The Neuroscience Behind Mindfulness w/ Dr. Amishi Jha

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know the INNER WORKINGS OF THE MIND are a particularly fascinating subject for me. I hope you’re ready for a BRAINY conversation this week because that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about with my guest DR. AMISHI JHA. There are so many questions when it comes to optimizing how your brain functions. Are you curious about how you can do a better job of paying ATTENTION? Are you curious why you get DISTRACTED so easily? Dr. Jha has got some revealing insights you’re going to want to hear. Dr. Jha is the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami where she is one of the leading experts in the world on the study of COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE. Dr. Jha is also the author of the newly published book, PEAK MIND Even though they’re critical success skills, many of us fall short when it comes to mindfulness and maintaining focus. As part of our discussion, Dr. Jha also weighs in with THREE SYSTEMS you can put into practice to help you improve these essential skills. We also talk about how you can DO AWAY WITH BIASES that are influencing your actions and what you focus on. As Dr. Jha explains, learning how to step back from your preconceived narratives gives you CLARITY going forward. Dr. JHA ties a lot of these ideas together when we talk about MENTAL TOUGHNESS through GREATER SELF-AWARENESS of your mind. We even get into how powerful your brain is through its ability to TIME TRAVEL and MIND TRAVEL. There’s so much we’ve learned about the brain, but so much that we don’t understand. Here’s one last thing to think about. What we do know, and as Dr. Jha proves, is that you can achieve BETTER LIVING through a BETTER RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR BRAIN. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm so excited to have this lady here with me. I'm fascinated by her work. And because the applications in so many different areas of my own life, and I believe for the audience today. She's got a new book out called Peak Mind. She's a neuroscientist, professor of psychology at University of Miami. And I already like her. Amishi Ja, welcome to the program.

• 2:03Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Thank you so much. It's good to be here.

• 2:04Ed Mylett?

  So good. So, I have so many things I want to ask you, and I'm going to cram it into one hour. So, first things first, there's this fallacy evidently that we use only a percentage of our brain. There's, you know, your 10% of your brain, 32% of your brain. People love to throw these statistics around. But as I'm prepping and learning about your work, you say, "Not true at all."

• 2:26Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Oh, not true at all.

• 2:27Ed Mylett?

  Okay, tell me.

• 2:28Dr. Amishi Jha?

  No way. I mean, the brain takes up so much of our metabolic energy. Nothing is wasted. And the way to think about the brain is as a unit. Usually, we think about bits and pieces and communication between those bits and pieces. But it's really the configuration of the whole thing, just like a team. So you'd never say that, you know, if you have all the players on the team, some may be more active than others, but you don't say the whole team's not playing the game. Same idea with the brain. It's entirely used.

• 2:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 3:00Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And some parts may be actively suppressed and other parts may be actually really activated.

• 3:05Ed Mylett?

  Do highly performing people have some functionality in their brain or a presence about them that people that don't function at that same level have? What separates them?

• 3:15Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:16Ed Mylett?

  You say "peak mind." What does that mean?

• 3:17Dr. Amishi Jha?

  To me, a peak mind has to do with the area that I actually specialize in: attention.

• 3:22Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 3:22Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So a peak mind is a mind that has full access to its attentional resources. Nothing is lost or hidden. And by the way, that doesn't always mean you're focused.

• 3:32Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 3:32Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It means that you know exactly, in a moment-to-moment context, where your attention is, even if it's off-leash, doing whatever the heck it wants to do.

• 3:39Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so attention means I'm aware I'm no longer focused on the task at hand, the initial task, and that's still being in full attention? Is that what you're saying? I'm trying to understand that.

• 3:49Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, yeah. So attention is this complex, multifaceted system. And it really developed over the course of evolution because we've got a very big problem. The brain had a very big problem.

• 3:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 4:00Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Which is that, and we can see it if we just look around right now, there's so much information available to it. It cannot possibly process all of it.

• 4:09Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 4:09Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So attention provides a solution to prioritize a subset of the information and then hone in on it to get fuller access. So we actually make sense of the world by sampling different pieces of it to kind of put together the entirety.

• 4:23Ed Mylett?

  Okay. So, oh, here we go. This is already getting good. So I went right into the content without even positioning things because I'm so fascinated. But as you can now tell everybody, we're going to talk today about mindfulness an awful lot. And we're going to talk today about getting better at getting your attention focused. I use the word "focus." You use a different word. But so I'm watching one of your TED Talks. By the way, I want to encourage everybody to go watch them. The one I watched is awesome. At one point in the talk, you say, "Well, I basically got eight minutes left. You will listen to about 50% of what I'm about to say."

• 4:56Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yep.

• 4:57Ed Mylett?

  And I thought to myself, wow, the application of missing 50% of something, maybe in listening to a talk, okay, whatever. But what's that mean for an athlete who's in a five-round UFC fight? What's it mean for a surgeon who's going to operate on someone's body? What's it operate for a soldier or a law enforcement person to lose attention for that percentage of time? So that's actually accurate, that the average person, their attention is there 50% of the time?

• 5:25Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah. I mean, that's study after study after study.

• 5:28Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 5:29Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And what I mean by that is, some of these studies are really interesting, the way that they're done. And they're done in a very rudimentary way. We've gotten more and more sophisticated. But the initial studies, all that happened was, you said, "Okay, Ed, will you sign up for my study?" "Yes." "I'm going to text you any time of day during waking hours. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions." And the questions would be something like, "What are you doing right now?" And you'd get a little list of options, like, reading a book, talking to a person. Whatever those options are, you click. And then the second question is, "Where is your attention right now? Is it on the task you're doing or somewhere else?"

• 6:00Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 6:00Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And that kind of experience sampling suggested 50%.

• 6:04Ed Mylett?

  Gosh.

• 6:04Dr. Amishi Jha?

  But then, we brought it into the lab, and we had people do tasks that are attentionally demanding. And even then, even though they know they're there to do a task, 50%.

• 6:13Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 6:13Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You pay people to say, "Don't get distracted." Still, very high percentage of time.

• 6:18Ed Mylett?

  They still get distracted.

• 6:19Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It's just the nature of the mind. And I think knowing that can be very empowering, in some sense.

• 6:24Ed Mylett?

  Is there such a thing as multitasking, or is that a fallacy? In other words, can the brain do more than one thing at one time?

• 6:30Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Great question. I'm so glad you asked that. So if more than one thing is attentionally demanding, you cannot do more than one thing at one time. The term multitasking is actually a myth.

• 6:40Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 6:41Dr. Amishi Jha?

  The correct term would be task switching.

• 6:44Ed Mylett?

  Task switching.

• 6:44Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yes. So what you're doing, and this is actually, frankly, one of the most exhausting things you can do to your brain, is engage your attention, and then have to disengage it, move it to the next thing, come back, and move it over and over again.

• 6:55Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 6:56Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 6:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And when we ask, when we tell people this, you know, it's, people always get it's like, "Yeah, it takes me a while to get back into the thing I was doing." So don't do that to yourselves is my main like guidance for people.

• 7:08Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 7:08Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Don't have your alerts on when you're trying to actually do deep work and focus. Because you're disadvantaging your ability to actually do the task that you're trying to do. I mean, if already the baseline is 50%, and now you've got to deal with things pulling you away, the chances of it actually being successful are even reduced more.

• 7:24Ed Mylett?

  So what's the solution then? In other words, you talk a great deal about mindfulness. Why don't we position that? I'm pretty familiar, I would say, that I've practiced mindfulness for a while, but not on the level and to the extent nor with some of the exercises that you recommend. So is the solution in your, is a generic answer mindfulness for you? And then why don't you elaborate on what that actually means?

• 7:46Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Sure, I mean, I think that, first of all, I'll just tell you my personal bias, right? So coming into this, I mean, you can see me, I'm an Indian woman. The term meditation or mindfulness meditation, I mean, these were not things that I was unfamiliar with growing up.

• 7:58Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 7:59Dr. Amishi Jha?

