
Loading summary
Heather Monahan
As a small business owner, you don't have the luxury of clocking out early. Your business is on your mind 24 7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that grinds just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network and get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. It's an unbelievable, seamless experience that allows you to find the best talent talent in the workforce.
John Asaraf
You can post your job.
Heather Monahan
LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Either post your job for free or pay to promote it. Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. Get qualified candidates. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates. And with LinkedIn you can feel confident that you're getting the best. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of SMBs using LinkedIn say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality candidates, myself included. Share with your network. You can let your network know you're hiring. You can even add a hashtag hiring frame to your profile Picture and get two times more qualified candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com confidence creator that's LinkedIn.com confidence creator to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.
John Asaraf
There isn't a person alive that's afraid of public speaking. Nobody's afraid of public speaking. They're afraid of what might happen if they speak in public. And they're embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, rejected. Except that's what they're actually moving away from. Well, what if I shared with you that in that nanosecond the chemicals that are released will only last in your body for 90 seconds if you just stay present and focused on releasing the energy in motion.
Come on this journey with me each.
Heather Monahan
Week when you join me. We are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow.
John Asaraf
I'm ready for my close up.
Heather Monahan
Tell me, have you been enjoying these.
John Asaraf
New bonus Confidence Classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week?
Heather Monahan
We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed. I hope you love this one as much As I do, you meet a different guest each week.
John Asaraf
I'm so excited for you to see our guest this week because you've met him before. It's been a couple of years and I very rarely have someone on twice. But I'm so excited for you to.
Heather Monahan
Re meet John Asro.
John Asaraf
He's a world renowned mindset and small business growth expert who has appeared on numerous shows like Larry King Live, Anderson COOPER, the Ellen DeGeneres Show. He's built five multimillion dollar companies, written two New York Times bestselling books and appeared in 12 movies including the blockbuster the Secret and Quest for Success with Richard Branson. He is passionate in helping people tap into their brain superpowers so they shatter their limitations and achieve their life's biggest goals and dreams. John founded myneurogym.com, which is revolutionizing mindset, coaching and mental fitness. His cutting edge inner size app, which I can't wait to get into, helps people rewire their brain for unstoppable success. John's an avid meditator, father, husband who loves to exercise and travel the world. John, thanks so much for being here with us today.
Heather, it's great to be back and you look fabulous.
You look fabulous. And I was just saying that to you offline. I was saying, dude, give me your secrets. Tell everybody what you told me.
Well, I've been a vegan for 10 years. I've stopped drinking alcohol 15 years ago. I used to be a sugar addict and now I am no longer a sugar addict. So a little bit of clean, healthy living in California and exercising and meditating every day keeps me feeling great at 62. So I'm just looking forward to another 10 or 20 years of, you know, just feeling looking great.
What I love about you, John, and I've been to your home, I've met your wife. Like, you really are living and breathing the story that you're putting out there online. Which I know for me that is not always the case for everybody. But like I've seen it firsthand with you and even just you describing that right now like you're disciplined, you do the right thing, you do the research. However, when we go back to your younger career, your earlier life when your kids were little and you're building these businesses, you didn't have this all figured out back then, did you?
No, listen, my parents were like, you know, other parents, not a great diet, a lot of stress, not enough money, disempowering relationship. So I didn't have really good models to follow. But I always wanted more. I don't know what it was within me, but I wanted more of the good life. Maybe it was, you know, watching television like kids. You know, today in adults, we. We look on the Internet and we see things that we want.
And.
