← Shift Your Perspective
Shift Your Perspective
0038: Mark Waldman shares from his new book, NeuroWisdom
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- [00:00]
A
Fear Not Episode 38 hi, I'm Billy Atwell and I believe that consistently facing your fears is the only way to realize your truest self and to make those confident choices that will help you to obtain your deepest held hopes and dreams. I have faith that this podcast series will show you that you are not alone, that it will strengthen you and give you courage to face your fears, and that it will help you to permanently cross over into a life of living beyond your fears. Choose. Join me on this journey as we listen and learn from others as they share their experiences in facing and overcoming their own fears. Hey everybody. Today you and I are going to be joined by Mark Waldman. Hey Mark, welcome back to the show. How are you?
- [00:53]
B
I'm thrilled to be here and it's finally dry here in Southern California, so I look forward to having scintillating conversation with you.
- [01:02]
A
Great. Mark is the author of 14 books, including the national bestseller How God Changes yous Brain, which Oprah selected as one of the nine must read books for 2012. He also teaches the Neuro Leadership Program at Loyola Marymount University and is on the faculty of Holmes Institute. He maintains an international practice as a neuro coach and he now trains students in this unique evidence based strategy for enhancing personal and professional development. Mark, could we start off. I know you just have a new book out called Neuro Wisdom and I was hoping that you could help us to understand what that is.
- [01:39]
B
Okay, I'd love to tell you a little bit of story on how we came up with the title for the book. I've been a developmental editor for. I was a developmental editor for about 10 years working with Tartar Putnam. And one of the things we know about is that authors sometimes are the worst people in the world to come up with the title for your own book. So the working title for this book was called Creating the New Brain Science of Money, Happiness and Success. And nobody really liked that title. And what happens is that after you finish your book, the marketing department reads it, the sales department reads it and they come back and they tell you what your book should be called. And they had suggested Neuro wisdom, which is a term that I had used for many, many years but had never defined it. And I thought, cool, great, that's a great title for a book. Who knows what it means? But then you, you know, the subtitle will say the New Brain Science of Money, Happiness and Success. So I said, okay, that's fine, we can change the name, but I'm going to have to write a little introduction in Terms of what neuro wisdom is. So this is now our formal definition. Basically there is a part of your brain that's barely developed until you're about the age of 28, 29 or 30. And that part of your brain is involved with intuition, social awareness, self esteem, self confidence, and usually this is a non conscious part of your brain. So neuro wisdom is a term that I use for how to tap in to that unique neurological circuit in your brain, in ways where you can tap in to that intuitive insights, a part of you that can watch the world get outside of its own way, its own thoughts, its own worries, its own fears. And to learn how to focus in to this deeper intuitive sense where surprising insights and aha. Experiences can suddenly burst forth into consciousness. And that's what neuro wisdom is. And then all of the exercises in the book between 50 experiential exercises and another 50 strategies on how to increase work performance, even communication at work or at home, these are the exercises that will stimulate that specific neurological circuit in your brain.
- [04:11]
A
You were speaking of consciousness, and I know in your book you talk a lot about motivation beginning in the brain and that it creates consciousness. Could you explain that a little bit more, please?