  But I kind of didn't want anything to do with it. I was a true skeptic. In fact, I thought it was not a serious enterprise and had other reasons for not wanting to go in the direction of practicing meditation at all. Because of some sexist aspects of the culture, etc. I was like, no, no, not for me. So my topic, my expertise is in the brain science of attention. That's what I studied. And it was just a total life circumstances that even opened me up to the possibility of mindfulness entering my lab's work. So I just want to frame that, that,

• 8:31Ed Mylett?

  It's interesting.

• 8:32Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You know, it's very hard for people to know, especially when I walk into military bases. They usually think I'm the mindfulness lady, and then the neuroscientist is the other person that's with me. And I'm like, no, flip that.

• 8:40Ed Mylett?

  Well, what's interesting, not to interrupt you, but that's what I thought originally. So when the opportunity to speak with you was presented to me, I went, okay. I've had some meditation people on before. I'm actually more interested in the science part of it.

• 8:50Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right, right.

• 8:51Ed Mylett?

  Then I look into you and I'm like, oh, hold on a second here.

• 8:54Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right.

• 8:54Ed Mylett?

  This is a person who comes from the scientific perspective. She's a neuroscientist. Now we're talking about mindfulness.

• 8:59Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, exactly. So, you know, it's not something, and it was probably two or three years into me having my own lab that it entered my lab's landscape. And it really came because I was at a crossroads in my personal life. I was, you know, a young child at that point. I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And everything was sort of... On paper and to the external world, exactly as I'd wanted it, right? I got this dream job, I have a beautiful family, and we just bought a hundred-year-old fixer-upper in West Philly.

• 9:29Ed Mylett?

  Whoa.

• 9:29Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And we're renovating it, and like, everything was great and like the way that I had planned for it to be. But I had a real wake-up call. There were two things that happened that really were like, ah, something's up. First, I lost feeling in my teeth from grinding. That was odd. And then one night, I was reading to my son, and had no idea what I was reading in the book. Like, he asked me, he was like, maybe not even three years old. He stopped, put his little hand on the book and like, looks up like, what do we, you know, what does this word mean? And I'm like, I have no idea what I'm reading. And it was this kind of deep feeling of, my goodness, I am not here at all. I am not paying attention to my life. And if this is happening now, and he's this tiny, like, how is it gonna flow as he gets older?

• 10:12Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And things, as you know, as you've got teenagers, things get more complicated.

• 10:16Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 10:16Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, anyway, just to say that, I became, like, I was on a hunt. I study attention, I'm an expert in this. Okay, let me just read something about how to fix this thing. Like, I'm distracted, how do I fix it? Nothing in my field would guide me to what to do. And so, we tried a lot of different things, even in the lab, because it sort of paralleled what the lab was studying at that time of, we knew attention can be vulnerable to things like stress and threat, et cetera. But we didn't have any solutions there.

• 10:45Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 10:46Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, anyway, so it ended up, just to give you a sense of why mindfulness entered the lab.

• 10:50Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Dr. Amishi Jha?

  I was at a seminar, actually. This was about early 2000s, so mindfulness was not a term. Like, I would have never thought at that point, 2021, I'd be talking to somebody that would say, oh yeah, I practice mindfulness. Like, definitely not something I thought would happen. But this colleague of mine, a very eminent neuroscientist, who studies something called affective neuroscience, the neuroscience of emotion. And he presented, he was like at the front of this large lecture hall, and he presented like two brain images on the screen. A very positive-looking brain, meaning he had induced people while they're in the scanner to feel in a positive mood.

• 11:28Ed Mylett?

  Good.

• 11:28Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And then a negative brain. And...

• 11:32Dr. Amishi Jha?

  I'm like, at the end of the lecture, I raised my hand, I was like, okay, how do you get that brain to look like that brain? You know, like, kind of just in a... And he was very flippant about it, he was just like, "Meditation." And I was like, "What? I don't think so." Yeah, "No, no, I don't think so." Ended up, I talked to him later, and he was in a serious, uh, initial stages of studies that now we've all probably heard of with adept monastics, monks.

• 11:54Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 11:54Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And so, it was very intriguing to me, and I was kind of like, "Oh, but I don't want anything to do with this, this is not serious." And I had my own personal baggage, and I ended up walking into the Penn bookstore and pulled a book off called Meditation for Beginners. And I just said, "Let me just check it out." It ended up that that book was by one, somebody who's quite dear to me now, is a teacher, uh, Jack Cornfield, and Jack, um...

• 12:17Ed Mylett?

  The book, I know the book.

• 12:18Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, and Jack has a little, it's a little tiny book, and has a guided CD. I'm like, "Okay, look, I'm skeptic, I'm a skeptic, but I'm just gonna try it. I'm just gonna try it." And it's like, ten, fifteen, twenty minute practices. So I committed to it, and what I realized as it was happening, as I was going through this, day after day, and probably about a month or so in, I'm like, "Oh, this thing is entirely, the instructions are plainly about attention, and this thing is transforming the way that I pay attention." I felt more embodied, I felt more aware, I could notice the little grimaces on my son's face, or maybe a concerned look in my spouse's eyes, like, just everything became crystal clear and more alive to me. And none of the stresses had changed, I mean, the pressures of my life were the same, but

• 13:01Dr. Amishi Jha?

  I was more, I felt more capable, really, more at my peak.

• 13:05Ed Mylett?

  How quickly?

• 13:06Dr. Amishi Jha?

  About four to six weeks.

• 13:08Ed Mylett?

  That's what it was for me, too, which are really amazing, you're saying this, is that, um, I had a somewhat similar experience where I, you know, sort of the financial well-being of my life had turned around, I'm living on the ocean, you know, I've got all these things in my life that I wanted, and I just struggled with finding some peace. I struggled with being present, um, clarity of thought. And actually, what I felt like, too, for me, was like, I had stopped growing emotionally, psychologically, and mentally. Like, I would, I was still producing more external results, but there was just a part of me that wasn't expanding. And maybe I was even regressing. I grabbed the exact same book.

• 13:44Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Really?

• 13:45Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, that's what's ironic about it. When you said that, I wanted to make sure it was the same author before I jumped in.

• 13:49Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 13:50Ed Mylett?

  I know, it's amazing. I grabbed the exact same book. But as we're talking, I realized even recently, maybe I've not stayed as dedicated to some of those practices as I could. So being with you has sort of inspired me to do it.

• 14:01Dr. Amishi Jha?

  A lot of times, you know, just I'm anticipating, people may be like, okay, I've heard of mindfulness, I'll even do it. But I want to deepen the understanding.

• 14:08Ed Mylett?

  Please.

• 14:09Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And maybe even, it might even actually motivate you to kind of try a little bit more regularly of what attention is and why it ended up being such an interesting solution for us to bring it into the lab. Because after this happened, to kind of get back to the, um, to where I was in my journey. After this happened, I was like, okay, this is pretty interesting, but I'm one person. This is an anecdotal self-study.

• 14:30Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So if this is for real, then let's put it to the test in the most rigorous way possible.

• 14:35Ed Mylett?

  Good.

• 14:36Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And hey, I happen to have all the tools of studying attention. I can actually bring this to the lab and we can do this seriously. So that summer, like a few months after I started this whole journey, I wrote my first grant to investigate this. And put really, literally, like, if this has any chance of actually being real, it will have to really be there in order for us to see it, or else it'll just not show up. You know, with this kind of randomized controlled trials and having, ensuring that we're very clear about the protocols, et cetera. So anyway, so I just wanted to mention that, that this is, this entered the lab because I was curious, but I was very open to the fact that it could be anecdotal.

• 15:14Ed Mylett?

  It could be just you.

• 15:14Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It could be just me. Because I would love to share a practice with you and you'll find it very familiar, since you've been practicing mindfulness. But the reason that I was willing to write the grant, and I think the reason I've been able to get grant after grant

• 15:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 15:26Dr. Amishi Jha?

  is because it truly taps into these aspects of attention that the brain science says exists. But currently, at least at the moment that I started this work, there was really no insight into how to train each of these brain systems. So it's like, we know they exist, we know they're vulnerable. The piece that I wanted to actually explore is, is it trainable?

• 15:47Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 15:48Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, because that's when, as you know, I mean, that's where the expansion, the growth can happen.

