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#2052 Brain Literacy - Harps (PT2) · The You Project

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Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome back to another installment of
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Speaker 1: the show. So, as you well know, because you read
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Speaker 1: the title and you probably read the overview, this is
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Speaker 1: part two of my little extravaganza on the brain. I'm
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Speaker 1: calling this brain literacy, which is essentially the idea of
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Speaker 1: you and me understanding how that thing that drives our life,
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Speaker 1: that thing that drives our body, that thing that gives
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Speaker 1: the world around us meaning and story and all of
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Speaker 1: those things, how it works. I think it's a good
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Speaker 1: idea that we all have one, so we should probably
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Speaker 1: try and understand how it works and how we can
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Speaker 1: manage it rather than it manage us all of the time.
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Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a two way kind of
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Speaker 1: an interaction. But so we did. Let me just I've
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Speaker 1: got my notes here, I'm trying to remember, just a
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Speaker 1: quick recap. If you haven't heard part one, have a listen,
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Speaker 1: Have a listen. It's probably you know what. It doesn't
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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter so much that you listen to it chronologically.
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Speaker 1: But we've spoken about five concepts. Number one, the role
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Speaker 1: of the brain. Number two, whether or not we can
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Speaker 1: manage our brain or it manages us. Number three, the
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Speaker 1: idea of keeping our brain working optimally, keeping our brain
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Speaker 1: in a healthy state, which is, believe it or not,
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Speaker 1: something that is really important that very few people think about.
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Speaker 1: How do I optimize my brain from a physiological point
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Speaker 1: of view, from a health point of view, from a hydration,
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Speaker 1: from a sleep, from a nutrition. We think when we
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Speaker 1: think about health, we think about, you know, our heart,
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Speaker 1: our cardiovascular system, and our lungs and all of our organs,
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Speaker 1: and we talk about our energy, and we talk about
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Speaker 1: our body composition. But we don't often think directly about
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Speaker 1: how do I make my brain work better? How do
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Speaker 1: I make my brain healthier? What are the things that
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Speaker 1: I can do for my brain and to my brain
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Speaker 1: and with my brain that are going to make my
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Speaker 1: brain perform better. Remembering that how well your body can perform,
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Speaker 1: how well your mind can perform, Yes, it's different to
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Speaker 1: your brain. How well you can perform in life, at work,
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Speaker 1: in relationships, in navigating the day to day bullshit, that
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Speaker 1: is largely dependent on how your brain is working. So
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Speaker 1: that was the first three. The fourth one was a
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Speaker 1: little story I told about an analogy between the brain,
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Speaker 1: our brain, and an old house. It's kind of a
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Speaker 1: story that I told to help people who have no
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Speaker 1: idea of what the bits of the brain do. Let's
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Speaker 1: say that to help them understand different roles and functions
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Speaker 1: of you know, like the prefrontal cortex, the bit of
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Speaker 1: the brain that does the thinking and or the conscious
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Speaker 1: thinking and the critical thinking and the decision making, and
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Speaker 1: the amygdala which is the center of the brain, and
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Speaker 1: all of those bits and pieces. So I kind of
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Speaker 1: like that. The fifth section we did was how our
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Speaker 1: brain can sometimes conspire against us and get in get
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Speaker 1: in the road of what we want. Keeping in mind
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Speaker 1: that our brain is not actually built for happiness or
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Speaker 1: fulfillment or personal growth, which is not say it can't
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Speaker 1: do those things, but it's actually built for survival, you know.
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Speaker 1: The factory setting. The come out of the factory setting
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Speaker 1: of your brain is to keep you safe, is to
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Speaker 1: make sure that you're not putting yourself in harm's way.
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Speaker 1: All right, that's the first five. So how many more
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Speaker 1: have I got left? I think I've got It would
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Speaker 1: make sense that I did ten. Let me just check.
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Speaker 1: I should probably have prepared this earlier. Oh, I seem
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Speaker 1: to eleven. All right, Well, let's dive into number six anyway,
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Speaker 1: unless I feel free not to edit any of this.
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Speaker 1: Let's just keep the organic mess that is me all intact.
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Speaker 1: So question six is how much of my thinking am
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Speaker 1: I in control of? And how much am I not? So,
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Speaker 1: in other words, how much of my thinking is automatic?
