The BRAIN SCIENCE of Shaping Your Identity & Staying Positive w/Dr. Caroline Leaf (Part 2) EP 1128

“You cannot grow unless you know what your emotions feel like.”Today's guest is Dr. Caroline Leaf. She is a communication pathologist and cognitive neuroscientist specializing in cognitive and metacognitive neuropsychology. Since the early 1980s she has researched the mind-brain connection, the nature of mental health, and the formation of memory. She was one of the first in her field to study neuroplasticity and how the brain can change with directed mind input. She’s also a speaker, podcaster and the author of multiple best-selling books, with her latest being “Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess.” She’s also created an app called Neurocycle which has a 5 Step Process to help you take back control over your thoughts and life, with scientific research showing it reduces anxiety, depression, and toxic thoughts by up to 81%. Lewis's conversation with Dr. Leaf was so powerful that we had to split it into 2 parts, so if you haven’t listened to part 1 yet you can find it by going to www.lewishowes.com/1127In this second episode Lewis and Dr. Caroline Leaf discuss how to rebuild confidence when doing an identity check, the 10 second pause breathing practice and how to do it, how our beliefs shape our identity, why positivity is so important to your brain health, how jealousy and envy can cause brain damage, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1128Check out her earlier episode on The School of Greatness: www.lewishowes.com/1079Check out Dr. Caroline Leaf’s website: https://drleaf.com/ Read her new book: Cleaning Up Your Mental MessThe Wim Hof Experience: Mindset Training, Power Breathing, and Brotherhood: https://link.chtbl.com/910-podA Scientific Guide to Living Longer, Feeling Happier & Eating Healthier with Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://link.chtbl.com/967-podThe Science of Sleep for Ultimate Success with Shawn Stevenson: https://link.chtbl.com/896-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,128 with New York Times bestselling author Dr. Caroline Leaf. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:29Lewis Howes?

  Roy T. Bennett once said, be mindful, be grateful, be positive, be true, be kind. An author, Ralph Ellison, said, when I discover who I am, I'll be free. My guest today is Dr. Caroline Leaf. She is a communication pathologist and cognitive neuroscientist specializing in cognitive and metacognitive neuropsychology. And since the early 1980s, she has researched the mind-brain connection, the nature of mental health, and the formation of memory. She was one of the first in her field to study neuroplasticity and how the brain can change with direct mind input. She's also a speaker, podcaster, and the author of multiple bestselling books, with her latest being Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  She has also created an app called Neurocycle, which has a five-step process to help you take back control over your thoughts in life, with scientific research showing it reduces anxiety, depression, and toxic thoughts by up to 81%. And my conversation with Dr. Leaf was so powerful that we split it up into two parts. So if you haven't listened to part one yet, you can go there and check it out at lewishouse.com/1127 after you listen to this. And in this second episode, we discuss how to rebuild confidence when doing an identity check, how our beliefs shape our identity, why positivity is so important to your brain health and the science behind it, how jealousy and envy can cause brain damage, and so much more.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  This is going to blow you away, and if you're inspired by this, make sure to share it with someone that you think would be inspired by it as well. The link is lewishouse.com/1128. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, please follow and subscribe to the School of Greatness over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or anywhere that you're listening to this, and leave us a rating and review when you're done as well. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Dr. Caroline Leaf.

• 2:23Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I put a case study in my book of one of the, um, one of the subjects who was in the beginning of the study. They said, they literally said, I am depression. That was their identity.

• 2:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 2:32Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  All they could describe.

• 2:33Lewis Howes?

  I am not, I'm depressed, I am depressed.

• 2:35Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I am depression. Yeah. I am depression and I can't sleep. Uh, my life's just, the whole narrative was just everything that was terrible. They had tried everything, every drug. They were, they were, they were at the end of their rope. By within 21 days of mind management, they were no longer saying, I am depressed. They were saying, I, and they were no longer saying, I am depression. They were saying, I am depressed because of. And that is major. And then they said, so this is now, they understood now that they were saying depression is a signal. It's telling me something. Then they said something so interesting. They said, I'm even more depressed and even more anxious than I was when I started the trial. And, and I said, yeah, that's a good thing, isn't it? They said, yes, because the depression and anxiety is different.

• 3:18Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Because the depression and anxiety shows me I've done the work because now I know why I was depressed. They had suppressed for nearly 30 years, what had happened was also sexual trauma and a lot of physical abuse. And they, it had been so bad that they'd pushed it down and completely obliterated it from their memories. And that was coming up. So that just remembering what happened made them even more anxious and more depressed. But it was a different kind of, it was a controlled depression. It wasn't a depression of, I, I just, I'm hopeless. I can't do anything. There's no meaning. It was, I now know why I'm depressed and this is what I can do. And then by 63 days, because it takes a full nine weeks to start changing behavior. They were sleeping again. They were able to get back to work. They were able to start seeing, okay, well, I found this part.

• 4:02Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Now I need to go back in and find this part, this part, this part. So there is now a pack, a, a plan in place for managing their mind and knowing what to do during the day when it hit them. That a terrible, and you can probably relate to this, that terrible like how grips you, that sadness with that anxiety or that panic attack out of the blue. Just an all consuming, or someone just says something to you that looks at you funny and your whole density shattered. Yeah. And you're triggered. So that that is key. And and that is why we've got a very, very, we've got to think, if we've been thinking a certain way for so many years because of an experience. Or as accumulation of experiences, you're going to have to do the work of unwiring it. And to unwind, you have to get control.

• 4:42Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So by gathering awareness of your signals, which is the very first step, you are then bringing this into the conscious awareness and you weaken it. And that's really key when I, and I'm holding up the wiring tree for the listeners. You then weaken the toxic thought. As soon as you weaken the toxic thought, you have now got agency or control. You still feel depressed, you still feel confused, you still feel all those things, but there's a shift. And the shift is that now you are taking control, you're empowered. And Lewis, I used to tell my patients, get two chairs, put two chairs next to each other, sit in one, and that's the wise mind. And the other one is you, messy mind. And you are talk to yourself and use the you, use the pronoun you and give yourself therapy. And it create an environment that you would love, which is kindness, grace, acceptance.

• 5:26Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And it's okay, everything you do and you keep telling yourself, you really are at your, you know, I use that, I always give them the science of saying, listen, neurobiologically, you're wired for love. Your mind is it's an optimism bias. When you feel this negative toxicity, this is simply your body trying to restore balance. There's nothing about you that's bad. It's what's happened to you. It's an adverse circumstance and you've just tried to cope. So your behaviors are simply coping signals. You know, so when you keep telling telling yourself that, and then you work through very systematically through the five steps, you're getting more and more control. You're using mind directed thinking to that direct the neuroplasticity of your brain that changes. So you rewire your brain slowly and it's not a quick process.