And so I just wanted more. And I got fascinated literally 43 years ago with neuroscience and neuropsychology. I didn't do well in school, but I was really interested in biology and chemistry. And so I just got fascinated with this thing called the brain. And our conscious and subconscious mind has been a study of mine now, literally 43 years. And I discovered that we can all achieve more, but it's harder than we think, because we don't have the right process, not because we can't. And very few people were taught the right process to shift, you know, their mindset and to be able to, let's say, let go of disempowering, whether it's thoughts or emotions or habits which are so hard to break in the absence of the right process. So I became really good at first, using myself as a guinea pig to achieve a little bit of success in each area of my life. But then I started writing about it and teaching people through my books or my coaching, and they started to duplicate the results as well. So I knew that it wasn't about me, but it was really about a process that anybody could follow. So I've just been using it in my own life for many, many years because I want to live an extraordinary life. I don't want to live an ordinary life. And I'm willing to be disciplined enough, which is a little bit interesting, because everybody's already disciplined to what they are disciplined to. So discipline is really a habit. The question is, what are your habits that are easy for you to do? And so I just learned the process to be able to make change a little bit easier. Not easy, but a little bit easier.
And so for everyone listening, everyone's like, yeah, of course we have some habits that we know are holding us back, but it isn't easy. And the things that I've done haven't allowed me to break them. What are some of the strategies that you share that help others make some habit changes?
Yeah. So I think first ask yourself this question. Were you born with those habits? And anybody who thinks they go, no. So what is a habit? Like, what is a habit? And the answer, from a science perspective, a brain science perspective, it's an automatic process that has a trigger, a behavior, and a reward. It's an automatic price. So something Triggers you to, let's say, wake up and go to the coffee machine, or, you know, wake up and get dressed first, then go to the coffee machine. So we all have these triggers. It could be a sound, it could be a scent, it could be a color, it could be a person, it could be a place, could be a song, it could be anything, could be waking up. And then we behave, and then we get the reward of that behavior. And what most people don't understand is they mostly try to change the behavior. And changing the behavior, as much as it sounds really, really great, most of the time it doesn't work long term. And so the question is, if the behavior isn't what I want to change, then what is it that I should be changing? And the answer is the first step is in the awareness of what is triggering that behavior. Because 95% of everything we think and feel and do, 95% is automatic, habitual. And so if I could become aware of the trigger, you know, I wake up, I go have a coffee, or I wake up and I get on my phone right away, what if we can say in between the trigger and the behavior, I can insert something a little bit different. So I'll give you an example. Somebody wants to drink more water. What if we said, okay, so when are you most likely to drink? You know, when I wake up, I go have coffee, take a glass of water, and stick it right by where you make coffee. So trigger, wake up, automatic behavior, go get coffee, but place something that you want to do right at the point of the behavior. So now you're going to get a double reward. So the double reward is water plus coffee activates the reward system in the brain. You drink the coffee, you feel good, you get more focused, you have a little bit more energy. Boom, boom, boom, we got the reward. So now if I place this thing before the behavior, I can actually move the second part of it if I want to and still get the reward and replace water for coffee. That's just a simple neuro associative conditioning mechanism that we could use to add a new behavior that's more empowering. Let's say we want to start to exercise and we don't have the habit of exercising. Get your clothes out for exercise and let's say your running shoes, place them where you normally get dressed and put those on first and do one minute or even 30 seconds of a new behavior right next to an old behavior that already has the habitual pattern. And all of a sudden you start to develop this habit of let's say putting on your shoes, getting dressed, and maybe doing 15, 20, 30 seconds of stretching. It doesn't matter how small the behavior is. Once we add a new behavior in front of an old behavior, we can replace the old behavior with the new one. So that's, you know, if we want to add some. What if you want to stop, you know, let's say drinking alcohol, you want to stop eating sugar? You want to stop a behavior or a habit? Well, the way I stopped sugar, for example, is I knew I had a sweet tooth and I knew that my brain was craving it, I knew I had a habit for it. And so I said, okay, what can I replace my sweet tooth with? What can I replace it with? So I said, well, you know, I could get some protein and I could put some fiber with it, which would obviously, you know, expand. And so if my protein had stevia in it, which doesn't spike the insulin in my brain and in my liver, I could replace real, you know, maybe sugary cakes, cookies, ice creams, or yogurts, frozen yogurts, or vegan frozen yogurts that I like with something healthier. And so now I'm using a replacement strategy. And then all of a sudden I'm not having sweets anymore. I've replaced it with a better habit, and then I can wean myself off of that as well. So when we're using willpower, it's one of the weakest neuromuscles that we can use, especially after 3 or 4 o'clock every day.