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Speaker 1: It just happens. It's an unconscious kind of process and
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Speaker 1: a conscious process. How much is one unconscious? How much
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Speaker 1: two is conscious? I always say that, like in simple terms,
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Speaker 1: this is what I say. Thinking happens because of you
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Speaker 1: conscious thought and despite you automatic thought. Most people like
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Speaker 1: to believe that they're walking around making conscious, logical, deliberate
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Speaker 1: decisions all day, but that's not actually true. So we're
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Speaker 1: mostly being run by our subconscious we're mostly being run
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Speaker 1: by automatic program. So about ninety to ninety five percent
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Speaker 1: of our thoughts, reactions, interpretations, impulses, and decisions come from
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Speaker 1: our automatic system, the fast, emotional, instinctive, predictive part of
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Speaker 1: our brain, the part that fires before we realize anything's
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Speaker 1: really happening. And this isn't laziness, it's efficiency. So if
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Speaker 1: your brain had to consciously think all day, every day,
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Speaker 1: every second, every minute, through every decision, if you had
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Speaker 1: to consciously decide everything in real time, all day, every day,
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Speaker 1: one you'd never make it out of bed, and if
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Speaker 1: you did, you'd be fucking exhausted perpetually. So because your
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Speaker 1: brain understands this and is very smart, it creates shortcuts, habits, patterns, assumptions, interpretations,
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Speaker 1: and emotional reflexes. And these these shortcuts a kind of
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Speaker 1: like the autopilot that drive most of your day, your
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Speaker 1: automatic operating system. And that's why you and me can
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Speaker 1: drive home from somewhere and not even really remember the
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Speaker 1: drive home. I I'm always surprised that I can. You know,
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Speaker 1: I've been riding. I'm sixty two as I record this.
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Speaker 1: I've been riding. Got on my first motorbike when I
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Speaker 1: was five years old, six years old, grew up in
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Speaker 1: the country, and I've been riding motorbikes on the road,
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Speaker 1: in traffic in Mayhem, a million different kinds of motorbikes
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Speaker 1: in a million different situations, for forty four years on
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Speaker 1: the road. And as you would know if you're a
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Speaker 1: motorcyclist or even not, you know you have a clutch
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Speaker 1: that you pull in with your left hand. You have
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Speaker 1: a front brake that you pull with your right hand.
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Speaker 1: You have gears that are down by your left foot,
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Speaker 1: you have a rear brake that you use with your
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Speaker 1: right foot. Rear tire break, front break is right hand,
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Speaker 1: clutch is left hand. Then you've got, you know, indicators
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Speaker 1: that you use with your left thumb, turn left, turn right,
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Speaker 1: and then push it into cancel. Then you've got a
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Speaker 1: horn that in most instances is down by your right thumb.
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Speaker 1: And you've got this myriad of things intersecting and happening
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Speaker 1: in real time. And while I'm doing all of that,
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Speaker 1: riding home from a gig in the city, you know,
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Speaker 1: there's all of these things happening with my fingers and
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Speaker 1: my hands and my feet and changing gears and breaking
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Speaker 1: I'm actually looking ahead and taking in the scenery and
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Speaker 1: the road and the potential threats and where I should
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Speaker 1: go and where I should sit in the lane and
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Speaker 1: who I should avoid, and up all of this myriad
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Speaker 1: of variables that I'm looking at ahead of me and
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Speaker 1: anticipating and deciding about in real time while doing all
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Speaker 1: of this other shit with my feet and my hands
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Speaker 1: that I'm not thinking about. And it's so funny that
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Speaker 1: I can get home and I've done I don't know,
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Speaker 1: maybe a thousand different things in the last thirty minute
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Speaker 1: ride home with my hands and my feet and my
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Speaker 1: fingers and my thumbs. I've done all of these things
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Speaker 1: that I didn't make a conscious decision about. I've done
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Speaker 1: a thousand. Now imagine imagine the complexity and the impossibility
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Speaker 1: of me having to ride this motorbike with all of
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Speaker 1: these literally moving variables that I have to navigate and
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Speaker 1: decide on in real time and read the road in
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Speaker 1: front of me and assess all the potential dangers and issues.
