. Why not have a little bit more pleasure with that experience? I have to just say, though, I was going to tell you off camera, but I'm so glad you said this because I forgot. Which is that I just want to give everybody the gift of this that, by the way, I'm nowhere near where you would be or other people. I don't think there's rankings either, by the way. It's not a judgment thing. But my sensory experiences, just in general, have been so dramatically increased by this practice.

1:44:36And people always say to me that there's this duality. maybe one of the reasons they even like me is that maybe I'm sort of like a, maybe a masculine dude, but I'm very emotional and very sensitive. I don't know that I've always been that way, but like, I do find that I experienced my emotions on a deeper level over the last decade or so that my laughter is a little deeper and more joyous. The taste of food is a little bit more pleasurable. My, my acknowledgement and noticing beauty around me and the nuances and specificities of it, and not just the visual, but smells and wind hitting my face.

1:45:08I know this sounds ridiculous to some people. It's just richer because of this practice, nevermind being far more present and productive. And I think also for me, peak is such a word that I've used over and over when I'm fully present. It appears to me that I've got better access to my vocabulary, better access to insights and reading somebody. Do you, similar experience for you? I mean, for sure. And it can be life-saving in many ways. And actually, you know, you described the plus side and I think it's so great. It's like almost like, you mean I can just have more joy by being here more? Yeah, you can.

1:45:47But there's another part that I think is very important in the context of our action and our humanity. We're also more present to the suffering of other people. We're also more connected to other people. We also have more sense and respect for the humanity of others around us and for the environment. And I think that at this particular point kind of in our human history, consciousness, we need to be more aware of what is the heck is going on. We have very little time to like try to make things better for our planet, for example. And also with all the injustices happening and, you know, I was talking recently to somebody regarding this notion of burnout.

1:46:23And, you know, so many people are feeling so burnt out. Can mindfulness help with burnout?" And the answer is yes, mindfulness can help with burnout. But actually, in the context of a conference I was at with critical care nurses, now we know over COVID that has been a group that has been very, very crunched, right? And the question was, can mindfulness help me with burnout? And I said, yes. And they said, but then the system, the organization of the scheduling is the reason I feel burnt out. And I was like, yes, but there's no way you're going to demand change or even conceptualize how to create change if you don't have the capacity to see what's going on.

1:46:58So just use that as the next step to give back to those who may not have this capacity yet. It's like the more present we are, the more we can enact change and empower other people to do the same. You're so right. And I know you know you're right, but people have told me that the last 10 years or so, I'm just using practical experience for me. You're more patient than you used to be. that's sort of more like the a symptom almost that it's it is more what you have described which is that i um i try to be present with people and see them and hear them and experience them more than fix them like i used to and and uh try to truly empathize and and understand their experience and their reality and i i've always felt since i started this like i wish more of i don't care what political party you're part of.

1:47:48I wish more political people had that ability for empathy and understanding and just stopped and listened to people and didn't assess it all the time. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that I attribute some, if not most of that, to these practices. Because obviously I'm a performer, peak performer, expert person supposedly, but it's the other benefits of doing this that have enriched my life far more than the fact that I've made more money because I'm more present with people or these other things. I'm actually curious about this. What about memory? So is it that my memory can be improved because of this, because I was actually present in more moments.

1:48:31So I have better recall because I, my attention was where I was more often, or is it that there's something happening in my brain where I'm developing the ability to recall and remember things better? Pretty good question, huh? Yes. Yeah, right? Because you could say, well, yeah, your memory is better. Well, maybe that's just because I was more present. Or is there actually something operating in my brain where there's a new myelin forming in my brain? I don't know. Well, first of all, everything, this conversation is changing your brain. I mean, I don't just mean because it's some kind of massively transformative thing.

1:49:05Which it is. Every experience we have impacts the way our brain functions. So there's no divide between experience and brain changes. They're just happening concurrently, right? Okay. So, yes, it is the case. You're such a great intuition about neuroscience. It's awesome. Thank you. So, yes, it is the case that the more we can get, the more attentive we are, the more granular, fine-grained the inputs are for our memory. In fact, attention is the gateway for memory. If you don't pay attention, there's no way that you're going to have the experience of encoding episodes in your life, gaining new information.

1:49:43Now, there are aspects of our memory that are outside the scope of something you need attention for after it's well learned. So for example, if I tell you, tell me across the board of a keyboard what the letters are, I mean, I could tell you, but if you give me a keyboard, I can type it. So that's an example of something we call procedural memory, which is you actually don't need your attention for that. But for episodes and knowledge, you need attention to input the information. You also need your attention to pull it out. So remember we were talking about the flashlight and your dinner meal?

1:50:13You had to you have to have clarity of directing it to call up the right thing Mm-hmm. So it is both on both ends of that and and frankly There's another thing to think about which is that you call did you call it myelin? So yes, it ends up that long-term memory is a structural change within the brain It's actually becomes like fixed hard in terms of neural connections that occur That process is helped by having clarity of mind and actually just kind of to really tie the loose ends of this conversation together current models suggest maybe that's where all this mind wandering is actually happening.

1:50:48It may be a memory encoding process. The reason the brain pumps out thoughts isn't because it's just trying to mess with us, it's because that's the way episodic memory encoding happens. It's a replay button that just happens by default and as it keeps replaying, things kind of harden into long-term memory. Oh, this is so good. All right. First of all, I want everybody to get Peak Mind. I want them to get your book. The reason that I want them to get the book is because I think the application of what you're teaching is different for many different people. And I love things that have broad application.

1:51:20So I think if you're an athlete, you want to read this book. I think if you're someone who wants to find a little bit more bliss in your life and be more present, I think this is a book that you should have. And I think just having an overall understanding of one's self is why I think this work is so fascinating. And it's why my audience knows I love every interview that I do. I don't talk to people that I don't want to share with the world, but there are certain topics that just fascinate me because I like to understand why some of the things I teach work. I understand some of it, and you're helping me so much with that.

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