Heather Monahan
Why that?
John Asaraf
Well, when we wake up, we're born with a certain number of attention units. And so we wake up, we get ready, we get dressed, we go to work, we do our work, you know, in front of our computers, we talk to people, we take care of our kids, our husband, our wife or whatever. And by time two or three o'clock goes on, our glucose levels are really, really low. Willpower is tied to glucose in many cases, and our ability to concentrate and focus, okay, is way, way lower. After three or four or five o'clock in the morning when we wake up, we have higher cortisol levels. So cortisol is like a little bit of rocket fuel. And so when we have cortisol, adrenaline, we can go. But then as that cortisol goes down and our focus, you know, gets diminished, it's harder to make the decisions that require willpower, the power to override a natural habit or propensity. So there's a lot of these neuromechanics going on that if we don't understand how it works. Like I'll give you an example. My team knows do not book me, let's say on a call with Heather at 5:00 in the afternoon, I won't be as animated, I won't be as sharp, I won't be as congruent because you know, I wake up at 6:30 and by 9:30, 10, 11:00, I'm like going, I'm like picking up the speed. So I do all my hardest stuff, the ones that requires my energy, focus and attention early in the day. That's why I exercise early. It's easier for me because I'm an early morning person to say yes to exercise early in the morning. If you leave me till 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I never exercise. If you say to me, you know, meditate in the afternoon, easy, because I'm already like, okay, I'm more chill. So when we understand a little bit about how our brains, circuits reward circuit willpower, circuit fear, circuit stress, circuit anxiety, circuit focus, circuit, circuit turns on or off, then we can start to manage our mindset a little bit better, manage our emotions, which is really the energy in motion, is it a high energy emotional arc or a low energy emotional arc? And then that's what drives behavior. And so if I'm in a high emotional, energetic arc, I actually want to move towards what it is that, that I want to achieve. But if I'm in a low emotional arc, I want to move away from it because it requires energy and my brain doesn't want to expend energy. So those are some of the neuromechanics of what we're, we're dealing with. And I don't want this to be a neuroscience course, but we all have way more control, you know, of what's going on between our ears and that's really what drives, you know, what we do or don't do.
Heather Monahan
Meet a different guest each week. Bull market, bear market rates will rise, rates will fall. Inflation's up, inflation's down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 41,000 businesses have future proof their business with NetSuite by Oracle. The number one Cloud ERP. Bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actual data. When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. If I had needed this product, this is exactly what I would be using. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com monahan. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com monaho netsuite.com monahan ready to optimize your nutrition this year? Factor has chef made gourmet meals that make eating well easy. They're dietitian approved and ready to heat and eat in two minutes so you can fuel right and feel feel great no matter what life throws at you. Factor arrives fresh and fully prepared, perfect for any active, busy lifestyle. Lose up to eight pounds in eight weeks with Factor Keto Meals Based on a randomized controlled clinical trial with Factor Keto. Results will vary depending on diet and exercise. With 40 options across eight dietary preferences on the menu each week, it's easy to pick meals tailored to your goals. Choose from preferences like Calorie Smart, Protein plus or Keto. Factor can help you feel your best all day long with wholesome smoothies, breakfast grab and go snacks and more add ons. Reach your goals this year with ingredients you can trust and convenience that can't be beat. Eat smart with Factor get started at Factor Meals.com confidence50off and use code confidence50off to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. Fact that's code confidence50off@ Factor Meals.com confidence50OFF to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. I asked you to try to find your passion.
John Asaraf
I love that you shared the importance or how our brain works around different times of the day because when you were talking about working out, if I don't get my workout in in the morning and I love working out, it is not happening. I've had situations where work called for me to, you know, there wasn't a window to work out and I will say to myself repeatedly, you're going to work out tonight. You're going and for whatever reason, well, now you're explaining why I don't pull the trigger. I and I know that about myself. Same when you're talking about time of day and different things that may come up that need our thinking or problem solving. If my son asks me to find some random thing that he needs to find in the house and it's at 7:30 at night when he gets home from practice. I never can pull the trigger and figure it out and find it. I'm like, ask me again tomorrow morning at 6:30am when we wake up. I can find it in three minutes. And he always says, I'm just not asking you to solve big problems anymore, mom, at night. Because it truly just doesn't seem possible. And it's helpful to understand. Okay, just take a hard pass on that in the future and let's jump into these hard things when the morning is definitely the time for me. I'm with you.