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Speaker 1: And this capacity that we have to auto pilot our
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Speaker 1: lives it allows us to or it sometimes means we're
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Speaker 1: going to check our phone a hundred times without actually
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Speaker 1: making a decision. Like it's just there, we just pick
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Speaker 1: it up. It's not like I go, all right, my
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Speaker 1: phone's over there, I could pick it up, I could
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Speaker 1: look at it. Will I pick it up? And no,
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Speaker 1: none of that happens. It's just in my hand and
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Speaker 1: I'm just looking. It's why we can I've spoken about
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Speaker 1: this many times. It's why we can keep having the
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Speaker 1: same arguments with the same people. We can have the
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Speaker 1: same version of the same conversation that didn't work the
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Speaker 1: last hundred times. It creates more problems and solutions, but
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Speaker 1: it's kind of it's a hard wired sociological pattern, and
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Speaker 1: we just do it. We keep saying the same dumb
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Speaker 1: shit that didn't work the last thousand times because we're
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Speaker 1: not really thinking critically. We're just being hijacked on an
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Speaker 1: unconscious or an automatic kind of level. It's why we
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Speaker 1: reach for food when we're stressed. It's why we overact
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Speaker 1: or over react perhaps before we think. And it's why
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Speaker 1: you and I fall into for your patterns and behaviors
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Speaker 1: that we said that we wouldn't do. And that's all
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Speaker 1: autopilot stuff. That's our brain on autopilot. Let's call that
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Speaker 1: system one. And then there's the smaller, slower, more energy
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Speaker 1: demanding bit and that's conscious thought. That's called that system too.
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Speaker 1: So this is where reasoning, reflection, long term planning, and
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Speaker 1: intentional behavior arises from. This part of your brain is
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Speaker 1: kind of brilliant, it's kind of clever. It's where the
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Speaker 1: real thinking happens. But it's also lazy and easily overwhelmed,
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Speaker 1: and stressful situations will turn it off. Emotion will turn
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Speaker 1: it off, Fatigue will turn it off, overwhelm will shut
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Speaker 1: it down. Like one of the questions that I often
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Speaker 1: ask people is not how skilled or talented are you,
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Speaker 1: or not how well can you perform, but rather how
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Speaker 1: well can you perform in the middle of chaos, Because
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Speaker 1: when we're in the middle of chaos, quite often skill, intelligence, intellect,
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Speaker 1: common sense, effective decision making, all of that shit takes off.
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Speaker 1: So the important bit is for you to know is
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Speaker 1: that you're not a bad person because you act on impulse.
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Speaker 1: You're not weak because you repeat old patterns, and you're
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Speaker 1: not broken because you react before you think. We all
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Speaker 1: do that. We all do that to an extent. We
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Speaker 1: want to turn the volume down on that. We want
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Speaker 1: to be more aware of that. We can't change the
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Speaker 1: thing we're not aware of. And you and me, we're
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Speaker 1: just humans running human wiring, doing and shit. But the
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Speaker 1: good news is that awareness gives us the option to
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Speaker 1: create different outcomes, to choose differently, to process data differently,
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Speaker 1: to go into things with that level of awareness and
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Speaker 1: understanding and insight. This is why understanding our brain and
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Speaker 1: understanding how our brain works in different situations and this
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Speaker 1: is weird, but building that relationship with our brain where
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Speaker 1: we understand each other. Because once you recognize the difference
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Speaker 1: between me and my autopilot well, then you can kind
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Speaker 1: of insert a gap, a pause, a moment where you
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Speaker 1: can step out of the reflex you know, the automaticness
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Speaker 1: or the autonomousness of it, and choose a response reflex
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Speaker 1: and into unconscious reflex I guess and into conscious response.
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Speaker 1: So autopilot is the default. Conscious control is the upgrade.