- [04:23]
B
One of the most difficult questions in neuroscience and what would be called philosophy of mind, is defining what consciousness is. And there's probably three leading research teams who have defined consciousness and the parts of the brain that are associated with them. And none of us really agree. So my question was where does consciousness actually begin? And it is something that actually begins in all mammals and probably all forms of animals that have voluntary control over their body. So the moment that you wake up, your eyes open up and your eyes begin to scan the environment for any potential threats or anything that might be possible, pleasurable or interesting or nurturing or nourishing. Once that non conscious part of your brain identifies something that it really wants in the world, a bunch of dopamine is released from a structure called the nucleus acupens. And it's in the lower part of your brain. And that dopamine moves up into the front part of your brain, the area that's right over the top of your eyeballs. And this is the decision making processes of your brain. This is where you use a lot of memories and thoughts and imagination to decide what is the best, easiest way where I can go from where I'm at now to achieve that particular goal. It could be just to get up to the refrigerator and to have some breakfast, or it could be how do I get to work on Time or how do I do my job in a way that's not stressful? That dopamine causes a part of your brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to light up. And this is where this is part of the neural circuit of what many neuroscientists have documented as consciousness. This is where you can actually become aware of just a couple of thoughts, a couple of feelings, a couple of images. And you're kind of juggling this in an area that's called working memory. Decide, well, I could turn left or I could turn right. If I turn left, I might hit a wall. If I turn right, I might have tremendous success. So there's this inner speech, this inner dialogue that goes on between your left and right prefrontal cortex. One side's kind of a pessimist, the other side is kind of an optimist. And young children are very aware of this. This inner speech begins around the age of one. And you'll see that children will put that consciousness to work. I am picking up this block, I'm putting on top of the other block. Now I'm going to take my hands, I'm going to push it over. Whee. That's fun. And then by the age of four or five, that inner speech becomes a habit and it slips into the recesses of consciousness. It's kind of going on in the back of our mind. So what we have found is that most people are carrying out their tasks. They're seeking their goals using a bunch of old memories from the past, a bunch of old inner voices, maybe critical voices from your parents, maybe the optimistic voice that simply comes from our impulsive desire to find anything that's new, different, and pleasurable. And what we're finding is that there are very specific and easy strategies that you can do to sit back and watch this inner chatter going on in the conscious portion of your brain. The right side of your prefrontal cortex is saying, well, I wouldn't do that. Maybe I'll fail. What happens if that doesn't happen? You don't have enough skills. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The other side is this young, impulsive kid going, I want to do this, I want to do that. I don't care about this. I want to care about. I can do that. I can jump to the top of the slide. I can run out. I can put all my money into that one new stock that came up in the oops, I lost all my money. So this kind of decision making process is going on in the front part of our Brain, where consciousness is, and it's forming all of our memories and all of our habits. So that's what consciousness is. And what we want to encourage people to do is to say there's a different form of consciousness, a deeper form of awareness that sits further back in the brain and part of your brain that some people refer to as the social brain. And those core key structures are the insula and the anterior cingulate. This is where that fast intuitive processing going on. And mindfulness and different forms of meditation process light up this part of the brain. So if you simply sit there and you watch your thoughts, your feelings, your memories, your sensations, you start watching this conscious chatter going on in the front part of your brain. And this gives you an incredible tool for making wiser decisions.
- [09:24]
A
So how do we do that specifically?
- [09:28]
B
Well, the first thing you have to do is that you have to stop the inner chatter to slow it down if you get too much busyness going on in your mind. So, for example, if I ask you, and I ask everyone who's listening to this program, just do me a favor right now, I want you just to close your eyes and I want you to think of absolutely nothing. I want you just to be totally clear of all your thoughts. Can you do that? Let's see how long it takes before a thought jumps into your mind. And just share with me the first thing, Billy, that jumps into your mind.
- [10:04]
A
Are we done yet?
- [10:06]
B
Exactly. And how long does it take for that thought to pop in?
- [10:11]
A
Just a few seconds.
- [10:13]
B
So I want you to notice that thought, and I'm going to use this bell as an entrainment device and I'll explain how. I'm going to teach you how to eliminate all those noisy, useless thoughts so you notice that particular thought. Am I done yet? Let that float away and sit there again, trying to be just in the present moment without any thoughts. And just tell me, let's see how long it takes you before another thought pops into your mind.
- [10:41]
A
Okay.
- [10:43]
B
What was that thought?
- [10:44]
A
Just the word. Okay.
- [10:46]
B
Okay. Watch that thought. Let it float away. And just say aloud the next thought, feeling or sensation that you become conscious of.
- [10:56]
A
Oh, this is embarrassing. Pizza.
- [10:58]
B
Pizza. So you had two thoughts. The first popped up was. Was pizza. And then another voice came in. That's that critical voice. Oh, this is embarrassing. What does that have to do with anything? Right?
- [11:11]
A
Yeah.
- [11:12]
B
But I want you to continue to watch this as if it's happening like a movie on the screen, all right? Because you're being the perfect guinea pig to show where this different. Where this neuro wisdom comes from. So there you are. So you watched pizza pop up. And then. This is embarrassing. Now let those thoughts go. Go back to being thought free. See if you can stay there for five or 10 seconds without having a thought. Most people can't do that, even if they're advanced meditators.
- [11:42]
A
I was thinking of cherry blossoms, actually.
- [11:47]
B
Okay, so here you're consciously attempting to have no thoughts. Correct.
- [11:53]
A
Mm.