• 6:06Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's a slow deliberate process over sixty three days. So in the first twenty one days, it's it's forty fifteen to forty five minutes. Then you, the the second phase of forty two days, you're just gonna spend one to seven minutes. And that cycle, and I've tracked this now all with, you know, brain studies and. And blood and DNA and I view so many different levels of studies and me busy publishing all these papers at the moment. But there's a summary in the book and I've got a white paper on my website and we're doing, we're doing a national study now. But what I wanted to show people was that taking this attitude, this kind of picture I've just painted of what you did with yourself, basically. And I'm just giving you more specifics. You are actually directing the neuroplasticity of your brain. You are taking this toxic tree, you are deconstructing it.

• 6:48Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You're taking the energy that is in vibrating in those branches, holding your interpretation of yourself, which is not the truth. You're taking that trauma that happened to you and you're changing all of that. And energies never last and this is all energy in these proteins. And it's only transferred to you taking that slowly every day and you're transferring. And this is getting weaker, weaker, weaker, weaker and you're building a healthy reconceptualized version. So by day twenty one, you've got this beautiful healthy green tree. Now watch, I'm going to pull a part of it out. I'm pulling a tiny little piece of it out. There's a little piece of green that I'm holding. That is, that converted into this, it's now shrunk into a green version, which is your very terrible sad story. It still makes you sad, still makes you cry, never have happened, but it did happen.

• 7:32Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  But you've now changed what it looks like in you. It's no longer this toxic thing that's causing your immune system to send out T lymphocytes and B lymphocytes and macrophages. And treated in the same way as the COVID virus, which is damaging my brain and body, whatever. It's literally the same thing as a, it's not the same as COVID virus, but it's also protein. So you, it's recognized as a threat to survival by the immune system in the same way COVID virus is. Um, and you are, you've changed that and now no longer is it a threat to your survival. You now have a new coping mechanism. So you remember why, so when you triggered, this is what you revert to. Not the, not that toxic tree, but to get to the point where you revert to this, the green tree, you have to do that extra forty two days of work. Because habits only form in those cycles and I've had patients, nurses that would sometimes take two years to get to the point where they were.

• 8:17Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Kind of had sorted out all this stuff. Some people can do one cycle, some, there's no cookie cutter.

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:23Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Anything. This is not a technique. All I'm giving you is how you get your mind under control so that you can unwire these things and rewire them. And it's different for everyone's narrative, but you can do it. It's, it's, it's hopeful. We can do this. And it's hard work and it's difficult and it's, and it's traumatic and you need support and these times where you're going to get so depressed where you maybe can't get out of bed for a few days because of just the awareness of what's happened, but you will keep, that's progress. I had, I remember having patients that were like had gone from suicidal to ups and downs to seeming to cope to eh like back together, then suddenly crashing into deep depressions and then everything is progress because every, at every stage, there's another level of awareness. And then getting to the point, okay, I can cope. I can move forward now. I can start, which is what you did.

• 9:09Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah.

• 9:10Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You know, you've done that. Like now you've channeled all that energy into helping others.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  It's, it's all process. It's all a process and uh there's always going to be new lessons to learn, I'm assuming and.

• 9:19Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, yeah. It's that, it's that messy grow, it's that messy, it's that messy eh repair grow, messy repair grow.

• 9:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:26Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Give ourselves permission. It's okay to be messy. It's okay to be depressed and anxious. It's not an illness. You're not a broken brain. You are just, those are all sickness. Be, be Poirot, be, be Sherlock Holmes, you know, be your, be your own thought detective.

• 9:39Lewis Howes?

  There's so many things I want to make sure we go over still. Um, but I want, I, I want to go into relationships in a future episode and a future interview. So if, if you want us to um, so leave a comment on the YouTube channel and just put hashtag relationship. If you want us to do another s- uh interview about the brain connection in intimate relationships and how that affects our mood and energy and all those things. I think it'd be fascinating. So leave a comment there if you guys are interested. I want to go over. Brain building. I also want to go over what you do for the ultimate mindset training in

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  your morning and evening routine to set yourself up for success for a day. But I also and and I also want to go back into identity check and

• 10:27Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh yes, we didn't quite finish that.

• 10:29Lewis Howes?

  Figure out what is, what do you do when you are checking your identity and how do you reprogram your mind to build confidence in your identity moving forward?

• 10:39Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Okay, so where do you want to start? There's three things there.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  What, what do you do when you're doing a

• 10:44Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Identity check.

• 10:45Lewis Howes?

  What are you doing personally? What does that look like?

• 10:47Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  For me, okay.

• 10:48Lewis Howes?

  Start there.

• 10:49Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So I, um, I tune into, once again, the signals. So I'll be going along and I suddenly notice, for me, I've got certain key signals that tell me I need to do an identity check. One is imposter syndrome. When I start feeling like, oh, my gosh, I shouldn't be talking about what I'm talking, I don't even know what I'm talking about, kind of thing. Then I know that that's nonsense because I've got thirty eight years of research and I know what I am and I don't know everything, but I, so I have to, so as soon as I start feeling like that, that, um, I will, I will say, okay, that's, and if it, and I watch it, then I watch. So then I watch for imposter syndrome.

• 11:21Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I watch if I start getting perfectionistic, if I'm feeling like this obsession to be perfectionistic. Um, if I start feeling, if I like, maybe hear someone's, if I start feel little bursts of, it's not like jealousy or envy or bitterness, if any of those, I mean, I own it all. I'm not scared to tell people if I have those because it's so normal to have those. It's what's not normal is to keep them. I never see, um, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, jealousy, envy. I never see those as evil, terrible things and I'm now a bad person. I only ever see myself showing up as those because of something.