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Speaker 1: And so every time you slow down, every time you
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Speaker 1: notice a pattern, question an assumption, take a breath instead
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Speaker 1: of reacting, you're strengthening the part of your brain that
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Speaker 1: gives you options and not just reactions. So question seven
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Speaker 1: is why do I keep repeating the same patterns? Why
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Speaker 1: do I keep doing the same dumb shit? So one
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Speaker 1: of the most frustrating human experiences is knowing better and
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Speaker 1: still doing stupid stuff repeatedly. We've all been there, repeating
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Speaker 1: behaviors that we don't like, reacting in ways that we regret,
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Speaker 1: falling into habits that we said we would break, doing
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Speaker 1: shit we said we wouldn't do, living in that groundhog
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Speaker 1: day of frustration and repetition and pointlessness and exacerbation. So
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Speaker 1: why does this happen? Well, because your brain is designed
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Speaker 1: to prioritize the familiar over the functional. So every time
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Speaker 1: you think a thought, or rehearse a behavior, respond in
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Speaker 1: a certain way, or make a choice. Your brain wires
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Speaker 1: that in. It builds a neural pathway and strengthens it
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Speaker 1: with repetition, and eventually that becomes an automation. It becomes
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Speaker 1: an automatic response, which is energy saving, and the brain
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Speaker 1: wants to save energy, So good or bad, good or bad,
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Speaker 1: you're going to hardwire habits and behaviors that are going
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Speaker 1: to become automatic responses, whether or not they serve you
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Speaker 1: or fuck you up. To your brain, familiar equals safe,
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Speaker 1: even if the familiar thing is miserable or unhealthy, or
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Speaker 1: unhelpful or self destructive. And that is why people stay
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Speaker 1: in relationships that they've outgrown. And it's why we keep
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Speaker 1: having the same arguments. It's why we eat, drink and
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Speaker 1: scroll to our own detriment. It's why we sabotage opportunities,
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Speaker 1: and it's why we fall back into the identity that
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Speaker 1: we've always carried. And it's why change feels harder than
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Speaker 1: staying stuck. And like, even when we're stuck in something
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Speaker 1: that's not particularly healthy or productive, it's familiar, right, and
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Speaker 1: we like familiar. We know it, And while we want
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Speaker 1: to be different, or do different or live differently, produce
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Speaker 1: different outcomes. That means that means stepping into the unknown
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Speaker 1: somewhat and doing different things. And while we don't like
15:53
Speaker 1: where we are metaphorically or literally, sometimes the idea is
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Speaker 1: stepping into that known is going to be the thing
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Speaker 1: or the fear around that, I guess is a thing
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Speaker 1: that's going to keep us stuck in that two out
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Speaker 1: of ten default pattern. And truthfully, you're not really choosing
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Speaker 1: the pattern, The pattern's choosing you. And I guess you
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Speaker 1: know dopamine. We've spoken about that many times. It plays
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Speaker 1: a role. The brain rewards predictability and routine and behaviors
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Speaker 1: that reduce uncertainty. And even I guess even shitty habits,
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Speaker 1: even bad habits, have a payoff, you know, relief, escape, pleasure, numbness, familiarity.
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Speaker 1: That's why instant gratification sells like a motherfucker, and your
16:43
Speaker 1: brain will tag them as successful strategies even when logically
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Speaker 1: you know they're no good for you. But I guess
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Speaker 1: the good thing is that we can change that. Not easy,
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Speaker 1: not quick, not fun, not painless necessarily, but patterns are
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Speaker 1: not personality traits. They're learned circuits and anything that can
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Speaker 1: be learned can be unlearned. But here's the important bit.
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Speaker 1: You don't change a pattern by fighting it. You change
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Speaker 1: it by replacing it. So neural pathways don't disappear per se,
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Speaker 1: they get out competed. So when you practice a new
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Speaker 1: behavior over and over, the brain gradually shifts its loyalty
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Speaker 1: from the old circuit to the new one. And that
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Speaker 1: thing that was weird, that was strange, that was unfamiliar,
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Speaker 1: over time it moves from those things to being your
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Speaker 1: new normal. And that's why consistency beats intensity. Think about
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Speaker 1: think about how many people start stuff that they don't finish.
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Speaker 1: I would say, I mean I've done it. I would
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Speaker 1: say everybody does it. But when you think about you know,
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Speaker 1: the obvious of like New Year's resolutions, how many people
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Speaker 1: do that? How many people say they're going to do it,
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Speaker 1: how many people say they're going to be consistent, how
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Speaker 1: many people say they're going to follow through? How many
18:08
Speaker 1: people say this is the time I've done it before,
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Speaker 1: but this is you know, I'm in, And then they
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Speaker 1: don't do it. And this is no judgment, this is
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Speaker 1: no criticism. This is merely a reflection of what actually
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Speaker 1: fucking happens. And so that is why consistency beats intensity.
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Speaker 1: That's why small daily steps outperform big emotional promises, and
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Speaker 1: that's why identity change. I'm becoming someone who beats willpower.
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Speaker 1: I hope I stop doing this, so that kind of
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Speaker 1: I'm that kind of language of oh, I'm not on
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Speaker 1: a diet. It's like, no, I don't eat that way anymore.