- [11:54]
B
So let me ask you this question. Where are those thoughts coming from?
- [12:01]
A
A conscious stream? I really don't know. I mean, I know people. There are a lot of answers that people give that. But I really don't know.
- [12:10]
B
But you don't know. So you hear everybody's answers, and everybody's answers are different. Now here's what I want you to do. Obviously, you've just become aware of a fundamental curious fact. My thoughts pop into my head without any control and they're all over the place. Right. Okay, here's a question. Tell me something about this person who's watching your thoughts.
- [12:41]
A
It's like an external perspective.
- [12:46]
B
External or internal?
- [12:49]
A
Well, I mean, visually it's internal, but it doesn't seem like it's actually me.
- [12:58]
B
Your thoughts aren't you. Yeah, but a moment ago, I bet you. You simply made the assumption that your thoughts were you. Oh, I want pizza. Oh, that's embarrassing. Isn't that you? I had this desire. I felt embarrassed.
- [13:15]
A
I guess technically, yes.
- [13:17]
B
So here's the wonderful thing about this mindfulness practice where you basically watch your thoughts and feelings in a very interesting exercise. And I'll guide the entire audience now through that. Everyone close your eyes for a moment. Except if you're driving. Seems to be that that could be hazardous to your health. That's what the research shows. Close your eyes and just sit back. And I want you to imagine that your mind is playing on a giant movie screen in front of you, and you're just sitting in the audience watching your own mind. Okay? And anytime a thought or feeling pops into your mind, just sit back there in your own inner theater and watch that thought or feeling that comes up. And one of the most common thoughts that pop into your mind, whether you think you can control it or not, is, oh, this is over yet. This is boring. I have other stuff to do. What's going to happen next? Other thoughts that will pop in is, well, am I doing this correct? And so in the practice of mindfulness, you're teaching yourself to just come back into the present moment. And there's several ways of doing that. For one, you can listen to the sound of this bell. Listen as deeply as you can and immerse yourself fully in the sound of this bell. So it takes up all of your conscious awareness. And now when you can no longer hear that bell, listen even deeper. Listen to the sounds of silence. Listen to the little tiny sounds you'll suddenly hear in the room or in your inner ear or even the sounds of your own breathing. This is not conscious thoughts. This is conscious awareness. You're becoming aware that there are sounds. You're becoming aware, for example, with the bell, what it sounds like. And as it fades away, you have to concentrate harder and harder, more fully and more fully. This is actually how you can teach yourself how to eliminate that add like brain where thoughts and feelings are jumping around all the time. So you can train yourself to. To become highly focused. When you're highly focused on a sound, you'll notice that that inner speech begins to fade away. Now, what do you do if you don't have a bell? Well, there's one place where there's always a movement, a feeling, a sensation, and even a sound. And that's just to focus in on your own breath. So with your mouth closed, just take a slow, natural, normal breath through your nose. And feel how your chest expands as you breathe in. And as you breathe out, notice how your chest moves. Breathing in, breathing out. You can immerse yourself in just the feeling sense of your chest and belly going up and down, up and down. Or you can choose to focus on the warmth and coolness of your breath. As you breathe in through your nose. Notice how it feels cool. As you breathe out. Notice how it feels warm. In this exercise, you're teaching yourself how to become aware of, of your breathing, of the sounds in the room of the bell. This is concentration. But then. And this is how you train your brain to make better decisions. So in the neuro wisdom book, we take you through four pillars of building inner and outer wealth. Motivation. What interests you, what excites you. And the moment you become interested in something, maybe you're deeply interested in what I'm saying or something that you have in the refrigerator or a job or a task or something you're reading in a book, you'll notice as you are absorbed in that activity, fully absorbed, you're not thinking about you anymore. All those little inner thoughts, the positive and negative thoughts, have become very quiet. And we can actually see that in a brain scan machine. We see that your brain is less active except for these two tiny areas right above your eyes called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex there, you're concentrating. But here's the interesting thing. Now that you're concentrating, you're doing the best work possible. So you can train yourself before doing a task. If you were to close your eyes and do a little relaxation exercise, then either play a bell like that, or take 60 seconds just to immerse yourself in the sound or feeling of your breathing. When you throw yourself into work, your performance is going to increase, your productivity is going to increase, and your stress levels are going to go down. So this is that first level, that