For you. Now there's other people who are going to listen or watch this and go, oh my God. Mornings I'm a basket case. I can't even feed myself in the morning. Finding the coffee pot is hard. I used to be married to a wonderful woman who used to believe that if God wanted her to see the sun, he would have it rise at noon. She would stay up till 2 o'clock in the morning and she would get more done from 9:00pm to 2:00 than she did before noon every day because she didn't want to get out of bed till 10, 11, 12 o'clock. And her natural cycle for her was that. And we had a, I mean polar opposite schedules, you know, naturally. And we had to see if it would work. And it created some challenges in our former relationship. And my wife, now who I've been married to and together with for 20 plus years, is an early riser like I am. She goes from like 6:30 till 8:30. I go from about 6 till 10. And we have, you know, the same types of schedules. So it really is important to know your own rhythm and not try to change it if it's hard. Right? Like not everybody needs to wake up or can wake up at 5:30, but some people have to and it caused them to be exhausted for the first part of the day. Like most kids shouldn't go to school early in the morning. They should have kids start school at 10 o'clock in the morning.
I'm all for that. Every day my son's saying, why do they do this to his mom? I just need a couple more hours of sleep. He's living for the weekends just to sleep, sleep in. It makes no sense. Yeah, well, tell me you talked a little bit about interrupting habits. One thing that I'm curious about, and I know my listeners are what about when a habit occurs that maybe like I'm taking a stage and I'm getting nervous and now that that happened one time that it starts happening again and it never used to happen before, or for anyone listening, that they're suffering from some anxiety that's new, that's popping up and they don't understand. How can you interrupt something like that?
If anybody's watching us, you're going to see behind me, and if you're listening, only then behind me are two photos up on my wall. Over my right shoulder, there's Albert Einstein, and over my left shoulder, there's Frankenstein's monster. And I want you to imagine that you have a Frankenstein's monster in your mind or in your brain. And you have an Albert Einstein that has phenomenal imagination and incredible smarts. Well, what happens with the Einstein part of the brain is it can choose what we want. It can imagine a better future, can imagine, you know, people giving you a high five after you get on stage, you know, or doing anything that might seem a little bit risky, like meeting somebody new at a cocktail party and talking to them. It doesn't matter. But Frankenstein's monster is another part of the brain that is actually one of the most amazing parts of your brain that you need to learn how to love. And it's your early warning detection mechanism. Now, what is that? Well, imagine you're driving your car, and all of a sudden you hear something beeping on your dash. You look around, you realize, oh, to the left of me, there's a car that's really close, or to the right or behind me there's a car that's really close. And the radar picks this up and gives you a signal that there's danger. Be aware. Do you love that or do you love that? Well, of course you love that because it's giving you the ability to use a radar, right, to give you an awareness of your surrounding. Or what if low on gas and you're on the highway and you're talking to the kids and all of a sudden a light goes up on your dash saying, stop and go get some gas. You like that, right? Because it's an early warning detection mechanism. Well, this one part of our brain, it's called the right prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala is wired. I mean, it is wired from hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to give you an early warning whenever there's any real or potential immediate danger or danger coming up that can cause you to get hurt, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually. Any real or imagined scenario where this is so important right here, you might be embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, rejected, unloved or disappointed. So when you're getting ready to go up on stage, and let's say you've done this a few times. You feel confident, right? You know, you know what you're saying. But there's another part of your brain that says, well, what if they don't receive my message the way I want to? What if I forget something? What if? And we usually will place a what if negative in the subconscious that gives the electrical signal to release the neurochemicals of stress, which is cortisol or epinephrine or adrenaline. So all of a sudden, our heart starts to beat, we start to narrow our focus, and our brains think about all the what if negative stuff. And then what happens is we focus on that negative possibility that might happen in the future, but we're feeling the neurochemistry of it right now. So I've often said there isn't a person alive that's afraid of public speaking. Nobody's afraid of public speaking. They're afraid of what might happen if they speak in public. And they're embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, rejected. Except