• 15:53Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 15:54Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So anyway, so let's just, I mean, I love the question that you asked me regarding attention, and you said the term focus.

• 16:00Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Dr. Amishi Jha?

  But that actually is just one part of the attention landscape.

• 16:04Ed Mylett?

  This is important to know before an exercise, so we know what we're actually working on.

• 16:07Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Exactly, that's what I was thinking. I think that it helped, it helped me understand why it would be worth doing this, what seemingly is a very weird thing to do, with sit quietly and pay attention to your breath, which we'll break it down, but still, that's essentially what it's gonna come to. Um, okay, so, just one of the things I like to do, because it helps me explain and understand even how, how these systems work. I mean, we already talked broadly that attention is solving a problem for the brain. It doesn't exist for no reason, it exists to emphasize certain aspects of our experience. And the metaphor I like to use, that really is tied to the term you said, focus, is of a flashlight, right? So that's the metaphor. So you, if you're in a darkened path, you know, you have this beautiful ocean view here,

• 16:52Dr. Amishi Jha?

  you wanna go for a little walk in the evening, you might take a flashlight with you.

• 16:55Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 16:55Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Why? Because wherever it is that that flashlight is pointing, you're gonna get privileged access to that information.

• 17:00Ed Mylett?

  Really good, yeah, okay.

• 17:01Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So same thing with attention. When we attend to something, like right now, if I'm looking at your face, I'm getting granular information regarding your face. And everything else is sort of becoming fuzzy, in the same way that wherever we point that flashlight, everything else is darkened around it. Same idea. And that's a very active process that the brain is doing. The brain is enhancing the neural activity of the part of space I'm focusing on, and actively suppressing everything else around it.

• 17:28Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 17:29Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So that part is, is, I think most people can understand, the term focus is a very common thing. The cool thing about this flashlight, though, is it's not only about the external environment, but it's about the internal environment as well. So if I say, um, "Think about what you had for dinner last night." Can you do that?

• 17:47Ed Mylett?

  I can.

• 17:47Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You can do that, right? So what happened in that moment? Before I said that, probably it was not on your mind?

• 17:52Ed Mylett?

  Oh, so good.

• 17:53Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right.

• 17:53Ed Mylett?

  So good.

• 17:54Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So you had it come to mind in your memory and then basically you were shining the flashlight on the memory. And all of a sudden, it's in your conscious experience. So think about the power of this focusing capacity. I mean, I do refer to it as a type of fuel because we need it to have a train of thought. We need it to experience emotion and regulate emotion. And we certainly need it to connect with other people. But still, that's only part of the puzzle. But I hope that that, at least, the flashlight thing makes sense.

• 18:23Ed Mylett?

  That is, I'll never forget that. Well, I'll never forget that as long as I continue to practice mindfulness. If I don't, potentially, I will forget that. Okay, so I won't forget that. What an unbelievable analogy because you made me pull a visual, a file up almost in my brain that was suppressed. It was the one that went to the background.

• 18:40Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Ed Mylett?

  And once we shined the light on it, this is so good. Okay, so now that we're at this space, I'm, obviously, you now have proven scientifically that this is trainable, expandable, almost like a muscle or a bicep, that if it's trained regularly, it can become stronger and grow.

• 18:56Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 18:57Ed Mylett?

  So if I'm in the, I know when most of my audience knows, if I want to go to a gym and I want to build my bicep, they kind of have a general idea. Here's an array of exercises you can do to build that. What is one of them that we can do to build this?

• 19:11Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You're gonna be mad because I'm gonna say, wait, hold on, but there's more. I feel like I'm trying to send you Ginsu knives or something. But because it's really like the body and you know that if you only work certain muscle groups, there's others that will atrophy.

• 19:24Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 19:24Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And there is a cross-training aspect to this. So I want to make sure we cover the other aspects.

• 19:28Ed Mylett?

  Let's do it. Well, that's part of the training.

• 19:30Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Of attention, right? So the focusing is one piece of the puzzle. But attention is this multifaceted component and there's two other systems that I think are really worth mentioning. The other system is something I call the floodlight and it really is formally called the alerting system of the brain. It's almost, you could say, the exact opposite of the flashlight. Whereas the flashlight is narrow and selective, the floodlight is broad and receptive. There is nothing you should be privileging. The only thing you're privileging is what is happening right now. So you're privileging time. Like, right now, in this moment, what is the most important thing? And, you know, we use this system all the time. You're driving down the road, you see a flashing yellow light near a construction zone or a weird traffic pattern. You know what that feeling is of like broad and receptive. I don't know what weirdness is gonna happen, but I'm here for it because I might need

• 20:15Dr. Amishi Jha?

  to take action like that, and then I'll be able to direct the flashlight where it's needed. But I have to have that preparatory, kind of broad receptivity.

• 20:23Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 20:24Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So-

• 20:25Ed Mylett?

  Flashlight, floodlight.

• 20:26Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Flashlight, floodlight, right. Both really important. And the third system is actually, and this'll sound familiar too, once I start talking about it, it's actually something called executive control.

• 20:35Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 20:36Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And we use that term executive because it really is like the executive of a company. The job of this executive system is as a manager, to ensure that the goals we have and the behavior we engage in align. So the analogy I use there is a juggler. So essentially, all the balls need to be in the air. As a leader in an organization, you know that you're not gonna go in and do every task, but you need to make sure there's a rhythmicity, there's appropriateness to all the things that are being done. And this juggler basically guides the action of these other systems, of the flashlight and the floodlight. So now I think with those three in mind, we can talk about the cross-training aspect of one of the practices.

• 21:15Ed Mylett?

  Very, very good. Yeah, I appreciate that background because I'm thinking about the, for me, when I listen to things, and I know people think differently, I'm constantly thinking of the application.

• 21:24Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 21:25Ed Mylett?

  So when I hear the science or the exercise, I know you, that's why your work's so wonderful, I'm thinking of the application.

• 21:30Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right.

• 21:31Ed Mylett?

  I'm thinking of people, like for example, when you talk about the floodlight, I'm thinking of people who overuse their flashlight. And those sometimes are people who are good at certain tasks or certain behaviors, but they have an inability to see the room.

• 21:43Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You got it.

• 21:43Ed Mylett?

  They have an inability to see the context of things sometimes.

• 21:46Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yep.

• 21:47Ed Mylett?

  And so, this floodlight aspect, I'm thinking, what part of those am I pretty good at? I don't know so much about the juggler part. I think it's probably the part maybe that I struggle with. But I am pretty good, I think, of coming in and being able to have that floodlight and seeing the bigger perspective and then narrowing my focus down to what matters. And so the application, as you're listening to this, is really, really fascinating stuff because you could be unbelievable at focusing in certain aspects of what you do in your life, but you're missing the bigger story, the bigger context, the bigger vision. Then there's other people, I think, who can see the big thing, but maybe they're weaker at being able to narrow their focus for the period of time they need to, to engage with somebody, or to be present with them, or to persuade them, or to knock a putt in the hole, or whatever that it might be.

• 22:31Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Exactly. So that is fascinating to me. Yeah, I think that's a really great, like, connecting the dots. But the other thing to keep in mind is, we need all three systems and they need to be

• 22:39Ed Mylett?

  functioning together.

• 22:40Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Fluidly.

• 22:41Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 22:41Dr. Amishi Jha?

  They don't function at the same time.

• 22:43Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 22:43Dr. Amishi Jha?

  In fact, technically, in the brain, they battle each other for prominence. So you can't be in both a floodlight and a flashlight mode, and we know this, right? So you're immersed in reading something or listening to something, somebody walks in the room and says your name, you're like, it takes you a second. Because the floodlight is essentially being dampened down. The receptivity to the environment is dampened down. So I think that the...

• 23:05Ed Mylett?

  Can I give you an example of that?

• 23:07Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, please, please, yeah.

• 23:08Ed Mylett?

  Because I think the transition between those, I'll call them states.

• 23:11Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yes.

• 23:12Ed Mylett?