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Speaker 1: Or I'm giving up booze for a while and seeing
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Speaker 1: what happens. No, I don't drink alcohol. I don't drink alcohol,
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Speaker 1: and I'm not on a program and I'm not operating
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Speaker 1: on willpower. I've actually just changed my default setting. Or
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Speaker 1: I'm changing my default setting. I'm rewiring my brain. As
19:08
Speaker 1: long as we do something, let's say we change your
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Speaker 1: behavior on a subconscious level. Our story is I'm just
19:16
Speaker 1: seeing how this works out. Well, we've got the wrong story,
19:21
Speaker 1: and we're always going to end up back in that
19:23
Speaker 1: place we don't want to be because nothing in our
19:26
Speaker 1: nothing in our story about that is reflects any kind
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Speaker 1: of permanence, any kind of deep seated change. But I
19:37
Speaker 1: guess the good news is your patterns aren't failures. They're
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Speaker 1: just old wiring trying to be helpful, and you're not
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Speaker 1: stuck with them. You're just at the beginning of the
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Speaker 1: rewiring process. Right question eight. So what happens in my
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Speaker 1: brain when I'm stressed or anxious? Could question Grasshopper. So
19:57
Speaker 1: when you or I are stressed or anxiou our brain
20:02
Speaker 1: shifts into a completely different operating mode. It's not subtle.
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Speaker 1: It's a full system takeover. And the first thing that happens.
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Speaker 1: Remember we spoke about the imigla, the emotional epicenter of
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Speaker 1: the brain, blah blah blah. The first thing that happens
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Speaker 1: is you're amigdala. The brain's alarm center. It fires up.
20:19
Speaker 1: It's scanning for danger twenty four to seven. It doesn't
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Speaker 1: care whether the threat is physical, emotional, social, or something else.
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Speaker 1: A difficult conversation, a harsh email, financial pressure, embarrassment, uncertainty, rejection.
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Speaker 1: You're amig Deala reacts to all of it like something
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Speaker 1: bad is happening or is about to happen. And when
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Speaker 1: the alarm goes off, it sends an urgent message to
20:43
Speaker 1: your body, which is essentially get ready. Something bad is happening,
20:47
Speaker 1: something's wrong, something is up. We are in danger. There's
20:52
Speaker 1: an imminent threat and so on, and our heart rate
20:54
Speaker 1: goes up and our breathing gets shallow. And I've told
20:56
Speaker 1: you before about all those physiological responses. Muscle get tense,
21:00
Speaker 1: muscles get tense, digestion slows down, stress hormones happen, nervous
21:06
Speaker 1: system goes nuts, and all of this is designed for survival,
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Speaker 1: not for modern life. But here's the kicker with all
21:15
Speaker 1: of this stuff. Once the alarm sounds, your prefrontal cortex,
21:19
Speaker 1: the logical, rational, calm, strategic bit of your brain, it
21:24
Speaker 1: starts to go offline. And this is where this ability,
21:30
Speaker 1: this skill, this development of us being able to stay
21:35
Speaker 1: online in the middle of the chaos, that's the challenge.
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Speaker 1: But typically in the middle of that amygdala kind of
21:44
Speaker 1: emotional disaster, alarm bells ringing, the prefrontal cortex, the thinking,
21:50
Speaker 1: the critical thinking, the decision making part of the brain
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Speaker 1: starts to shut down, and just thinking clearly, just making
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Speaker 1: decisions becomes a real struggle. And that's why stress makes
22:03
Speaker 1: you overreact and catastrophize and lose perspective and forget things
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Speaker 1: and snap at people and make crazy impulsive decisions and
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Speaker 1: overreact like a weirdo and feel overwhelmed by simple tasks.
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Speaker 1: But you're not losing it. Your survival wiring is just
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Speaker 1: overpowering your thinking brain. And this happens in nature, it
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Speaker 1: happens in animals and humans. And it also explains why
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Speaker 1: someone telling you to calm down. I always talk about
22:36
Speaker 1: that piece of advice don't worry to people who are worried.