• 11:57Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And so those are my key things. If I start feeling twinges of envy or jealousy or imposter syndrome or perfectionism, then I know, okay, so there's a, there's, and then I watch. Is there a pattern? How often am I doing it? Is it daily? Is it weekly? Is it just now and then? If it's now and then, I'm okay. But if I see, okay, hey, this is happening daily and I'm being triggered by everything. Um, so I look for frequency. So um I know my signals, then I look for frequency. Then I say, all right, now it's time, this is happening. This is happening way too often. I need an identity check. I need to sit down and then I will actually sit for sixty three days, every day, and I and I do it. Well, I'm I'm always working on something. So if I see it's an identity check, I'll finish whatever I'm working on and then I'll start and I'll start and I I always do my my neuro cycle or

• 12:39Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  or anything when I'm getting ready in the morning. It's just the routine I've set up in my life. So it's um so then while I'm getting ready, it always takes me about half an hour. So so it's great time. No one comes in the in in the bathroom that that everyone knows that's leave mom alone. That's leave leave me alone. That's when I have my space. So I have a routine. So then I'll start with, let's say it's day one, I'll say, okay, those are I'm seeing I'm doing in process syndrome. I see the whatever the four signals and I that that and then I break it down. Okay, what are the emotional signals? Hmm. What are my feelings? So I'm feeling a bit of envy, a bit of jealousy, a bit of frustration, whatever. Then I'll say, okay, behaviour, what am I doing? I'm definitely not smiling as much, uh maybe. So I look at my behaviours. I seem to be a bit short. I'll keep talking about

• 13:22Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  um this, it's coming into conversations. People are actually commenting, why do you keep talking about this? Um so I look at my behaviours, so emotion, my emotional warning signals and behavioural warning signals. Then I will look at my body. I'll look at, oh, I I'll sense my body. What's different? Wow, I'm getting more gut aches. I my gut, we have such a genetic weakness in our family with gut, very common. Um I'll notice that foods that don't really make me bloated, suddenly I'm bloating more. I'm suddenly getting incredible cramps in my lower colon. I know immediately there's a certain pain that I get in my colon that is related to emotions. Oh, man. And I also I get tremendous pain in my heart when I'm very toxically stressed, like like it really feels like pain, pain, it's sore. I can feel the pain. So I notice those things. So I'm very aware. Then I'll look at my perspective and my perspective is

• 14:06Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  why am I doing this for something? So it's kind of in a negative, it's moving to a negative zone. So I gather those, but I gather them nearest like I'm gathering apples in a in a in a in an apple orchid. So I I literally will do, yeah, I do. I literally, in my mind, I am two chairs, I am using the you language. I'm very kind to myself. I'm very accepting. I set myself up correctly. So my whole mindset going into even before I gather those four signals is one of it's okay. You really are amazing. There's no one can do what you can do. So a little bit of, you know, motivational boosty, but I'm also kind to myself. It's really okay. It's really not, you're not the first person who have done this, to be feel envy or jealousy. This is not that you're a bad person. There's a reason.

• 14:43Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So I just remind myself of those things. There's a couple of little prompts that changes my neurophysiology. I know from the science that I've done that I've now got fourteen hundred neurophysiological responses working for me. Just before I start the process, I'll do the brain preparation. And I've in my app, I actually do this. I have, so I physically walk you through audio, video.

• 15:01Lewis Howes?

  What's the app called again?

• 15:02Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Neurocycle. It's called Neurocycle. And it's on, and I've got it one for identity in there. So it's, it's the whole sixty three day process. I'll literally give you therapy. And then we have many neurocycles, many neurocycle guides. So like if you're feeling imposter syndrome, you can press that. I'll give you a neurocycle. Um, a density check, anxiety, whatever. So yeah, it's really cool. We're going it all the time and I'm building in a neurocycle lab. So people can actually get coaching and get coached through different issues, which is fun. So um, then I'll do, so I'll do a bit of brain preparation. So set myself up, the kindness, all that stuff. And then I'll do a bit of brain preparation. I love to do the ten second pause. I write about that in my book. And that's just a very common breathing technique, but I do it with a bit of quite a lot of difference. I breathe in very deeply for seven counts, like, I mean, three counts.

• 15:45Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's very deeply, like, you know, the yoga kind of breathing where you really move your belly, Wim Hof type, you know, where your chest is. And then you breathe out for seven counts, but it's also that sort of yoga type breathing where you push. You've got to really rush it out. Um, the extended, uh, extended, exhale pushes oxygen to the front of your brain and blood flow to the front of your brain. So I almost have to shake my head because I feel lightheaded. So that's how intensely I do it. Then while I'm, I'll do the first couple just breathing, then I add a cognitive dimension. And I start saying, think, feel in the inhalation and then choose in the exhalation. And I do it out loud. So I add in the verbal component to the ex, the actual physical. So now I've coordinated.

• 16:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I've created not just a physiological response, but I've brought mind, brain and body. I've brought all three responses together. So I've calmed down neurochemistry, I've calmed down blood flow, I've increased blood flow to the brain. I mean, I've done, I can go on and on and on. Just given my telomeres a boost, which are the ends of chromosomes. I mean, it's just my immune system's now primed. Every, I've given my whole body the message, it's okay. You don't have to be now making stress work for me and not against me. So even my blood vessels around my heart would have dilated. And that I would have got more blood flow to my brain. So immediately I'll feel this pain in my heart immediately. Because I've now calmed my whole body down. Because that pain that I feel in my heart is coming from the trauma that's in my mind, the identity trauma in my mind.

• 17:10Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Anyway, so then then I go into the five steps. So then I'll go gather those things like I told you, the four different areas. Emotional, physical, behavioral perspective. Then I go very distinctly to step two and the gathering is like picking apples off a tree. So I don't go stand under the apple tree and just let all these things fall on my head. That's totally overwhelming. I stand back. So visualize yourself standing back and selecting. And I do what I can on that day. Sometimes I can only pick maybe just envy that day and maybe just not smiling as much and maybe just um perspective seem that I seem to be a bit down or negative. Things that I don't, I'm not as hopeful because I'm a very kind of positive hopeful person, but it's not there. So maybe I could just handle a bit. I don't force myself to do too much on one day.

• 17:49Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Um. And then I'll go to, once I've gathered, then I take each thing and I, okay, now I'm gonna reflect, ask, answer, discuss. What does this mean? Why? Why? Why? And I discuss and ask. So I'm starting to find the meaning. Then I'll write it down. So either um I do it in a meta cog and a meta cog I sort of talking about earlier on. A meta cog is a way of organizing information that looks like a tree. I mean, literally, like a tree grows branches and another branch and another branch. Every branch is connected to something else. You grow branches on a pa- piece of paper and on each branch you write a word or a couple of words or a little phrase, but nothing's floating on the page. This is so important. And you start in the centre and you just build. You can either go clockwise or anti-clockwise, whatever you want to do. You can keep it all clockwise and turn your page, whatever you want.