that's what they're actually moving away from. Well, what if I shared with you that in that nanosecond, the chemicals that are released will only last in your body for 90 seconds if you just stay present and mind focused on releasing, okay, the energy. The energy in motion. Think about it. Chemicals are released in your blood. It changes the vibrational field of your body. That's why you say, I feel stressed, I feel anxious, I feel worried. I feel. Right. The feeling is our awareness of what's happening in our body. Well, what we know from a science perspective is that means that the sympathetic is the automatic reactive stress system. The polar opposite of that is the calm to respond system. So how do Navy seals get trained to stay calm under pressure? Or firefighters or astronauts or athletes at the Olympics? How do they learn that in these stressful situations where those neurochemicals are rushing wild, how do they use that neurochemistry as their fuel to succeed? Well, most people are not aware that if they take, and I call this take six, calm the circuit. And if I take slow, very, very slow, deep breath in through my nose, fill up my diaphragm, fill up my lungs, and then if I take my focus on my lips and as I'm breathing out, I pretend there's a straw in my mouth and I breathe it out as slowly as I can. If I do that five or six times, takes 60 to 90 seconds at most, we can actually, in an FMRI machine, see the blood flowing Away from the part of our brain that Frankenstein's monster that's got activated because it's worried that you might get emotionally or mentally or physically or financially hurt. It calms down, the circuit switches, and all of a sudden the Einstein brain comes back online to say, hey, hold on, you've practiced this. You know your stuff. The audience is great. They want you to succeed. I can do this. Let's go. And you've just shifted your entire nervous system, your self talk, and your focus towards what you want versus what might happen, that your brain automatically is trying to protect you from it happening. So these are very, very, very sensitive circuits that get triggered like a light switch on or off. You're walking down the street, you're about to go off the sidewalk, and all of a sudden you hear the tires of a car maybe 30ft away. And if you jump back on the street, that's automatic because sound travels okay at the speed of sound. And your subconscious is processing this. And then it's activating neural circuits around cars coming really fast. Don't get off of the sidewalk, Jump back on the sidewalk before you even had a chance to think about it. These are all subconscious processes that happen beneath our level of moment by moment awareness. However, when we have a feeling of stress, we can be aware of that. We just have to listen to, you know, what we're saying. We have to pay attention to our behavior. We go, oh, hold on. Something's triggered the stress center of my brain. First let me calm it down and let me turn on the circuit that allow me to respond in a calm way. So the stress circuit's automatic, but the calm circuit is deliberate.
Wow. It's so simple, yet so powerful. And I'm finding myself while I'm just sitting here listening to you, I'm doing the breathing that you're talking about because it just makes you feel so much better and it's so calm. What about when you were talking about this? This is just. Personally, I want to know this. While you were talking, I was thinking about my subconscious, because you mentioned that so many times and how powerful it is. And I was thinking recently about something, an opportunity that I've been going through a meeting with a different company, and we've had a series of meetings every time before. John. Super negative, like crazy negative thought will pop in my mind. Makes no sense. I know it's my subconscious. It's not helpful at all. Like, it derails me. How can you, like, ultimately get rid of thoughts like that from. Even I know that it doesn't make sense.
Heather Monahan
I'm like, this is crazy talk, right?
John Asaraf
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, 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 faster. 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 is, 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 discipline, 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 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 automatic negative thoughts, you replace them with automatic positive thoughts. Automatic negative emotion and apps is what we call the first one. And these 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 to 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, scene to be super happy. I said, wow, I get to go there today. I'm so freaking happy. What about act two, scene three? 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, then 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, of the emotions. If we give our control to the past, we're 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, right? I always have one on my desk to remind me. It's like a hundred billion dollar 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, I all my clients, I tell them, give me 100 days. Give me 100 days. Floss1 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.