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Speaker 1: But it doesn't work. It never works. They literally don't
22:42
Speaker 1: have access to the part of the brain that could
22:44
Speaker 1: calm them down in that moment, That part of the
22:48
Speaker 1: brain that could calm them down in that panic state,
22:51
Speaker 1: in that stress state, in that overwhelm of anxiety, That
22:55
Speaker 1: part of the brain that does the calming down has
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Speaker 1: gone offline. But the good news is that this system
23:04
Speaker 1: is incredibly responsive to regulation. So we can actually change
23:10
Speaker 1: our physiology consciously even when we're feeling this kind of
23:16
Speaker 1: stress and anxiety. Slow breathing, grounding, gentle movement, postural changes,
23:23
Speaker 1: simplifying tasks. We can do things even in a over
23:27
Speaker 1: a sixty second period, and all of these kind of
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Speaker 1: physiological shifts or behaviors or actions that we take signal
23:35
Speaker 1: back up to the amigdala, hey champ, It's okay, stand down,
23:40
Speaker 1: stand down, it's all all right, We're safe. And once
23:44
Speaker 1: you can quieten the amygdala through consciously, you know, deep breathing,
23:51
Speaker 1: box breathing, stretching, putting your feet in some dirt, huggin
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Speaker 1: and tree, whatever the fuck it is for you. You
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Speaker 1: Once the amigdala quietens, the prefrontal cortex comes back online
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Speaker 1: and we can think clearly. So it's not about we're
24:08
Speaker 1: not trying to totally eliminate stress or anxiety or overthinking
24:12
Speaker 1: all these responses from our life, but we're we're trying
24:15
Speaker 1: to learn how to regulate ourselves when they happen. So
24:19
Speaker 1: once the imigdala quietens, we can think again. The prefrontal
24:24
Speaker 1: cortex now works, We can make decisions, we can think clearly,
24:27
Speaker 1: We feel more grounded, the confusion evaporates, and we can
24:33
Speaker 1: see the options again. Stress isn't a flaw, Anxiety is
24:37
Speaker 1: not a weakness. It's just our brain switching into an
24:39
Speaker 1: ancient operating mode that sometimes misfires in a modern world.
24:45
Speaker 1: And the goal is not to eliminate stress, as I've said,
24:47
Speaker 1: that's impossible. The goals to learn how to switch your
24:49
Speaker 1: thinking brain back on. And this is one of my
24:53
Speaker 1: favorite areas of discussion and exploration and research. I don't
24:56
Speaker 1: know why, it just I'm personally fascinated with the eye
25:00
Speaker 1: idea of reality. So question ten is how does my
25:02
Speaker 1: brain create my reality? And so this is maybe one
25:07
Speaker 1: of the most mind blowing truths about being human, and
25:10
Speaker 1: that is you don't experience the world directly. You experience
25:14
Speaker 1: it through a filtered version that your brain creates. So
25:20
Speaker 1: your eyes is and senses take in raw data, but
25:24
Speaker 1: they don't send you a full, accurate transcript of reality.
25:28
Speaker 1: They send you fragments, clues, bits and pieces, and your
25:32
Speaker 1: brain then fills in the gaps using memories and beliefs
25:35
Speaker 1: and expectations and past experiences and biases and culture and
25:40
Speaker 1: conditioning and fears, and it predicts what it thinks is happening,
25:46
Speaker 1: and then it presents that to you as reality. Which
25:50
Speaker 1: is why five people who are in the same room
25:53
Speaker 1: going through what seems to be the same experience are
25:58
Speaker 1: in fact not having the same experience because their reality
26:03
Speaker 1: is not created by the situation or the circumstance or
26:07
Speaker 1: the external stimuli. Their reality as they experience it is
26:12
Speaker 1: created by all of that stuff that I just said.
26:16
Speaker 1: So what you perceive is not the objective truth, but
26:21
Speaker 1: rather your brain's best guess. We see it all the
26:26
Speaker 1: time where people live through the same event but go
26:30
Speaker 1: away within different interpretations. And your brain never starts with
26:33
Speaker 1: the world. It starts with you and then builds the
26:37
Speaker 1: world around that. It's also why you can misread tone
26:45
Speaker 1: of voice, assume the worst, overthink, or take things personally
26:48
Speaker 1: that weren't actually personal. Your brain is constantly trying to
26:53
Speaker 1: match new information to old patterns, even when that match
26:57
Speaker 1: is wrong. It's what we do. We may not even
27:01
Speaker 1: know the meaning of something, but we give it meaning,
27:05
Speaker 1: and quite often that assumption or that perspective is completely wrong.