• 18:32Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Lewis had developed a system about thirty eight years ago and I've constantly improved it. I would do this with my patients. I would work with people, for example, with personality disorders and using the meta cog technique, we would actually, they would be able to see the different personalities and reintegrate them. And find the trauma source and that kind of stuff. To get your conscious mind working with your unconscious, to find all the trillions of thoughts that are in your unconscious mind where they stored. To get that depth because your conscious mind is only working when you're awake, but your unconscious mind's working twenty four seven. So it forces these five steps going into the meta cog, which is the third step, force this integration. And this connection between the conscious and the unconscious. So then I start writing down what I've gathered and what I've reflected on. But in this meta-coach, it's a mess. It's just like words all over the place.

• 19:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And you literally vomit it on your page and you start seeing things that you can't believe that you. I mean, every time I do it, I'm astounded at what I see. Then the fourth step is a recheck and I'll go and stand and I'll look at, take colour and I'll look at what if I, what am I saying here? What does this mean? And I try and get order. I look for triggers and patterns and antidotes. Big thing is antidote. That's reconceptualising. You said that's a state of antidote or reconceptualised statement earlier on. When you spoke about um this morning, the sadness that you felt and you said you gave yourself permission to feel the sadness. And you and your antidote, your reconceptualised version was it's okay, I'm feeling sad because this is a transition in my life. And it's okay to feel that. And then you moved on into the day. That's what you look for in step four. You look for what can you, what is the antidote?

• 20:00Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes, you're feeling this because of this. And you start, so as you go through those stages, you start seeing the reasons why, especially step three. Starts pulling that reason, the root of why I have this identity thing. And you start seeing, wow, I thought I had dealt with it, but I haven't. This is still an issue. I still need that approval because of this, this, I still, why do I need that approval? Do I really? And then you start saying, actually, I don't because of this. So step five, then that builds into step five, which is then a little statement that I'll hang on to for the day. And that's where your gratitude statement or your positive affirmation or your whatever, the summary of what you've achieved that day. It could be as simple as, okay, our identity's been knocked. I'm feeling this envy. It's okay to feel that. And maybe that's your statement. It's okay to feel this. I'm finding the reason why.

• 20:42Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And that may be all that you do. So in the app, I would type in it allows you to um type in your active reach reminder. You set it to go seven times in the day because it takes, this research shows that if you can see something consciously. Be prompted seven times at least during the day. You then are putting energy to the positive and taking it from the negative. And so you're transferring, you're weakening this and you're getting. The the healthier one's stronger, so you're weakening the toxic, making the healthier one's stronger. So I'm now re-energizing and I'm dis- disciplining, big thing is disciplining my mind, not to go back and give energy to the toxic pathway. But to actually take energy from it, so it weakens some blind grass to grow over the the worn pathway. And that's what I force myself to hang on to, that's all I'm allowed myself to think of the rest of that day.

• 21:27Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I always like to have a visual as well, I love white roses. Or and I love the sea like most people do, so I'll I'll have some image, so it'll be. Uh it's okay to feel envy, there's a reason, and then I'll imagine white roses. So each time my mind wants to go back to this imposter syndrome, this identity, this lack of value, whatever. I say it's okay to feel envy, white rose. And then tomorrow I'll go further, and that's how I do it, so over twenty one days I will do that. And then for forty two days, I'll just go with my final act of reach. And I find that I do a big one like that at least once a year, but if I need to do more, I do more. And sometimes all I need to do in between is a quick one, five minute cycle.

• 22:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:07Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, hang on, there's a bit of an identity thing here, I can run through and I remind myself. So in the course of the year, I probably do five or six times a year, if not more. Does that help?

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  That's it's massive, and I think identity check is something I feel like all of us should be doing. And constantly adjusting and improving on, because what I'm hearing you say is. Our our belief around our identity is what shapes a lot of our our mindset.

• 22:35Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, absolutely, and then what you're going to say and what you do. So what you'll do is if we, once your identity is sorted out, once I do that kind of identity check, the big one, and then the little ones in between. I'll immediately shift in my day to looking at something differently. So now I see something that I think I should. Yeah, absolutely, so something that I think I should have achieved in my business. And I'm not achieving it and I compared myself to someone else. I suddenly look at that and say, no, I'm not, I don't need to compare. I'm now enhancing. So I shift from comparison and competition, which is totally toxic. It's not at all human nature and back to enhancement, which is, oh gosh, that is amazing what that person is doing. Wow, I I love that for them and I mean it. And I'm so excited.

• 23:18Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Now, at that end, I enhance them. How does that enhance you? What can I learn or what what works for my life? What do I have? What? Do I need that exact thing? I can't have that exact thing because that's that person's thing. That's what they've got. That works for their life. That's their. I can't use my measure of of success against their measure of it. So I tell them, we know all of that. But you're not going to believe those words. We're very good at saying words if we don't believe. An identity check. Takes the words that you're saying, that you believe. We're very good. We're very good at saying the kind of statements I've just said, that we don't actually believe. And we try and convince ourselves. That's the Band-Aid approach. That's the positive affirmation approach. So I I I know when I'm saying those statements and I don't believe them, I know I need an identity check.

• 24:00Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  If I can say those statements and I'm genuinely throughout my entire mind, brain, body. If I'm entirely, totally happy for that person's success and I'm not thinking, wow, I want it. If I start thinking.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Give me, give me examples of like feeling jealous or envious about someone else and saying I'm happy for them but not feeling it and believing it.

• 24:21Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So let me think of something. So it's like, it's a whole body check. So I, there's been times where I've said, oh, I'm so happy that that person. Got a New York Times bestseller. And then I say, hey, but I can feel my body's not, this, this, I'm out of alignment here. Then I have to go and do a little identity check and I do it in a quick neurocycle and then I'll say it again. Okay, I really am genuinely happy that they got a New York Times bestseller or they got on the whatever. Yeah, published weekly, whatever the case may be. Um. And and then I check my my whole mind and body and I can feel actually, yes, I do. It's it's true. There's a whole like an alignment that I feel different and my body feels different.

• 25:02Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's like I'm relaxed and and I'm I'm excited because I now feel that they they I can see that their success is their success. And that enhances me. Whatever someone else succeeds in is only to my benefit.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 25:16Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Because that generates, they're operating in something that they can do that no one else can do. So if I celebrate that, that's gonna be generating a whole bunch of success energy and love energy that's gonna hit me and build me up. So I'm and and then I in return of building them up. So this is Einstein's work. Not that he spoke directly about it like I'm speaking about it, but he spoke about the, he worked with a a few people on how we generate photons. And there's been tremendous advances in that work and especially in the field of quantum physics. So if you're genuinely happy for someone else, you're gonna generate photons. This we always do. When you're alive, you're generating energy. You and I are generating energy now, even though we separated technologically, we impacting each other. We we've got a relationship going through our connection, et cetera. So we're being tangled. So we're impacting each other.