motivational level of neuro wisdom of how to train your brain to focus and concentrate and carry out the task. But here's an interesting discovery. We cannot maintain concentration for very long. Just like that exercise where I asked you how long can you focus on having no thoughts whatsoever? It's really hard. Even advanced meditators can rarely go more than 15 to 30 seconds without having thoughts come in. In mindfulness, we just teach you to notice those thoughts and let them float away. But why do those thoughts float in? Well, what happens is that after you've concentrated for two or three or four or five minutes on a task, you use up all the neurotransmitters that are involved with helping you to stay focused on that task. Your concentration energy has dissipated. Now the brain automatically goes into a default mode, which is a very relaxed state where your mind wanders all over the place as a form of daydreaming. And prior to 2008, neuroscientists never knew about this. And we now know that this day creative mind wandering, daydreaming state is the place that's absolutely essential for your brain to rest so it can concentrate on the next task that you have in mind. But something else is also happening when your mind is wandering around and you're in that kind of in and out sleep state, like right when you're waking up from deep sleep or falling asleep. This is where your brain is solving problems in its own way. And it's not language based. So imagine how amazing this is. This is like basically we have to reteach all of our kindergarten and first grade and second grade teachers to say, if you're going to teach students something, you can only give them one or two or three sentences, then it would be great if every teacher would just ask their kids to listen to the sound of a bell, to close their eyes and deliberately let their mind wander. Now, if you really want to tap into that creative wisdom, that neuro wisdom that's inside you, have to learn how to observe your mind wandering and creative daydreaming processes the same way I was asking you to observe your thoughts, or to observe the sound of the bell, or to observe your breathing. And so everyone can try this right? Now, let's see, Billy, what happens if you do that? What I want you to do is to deliberately allow your mind to jump around all over the place and just share every thought and feeling that comes up as quickly as possible. And just watch it as you share with us what you're hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling, thinking, feeling. Begin.
- [22:21]
A
And so you'd just like me to repeat what I was thinking about?
- [22:25]
B
Yes, Now I'll share with you what was going on with me, because here I am, I'm supposed to be a master at mindfulness meditation, and the moment I rang my bell, there was this long silence. So I didn't create those thoughts. The first thing that popped in my mind is, oh, is he still there? Did the interconnect connection fail? Did he not hear me say that? Oh, well, maybe. Be quiet, Mark. Let's see if he says something. Well, I don't know. What if he's not there? And so this inner chatter just got more and more and more because I was expecting a stream of consciousness like I just gave to you. Let's see what happens if you do that. Just sit there and let your mind wander and daydream. Let's see where it goes. Where your mind goes?
- [23:16]
A
Yeah. I mean, I noticed the first thing when I heard the tone, that my hands were sweaty. And then I was thinking of my hammock and I went to the doctor right before we got on the conversation together, and I was thinking about a particular person right after that. And then I noticed the fading of the tone.
- [23:37]
B
And so now here's that next step. So now we've gone from motivation. You know, you and I and everyone who's listening in on this call are interested to see, you know, how the conversation is going to unfold. We've done some experiential exercises. We've learned how to concentrate on the sound of a bell, how to focus that mind in. Now we're deliberately allowing ourselves to kick back and do some daydreaming. And now you're prepared for one of the coolest things that we've discovered. Now that you've taken a moment to relax, concentrate and daydream, you can now ask that part of your brain that's daydreaming a question as if it's a separate person. You can ask that inner Wisdom, a question to any problem that you have. And I'll give you an example right now. One of my problems that I have right now is that I want to cut back my 60 hour work week to a normal, relaxed, lazy, 40 hour work week. So I ask my intuition, what might I do? The first thing I hear is a laughter going on. Ha. Going. He said, mark, you know exactly what you do. You just have to spend some more time, take more breaks during the day, play at it and don't care if you finish your task or not. Now I heard that. It came to me very quickly and clearly. And then I immediately hear that inner chatter coming in. Oh, but I can't do that. I have all these obligations and I have to do that. And the dogs need to be fed and my wife's coming home and there's this, there's that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we have to work, we create a balance between. Your intuition gives you a good, clear sense of what you really want to do, what makes your life passionate, and