Heather Monahan
Meet a different guest each week. You sign up for something, forget about it after the trial period ends, then you're charged month after month after month. The subscriptions are there, but you're not using them. In fact, I just learned that 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused each month. Thanks to Rocket Money, I can see all my subscriptions in one place and cancel the ones I'm not using anymore. And now I'm saving more. Who doesn't want to save more money? Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps Find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. See all your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money's going. For once you don't want any more, Rocket Money can help you cancel them. Rocket Money's dashboard gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com confidence today. That's RocketMoney.com confidence RocketMoney.com confidence when you think about businesses growing their sales beyond forecasts like Mr. Beast or even a legacy business like Mattel or My Business, sure you think about a product with demand, a focused brand and influence driven marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the business behind the business making the selling and for shoppers, buying. Simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet and the not so secret with Shop Pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts go abandoned and way more sales get made. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout. Listen, I'm telling you, this is what I use. It's game changing. It's so simple to use Shopify and create an online business in minutes. It literally takes no time. They've made it so easy for you. Whether you're Mattel or your Heather Monahan or you, you can have an online business with Shopify. Now sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/monahan all lowercase go to shopify.com monahan to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com M O N A H A N this Valentine's Day, don't settle for a boring grocery store card. Say hello to America's most personalized Valentine's Day card brought to you by Moonpig. Moonpig lets you celebrate your unique love story and a way that's as special as your Valentine. Add your favorite photos, ones where you both look good, of course. Cute stickers, handwritten messages, or even a video to relive your best memories together. And here's the best part. Your first card is free. Yes, free. Just head over to get yourself a Moon Pig card at www.moonpig.com US Confidence and Use code confidence at checkout. So what are you waiting for? Make your valentine feel extra special because everyone deserves a moon pig card this Valentine's Day. And today yours is free. I asked you to try to find your passion.
John Asaraf
John, two years ago when we were talking about your book Inner Size, I thought, unbelievable. You're changing people's lives. You're empowering people with these incredible tools that our next level that I had never heard of, I wasn't aware of, now, today, over the last two years, what you've built and what you've created is mind blowing and it's already impacted hundreds of thousands of people. Can you get into a little bit about this next gen inner sizing that you've created?
Yeah. So, I mean, since we understand more about how the brain works today, we know that if I speak, you know, positively more often than I speak positively more often, if I feel a sense of gratitude, I feel more gratitude. If I take inspired action, I take inspired action more and more and more. And so I started to develop, you know, these inner sizes that my clients paid me as much as $25,000 to create one inner size sequence for them if they're a professional athlete or a CEO. We focused on using a variety of science based techniques to activate and reinforce positive thought patterns and empowered self image, self worth, self esteem, an empowered habitual pattern to achieve goals and to take action. And I just built an entire series for health, wealth, relationships, careers, sales, entrepreneurship, leadership relationship so that people can get the right mindset with the right emotional control and the right habitual creation. And I just developed my inner size model that I've had literally hundreds of thousands of people inner sizing daily, just like people exercise to strengthen their muscles. Well, I've coined this term called neuromuscles. And so, for example, are your beliefs, you know, strong or weak? Well, why not call them like a muscle? Your muscle, your belief muscle is strong or weak. And since we have, you know, belief muscles, you know, around what we can achieve and what we can't, or whether we're worthy or not, why not just upgrade that? Are your habits strong or weak? Empowering or disempowering? Constructive or destructive? Yeah. Is your self image, self worth, self esteem? Can that be considered a neuromuscle that was developed for your whole life? Yeah. Well, can we develop a new, more empowering neuromuscle or take an existing one and make it stronger? Well, of course we can. The question is, well, how do I do it well, we can do it through self talk, through learning how to talk to ourself in a more empowering way. We can do it through our awareness of our emotional state. We can do it through observing our behavior, which leads to the results that we have. And so I just developed this entire series of inner sizes. There's about 500 that I've developed already, just in the last two years. And it is transforming people's lives from the inside out. So we know that the subconscious mind is the power center of the brain, but most people don't know how to access it. And then, you know, how do I let go of the old stuff and how do I create and reinforce the new stuff? And even though I used to talk to people about mental contrasting in first or third person visualizations or self talk and planting the right seeds through their self talk into their mind, very few people wanted to do the work, to create it for themselves, to actually do it. So I just did it for them. That's what inner size is all about. And the inner size app that we.