• 26:00Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So and it's positive because we're discussing positive things. But if you have a toxic relationship with someone, the photons that have been generated are toxic. So toxic energy waves, electromagnetic light waves are toxic, they're different, and they can see that with experience with research now. So that's the example of that is if you walk in a room and you know people don't like you, you can feel it. If someone's, you know, someone's like can't look you in the eye and you just, you know, the the way they they're kind of smiling, but you just know there's something wrong. You can cut the atmosphere with with a knife. That's what I'm talking about. It's real. Those are actual toxic energy waves coming from that person's thought in their brain and their mind and their body. They are generating all this energy that is toxic and that's what you're feeling. It's like having a little BB gun shot to do or paint paintball.

• 26:42Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So that's how real it is. And so when we in the op, when we in our natural wide full up mode, when we in a a non-destructive mode, we enhance. So it's like two waves. If you think of two waves in the sea, when they, when two waves hit each other, they cancel each other and it's flatline. That's that's competition. No one benefits. But when two waves go under. Meet each other, there's an enhancement, the way gets bigger. And that's enhancement culture, that's the real bond or connection, deep meaningful connection. So when I'm deeply recognizing my identity is, hey, I can do something that no one else can do. I don't have to be threatened by that, I'm not a competition for anyone. That person's not my competition, that person's my, my, um, what's the word I'm looking for? My, my aid, my support, my, um.

• 27:27Lewis Howes?

  Uh collaborator or?

• 27:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Collaborator, yeah, they, they're on my side, everyone's on my side. You, everyone, no one is a competition. If we got into that mode, and there's been so much science showing this in, in the, in, uh, these are, there's ancient science on this. You can go back thousands of years and find teachings on this. In the ancients, in the ancient, ancient sort of texts and different religions and just ancient texts. And there's been a hundred and fifty years in of research in this sort of area. But it's not very well accepted in, in sort of the more, um, what can I say, more physical based science? Where it's all about the brain body, that's seen as woo woo stuff. Meanwhile, it's more accurate scientifically than a lot of the current medical science that we see that is supposedly more accurate.

• 28:11Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So if you look at, and you really dissect these studies, so it's very interesting. But it, and, and the more quant- quantum physics, for example, is huge in this. And it's one of the most accurate and fundamental sciences. So the quantum experimentation is more accurate. If you look at the rules of scientific research than a lot of the classical studies, which is very interesting. Um, so essentially, what was I going to say now? What was I saying, relating back to all the, um, in terms of identity, uh, enhancement culture? So enhancement, we, we so driven by Darwin, and this, this obviously good in everything, every philosophy. But prior to Darwin, there was Lamarckian theory, and I don't want to go into any of this in depth because it's a whole huge area.

• 28:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  But essentially, it was not that we need to compete, competition, and it's not really what breeds success. Or wiping someone out at the expense of someone else, that's never really worked. But if you really look at what's worked, it's if I enhance you, we don't specialize at the expense of others, we specialize at the enhancement of others. Um, and if you look at the, the, the research on bond research and that kind of thing, we, we enhance, we, we, we build each other, we grow as a community. So communities, for example, that are very, um, a community focused versus individualistic. They're much more successful in helping people with mental health, with relationships, with peace in the community, with just generally happiness. Versus those like are very individualistic American society, which is one of the unhappiest societies in the world.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 29:37Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Is not, there's not enough enhancement. It's all about, if you're doing well, that's a threat to me. That's absolute nonsense. If you're doing well, that's great for me because that means you are enhancing me.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  So what does it do when we, when we can see someone else and celebrate their success authentically? What does that do for our, our mind versus, my brain versus envy and jealousy and resentment and frustration that they're winning or succeeding and you're not at that level or something?

• 30:05Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Okay, so the easiest way to see what it does in the mind is to think of like when you look at um quick time. Quick time has all the little, little bars going or podcasts. That's what the memory looks like in your mind. So in your mind area, it's these waves. So a life wave is generally like a sine wave versus if you, versus when you're in any kind of envy and jealousy, it's a very erratic wave. And when that goes through your brain, it creates neurochemical chaos. So first of all, you've got neurochemical chaos. So you won't have, you won't have enough balance between serotonin, dopamine, and andamide and the various different chemicals, which then affects the hormone balance, which then affects heart palpitations and cardiovascular function, immune function. So every system of the body becomes disturbed. That's why we feel disturbed throughout our entire body.

• 30:47Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  In the brain, you'll see an increase in, in high beta. High beta, if you think of a wave, when the wave is breaking and you see the white, that's high beta in the brain. Now, you're only supposed to have a burst of high beta and then it should crash and settle into, into a more gentle wave. But if you have a constant tsunami of high beta, it's creates tremendous and almost sometimes sharing of axons. It can actually damage, it can actually cause physical damage to the, to the axons because you've got too much of this wrong energy, too much of the wrong chemicals, and that can create all kinds of distortions that eventually make um things like tau protein, which is actually a good thing, become a bad thing. And we hear that in Alzheimer's.

• 31:26Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And so eventually, if we have years and years and years of jealousy, envy, unmanaged mind, we're damaging our brain and cumulatively over the years, we change the neurons, the neuronal structure, the levels of good and bad protein, amyloid beta, which is a very good protein, but in the wrong quantities, it can create memory loss and all that kind of stuff. So eventually, over time, we change the structural integrity of the brain. And so it causes brain damage and envy and jealousy do that in a big, big way.

• 31:54Lewis Howes?

  Really.

• 31:54Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Competition, that stress that it causes, it creates toxic stress very bad for your heart because it causes a constriction of blood vessels. Um. Then that's less blood flow to the brain. And if you don't have enough blood flow to the brain, you become impulsive. You don't, you lose your intelligence. You lose your cognitive flexibility. You know, you'll have, instead of having um lots of waves of high beta, gamma flowing from the back to the front of the brain in a balanced way. You're gonna have a tsunami of gamma in unbalanced ways. That's not good. You're gonna have an increase in delta. Too much during your conscious. You know, so there's a lot of different patterns that start emerging and you're learning more and more about this. Um. In as, as we, as science is advancing. So there's a definite impact, but you can change that. You can reverse that. That's the hope of neuroplasticity.

• 32:36Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Of mind-directed neuroplasticity because neuroplasticity can't happen on its own. It happens run by mind. So you direct it. So you can change that. So, yeah, so it's changeable, but it really creates a mess. And that isn't going to lead you, it's gonna lead you to make decisions that maybe will get you to the top in a certain way, but the price you pay in relationships. Health, happiness, peace. So many people that have got to the top in a competitive way are not happy people. And people on their deathbed, you ask them what they'll, they'll say, I wish I'd worked on my relationships and love. We design for enhancement. You can still get to the top. They also be able to define what is getting to the top.