  The transition between those states is something that I think people that perform at a high level have an ability to transition better. So I'll give you an example. An NFL quarterback walks up to the line of scrimmage. What they're doing is, they're in the floodlight state at that point. Because the floodlight state is, they've got to read the field, they've got to read the defense, right? This is almost like walking into a board meeting. But in a quarterback sense, when I'm working with them, they're walking in, they're surveying the entire field. What's the defense? Where's the linebacker? Is this person blitzing? They're looking at the floodlight. It's their ability to then deduce and make assessments about the floodlight state they're in, and then as the ball snapped, move into the flashlight and hone in on the open wide receiver. That's the application for a quarterback, right? And so, and then the juggling part is pretty obvious of what they have to do during that play.

• 23:57Ed Mylett?

  So you should be listening to this or watching this, thinking about the application in your life, as a father, as a mother, as a business person, as an athlete. So I just want to make sure that we're sort of going to application, just giving one example as we do it.

• 24:08Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Such a gr... I mean, it's so cool, the resonance between even the terminology we used when we trained the University of Miami football team. Scan the field. Eye on the ball. And, you know, these are very similar terms to what we were saying and the reason that they should be practicing these, these particular practices. So, absolutely, these are things that are relevant. I love what you said regarding, assess the situation. And I want to just say one more thing regarding that.

• 24:33Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Dr. Amishi Jha?

  That happens often when we assess, right? When, when I say, observe, or be receptive to what's happening, there's an aspect of that that has to be, ooh, free of a particular perspective of what you think you're seeing. So if you come in and you think, oh, I know what this team is gonna do, then you're gonna read that field very, you know, the playing field very differently than if you're like, I don't really know what they're gonna do. I gotta really be able to get all the data of what's going on, because I'm not sure. I'll probably figure it out as stuff starts happening of what the other team is attempting to do. But, that is a very important aspect, because we default into that sort of story-making or conceptual elaboration.

• 25:16Ed Mylett?

  Can I ask you about that? Because now you're really going down a road I love, and that I'm fascinated by. We have these predisposed belief systems like you just described. We believe when we walk in a room, there's a certain environment, or certain treatment, a certain scenario, a certain, or our inability to see something also, right? Does our brain somehow then help reveal to us what it is that we believe most clearly in that environment with that floodlight or that flashlight?

• 25:41Dr. Amishi Jha?

  The reality, I think, we have to consider is that, in many circumstances, in many high-stress, high-stakes consequences, we have no idea what the conceptual overlay should be. And it can be quite problematic to assume you do.

• 25:56Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 25:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And can I give you an example?

• 25:58Ed Mylett?

  I, I want it, yes.

• 25:59Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, so this is an example, actually, from a colleague, a, a, actually a dear, now friend, who happened to be a, then he was a colonel, he's now a three-star general. And he gave me this example, this is, again, in the initial stages of talking about mindfulness and why it matters. He got it immediately of why, and I'll connect the dots back to the, the practice that you asked about. So, he's describing this scenario in Afghanistan, actually, probably now twenty years ago? Well, let's see, no, not twenty years ago, maybe fifteen years ago, right at the beginning of the, of the whole episode there, and... They got intelligence that on this mountaintop is a Taliban encampment.

• 26:37Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:38Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And their job was to deal with them. Basically, there were planes flying above and he was told, "You give us the word and we're gonna drop a bomb, get rid of these bad guys," right? So, so he wanted to, as the leader, and ensure that this is, you know, this is the right thing to do. That was totally the story, all the intelligence had told him that. So they're going up the mountain to actually confront this group of people that they heard were there. And ahead of him were a couple of scouts. So he's like behind, they're going up front and, and the scout says, you know, "Yeah, look, we have sea men, we see young men in this age range. They're standing outside the quarters of where they're staying and all, all looks good. You know, yes, it's exactly what we think it is."

• 27:20Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And then, and then, so the, the leader was about to say, "Yeah, drop, go ahead and drop." Then the next sentence comes in that changed everything.

• 27:27Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 27:29Dr. Amishi Jha?

  The soldier said, "I see no weapons." And that was like a, "Hmm, that's not, that's not typical."

• 27:36Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:36Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And then, and then, and he said, "I see no weapons, I'm just gonna go tackle the guy." Like, and so he runs in, tackles the guy. And then a few seconds later, these angry women come out of the, come out of the tents like, "What are you doing to our family members?"

• 27:49Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 27:50Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It was not a Taliban encampment, it was a Bedouin tribe that had been coming there for hundreds of years.

• 27:55Ed Mylett?

  Thank God.

• 27:56Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Thank God.

• 27:57Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, thank God.

• 27:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And so, the, the insight for this military leader was, ah. He had intrinsic mindfulness. He was able to drop the story and see what is.

• 28:07Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 28:08Dr. Amishi Jha?

  He saw what wasn't there, which most of us don't do.

• 28:10Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 28:11Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, this is what I think, in addition to these attentional aspects, this is what we can get into with mindfulness, because mindfulness is about paying attention to our present moment experience.

• 28:20Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 28:21Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Without conceptual elaboration, without a story or editorializing it, and without having emotional reactivity to it.

• 28:28Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so, we're going right there, but I wanna go back. You said true and false to what I said.

• 28:32Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yes.

• 28:32Ed Mylett?

  And I like knowing where I'm false, that way I'm not false anymore. What was incorrect about what I asked you there?

• 28:36Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It was not that there was anything incorrect. If you go into a situation thinking you have a story that's gonna guide you, absolutely 100% you are correct.

• 28:44Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 28:44Dr. Amishi Jha?

  That attention will be biased in favor of the story.

• 28:48Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 28:49Dr. Amishi Jha?

  But that can be not beneficial always. The only part of what I was saying was that it can have consequences. You were painting a beneficial picture, but that's not the key.

• 28:57Ed Mylett?

  Got it, because I actually teach it in the ladder. Meaning, I actually think most of the time it's too hard.

• 29:03Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Then I take it back.

• 29:04Ed Mylett?

  No, no, no. What I wanted to make sure is that this idea of what we do believe strongly guides our attention in an environment.

• 29:10Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Oh, 100%, yes.

• 29:11Ed Mylett?

  And that's the part, I don't believe, just to be clear. I think most people aren't wired for it to be to their benefit. I actually think that most people are wired. So that's what you meant by false, it can be a negative.

• 29:21Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It can be negative, yeah.

• 29:22Ed Mylett?

  Maybe not true or false, it's positive, negative.

• 29:23Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right.

• 29:24Ed Mylett?

  And the negative, I completely agree with, is that if I walk into an environment, I always fail. I always find a way to make a mistake. You will gravitate towards the environment, the circumstance, the person, the whatever it is. Your flashlight begins to focus towards that, if that's your story going in, correct?

• 29:39Dr. Amishi Jha?

  100%, so let me just, like, maybe I want to emphasize how right that is.

• 29:44Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 29:45Dr. Amishi Jha?

  That is the power of story and narrative. And that's why we have to be very aware of the narrative that we're telling ourselves. Because it is guiding perception, it's guiding decision-making, and it's guiding action. And so you totally got it right. That biasing component is important.

• 30:03Ed Mylett?

  This is sort of, I just love you, because this is sort of the basis of what I teach.

• 30:07Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Ed Mylett?

  Is that this story guides perception. Now, you can prove it with the neuroscience more than I can. But, so I'm so glad to hear that it wasn't true or false, that it's actually positive or negative. Because to be really candid with you, I believe that you can learn all the skills of being an entrepreneur, or a mother, or an athlete, or a father, but if you don't begin to take control of the story of your life, of what you believe about yourself, what you believe about what's possible, what you believe about an environment, that you really have lost control over your ability to produce the results that you want. And so I'm so glad that we're...

• 30:38Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You are like, we are extremely in sync. In fact, I have a whole chapter called "Drop the Story."

• 30:43Ed Mylett?

  Oh, gosh.

• 30:43Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Because it's not just that we should be aware... Of the story, we have to also have the capacity to drop it. And that is, that's an extra level of a skill. Because sometimes having no story allows us, so, so, let me back up.

• 30:57Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, so great.

• 30:59Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Being able to understand that you have a story will at least distance you enough so you can reframe the situation.

• 31:06Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I love your terminology.

• 31:07Dr. Amishi Jha?