it's a wonderful way to solve problems. But then what we want you to do then is that you now have three voices. You have that negative chatter going on in your right prefrontal cortex. You have that hope and optimism and desirous voice, all those impulsive voices going on in your left prefrontal cortex. But now you have this voice of intuitive wisdom, this neuro wisdom that's going on in a deeper part of your brain, the social brain. And you have these three different voices. And now you can sit back once more. And you, because you is an arbitrary creation that goes on in your parietal lobe, an area that's right back, behind and above your ears. You realize that you have many you's. You know, you have a critical self, you have an optimistic self, you have an observing self. And now you're going to watch all three of those voices. And this gives you the best overview neuroscience has been able to identify on how to have the most accurate, comprehensive perspective of your life, your inner world and your outer world. And then there's one more step to this. Now that we've gone through the creativity part of our four pillars of wealth. Pillar one is motivation. Pillar two is decision making. Pillar three is creativity. Pillar four is awareness itself. And so an incredible exercise to do, but it takes practice and it's easier to do if you do this with a friend or a colleague or a family member, is to sit in the presence of another person and focus in on your own Awareness and have a very brief mindful conversation of what awareness actually is. So I'm inviting you all to do this as an exercise with somebody. Talk about what it's like to be aware of awareness itself. But to do that, you're going to have to be incredibly relaxed. And the fastest way to relax, and it's one of the. We have it in one of the earliest chapters in neuro wisdom are what are the fastest ways to prime your brain to do any activity? And the fastest way to relax is to first know that there were two forms of stress, mental stress and physical stress. So, Billy, and everyone who is listening in what I want you to do, I want you to do three yawns, but I want you to do them mindfully. And the difference is that I want you to do one yawn and then to think about how did that yawn affect your mind, your mood, your body? Let's try that once with you, Billy. Do a yawn and be as aware of every aspect of that yawn. The stretch in your mouth, the movement of any part of your body. And then after you've completed that yawn, be present again and share with me any thoughts or awareness that you have. How did that mindfully yawn affect your mind, your mood?
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A
The first thing that I noticed is that there was tension in the muscles, you know, connected to my jaw. But then that gave quickly a way to sort of a real lightened and overall cool feeling. And then I felt heavy.
- [29:27]
B
Perfect. Now do a second mindful yawn. And everyone who's listening, do a few more mindful yawns. And watch how each time you do a mindful yawn, you'll be aware that something quite subtle but profound is shifting in your mental awareness and in your mood state. Another mindful yawn. And what do you notice this time?
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A
I noticed that I was being a lot more observant. To be observant, do you feel like.
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B
You'Re more in the present moment?
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A
You know, I don't know. Honestly, it's. It almost feels like I was trying to be in the present moment, if that makes any sense.
- [30:19]
B
Absolutely. We try to be in the present moment, which means we're using our idea of what a present moment is. Now be aware of that thought because this is the mindfulness training. Okay, I'm trying to be in the present moment and let that go. Don't try to be in the present moment. Give me one more mindful yawn and just see if you can become more aware of what this present moment is. Be curious Be open and we don't ever judge ourselves. Mindfulness simply means moment to moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, sensations without judging them.
- [31:00]
A
I don't know if I have the right word for it, but it's not quite nothing and it's not quite empty.
- [31:09]
B
And when you said that, I don't know if there's the right word for that. If I had you in a brain scan machine, we would see that in that moment that the negative activity in your frontal lobe will have quieted down. And we'll see that the insula and the anterior cingulate, that neuro wisdom part of your brain, where that intuition comes from, is now more activated and it doesn't really have words. That's what awareness is and it's always in the present moment. I think that's really cool.
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A
Yeah, it's weird, but it's cool.
- [31:54]
B
So you savor that weirdness. So everyone take a moment and just let yourself feel whatever is going on, even if you just have endless chatter going on in your head. Most people by the third mindful yawn have no anxiety, no depression, no emotions whatsoever. They're more calm, sedate, and it's a kind of a, this feels, it's a form of mental relaxation.
- [32:21]
A
So how often should we be doing this practice to gain any benefit from it?