• 33:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You know, there's a whole different redefinition needed of that too. You know, at this, at the moment, it's how many likes you have on Instagram, how many New York Times bestsellers you have, how many. But you know, we've got very, very toxic versions of what success is. And that needs to be changed as well.

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 33:31Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  They're very competitive based.

• 33:33Lewis Howes?

  Um. This is fascinating. I'm curious about, I'm just thinking about um a majority of my life where I was competition focused and.

• 33:41Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  We grew up in that.

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  I think I actually like competition, but more of like toxic competition, maybe where it's.

• 33:46Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes.

• 33:47Lewis Howes?

  Where it's like, I need to be the best. I need to be number one. I need to win. At all costs, otherwise I don't feel loved and supported and, you know, desirable or whatever it is. I'm all for like, you know, competition and bringing the best out of each other.

• 34:02Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, that's that's enhancement. That's not even a competition. That is, okay, let's enhance each other. Let's see who can do the best, whatever.

• 34:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:10Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And then it's like everything's to be celebrated. But as you are building, so if you shift your mindset, exactly, we've got a competition here for someone who's going to build the best new version of quantum computers, because they're busy trying to do that at the moment. So if instead of it being a competition, let's talk about an enhancement. So everyone is throwing everything at it. Let's actually take the vaccine, COVID, the COVID. If we had more enhancement versus competition, we would have had a vaccine earlier and distributed to the poor countries quicker. But it's the it's the competition and the desire for finance that has taken precedent over humanity. And that's an example where, you know, a lot of the scientists didn't want that. A lot of the scientists wanted to share each of this. So it's not.

• 34:55Lewis Howes?

  What's working with everyone.

• 34:56Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Exactly. So you've got something to bring to the table, and so do I. You you complete a piece of the puzzle, so do I. So if we put our heads together, instead of competing against each other, that's going to lead to success, global humanitarian type success. As opposed to because it takes one man to make a difference. You know, so it's just, it's how we look at it. It's just like a whole perspective needs to shift.

• 35:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  We're getting deep here. I love talking to you. You get into all these really excellent things.

• 35:24Lewis Howes?

  It's called the school of greatness, Caroline.

• 35:26Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I love it.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  School of average.

• 35:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  That's fantastic.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Not that we're competing or needing to be the best.

• 35:31Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  We heart each other. Greatness greatness means a beautiful thing. Yeah, it means we are growing. What is it that you bring to the table that I don't? I must tell you a quick story if I may, just about that state. Years ago, when I worked in South Africa, one of the things I did was I trained teachers. I used to work in the apartheid era and the transition. I don't know if I told you this before, but I spent three days a week in apartheid South Africa, working in pre apartheid, in apartheid, transition and post, when Mandela came to power. And I saw firsthand the impact of.

• 36:02Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Terribly evil social structures on humanity. And that's why I chose to do that at the same time as doing my research and working in um private practice with people that had a lot of money and could afford to see a therapist. Um. And so I, that was one of the best experiences of my life. That's where I learned what I really know about life and about this field that I'm in. Because I saw how humanity, when they, when you, when you put your mind to stuff, you can, it's just incredible. It's school of greatness, honestly, was, was that time period. And in, I used to train a lot of teachers in the education environment to try and help uplift the terrible education that the black population had been exposed to. So part of my team, we would, we worked with over three hundred thousand um people, we actually reached more, but we would work to with teachers and students and

• 36:46Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  um one of the projects was three hundred thousand. What we would do is go in and, and train the teachers on how to use their brain and how to learn, how to build their brain, how to manage emotions, how to just really get the most out of the mind brain connection, and then how to adapt this into the education system so that you could transfer knowledge more effectively, because literally these schools would have one textbook, a hundred kids, a piece of chalk this size, and all chalk, all that didn't work, and they would get the kids to literally repeat and regurgitate with no understanding. And I remember teaching one of these schools and I'd always teach identity first, was the first session when I trained teachers was identity for themselves, identity for their students, and then I go into the techniques. And as I started this, one teacher stood up and he was so aggressive, I'll never forget, he just said, Doctor Leaf, I'm sorry, but you have got it wrong.

• 37:31Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  There is a kid in my class who is so stupid and so difficult that there's no ways that he could learn anything or he could change. And I mean, it was worse than that. He really went on. It was just like a whole mouthful of venom. And I was so dumbstruck, and I'm very seldom dumbstruck, and one of the other teachers in the class stood up and said, sir, that child that you say is so stupid can do something that you can't do, and it's your responsibility to trigger that in that child. I tell you, this was nearly twenty five, twenty eight years ago. It changed me forever. And that's where I started researching identity in a big way in, in, in my work after that. And that's what, what we're talking about here. And we recognize that in other people.

• 38:14Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And that we, my role is to bring out the best in you. Your role is to bring out the best in me. We change society. It's not that I'm trying to beat you, it's that I'm trying to bring out the best in you. It's a totally different perspective.

• 38:25Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  Um, I want to talk about brain building for a little bit before we wrap things up because I know this was something we mentioned a few times.

• 38:34Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  And I'm curious, it, when, what should we do the moment we realize we're being triggered? Uh, and feeling a lot of emotions. Should we lean into brain building or is brain building something you do before that?

• 38:50Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Such a good question. So when I'm very, very emotionally triggered, the first thing I'll do is that 10 second.

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  How, how happened for you?

• 38:56Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's less and less now. I used to get very, I used to get very easily thrown. Um, because I, I think that intense desire to please, I think you can relate. Um, things would throw me very quickly and, and I would get things under control because I'm very energizer bunny. But yeah, I would get thrown very quickly, but I've, I, I know now if I want to get, if I'm in a very challenging situation and I'm very emotionally triggered, I will brain, I will do the 10 second force because I've got to get my neurochemistry under control. I do it six to nine times. So it's about 60 to 90 seconds, which is enough time from the research that I've done and others that have done this. That, um, in this field that gets your neurochemistry calmed down and your blood flow and everything to a point where you're okay.

• 39:38Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And then I kind of check, am I calm enough to, to kind of move forward? And then I do brain building. And I would do this with all my patients as, as in a side note, I never started a session without an identity check and brain building, and then they were diving to the heavy stuff. So I always got them in a place in brain preparation. I always got them in a place where they were ready to do the work, hard work before we did any, any, you know, heavy stuff. So then I would, and I'll go brain build. So I'll go and brain building is essentially using the neuro cycle. So it's the same five steps, but now instead of detoxing, identifying and detoxing and reconstructing, you're actually just building. So it's the same five step process because the, the neuro cycle is simply the science of thought. It is how we use our mind.