  But being able to drop the story allows you to de-frame. And when you de-frame, you can build up in a different way. And that, I think, is the next level of what we're talking about. It's like truly take in the data without as much, without any kind of conceptual overlay. That is not typical. We don't do that.

• 31:24Ed Mylett?

  That's really interesting. See, I've always thought you better replace that story. You're saying that's not, it's not imperative to do that. You actually just drop the current story and allow sort of the information to dictate what the story becomes to some extent.

• 31:38Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Give that part more, because oftentimes we'll reframe and then we're in another story. But really savor, extend the period of time where you are data gathering. And I hear this from, you know, one of the people I talk about in the book is, is a lawyer. And he talks about this all the time. I have to be able to get the raw data of the experience. Or judges, same thing, or in any business context. If you're not quite sure what's happening, allow the de-framing to occur. That will give you better insight into the re-framing that then occurs.

• 32:10Ed Mylett?

  Do you think someone, gosh, this is, I'm loving this. I actually, we were joking earlier that we wouldn't go three or four hours. We may go a little bit longer because I'm absolutely loving this.

• 32:21Ed Mylett?

  If you've had some success too, that if it doesn't come with a dose of humility, that when you begin to walk into every room and every environment, I think you've already figured it out. You already know. This stunts growth as well because you're, what you're saying is it blunts you taking in new data and new information.

• 32:36Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Correct, correct. You get it. You totally get it. You are denying yourself better data, more data to inform the decisions that happen. So don't do that. Don't do that to yourself, right?

• 32:46Ed Mylett?

  Give us the exercise. We've been building up. Give us one.

• 32:48Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, okay, so this is like, there's, I'm gonna give you a longer one just to describe the steps. And then we'll do like one that you can do anytime, all the time. So this is like a basic mindfulness practice. And I call it, again, tied to what we're talking about in the, in the book and attention, the find your flashlight practice.

• 33:03Ed Mylett?

  Great.

• 33:04Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Because oftentimes, it's not that we can't focus, it's that we don't know where we're focusing at any moment.

• 33:08Ed Mylett?

  That's true.

• 33:09Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So the instruction would be, and I guide people to kind of ramp up to about 12 minutes a day that our data suggests is beneficial, do this. But to start out, like, do 30 seconds of this. Commit to that for a few weeks and see how that goes. So the practice is essentially find a quiet, comfortable spot and take this time seriously, even if it's 30 seconds or a minute. Sit in an upright, alert posture, like a dignified, you know, if we do it now, it's just like upright, alert, dignified. And first step is just acknowledge, notice, shine the floodlight on your experience that you're breathing right now.

• 33:45Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Then what you're gonna do is hone in on something that actually you notice is prominent in your experience of breathing.

• 33:55Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So do you notice anything that feels prominent, like the coolness of air maybe by your nose or maybe your chest?

• 34:00Ed Mylett?

  It's actually the sound I'm making.

• 34:01Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Okay, great, yeah, the sound, that's a great one, too. That's where you're gonna hold, point the flashlight. That's your attentional target for this short practice. So direct that flashlight right there. Keep it steady.

• 34:17Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You can close your eyes if you want to, whatever you choose, just to limit the sensory input.

• 34:23Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And if it hasn't happened yet, it surely will, your mind will wander.

• 34:28Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And all you do in that moment is notice it. Ah, the mind has wandered away.

• 34:35Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Next step, take that flashlight, redirect it back to that same attentional target.

• 34:43Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And repeat.

• 34:46Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So it's essentially focus, point that flashlight, notice, use the floodlight, redirect, get the juggler to do its job.

• 34:55Ed Mylett?

  Oh my goodness. You know what, can I ask about that?

• 34:58Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, please.

• 34:58Ed Mylett?

  When I first started this, there was like a judgment when I drift away.

• 35:03Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Oh no, it's a total win. It's a win moment.

• 35:06Ed Mylett?

  It's actually a win because it gives us a chance to redirect the flashlight, right? This is so important because I used to, I don't know, maybe you, maybe you're further along than me, but in the beginning, I was like, gosh, man, I've gone this for like 24 seconds, then I'm out. But you're actually saying, that's actually a gift when we drift away because it allows us to build this flashlight, I'll call it a muscle, so to speak.

• 35:25Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 35:26Ed Mylett?

  That we're coming back. It's really good.

• 35:28Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Now, I hope it makes sense why I wanted to describe those three systems because we hit all three in this.

• 35:33Ed Mylett?

  It does.

• 35:33Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And I think it's really important to not think of the wandering as a problem. The wandering, remember we started out talking about?

• 35:40Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 35:40Dr. Amishi Jha?

  50% of the time, it's the nature of the mind. I didn't say, Ed, if you happen to be one of those weird people with mind wanderers, like us normal people don't have that, you have mind wander. I didn't say that. I said, when your mind wanders, because it's gonna wander, for sure. Just bring it back. And not doing that with the added story, the added reactivity is so important.

• 35:59Ed Mylett?

  You know, I was just thinking of the, I do, I did a lot of work when I was younger and I do now with kids, and I have so many parents almost judge their children for their, he can't stay focused in the classroom, he drifts away. And I'm just thinking right now, like, what a breakthrough this might be for some parents who are listening to this to realize that that's, actually, everyone is at 50%. Maybe your kid reveals it more than other kids do. Doesn't conceal it as well.

• 36:23Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right.

• 36:23Ed Mylett?

  Maybe it manifests in talking out loud as opposed to scribbling on a sheet of paper, so it's more apparent. But this is something that even with, do you believe, is there a particular age where you believe a child might be able to begin to build this, I'm calling it building a muscle because everybody can relate to that?

• 36:39Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, no, I think it is. It's practice, it's strengthening. So the first thing to say is that this brain system of attention is one of the slowest to develop. We don't fully develop this capacity till we're about 25.

• 36:50Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 36:51Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And one of the reasons is it relies on the frontal lobes, which are the slowest brain, a brain region to develop. So, you know, it does kinda drive me nuts sometimes, and I feel for parents when they're, but when they're not happy that their children aren't paying attention, or their response is, pay attention. It's not gonna help at all. And in fact, understanding that that's the thing that is, is, it's, your child is not not paying attention because they don't know that they should often, is that they don't know where their attention is, just like we are saying we don't know.

• 37:21Ed Mylett?

  Wow, that's good, that's good.

• 37:23Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So I think that the thing to really, and by the way, yes, absolutely, there's a huge enterprise of offering mindfulness training in a developmentally appropriate manner to children as young as preschool.

• 37:35Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 37:35Dr. Amishi Jha?

  We can do this in very useful ways for children, but what you're having them cultivate is not just focus, focus, focus, it's where are you right now? You know, where are you in a friendly, self-supportive way? And is that where you want to be right now? You know, when you talk to yourself in that manner of like, where am I right now? Is that where I want to be? All of a sudden, the world doesn't feel as dire, like, oh, I'm over here. I think I want to be over there instead. I think that's what I should be doing right now is being over there. It's a different relationship, and if you, the younger that we can get people to start understanding that this is befriending your mind in a way that allows it to be used to your benefit.

• 38:11Ed Mylett?

  That's fascinating to me.

• 38:12Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Instead of being punitive to yourself.

• 38:13Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, that, I'm just thinking, I'm sitting here as a 50-year-old man. I've done different forms of meditation, mindfulness, I'm a relatively productive human being, and I'm confessing to the audience that oftentimes I'm going 24 seconds and I'm out of my attention, where, well, my attention has changed, rather. So the idea that we're concerned about our eight-year-old, who might have the exact same, or does have the exact same scenario that I do. I'm just curious, has there been any data? Are kids even more than 50% where their attention moves? Or would you assume that because those frontal lobes aren't as developed? Or is it pretty much the same?

• 38:45Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Okay, so here's the tricky part of having, assessing that with children, by the way. What does it take for you to even know if somebody's on task or off task? Right? They have to have the awareness.

• 38:54Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 38:54Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It's something called meta-awareness.