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B
Yeah, that's a great question. When mindfulness and these different types of meditation strategies were first developed back in the 1970s, it was recommended that a person spend twice a day, maybe two 20 minute sessions focused on slow movement or awareness of your breath or some form of yoga stretching. And then as Andy Newberg and I and other teams began to do brain scan studies of different meditation strategies, we discovered you got the same benefits if you simply did one 10 minute practice per day. So now, slowly, throughout the meditation and mindfulness community, the recommendation is to make it as simple as possible. Make a commitment to just to do one mindful yawn or one mindful stretch or just one mindful breath per day. That's all we ask our executive MBA students to do. But because they are enrolled in a very intense program to improve their work productivity and their teamwork collaboration, we ask them to download a mindfulness clock onto their computer, their cell phone, and to set it to ring once or twice an hour. And each time they hear that bell, what we want them to do is just to take 10 seconds to do a mindful yawn or a super slow stretch. The slower you go, the more you'll feel. And that too brings you into the present moment. And then to throw yourself back into your work. And then at the top of the hour, when, if you have many mindfulness clocks have two bells. One is like a deeper bell, like this one. And when you hear that bell, take a full 60 seconds to do something relaxing, to do a one minute meditation, to get up and run for 30 seconds. Just take a total break from your work. And this is what's necessary to refresh your brain and to optimize that brain to get peak performance out of anyone. So that mindful yawn, that mindful stretch, and if it feels really good and you want to do it longer, that's great. So we're recommending that a person just make a commitment to take, you know, a few seconds, two, three, four, five times throughout the day to do their own version of spiritual meditation, to do a mindful. A moment of mindfulness. And that, that will add up over the day. Because we know from brain scan studies that any of these mindfulness exercises or relaxation strategies have an effect on the brain within the first 20, 30, 40 seconds.
- [35:31]
A
Sorry.
- [35:32]
B
Now, if I make you too mindfully relaxed, that is what happens. You end up being more and more thought free, which is a very embarrassing place for an interviewer to be. And that happened to me one time. We were, I was at a. I was at a book signing party with two other authors and we were talking about relaxation strategies beforehand. And I became so relaxed that when we opened up, when we, when we opened up the conversation, we were supposed to go around the circle and introduce myself. When it came to me, I basically went. And then I said, I have to explain something to you. When you were really deeply relaxed, you've turned off all your thought processes, all your motivation processes, you're in the present moment and guess what? It's hard to find a word.
- [36:22]
A
Yeah. And I was staring at the question on my notes that I wanted to ask you, and it just wasn't going anywhere.
- [36:33]
B
Yes, but that's the perfect, that's the perfect segue to how we make use of the crap board in terms of what the fastest way is to deal with all that negative thoughts and fears and worries you have. Because I teach people how to have that experience when they look at all of the problems they think they have, but they have to write it onto a sheet of paper.
- [36:56]
A
Yeah, that actually was what I wanted to ask you because I am fascinated by that. It sounds a little bit like journaling, but I don't want to presumptually think that it's negative journaling. But taking a catalog of your worries and faults. Can you explain a little bit more by what you mean by that and what the benefits are?
- [37:15]
B
Yeah, the crap board has become one of the. I think I've become world renowned for the crap board, and it's probably even more popular than being the world's leading expert in yawn therapy. So crap stands for conflicts, resistances, anxieties, and any other problems that you think you have. And it's a very interesting strategy. So what you do, you take a sheet of paper and you write down on that sheet of paper every problem you think you have, every weakness you think you have, Every weakness you think your friends and colleagues think you have. I don't care if you put down. You have to put down a minimum of 10 things on that sheet of paper. But won't be surprised if you may find that you have 250 things that you can criticize yourself about. So you put down every worry, fear, and doubt that you have on that sheet of paper. When you get down as many as you can, then I ask everyone to close their eyes. And I have an audio program called Neuro Wisdom 101 that guides you through all these exercises. They're also in the Neuro wisdom book, but you'll have to read yourself through that particular exercise. So you write down everything that you think is your weakness. Then you close your eyes and you mindfully yawn and you stretch super slowly just to become aware of all the tension in your body. Then you open up your eyes and you gaze at everything you've written down on your kraft board. And you'll have that same experience that you just had. Because now that you're very deeply relaxed, you look at all of the things you've wrote down on your paper. I'm a highly anxious person. That's something that was been on my crap board for years. Only you look at it and you go. And then if you keep paying attention to that mindfulness, you go, oh, wow, look, I wrote down on a piece of paper I'm highly anxious, but I'm not feeling highly anxious right now. So that creates what's