27:14
Speaker 1: So we don't respond to what's happening as much as
27:19
Speaker 1: we respond to our story or what our brain thinks
27:24
Speaker 1: is happening. But I guess here's the empowering part. If
27:27
Speaker 1: the brain can create a distorted reality, it can also
27:31
Speaker 1: create a clearer one too. And so this is largely
27:36
Speaker 1: about awareness and being aware, Like here's something that's a
27:41
Speaker 1: bit of a mind fuck, being aware that you're not
27:43
Speaker 1: fully aware, and being mindful of your conditioning and your
27:49
Speaker 1: programming and navigating every situation, every conversation, every person, every relationship,
27:56
Speaker 1: every social dynamic navigating that knowing that you are just
28:02
Speaker 1: creating your own story and your own subjective experience and
28:06
Speaker 1: reality in real time. But the good news is that
28:10
Speaker 1: awareness can change the picture, that new experiences can reshape
28:15
Speaker 1: interpretation and challenging old beliefs and not being addicted to
28:21
Speaker 1: our beliefs. We're so addicted to being right, we're so
28:24
Speaker 1: addicted to thinking that we know, we're so addicted to
28:28
Speaker 1: that stuff that we've been programmed with. But challenging old
28:32
Speaker 1: beliefs can rewire perception. Better emotional regulation makes the world
28:36
Speaker 1: look less threatening. Curiosity widens your lens, and self awareness
28:42
Speaker 1: upgrades the entire operating system. The world that you see
28:47
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be fixed, It doesn't need to be
28:52
Speaker 1: set in the stone. Even when you've looked at a
28:55
Speaker 1: certain thing for a very long time, that can still
28:59
Speaker 1: be updated. Things that I thought that I believed, that
29:03
Speaker 1: I one hundred percent considered to be absolute, unequivocal truth,
29:09
Speaker 1: that I now realize was not unequivocal truth. It was
29:13
Speaker 1: just what I thought was truth. So we can change,
29:16
Speaker 1: we can adapt, we can be cognitively flexible, we can
29:20
Speaker 1: create new neural pathways, We can be updated. When you
29:25
Speaker 1: realize that your thoughts, assumptions, and reactions are interpretations, not facts.
29:30
Speaker 1: You become far harder to trigger and far easier to teach,
29:34
Speaker 1: grow and evolve. You can't change reality, but you can
29:39
Speaker 1: absolutely change the way that your brain builds it. So
29:44
Speaker 1: you can change your reality. All right? Me? Last question,
29:50
Speaker 1: Team question eleven. I don't know why I did eleven,
29:52
Speaker 1: It's just what I did. Can I rewire my brain?
29:55
Speaker 1: And if so, how long does it take? Thanks for asking?
29:57
Speaker 1: So the short answer is yeah, app yep, sure you can.
30:04
Speaker 1: Not easy, but absolutely you can. So your brain is
30:07
Speaker 1: rewiring itself all the time. The question isn't can you
30:12
Speaker 1: rewire it? It's what are you rewiring it? Toward? Every
30:18
Speaker 1: thought you think, every behavior you repeat, every reaction you
30:22
Speaker 1: default to, every emotional pattern that you reinforce and practice
30:27
Speaker 1: is literally reshaping neural circuits. Your brain is plastic, not
30:32
Speaker 1: like tupperware plastic, but in the adaptable remodelable Is that
30:38
Speaker 1: a word remodelable, constantly changing sense? And here's the important bit.
30:43
Speaker 1: Neural rewiring isn't a movie moment transformation. It's ongoing construction work.
30:52
Speaker 1: Your brain's always asking two questions, what do you want?
30:55
Speaker 1: Me to do more of what do you want me
30:58
Speaker 1: to stop wasting energy on? And it answers those questions
31:02
Speaker 1: through repetition, not intention. When you practice a new behavior,
31:09
Speaker 1: setting boundaries, pausing before reacting, exercising, learning, replacing a habit,
31:16
Speaker 1: challenging a thought, your brain starts building a pathway for
31:20
Speaker 1: that behavior. Of course, it's weak at first and awkward
31:25
Speaker 1: and requires effort and energy, like walking through long grass
31:31
Speaker 1: or mud, but repeated enough and it becomes a track
31:36
Speaker 1: and then a path, and then a road and then
31:39
Speaker 1: eventually a highway. That's rewiring. That's what rewiring is. So
31:45
Speaker 1: how long does it take? This is a million dollar question.
31:50
Speaker 1: So for small behavioral tweaks, it takes days to weeks.