• 38:57Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 38:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Awareness or attention to your attention. That is also a developmentally slow process. So we're getting a fuzzy read on them. I mean, we could take them into the lab and look directly at their performance on tasks, and yeah, they mind wander a lot. Their attention can be off often, you know, off-task often. But I don't think that's, the thing we want to help cultivate, which is the counterintuitive thing, and I mean, I refer to it in the book, is like a peak mind pivot. It's like, we think that we have, if to focus better, we think we need to focus on, we need to train ourselves to focus. And I'm saying, no. To focus better, train your mind to notice when you're not focused.

• 39:32Ed Mylett?

  Gosh, very good.

• 39:33Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, you know, that's a totally different set of, you're exercising the floodlight and the juggler. The flashlight will do its thing. It knows how to do its thing. But really pay attention to the... Understanding of where your mind is moment by moment.

• 39:47Ed Mylett?

  I did that during your TED Talk. You actually say something similar during your TED Talk. And then I thought, well, where am I now?

• 39:53Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 39:54Ed Mylett?

  And then I'm back with you. And then where am I now? And then I came back with you.

• 39:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And that's it. You know, 24 seconds, if you're truly going 24 seconds, you are... We gotta bring you to the lab, because that's really good.

• 40:04Ed Mylett?

  I made the number up. It's probably more like 2.4 seconds. I don't know.

• 40:07Dr. Amishi Jha?

  But I, you know, I actually asked a colleague of mine, who'd been practicing mindfulness for 30 years, because I was getting, in the initial stages, when I was just trying to understand what this thing is, I was like, hmm, I'm not going very long before my mind wanders. And will that be the thing that will extend as I practice more? That was my thinking. Like, that's a reasonable hypothesis. I might, if it's, you know, 5 seconds now, maybe it'll be 10 and 15 each year. I might get longer before wandering. And I was very humbled by what he said. He said, 30 years of practice. He said, hmm, 7 seconds?

• 40:37Ed Mylett?

  No kidding.

• 40:38Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And, but, you know, so at first I'm like, oh, great. What have I been bothering? Like, it's still gonna be 7 seconds after 30 years? But what he said next really helped. He said, you know, what has happened is that my mind now, instead of being completely lost in a fantasy or a doomsday scenario, and I love that, it was like almost poetic. He's like, it's like I'm seeing the ripples, you know, the ripples at the distance of the Placid Lake. And I was like, oh, he is, really knows his mind. Like, he can tell a slight tug. He doesn't have to go full on into, you know, next vacation's been planned while you're trying to do 5 minutes of a mindfulness practice. That felt so much more like, he knows his mind.

• 41:19Dr. Amishi Jha?

  He knows where it is with that level of granularity.

• 41:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And in some sense, this is the part that I think is also really interesting, especially as we talk about athletes and military service members and special operators, et cetera. It's this sense that you develop, because you know your mind, a sense of, and when I use the term, mental toughness. It's like, I know this space. I know the lake. It may not always be Placid. It's usually for me, like a rough... Stormy place.

• 41:50Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 41:50Dr. Amishi Jha?

  But I can take anything. Like, my mind is here for it. And frankly, that's developing that same floodlight capacity. I am here. I'm present for it. I'm not gonna be thrown off. I'm steady in the middle of whatever's going on.

• 42:03Ed Mylett?

  Very good. You know, I, uh, I think some of the most self-confident people I know are just more self-aware. And I think that's actually what you're describing. There's an awareness of, there's an awareness of self. I'm loving this and I wanna keep going. So, I wanna, I wanna ask you about, you've described things in visual terminology a lot. And I'd like to think that I am a visual person also, although I don't know that there's such a thing. I'm wondering if part of that self-awareness is, are some people more predisposed to be kinesthetic? Or auditory, or visual? In their, um, in the deductions they make, in the observations that they make? Uh, and is that something to be cognizant of about yourself when you're in a state of attention? That you are not just, I, I feel like I'm very visual, but maybe every single person is.

• 42:47Ed Mylett?

  Or are there more auditory, predisposed people, kinesthetic, visual?

• 42:51Dr. Amishi Jha?

  I mean, the, the jury is out. Most people say now that like, the notion of learning styles or specific modalities is not all that well-supported. So, I would say, I don't, we don't know yet if that's actually the case. But frankly, the bulk of the brain as human beings compared to our little dogs that run around, so dominant with vision. But you brought up something that I wanna actually, I wanna like, kinda ping that.

• 43:13Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 43:13Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Cause that, what you described, is not what I'm talking about when I use the term meta-awareness. What you just described, very powerful thing to do, is something we call metacognition. So, both of these are tied to self-awareness. But meta-awareness is a different thing. So, metacognition is essentially knowing your tendencies, knowing your styles, knowing your decision-making capacities, your strengths, your weaknesses. I mean, everything you just described would be really great to know for your metacognitive style, for example. And yes, it can definitely, there could be differences, maybe not tactile or visual, but there are definitely differences in the way people operate metacognitively. So, you may be a maximizer in your decision-making versus a satisfier. You know, there's these different orientations. But I'm not talking about that.

• 43:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  What I'm talking about, when I talk about the floodlight, cause remember, the floodlight system is really about the now. And meta-awareness is awareness of the moment-to-moment processes and contents within your mind.

• 44:11Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So I don't, it doesn't really matter from the meta-awareness point of view, what your tendencies are. What is going on right now? Where is your mind right now? And I think that that, um, what's important now kind of orientation is so important in performance context.

• 44:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Because it doesn't matter what you're doing, I'm like, what's going on now?

• 44:28Ed Mylett?

  Is it bad to be dreaming in the future? Is it bad or good? I don't even like that terminology, but...

• 44:34Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Useful.

• 44:35Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, is it useful?

• 44:36Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Such a great question.

• 44:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 44:38Dr. Amishi Jha?

  I'm so glad you asked me that because I don't want it to seem like I'm saying, "Always be here, right now."

• 44:43Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Dr. Amishi Jha?

  No, no, no, no. No, that's not what I'm saying. In fact, this capacity to mentally time travel, just like you did with your, what did you have for dinner last night, right? Is so useful for us. In fact, it may be the thing that defines us in our evolutionary advantage as human beings.

• 44:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 45:00Dr. Amishi Jha?

  We can displace ourselves in something called time travel, right? We can rewind the mind, we can fast-forward the mind. You heard about me talking about that a little bit in the TED Talk. But it's not just about time traveling, it's also about mind traveling.

• 45:14Ed Mylett?

  Okay, what's that mean?

• 45:15Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, mind traveling is essentially putting yourself in the shoes and mind of somebody else.

• 45:21Ed Mylett?

  Oh.

• 45:21Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So both of those are really, really powerful things to do. When we talk about mindfulness, it's really, it's a solution to invulnerability in our capacity to do both of those things. So, the problem with time travel, though it's extremely useful for productively reflecting or planning, it becomes problematic under certain states. And I do think of the athletes, like my heart goes, go out to them oftentimes when I see mess-ups, right? Like you did something, you totally messed up, and it happens.

• 45:49Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 45:49Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You glitched. If you can't stop rewinding the mind, you are no way gonna be able to succeed in the next moment.

• 45:56Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 45:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, how do you get yourself to not rewind?

• 46:00Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 46:01Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right? So, or...

• 46:03Ed Mylett?

  Amicia, that's really good.

• 46:04Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, and I think that the other part is, you may be, you know, not necessarily the athletic setting, but in our, like even during COVID, like if you can't stop catastrophizing and worrying about the future...

• 46:16Ed Mylett?

  You got it.

• 46:17Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You're stuck, you're gonna be, probably have a lot of anxiety. So, the reason we want to, and frankly, the same thing goes with mind traveling. If I'm constantly preoccupied about your view of me, social anxiety is gonna set in. So, the reason mindfulness became such an important solution for me, going back to why we study in my lab, is because each of those things, ruminating about the past, catastrophizing about the others, overly caring about the viewpoints and evaluation on yourself, hijack attention, it depletes attention.

• 46:48Ed Mylett?

  Gosh, you're so good. You're describing, from a scientific standpoint, all the things that people listening to this go, "I know this is true."

• 46:55Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Ed Mylett?

  And I think this, the rewinding thing, man, it's just huge. So many people are in the rewind, and just beating themselves up, and repeating the same story over and over again. But the other thing that I've figured out, is that oftentimes, stress is time travel in the future.