called a cognitive dissonance. You were thinking that you had this particular problem, but when you're in this deeply relaxed state of mindfulness where you're accessing your intuition, your neuro wisdom, suddenly the stuff on your paper, half of the stuff on your paper doesn't even seem to be true. And you can take. And you can do that with each item on your kraft board. You can go down the list and ask yourself Two questions. One, how true is this? If it's really true, you give it a 10. If it's not true at all, you give it a one. And when I do this in my neuro coaching session, because again, this helps to have a guide through this. You put all your crap on a piece of paper and I'll ask you, I'll keep you deeply relaxed, and most of the time, 90% of the things you put onto your crap board, you'll give maybe a 1, 2 or 3 in terms of how true they are. You begin to realize when you're in this mindfulness state that most of your crap are nothing but worries, fears, and memories from the past being projected onto the present or onto the future. Now, every once in a while, one or two things on the Kraft board really stand out. Yeah, this is really a problem. I don't have enough money to pay my bills this month, for example. All right? So it does not help at all to worry about any problem you have. The moment you worry about something, you derail the decision making processes in the front of your brain and in your intuitive part of your brain that's designed to solve your problems. So again, when you have a very real problem, you write that problem down on your board, take a moment to mindfully yawn, stretch, relax, observe that problem, and then you ask your intuition, what are three simple things I can do to solve that problem? So you take a worry, fear and doubt. And if it's real, we call it a problem. And then we look at that problem dispassionately, without feeling, without emotion, and we listen to our intuitive voice that will oftentimes come up with two or three wonderful, simple suggestions. And then you come back into the present moment and ask the logic and decision making centers of your brain, well, does that make sense? So, for example, one time I was working on losing weight and I discovered that one of my problems was that I would habitually go to the refrigerator and unconsciously open up the door and eat something in it. And then after I finished eating it, then I became aware that I ate well, I didn't want to even eat. So I. So I sat there, I closed my eyes, I mindfully reflected on it, and I asked my intuition to give me a solution. And something silly and crazy came into my mind. Tape the refrigerator door closed. So I went and got some duct tape and masking tape and taped it closed. It was hilarious. What happened? Over the next couple days, I would keep going to the refrigerator. I had totally forgotten that I taped the refrigerator closed. I'm pulling on the refrigerator, I'm yelling at it, what's wrong with the refrigerator? Why is this problem broken down? And then I realized, oh, wait a minute. My intuition suggested this as a problem. And it was a great way of becoming more and more aware of my habit to unconsciously eat. And so we can use our intuition and we go back and forth between concentration, decision making, relaxation, daydreaming, mindfully observing all this process, and then having these inner dialogues with our intuitive centers. Does that make sense?
- [43:18]
A
It does. And I was going to ask you, how do we get to the point where we can just trust the intuition almost blindly and not kind of talk ourselves out of the solution?
- [43:30]
B
We don't ever want to do that. Intuition is only right 50 or 60% of the time.
- [43:36]
A
Okay?
- [43:37]
B
Intuition is still based on your brain's natural system to do whatever is the most pleasure with the least amount of work most quickly. It's basically like a dog and cat. After it's gotten some food and it's in a warm place and you've petted its head, it goes, takes a nap on the couch. So intuition has to be combined with all of the lessons you've learned throughout your life. So there's we call intuition and we call neuro wisdom, inner wisdom. But you combine that with outer wisdom, all the stuff you've learned, so you balance the two. But when push comes to shove, you can never know enough about anything to make a hundred percent decision. So you're always going to have to trust your instincts. You're going to have to trust your intuition. And when you've weighed and evaluated both sides, then use your intuition to make the best choice. And that's the best any of us can do in this world.
- [44:36]
A
Mark, can you explain to us this 1010 game?
- [44:40]
B
Yes. Let's do it together for a moment. And everyone who is listening to this, I want you to lift your hands up in front of you and make a fist with both hands. With each word you speak, you raise one finger. When you run out of 10 fingers, you have to stop talking, even if you're in the middle of a sentence. Now, we train all of our executive MBA students to do this. We go around the country teaching this compassionate communication strategy to schools, to teachers, to organizations, to health care providers. And Billy, let's you and I do this just for a moment, because the first thought that comes in, oh, that's impossible, you can't do that. But counting your words out in your fingers and knowing that you have to limit your speech to 10 words, which is all you can consciously be aware of, by the way. That's the neuroscience behind this, this, this little training game that we have. You'll find that by the third round between you and I, you and I will be communicating more clearly, more succinctly, not only to each other, but to everyone who's listening on this call. So raise your hands, make a fist, and I will begin. What is the very next question you want to ask?