• 40:20Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  To grow stuff in our brain and it's controlling the process and get stuff out of our brain. That's really what the neuro cycle is. That's why I say it's delivery system for doing that. So then you take the, take whatever you're interested in. And I'm totally, as I, as you know, interested in brain science. So I'll take um every day. I mean, I do this every day. You see what's my routine, but in that moment, I'll take something like I'll. I'm always creating podcasts, like yourself, soda podcasts and things. So I'm always writing books. I'm always doing journal articles. Um, writing a scientific article is an enormously challenging, extremely difficult thing to do. So anything, any project that I'm busy with like that, I'll go and dive into it. I'll go and either prepare a podcast. Um, do the, do work on a journal article because that requires brain build. It requires me to read complex stuff.

• 41:04Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  That I have to read a couple of lines and then I have to stop. So I have to gather the information, which is the read part. Gather, where we spoke before about gathering awareness. Now I'm talking about gathering awareness in terms of reading that information. I do it out loud and I do it with my pen, literally underlining it because that brings all my senses together. I explained this in depth, by the way, in the, in this book and also in the app. All the stuff we've been talking about is in the book and the app. Um, then I, then I'll go, then I stop and I literally look up and I, and I talk out, I ask, I do the, the reflex step. So I ask, answer and discuss. What have I just read? What does this mean? What's this stuff here? Because it's, you can just read and then I, until I can discuss it and I know, okay, it means this.

• 41:47Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And when I'm doing that reflex step, I go back in with my pen or my pencil and I circle, I don't underline. I circle because when you circle, you get to the key concepts. The concepts are where the information is stored. You don't recall a hundred percent. You recall conceptually. So you want to build conceptually. Concept is where the core information is. It's about thirty, fifteen to thirty five percent of information. So if you take a simple sentence like the cat sat on the mat, the cat sat on the mat. Seven words. What is it? Seven words, six words. The concept would be around about two words, cat mat with an arrow. That's what you wanna get to. You want to get to the concept level. So in the reflex step, you are rereading it and circling and asking, answering, discussing and finding. So what you wanna circle is thirty percent max.

• 42:33Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Then you write that down onto the metacog and you organize it. So you organize it and you write it down. And then you go back and say, okay, does this match what I've just read? And then you say yes and you discuss it. Then you go to the next sentence. And that process, it totally puts your brain into one of the most highly resilient states that you can get. It calms down your brain, the neurochemistry, the blood flow balances the two sides of the brain, increases your gamma activity, which in in the right way, which is what you want because it pulls stuff from the non-conscious to the conscious. And it also gets you into a state where you are like a sponge to learn. And when you get into that state, your brain goes into tremendous state of brain health. It's like your brain loves this. Like literally your brain is in love with brain building. I should say that in the book.

• 43:16Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And it so you now feel a sense of peace and excitement and wisdom. And as I'm brain building, suddenly I'll, it often happens, as I'm doing the brain building, the metacog, the neurocheck, as I'm doing that, suddenly I'll get to a point that, ah, that's the solution. And I feel it's a sense of peace and I can go and handle that situation. So I've trained myself to do that. I don't, as far as possible, try and solve the crisis, unless you have to solve it on the spot. But I try to always stand back and say, okay, I need a bit of time. I'm gonna go and calm down. I'm gonna go and do even this kind of thing that we're doing now is, is brain building.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  Brain building, learning.

• 43:51Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's learning. It's learning. And it's very just, and it's if, and if you look in my, in my book on chapter fourteen, I actually have my daily routine. I don't know if you wanna talk about that now in another thing. But brain building is one of the first things I do in the morning. So, and I do.

• 44:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What is, um, what's the best thing to do for yourself at night to, to clean out the mental mess?

• 44:13Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So the best thing to do at night is to start in the morning. So when you wake up, it sets the tone for the day. So you wanna get

• 44:19Lewis Howes?

  Don't have a negative attitude in the morning.

• 44:21Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Catch it early. Catch it early and then catch it during the course of the day. So sleep prep starts in the A M. And you've got to do a check in at lunchtime as well. So I do that every day. So it really does start. I mean, I wake up and I check immediately self-regulate, immediately mind manage, what's my mood? What's my mindset? And if it's complaining or negative or worrying, I catch it immediately. I work out why. I do a quick neuro cycle in my bed. It takes me two minutes. I do it so quickly. Immediately go into brain with my coffee. Obviously, I will do some brain building, even if it's fifteen minutes. And then I will start, you know, getting ready and doing the detoxing. Then during the course of the day, I'll take periods where I'll do thinker moments. And thinker moments are where you activate what we call the default mode networking in your brain,

• 45:04Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  which is very important to restore energy, restore balance, just to be reset. We've got to reset. And the thinker moment, you can reset in a few seconds and it's great to have a ten minute block if you can during the course of the day, preferably in the sunshine if you can. And all you do there is daydream. You literally close your eyes, switch off to the external, switch on to the internal, and just let your mind have a bit of a rest. And that is very, very powerful. There's tons more I can say about that. And it is in the book, but that's like another two hour discussion, but it is so powerful. Thinker moments are unbelievably restorative. So I make

• 45:37Lewis Howes?

  What do you call it? What moments?

• 45:38Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Think thinker moments, thinker moments, thinker, as in T H I N K E R, thinker.

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  Thinker, thinker moments.

• 45:45Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Thinker moments, sorry.

• 45:47Lewis Howes?

  You're sounding like an American over here.

• 45:48Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Um, yeah, there we go. I have to go American thinker.

• 45:50Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna go to Dallas, Dallas, uh, yeah.

• 45:53Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I'll have to get the, I did two English, instead of thinker, thinker.

• 45:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, thinker, thinker.

• 45:58Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So that's just switching

• 45:59Lewis Howes?

  Moments, yeah.

• 46:00Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's basically switching off to the external, switching on to the internal, allowing thoughts to move through your mind, daydreaming. You find out then what's going on. What are you actually thinking about? What's dominant? What are the patterns? Phenomenally powerful. And that's another whole long discussion. But I make sure that I do those frequently and I try and take a ten minute break in the middle of the day where I do that. And then at night, um, before I go to sleep. I will, there's other stuff I do, it's in the book, but it's in that chapter fourteen. But just before I go to sleep, I will make sure I do a whole check, also using the neurocycle. What are my emotions? What are my signals? What am I thinking of? What am I reflecting on and get order and then, okay, this is what worrying me, this is worrying me, this is worrying me, I'm feeling this and feeling that. So I do the neurocycle and I get to the active reach where, okay, I can't fix this now.

