John Assaraf (30:53)
So where do thoughts come from? Were you born with a basket, you know, or a reservoir of thoughts from before another life, Were you born? No. So would you agree that our thoughts are like effervescent bubbles that are percolating from our subconscious mind? Yeah, we probably get that visual. What if I shared with you a little technique with red bubbles and blue bubbles? Red bubbles are disempowering, negative, automatic, destructive. So it can be disempowering, could be negative or destructive thoughts. And we all have them, right? Because we've seen stuff on tv, we've read stuff, we've experienced stuff, we've witnessed stuff. So those thoughts are in our memory bank. But we also have positive stuff. Now, first thing, we have about 6,200 thoughts a day. New research. Not 50,000, not 75,000, about 6,200 during our waking hours. Now, our brain remembers a negative disempowering experience that we've read about, seen, watched, whatever, 10 times faster than it does a positive one 10 times fast. So the memory is created faster around something negative and traumatic. For example, traumatic is actually a thousand times faster. So it's in the memory bank. And just like earlier, I shared that behaviors have A trigger. So do thoughts. So let's say we want to achieve something when we say, I want to achieve this, I want to make more money, I want to be in a better relationship, I want to start a business, I want to write a book, I want to travel the world, I want to leave my job and get a new one. We get excited because we activate the reward center, the feel good possibility network. Oh my God, that would be so great. But then right beneath that, the Frankenstein's monster goes, hey, hey, hey, let me share with you what's in this little bubble machine, okay? That could be the negative thoughts around this. And it starts to percolate all these negative thoughts up. So imagine that thoughts are just effervescent bubbles, positive or negative, empowering, disempowering, constructive or destructive. But they're just thoughts. What if you could just be aware of the red negative disempowering thoughts and just observe them and go, keep going. And what if you can just say, I'm choosing now. I'm going to be in a state of mindful awareness. I'm going to choose what I want to focus on. Now, you and I have thoughts, but we're not our thoughts. But the thoughts that we grab onto and emotionalize and follow through on become dominant thoughts. Most people's thoughts are 70, 80, in some cases 90% or more negative, disempowering, destructive because of their childhood and their experiences. Now, if you've been in the self help world where you read positive stuff, you're around positive people, you've seen, seen people overcome health issues, financial issues, business issues, relationship issues, whatever it is, you see that, then those possibility thoughts are there too. But negative and positive are always there. Our strength comes from what is it that I'm choosing to latch onto and increase the amplitude of the vibration with my focus and attention. So awareness is what gives us choice and the choice is what expands through our decisions. So you're never going to be able to control 6200 thoughts. Your brain is naturally wired to find the negative for survival, safety, avoidance of pain or discomfort. So it is a part of your brain you want to start loving. Now, Barbara Fredrickson did some research many, many years ago, and it's now known as the three to one positivity to negativity ratio. For every negative thought that you find yourself, like latching onto, stop. Replace it with three positive thoughts. Now you start to tilt the ratio, you know, in your favor so you have way fewer, what we call our automatic negative thoughts. You replace them with automatic positive thoughts, automatic negative emotion. An apps is what we call the first one. A n is what we call automatic negative emotions. Emotions are triggered in the subconscious mind to give rise to feelings. So if I have a automatic negative emotion or feeling, what does a Hollywood actor or actress do when they say to them, okay, scene two, take one, I want you to be angry in this role. And the actor actually goes, what do you mean I can't go over there today? I want to go over there today. And they say, okay, act two seem to be super happy about it. I said, wow, I get to go there today. I'm so freaking happy. What about Act 2, 2, Scene 3? Be really, really sad. I can't believe I've got to go there today. You can flip emotions on demand. It's just turning on a state in your brain. Now what happens with a lot of people is when they get into, let's say, a negative emotional pattern or a negative thought pattern, they hold onto it and it hijacks them. And then they reinforce it and they think about what they don't want and they feel what they don't want, and they think about what they feel and they feel what they think about and they reinforce the pattern. And now it becomes a habitual pattern. Instead of saying, okay, I had a shitty childhood. I was traumatized. I was this, I was that. She did this to me. He did this to me. I lost this. I failed here. Great. Okay, welcome to life. Now, how do I flip the switch? How do I flip the switch? Now the control goes back to you. And if we give the control to our thoughts, we're victims of it. If we give our control to our emotions, we're victims of the emotions. If we give our control to the past, victims of the past, and all we have is the present moment. And so now we can say, let me use my brain. Since I'm not my brain, let me use my brain. I always have one on my desk to remind me. It's like $100 billion organ that I own. I don't owe any money on this. It's mortgage free now. I just want to learn how to use it better. And we've built, you know, quantum computers for hundreds of billions of dollars that don't do what yours in my brain naturally does. And contrary to most people's beliefs that don't know this, functionally, every brain works the same functionally. Every gas car works the same functionally. Every electrical car works the same functionally. Every bike or trike works the same. So functionally they work the same. Is it possible for me to be a better driver? Now we enter my domain, you know, of. Well, how can I use my brain better? Great first question. Great first question. So, first thought. You weren't born with any beliefs, you weren't born with any fears, you weren't born with any self image, and you weren't born with any skills, and you certainly weren't born with any habits. All of those things are nothing more than patterns that got reinforced in the brain. Some are constructive and lift you up and build you up. Some are destructive and tear you down. Some are positive, some are negative, some empower you, some disempower you. All are just patterns and no differently than you can renovate your home, you can rewire your mind, you can have an upgraded software, shall we say, like you upgrade your cell phone software or your computer software, or you renovate your home or your bathroom. Why not renovate some of the neural patterns using the latest in what is known as neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to create new connections and then reinforce them. So let's say you're out of shape and you're overweight by 20, 30, 40 pounds. And today, today you say, okay, I'm going to start to see myself making healthier decisions. I'm going to see myself, you know, taking one minute a day to just stretch. Just to start, I'm just going to stretch. I'm going to take one of my meals and I'm going to eat one meal healthier. That's all. And you did that for 30 days. Do you think that you might start to develop some slightly more empowering thought patterns? Yeah, patterns and habits. Yeah. So what we want to understand is when we shift just a little bit, we activate brain cells. Those brain cells that fire together start to wire together. And so now we can add more time, more intensity, more complexity, while we develop a new habit of thinking positively, while we develop a new habit of seeing ourselves achieve our goal. Now we can accelerate what we do because we now have a new habit of doing, let's say, something empowering. And at first we want to reduce it to the ridiculously small, make it effort, hyphen less, make it stress less, make it thinking less. Right. And when we do that, we start to create a new pattern. I often say that first we build the simple habit, then the habit will build us. So how do we develop a habit? You want to start flossing your teeth. Floss one tooth today, floss one tooth tomorrow, just one tooth, Boom. Put it down less than three seconds every day. Take out your flossing string. Just leave it by your toothbrush before or after you brush your teeth, preferably before. Floss one tooth. Just commit to doing it for 30 days. It takes about 66 days to develop a new empowering pattern. And so for 66 days at least, all my clients I tell them give me 100 days. Give me 100 days. Floss one tooth. I guarantee you by the end of 100 days you'll be flossing your whole mouth and you'll be doing it morning and night. But don't focus on that. Focus on one tooth. So reduce it to the ridiculously small so you do not have any neural tension to say no.