31:56
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say before I share these numbers
31:59
Speaker 1: and these thoughts, this the research around this is pretty comprehensive,
32:10
Speaker 1: but it's not absolute. And also, remember when we say
32:15
Speaker 1: how long does it take to change this habit or
32:18
Speaker 1: that habit, the question would be well for who, because
32:22
Speaker 1: it's not going to be the same for Craig as
32:24
Speaker 1: it is for you the listener, or for your brother,
32:26
Speaker 1: or for your money. It's not like, oh, this habit
32:29
Speaker 1: takes twenty seven days with everybody. Well, it doesn't. And
32:34
Speaker 1: also you know it's like I need to give up sugar. Cool?
32:38
Speaker 1: How much sugar are you having a day? Well, thirty
32:40
Speaker 1: teaspoons versus I was having five. So it's a bit
32:44
Speaker 1: of a different sugar addiction or sugar problem. But so
32:48
Speaker 1: I'm about to generalize. So how long does it take
32:51
Speaker 1: for small behaviors, small behavioral tweaks? Generally days, two weeks.
32:55
Speaker 1: For habit level rewiring, ah, six to ten weeks, maybe
33:04
Speaker 1: twenty weeks, depending on the habit. We're trying to change
33:08
Speaker 1: the individual and so on. But that kind of inside
33:11
Speaker 1: out level change, I mean that real identity level change.
33:16
Speaker 1: I don't do that anymore. I'm different now. That can
33:19
Speaker 1: be years, months to years. But the good thing with this,
33:23
Speaker 1: when we consciously start down this road is that the
33:27
Speaker 1: early winds show up fast. Our brain loves new grooves.
33:34
Speaker 1: And the good bit is, I guess the important bit
33:37
Speaker 1: is you don't raise old pathways, you outcompete them. I
33:43
Speaker 1: feel like I said that before, but that's okay. The
33:45
Speaker 1: old road stays there, but the new one gets more
33:47
Speaker 1: traffic over time, and the old one grows over And
33:52
Speaker 1: as I said before, consistency beats enthusiasm, and that's why
33:57
Speaker 1: small daily actions outperform. I'm going to change my life tomorrow,
34:02
Speaker 1: promises why identity upgrades on becoming someone who works better
34:06
Speaker 1: than I. Hope I can stop doing this. Your brain
34:10
Speaker 1: isn't stubborn or broken. It's normal. You're human. We all
34:15
Speaker 1: deal with this shit. The good news is it's programmable,
34:19
Speaker 1: but only through what you do, only through your action,
34:23
Speaker 1: through your behavior, not what you say you're going to do,
34:26
Speaker 1: not what you talk about, not what you intend. So
34:30
Speaker 1: in other words, this kind of change is not a
34:34
Speaker 1: character issue. It's a wiring issue, and wiring can be changed.
34:39
Speaker 1: All right, groovers, I guess that's about it. Even I'm
34:42
Speaker 1: a bit confused. That'll do us for today. Hopefully this
34:44
Speaker 1: conversation has given you a bit of clarity, made things
34:49
Speaker 1: a little bit simpler, more easy to digest and process,
34:55
Speaker 1: and giving you something of an understanding of the thing
34:58
Speaker 1: that drives your entire life, your brain, not the textbook version,
35:02
Speaker 1: not the lab coat version, but the real world. This
35:04
Speaker 1: actually helps me live a better life version. What would
35:10
Speaker 1: my takeaway be, I guess it's My big takeaway would
35:15
Speaker 1: be that you're not broken. This is normal. You're just
35:17
Speaker 1: wired a certain way, and wiring can be understood and
35:21
Speaker 1: trained and calmed and challenged and upgraded and rewired. That
35:27
Speaker 1: your reactions aren't random, your patterns aren't personality flaws. Your
35:33
Speaker 1: stress responses aren't weakness. Your habits aren't destiny. That's good
35:36
Speaker 1: to know. They're all just the predictable outputs of a
35:40
Speaker 1: system that's doing its best with the software that it has.
35:44
Speaker 1: And the moment that you get that you step out
35:46
Speaker 1: of the shame and into agency, stop fighting yourself and
35:49
Speaker 1: start working with yourself. You begin to manage the system
35:53
Speaker 1: instead of being managed by it. I think it's just
35:57
Speaker 1: important to understand that our is the most powerful tool
36:01
Speaker 1: we have, and for us to learn how it works matters,
36:05
Speaker 1: and to treat it well, and to keep reminding ourselves
36:07
Speaker 1: that growth isn't magic, it's mechanics by team. Thanks for
36:11
Speaker 1: hanging out out with me. Look after your brain, look
36:13
Speaker 1: after your body. See you next time for something spectacular.
36:17
Speaker 1: Let's hope