• 47:08Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yep.

• 47:08Ed Mylett?

  Meaning that, it's not so much the speech you have to give, or the sale you have to close, or the putt you have to hit, that is stressing you out. It's you projecting into the future, the negative result of it, and then on top of that, what other people are going to think or say about you, when you miss the putt, when you don't close the sale.

• 47:27Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Exactly.

• 47:28Ed Mylett?

  Is that not true?

• 47:28Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Exactly, you described both the mind travel and the time travel, right? That's, those are what I would really call the kryptonite scenarios. Like, you're really, what all of that is doing, is attention's still being used, and you're draining it out, you're draining the fuel, in spinning in those directions. So, how do you, you know, it's easy to say, "Well, don't do that, get back to here and now." It's easy to say it, it's very hard to do, because the tendencies are so strong. So, you gotta train for it, just like anything else that's hard to do.

• 47:54Ed Mylett?

  You were gonna give us one other, I think you were gonna give us one other one.

• 47:57Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Oh yeah, right, so let me give you another one.

• 47:58Ed Mylett?

  Another training. And then, by the way, let's get Peak Mind, let's get the book, so that we also...

• 48:02Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You get the whole thing, right.

• 48:02Ed Mylett?

  The whole thing, that's the whole idea. But, one more of them would be, I'm driving in my car, and I'm like, "I wanted to get me one more."

• 48:07Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Well, the car's a perfect example, you didn't even know I was gonna go there.

• 48:10Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 48:10Dr. Amishi Jha?

  This other practice is just called the stop practice.

• 48:12Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 48:13Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Literally, S-T-O-P. And do it while you're driving.

• 48:16Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 48:16Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Do it while you're walking, do it at any time you want. Stop, is stop. Like, whatever the progression of your life is in that moment, halt it. Take a breath, and that's this conscious breath, aware that you're doing it.

• 48:34Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Observe, O.

• 48:37Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Proceed, B.

• 48:40Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So it's just, it's a mini mindfulness practice and I really think it's useful because you know where your flashlight is at the end of it. I know it's right here, right now, I'm back. So use stop signs, use red lights to remind yourself to do that over and over again.

• 48:54Ed Mylett?

  So good. I'm just thinking of something. When you asked me to do that, I actually did it with you. And I actually noticed a couple of things in my visual space that have been here the entire time that I didn't see. Isn't that interesting?

• 49:04Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Ed Mylett?

  And we're going a little bit deeper probably than I should, but I... There's a lot of things that your brain does on habit mode, correct? Like if I'm driving to work and I take the same off-ramp every single day, I think my brain is storing energy by doing something that's habitual. That's how I've always understood it anyways, that I'm taking that same off-ramp, whether I'm right or wrong, it doesn't matter. The point that I want to make about that is that, for me, I think for most people, being present is, even though yes, there's a benefit to being in the future and rewinding, there's a benefit to being reflective and reminiscing in the past and gaining wisdom from it. But for most of us, that's not a struggle for most people. The struggle for most people is being present.

• 49:43Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You got it.

• 49:43Ed Mylett?

  And that's why this is so important, what you're teaching here. And for me, there's so many things in a given day that mindfulness practices make me just aware of being present, that I'm curious as to, in practical application, how much time a day, I know there's no formula, but if you were just saying, "Hey, Ed, I'd recommend to you, it's 10 minutes a day, it's five different times a day, it's once a day, do it the same time of the day, doesn't matter when you do it." What would your advice be on just building this practice?

• 50:14Dr. Amishi Jha?

  As the habit aspect?

• 50:15Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Well, I mean, the last line of the title is invest 12 minutes a day. So that gives you a sense of, and that number comes out of many studies that have suggested, you know, if you get to that amount, we tend to see benefits, and the more you do from that, the more you benefit. But if you don't quite get to that, it's almost like, is going for a walk in my neighborhood, walking my dog, going to build my physical fitness? Probably not. It's not going to be bad for you, but you're not going to get to that level. So here's my answer to the question of, so the when would be, and you can get a deeper understanding of why I say 12 minutes if you read more about it, but just know that it comes from a lot of...

• 50:48Ed Mylett?

  I did, I just want them to...

• 50:49Dr. Amishi Jha?

  A lot of research, no, I know, I know. But I'm just saying, but your question regarding... When to do it and the habit issue is the best time to do it is when you're gonna do it.

• 50:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 51:00Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And that's kind of a, maybe a cop out, but literally the key to anything, and you'd probably say the same thing regarding physical excellence, right? The key is advantaging your capacity to create it and incorporate it into daily routine.

• 51:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And so what I suggest for people, like I just said with, when we were doing the, the short practice, if you think you can do three minutes, set the goal of a minute and a half and get the win of, I did it. I did it, I did it. And yoke it to something that you already do. You know, my recommendation is, is something that you know you're gonna do every day without exception, maybe right after you brush your teeth in the morning, or maybe right before you have your cup of coffee, sometime that you know you're gonna do it. And what I would suggest is just to play around with when that works for you, is to try it at different times of the day. What, what many people say when we say, try the morning, you know, just play around with the time of day, is like, people say things like, I love the taste of my coffee so much more. It's like I've actually tasted.

• 51:54Ed Mylett?

  Gosh, it's so true.

• 51:55Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You know, so, and why are you depriving yourself of that, right? Why are we rushing through? I mean, you're gonna have the coffee anyway. Why not have a little bit more pleasure with that experience?

• 52:04Ed Mylett?

  I have to just say though, I, I was gonna tell you off camera, but I'm so glad you said this because I forgot.

• 52:10Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 52:10Ed Mylett?

  Which is that, I just wanna give everybody the gift of this, that I, by the way, I'm nowhere near where you would be or other people. I don't think there's rankings either, by the way. It's not a judgment thing. But my sensory experiences, just in general, have been so dramatically increased by this practice. I, I, and people always say to me that there's this duality, maybe one of the reasons they even like me is that maybe I'm sort of like a, maybe a masculine dude, but I'm very emotional and very sensitive. I don't know that I've always been that way, but like, I do find that I experiences my emotions on a deeper level over the last decade or so, that my laughter is a little deeper and more joyous, the taste of food is a little bit more pleasurable, my,

• 52:50Ed Mylett?

  my acknowledgement and noticing beauty around me and the nuances and specificities of it, and not just the visual, but smells and wind hitting my face. I know this sounds ridiculous to some people. It's just richer because of this practice. Never mind being far more present and productive. And I think also for me, peak is such a word that I've used over and over. When I'm fully present, it appears to me that I've got better access to my vocabulary, better access to insights in reading somebody. Do you, would you, similar experience for you?

• 53:24Dr. Amishi Jha?

  I mean, for sure. And it can be life-saving in many ways. And actually, you know, you described the plus side. And I want, I think it's so, it's so great. It's like, almost like, you mean, I can just have more joy by being here more? Yeah, you can. But there's another part that I think is very important in the context of our action and our humanity. We're also more present to the suffering of other people. We're also more connected to other people. We also have more sense and respect for the humanity of others around us and for the environment. And I think that at this particular point, kind of in our human history.

• 53:59Ed Mylett?

  Consciousness.

• 54:00Dr. Amishi Jha?

  We need to be more aware of what the heck is going on. We have very little time to like, try to make things better for our planet, for example. And also with all the injustices happening and, you know, I was talking recently to somebody regarding this notion of burnout. And, you know, so many people are feeling so burnt out. Can mindfulness help with burnout? And the answer is yes, mindfulness can help with burnout. But, you know, and actually, in the context of a conference I was at with critical care nurses, now, we know over COVID, that has been a group that has been very, very crunched, right? And the question was, can mindfulness help me with burnout? And I said, yes. And they said, but then, um, the system, that the organization of the scheduling is the reason I feel burnt out. And I was like, yes, but there's no way you're going to demand change or even conceptualize

• 54:45Dr. Amishi Jha?

  how to create change if you don't have the capacity to see what's going on.

• 54:49Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 54:49Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So just, you know, use that as the next step to give back to those who may not have this capacity yet. It's like, as the more present we are, the more we can enact change and empower other people to do the same.