Created, the app is incredible. I'm going to link everything in the show notes below for everybody to gain access. But it's unbelievable what it literally is next gen of this incredible book that in all of the science that you've.
Heather Monahan
Worked so hard to create, you've got.
John Asaraf
All these proven results, you've helped hundreds of thousands of people. But now to see these success stories and to see this catalog of more than 500 different inner sizes that you have, like you said, on these very specific topics, sales, relationships, self love mindset around money, abundance, and to see the stories and I participated in some of your live events that you've had to hear these people firsthand. And I've gone through the inner size myself. It is such impactful work. I encourage everybody. I know that you've got another live event coming up, the rewire your brain for unstoppable success event. Can you tell us when that is?
Sure. We're doing it October 14th on a Saturday. And what I decided to do is instead of talking about it with everybody like we are today, we're actually going to do an experiential event for, I know, two or three hours on October 14th. And we are actually going to, of course I will teach people, I will show people what's happening in their brain, but we're going to actually experience a bunch of inner sizes to actually help people rewire their brain right there so they get some immediate results. And for those who want to continue with Inner sizes. They can make a decision to do.
That, then that is incredible. And that's going to distill anyone who's wondering, well, what is this inner sizing? You're going to be able to see it live. I'll be there. October 14th. This is definitely something you don't want to miss. There is nothing bad that will come out of this. All you will do is be rewiring your subconscious to benefit you. And hundreds of thousands of people have had this success in the app. It's incredible. John, where can everybody find more information about the event and how can they sign up?
Well, two things. Number one, the event is free. So I'll be doing it. I'll have a bunch of guests with me and I'll give you the link to put in the show notes for everybody and they can sign up. And when you attend, we will actually not just be talking about it, but we will be taking the inner sizes and doing them live together so you can experience it and feel it right in the comfort of your own home, whether it's on your mobile phone or on your computer, on your tablet. And we're gonna have some fun. We'll have a chat room open so we can talk and discuss. How do you experience health from the inside out? How do you experience unshakable self confidence and an unstoppable mindset from the inside out? How do you really like, not just talk about it, but how do you really feel that you are unstoppable? How do you really shatter a limitation that you have about whether how much you can earn or what kind of relationship or business you can have? Well, those are all limitations, which are nothing more than neural patterns in the brain. You weren't born with these limitations. You weren't born with these obstacles. How do you feel fear, which is natural, and how do you use the neurochemistry of fear to actually fuel you taking action? Instead of freezing, sabotaging, procrastinating, you know, and playing small. We'll be discussing it and actually doing it on October 14th. We'll start at 9:00 Pacific, 12:00 New York, and I think that's 5:00 in London, free. And it'll be fun and you will have a breakthrough on that day.
Do not miss this event. Free event. He's taken out all the barriers to entry. John, thank you so much for doing this, everyone. I will see you there. October 14th. The link is in the show notes below. John, please keep taking all of your information, all of this work you're doing to make the world a better place and just keep going. We so appreciate you.
Thank you so much. It's so great to be with you again.
All right, guys, I will see you there. October 14th. Check it out in the show notes below.
Heather Monahan
I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to feel. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone.
John Asaraf
You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.
Come on this journey with me.
Podcast Title: Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Episode: Confidence Classic: Rewire Your Brain to Unlock The Science Of Success
Guest: John Assaraf, CEO of NeuroGym
Release Date: February 26, 2025
In this enlightening episode of Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan, Heather welcomes back a familiar and esteemed guest, John Assaraf, CEO of NeuroGym. The discussion delves deep into the neuroscience behind confidence and success, offering listeners actionable strategies to rewire their brains and achieve their aspirations.