- [46:10]
A
If we only had to do one thing, what would it be?
- [46:17]
B
Well, breathe. Now it's your turn.
- [46:25]
A
Well, that was very helpful. What else?
- [46:29]
B
You are welcome, by the way. Also one sentence. So when you come to a period, don't turn it into a comma. We want to create this very brief, rapid conversation and it's an incredible game to do with your kids. They will hold you to the 1010 rule. It's an amazing thing to do with your partner, particularly if you have a problem, if you count your words out on your fingers. And if you have to go to 20 words, okay, we allow that. But what happens if you trust your intuition? You'll end up having a profoundly intimate conversation playing this 1010 game.
- [47:08]
A
I noticed also too in the book you were talking about your tone and speed. And to tie in with the 10 10, you also mentioned briefly, when you talk to someone briefly that it actually stimulates the trust and the brain. There are certain circuits that are stimulated and obviously that would be beneficial to your interaction with that particular individual, correct?
- [47:33]
B
Right. And what we've learned in neuroscience and from the psychological research of Paul Ekman, who studies all of the facial expressions and how they're tied to different emotions. If you close your eyes for a moment and you recall a pleasant memory, like think about somebody for a moment you deeply love or an event that brought you great satisfaction, you'll feel this small half smile begin to creep across your face. You feel the muscles around your eyes softening. And neuroscience shows that when somebody else sees that facial expression, they will neurologically trust what that person is about to say. So again, in compassionate communication, it's a form of mindful dialogue. It's one of the warm up exercises. Yawn to eliminate mental stress, stretch for super slowly to eliminate physical stress. Think about a deep inner value. For example, what do you value most about communication? What's one of your highest relationship values? If you're going to talk to your partner about a relationship problem, you can anchor yourself in that value word of kindness, compassion, being listened to, whatever word comes to you. Then if the two of you agree to have this mindful dialogue, speaking slowly and briefly. All I want everyone to do is, is to hold a positive memory or thought inside of them while they speak to somebody, even somebody who they hate. Because when you have that small half smile and they have that small half smile and you speak slowly and briefly and warmly to each other, something remarkable happens. All of the defense mechanisms that we normally use when we talk to other people dissolve and we find ourselves, even if we're talking to a stranger, playing this game, the conversation becomes profoundly intimate in just about four minutes. And you're not trying to make the conversation to go anywhere. So I would love all of you to make a commitment to play this 1010 game and to, you know, study that exercise, particularly in the awareness chapter of Neuro Wisdom or to get the audio program Neuro Wisdom 101 that guides you through that. So you can use this relaxation, this awareness technique. You can learn how to stimulate the motivation centers of your brain, make better decisions, learn how to listen to the positive and negative voices from that intuitive place where you can then bring in your insights and aha. Experiences to see the world in a different way. And then just to bring that relaxed awareness which generates a form of self love and self confidence into all of the conversations you have with people, with everyone you meet. Just spend the first 60 seconds of any conversation grounding yourself in a deep sense of self love and relaxation and you'll solve problems before they even come up in the conversation. That would be what I would wish everyone of our listeners to try out.
- [51:00]
A
I also want to let everyone know too that Mark has generously donated a copy of his book Neuro Wisdom and we'll be giving it away. So if you would like the opportunity to win that copy of his book, go to the giveaways page@livingbeyondyourfears.com and enter today. It's free. It only lasts seven days, so do it now and do it as often as you like. Mark, I'm always at a loss when we speak. You are so amazing and so generous and I always learn something and I'm always changed every time we talk. So thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [51:37]
B
You are welcome and I enjoyed what you just said, even though it was more than 10 words. And don't forget to laugh. Laughter is one of the most wonderful brain enhancing strategies that you can do. Even a fake laughter will stimulate the happiness centers that nobody's been able to find in the brain so far. But it does bring a deep sense of pleasure. Use that pleasure to motivate yourself and live a value driven and pleasure driven lifestyle. That's what your brain is designed to do.
- [52:11]
A
Thank you for joining me today. And remember, you cannot achieve everything, but you do have the God given ability to achieve anything. So stay focused, out of fear and keep on keeping on until next time. Be well and peaceful. For more information on today's episode and guest or for resources that will assist you in overcoming your fears, visit livingbeyondyourfears.com and don't forget to subscribe to this podcast where three times a week we move to a life beyond our fears.