• 46:44Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  But this is what I can do, tap it in my phone, I'll do this tomorrow, I'll do this, this is a solution here, that there. So I get my little solutions, takes me five minutes and I calm down and I'll watch a movie like Friends or something. That's been my obsession lately is watching it Friends before bed or something fun, relaxing. And, you know, they fall asleep and that, and then, as I said earlier on, I'm busy now with starting, setting up a research study. Um, on dreams and how you can actually, there's a lot of research showing how you can actually prepare yourself for dreaming. Because dreaming is restorative and you're learning more and more about dreaming. And so I want to start doing that because you can actually, especially people that battle with night terrors and, and, and night paralysis and nightmares.

• 47:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And because it's all just your mind processing, because your mind's processing during the day. So it's to try and help people find more information there, whatever. But I always find that helps to prepare myself for sleep.

• 47:38Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. And if, if you guys want us to do another episode on dream states, then leave a hashtag dreams below as well in the comments on YouTube. Just so we can see how many people are interested in that. Again, put a hashtag relationships if you want to learn more about that. Uh, this has been fascinating. Um, um, hopefully next time we can do it in person, if you're coming to LA, we'd love to have you.

• 47:57Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes, it'll be so nice and you've got to come on my podcast as well. We've got to carry, we can just keep the series going. I mean, yours, mine, yours, mine, yours, mine, seriously. It's just so great. I have the best discussions with you.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  It's been beautiful. We've covered a lot today and I want to, I want to wrap things up here. Um, but if we could. Uh, if, if someone could pull one thing from this, we covered a lot, but if we could do one thing where they can implement moving forward, just one thing. Or one thing they could think about differently to help improve the quality of their life, what would that one thing be based on what we talked about?

• 48:29Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I would say to understand the concept that your mind is not your brain and your mind changes your brain. And that based on that, what I've been saying throughout this interview, you can't change what's happened to you, but you can change what's happening in you.

• 48:44Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:45Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You have that power. And I think just that awareness, if people can start developing that awareness, they get 20 million empowerment. They they're on the path back to empowerment.

• 48:52Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. You've got an incredible book. It's been spreading all over the world in a beautiful way. It's called Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess. Five simple scientifically proven steps to reduce anxiety, stress and toxic thinking. Uh, that people can dive into. It's extremely practical, but it's got all of the neuroscience and the research backing everything on how you can apply these simple steps into your life. Under these stressful, you know, overwhelming moments that we all have faced and hopefully give you a lot more clarity and peace. So make sure you guys get a few copies of the book. It's powerful. I really like it. Cleaning up your mental mess. Also, I'm excited to check out your app, Neurocycle. I haven't downloaded it yet, so I'm going to download it right after this. Make sure you guys download the app that's in the App Store, I'm assuming.

• 49:35Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, iTunes, Google Play. Yeah, it's all over the place.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  Get Neurocycle.

• 49:38Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Updated, so yeah.

• 49:40Lewis Howes?

  And you're the, you're the voice, huh? You're the one who's.

• 49:42Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I'm the voice. It's my creation. It's my baby. I do all of it. So it's no, no one else.

• 49:46Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 49:46Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I have a team of engineers, obviously, but I do all the talking.

• 49:49Lewis Howes?

  Do the content, yeah. The content, yeah. So we can download Neurocycle, uh, the app and also your podcast, which is, it's cleaning up the mental mess.

• 49:58Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, same, same name as the book.

• 50:00Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Yeah. Lots of more great stuff there. Uh, we also had another interview that has blown up over on YouTube and on audio. So if you guys want to listen to that or watch that, we'll link it up. As well. And I asked you your three truths and your definition of greatness the last time. So if you guys want to hear what those are, make sure you go check out the previous episode. As well. And um, I want to acknowledge again, Dr. Caroline Lee for, for showing up so brilliantly. You've got decades, almost four decades of wisdom and research and case studies and experience in this field. And it's so powerful, the way you explain it, the way you articulate it, the way you

• 50:40Lewis Howes?

  simplify challenging concepts that seem so overwhelming with examples, with models, with, you know, props, you're just making it easier for for people like myself to understand how to manage our mind and master our mind. So I appreciate and acknowledge you for the gift you are in this world. And I'm excited to do more of this with you and help more people together.

• 51:00Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Thank you so much. It's very kind of you. Thank you.

• 51:03Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  My final question for you is,

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  what's the thing that you hope to improve more in your life the rest of this year?

• 51:18Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I have to get a mastery of being able to help people see the importance of mind and understand mind. So diving into more research studies, finding easier ways to explain this because I just know if we can get people to understand how their mind works and how to manage it, we're going to have a better world. We're going to start being able to get these social constructs and things that are damaging the world like racism and just the competitiveness and the hatred and the wrong narratives around mental health that are damaging so many people. I just want people to be able to shift. So that's really, I'm so driven to get that message through. So thank you for being able to helping me to do that. So and I, by the way, think you're amazing. I mean, what you've gone through and how you've turned that around and how you express yourself, you're phenomenal. You really are.

• 52:01Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. Thank you. Always learning, always growing. I appreciate it.

• 52:04Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I see that.

• 52:05Lewis Howes?

  Well, Dr. Caroline Leaf, thank you so much for being here. I was always excited to have you back on. Thank you.

• 52:10Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Thank you so much. Thank you.

• 52:12Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you found it helpful for the quality of your life. We're all about improving your life. We're figuring out the tools, the strategies, the science that will help you unlock the power of your mind and your inner greatness. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. Post it on social media and make sure to tag me and Caroline Leaf as well over on your Instagram stories and let us know what you thought about it. And if this is your first time here, please leave us a rating and review over on Apple Podcast. Click the subscribe button, leave a rating and review, and let us know what you enjoyed most about this episode. Would love to see your thoughts and your feedback on the power of this interview. And also make sure to check out the other part to this episode. Again, this is a two parter, so go back to the previous episode in the podcast

• 52:56Lewis Howes?

  app that you're in so you can listen to part one with Dr. Caroline Leaf. And I want to leave you with a quote from Alfonso Cár, who said, "We can complain because rosebushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses." No matter what type of pain or stress. Anxiety you're going through, whatever the thorns are in your life, realize that there's so much beauty on the other side as well. There's so much beauty surrounding that pain as well. Just be willing to open your eyes and look for it and smell those roses that are all around you. And I want to remind you if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you today, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.