Heather Monahan begins by reintroducing John Assaraf, highlighting his impressive credentials:
"He's a world-renowned mindset and small business growth expert who has appeared on numerous shows like Larry King Live, Anderson COOPER, the Ellen DeGeneres Show. He's built five multimillion-dollar companies, written two New York Times bestselling books, and appeared in 12 movies including the blockbuster The Secret and Quest for Success with Richard Branson."
(03:54)
John shares a bit about his personal journey and discipline:
"I've been a vegan for 10 years. I've stopped drinking alcohol 15 years ago. I used to be a sugar addict and now I am no longer a sugar addict. A little bit of clean, healthy living in California and exercising and meditating every day keeps me feeling great at 62."
(04:00)
A significant portion of the episode focuses on the science of habits and how they can be reshaped to foster success.
John Assaraf explains the structure of habits:
"A habit is an automatic process that has a trigger, a behavior, and a reward."
(07:26)
He emphasizes the importance of identifying triggers to effectively change behaviors:
"If I could become aware of the trigger, you know, I wake up, I go have a coffee, or I wake up and I get on my phone right away, what if we can say in between the trigger and the behavior, I can insert something a little bit different."
(07:50)
John introduces the concept of neuro-associative conditioning, suggesting the replacement of old habits with empowering ones by leveraging existing triggers.
The conversation transitions to the topic of willpower and its fluctuations throughout the day.
John Assaraf elucidates:
"Willpower is tied to glucose in many cases, and our ability to concentrate and focus, okay, is way, way lower. After three or four or five o'clock in the morning when we wake up, we have higher cortisol levels."
(12:18)
He advises listeners to schedule demanding tasks during peak energy times to maximize productivity:
"That's why I exercise early. It's easier for me because I'm an early morning person to say yes to exercise early in the morning."
(12:35)
A pivotal segment addresses the common fear of public speaking and techniques to mitigate it.
John Assaraf breaks down the fear mechanism:
"There isn't a person alive that's afraid of public speaking. Nobody's afraid of public speaking. They're afraid of what might happen if they speak in public."
(01:35)
He offers a practical technique to manage stress and anxiety:
"Take six, calm the circuit. Take slow, very, very slow, deep breaths in through your nose, fill up your diaphragm... breathe out as slowly as you can."
(20:39)
John emphasizes that these neurochemical responses are temporary and can be controlled with deliberate practice.
The dialogue further explores the balance between positive and negative thoughts.
John Assaraf introduces Barbara Fredrickson’s research on positivity:
"For every negative thought that you find yourself like latching onto, stop, replace it with three positive thoughts."
(28:55)
He underscores the importance of mindfulness and choosing which thoughts to focus on to reshape one's mental landscape.
Towards the end, John Assaraf discusses his latest venture, Inner Size, and its impact:
"I've just built an entire series for health, wealth, relationships, careers, sales, entrepreneurship, leadership... transforming people's lives from the inside out."
(43:07)
He invites listeners to experience an upcoming live event:
"We are going to do an experiential event... October 14th. You will have a breakthrough on that day."
(47:33)
The episode wraps up with Heather expressing her excitement for John’s initiatives and reinforcing the transformative potential of applying neuroscience principles to everyday challenges.
"No one succeeds alone."
(50:27)
John Assaraf adds a final encouragement:
"Come on this journey with me."
(50:53)
John Assaraf:
"There isn't a person alive that's afraid of public speaking. Nobody's afraid of public speaking. They're afraid of what might happen if they speak in public."
(01:35)
John Assaraf:
"A habit is an automatic process that has a trigger, a behavior, and a reward."
(07:26)
John Assaraf:
"For every negative thought that you find yourself like latching onto, stop, replace it with three positive thoughts."
(28:55)
John Assaraf:
"Come on this journey with me."
(50:53)
Inner Size Rewire Your Brain for Unstoppable Success Event
This episode serves as a compelling guide for individuals seeking to enhance their confidence and achieve their goals through scientifically-backed methods. John Assaraf's insights into the brain's functioning provide listeners with practical tools to rewire their mindset for enduring success.