• 55:00Ed Mylett?

  It's so, you're so right. And I, and I know you know you're right, but people have told me that the last 10 years or so, I'm just using practical experience for me. You're more patient than you used to be. That's sort of more like a symptom almost. It is more what you have described, which is that I try to be present with people and see them and hear them and experience them more than fix them like I used to. And try to truly empathize and understand their experience and their reality. And I've always felt, since I started this, like I wish more of... I don't care what political party you're part of. I wish more political people had that ability for empathy and understanding

• 55:44Ed Mylett?

  and just stopped and listened to people and didn't assess it all the time. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that I attribute some, if not most of that, to these practices. Because obviously I'm a performer, peak performer, expert person supposedly. But it's the other benefits of doing this that have enriched my life far more than the fact that I've made more money because I'm more present with people or these other things. I'm actually curious about this. What about memory? So is it that my memory can be improved because of this? Because I was actually present in more moments? So I have better recall because my attention was where I was more often?

• 56:27Ed Mylett?

  Or is it that there's something happening in my brain where I'm developing the ability to recall and remember things better? Pretty good question, huh?

• 56:37Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yes.

• 56:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, right? Because you could say, "Well, yeah, your memory's better." Well, maybe that's just because I was more present. Or is there actually something operating in my brain? Where is there new myelin forming in my brain? I don't know.

• 56:49Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Well, first of all, everything... This conversation is changing your brain. I mean, I don't just mean because it's some kind of massively transformative thing. Every experience... Every experience we have impacts the way our brain functions. So there's no like... There's no divide between experience and brain changes. They're just happening concurrently, right? So, yes, it is the case. So you're such a great intuition about neuroscience. It's awesome.

• 57:14Ed Mylett?

  Thank you.

• 57:15Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So, yes, it is the case that the more we can get... The more attentive we are, the more granular... ...finer, fine-grained the inputs are for our memory. In fact, attention is the gateway for memory. If you don't pay attention, there's no way that you're gonna have the experience of encoding episodes in your life, gaining new information. Now, there are aspects of our memory that are outside the scope of something you need attention for, after it's well-learned. So, for example, if I tell you, tell me across the board of a keyboard what the letters are. I mean, I could tell you, but if you give me a keyboard, I can type it. So, that's an example of something we call procedural memory, which is, you actually don't need your attention for that. But for episodes and knowledge, you need attention to input the information.

• 57:59Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You also need your attention to pull it out. So, remember we were talking about the flashlight and your dinner meal? You have to have clarity of directing it to call up the right thing. So, it is on both ends of that. And frankly, there's another thing to think about, which is that, what did you call it? So, yes, it ends up that long-term memory is a structural change within the brain. It actually becomes like fixed hard, in terms of neural connections that occur. That process is helped by having clarity of mind. And actually, just kind of to really tie the loose ends of this conversation together, current models suggest maybe that's where all this mind-wandering is actually happening. It may be a memory encoding process.

• 58:41Dr. Amishi Jha?

  The reason the brain pumps out thoughts isn't because it's just trying to mess with us, it's because that's the way episodic memory encoding happens. It's a replay button that just happens by default, and as it keeps replaying, things kind of harden into long-term memory.

• 58:56Ed Mylett?

  Oh, this is so good. All right. Of course, I want everybody to get Peak Mind. I want them to get your book. The reason that I want them to get the book is because I think the application of what you're teaching is different for many different people. And I love things that have broad application. So, I think if you're an athlete, you want to read this book. I think if you're someone who wants to find a little bit more bliss in your life and be more present, I think this is a book that you should have. And I think just having an overall understanding of one's self is why I think this work is so fascinating. And it's why my audience knows... I love every interview that I do. I don't talk to people that I don't want to share with the world, but there are certain topics that just fascinate me because I like to understand why some of the things I teach work. I understand some of it.

• 59:41Ed Mylett?

  And you're helping me so much with that. Now, the last thing I want to ask you, by the way, I have like 83 more things that I want to ask you. But I want to ask you about two things to finish. One big question, but one. What does pressure do to our ability to pay attention? Does there an impact on it? Does it focus us, unfocus us? Does it depend on the person? How does pressure, or perceived pressure, impact attention?

• 1:00:07Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Such a great question. Okay, so, yes. It is, it definitely has a relationship, but it has a lawful relationship. So, pressure is not, it doesn't have a unitary effect on attention. So, just think of a U and turn it upside down. That's essentially the shape of the curve. It's something called the Yerkes-Dotson function. And you've got, let's call it stress or pressure on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis. So, pressure is low, performance is going to be pretty low.

• 1:00:38Ed Mylett?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:39Dr. Amishi Jha?

  There will be a point at which the pressure will continue to grow where you're going to be at your peak performance. And if you continue to push yourself beyond that, you're going to start ramping up.

• 1:00:47Ed Mylett?

  There's a regression.

• 1:00:48Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yep. So, here's the interesting thing about that. So, there is a sweet spot. And we know what that is for us often. It's like, oh yeah, this, like, I'm going to be able to knock it out of the park in this moment. I have the right set of factors. The problem, and a lot of people, especially in the elite context, don't really understand that. And in particular, people like first responders, special operators, et cetera, that there are real consequences for when you're on this part of the curve. It can be life or death for many people. Even if it feels like it's the right amount of pressure for peak performance at one moment in time, if you maintain that same level of pressure over weeks, months...

• 1:01:28Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It's gonna degrade you.

• 1:01:29Ed Mylett?

  There's regression.

• 1:01:30Dr. Amishi Jha?

  So it will push you into the right, into the degradation part of it. So I think that's also really important to know. Often people are like, but I'm used to this kind of demand. They're not used to it for weeks on end.

• 1:01:40Ed Mylett?

  Got it.

• 1:01:40Dr. Amishi Jha?

  You know, and frankly, that's what a lot of the medical staff are saying. They're like, I could perform, you know, even if it was a full ward, I can kind of manage it. You didn't have to do it for 19 months.

• 1:01:50Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Dr. Amishi Jha?

  And so that we have to have, this is actually, I would love to be able to just say this almost as a public service announcement.

• 1:01:58Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 1:01:59Dr. Amishi Jha?

  We have as a culture, a lot of attentional hubris. We think we can pay attention and we cannot. But if I ask you, do you think that the guy behind you that's on his cellphone trying to drive is paying attention to the road? You'd be like, no way. Well, then why do you think you are when you're doing the same thing?

• 1:02:16Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 1:02:16Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right? So it's like, really remember that and have attentional humility, understand that. And also take care of your attention in that way. Like, really check in. Like, even if I can focus at this level, am I still as focused as I was before?

• 1:02:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:30Dr. Amishi Jha?

  That's the knowing it. And that's not about, by the way, going back to, it's not metacognition anymore. It's meta-awareness. What am I feeling right now?

• 1:02:36Ed Mylett?

  I get that distinction now.

• 1:02:38Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Do you, um, by the way-

• 1:02:41Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Does that answer your question?

• 1:02:41Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, it did. And I wanted to, I love the fact that, because I think some people try to avoid pressure or stress. What you're basically saying is there's an extra, there's an internal benefit to a certain degree-

• 1:02:52Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yep.

• 1:02:52Ed Mylett?

  Over a certain duration that focuses us too much the other way. It's kind of like, you walk out on stage, there's a certain level of butterfly or desire or awareness or anxiety that's actually sort of healthy, that you're in this peak state, so to speak, peak mind. And then there's a state where it becomes problematic, where it's too much. And I had a few experiences recently where I just went a long time under duress and stress. And I found myself in a couple of the, I'm filming a television show right now. I just, there was just a day where I was just not- I use vocabulary for some reason because I communicate so much.

• 1:03:25Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Ed Mylett?

  Just my struggle to pull, you know, adequate and articulate vocabulary out of myself was just really sputtering.

• 1:03:32Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Ed Mylett?

  And it was just basically what you said. I was under that stress and duress for a duration that was longer than- was beneficial to me and that's when I guess you've got to be able to be aware

• 1:03:42Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:42Ed Mylett?

  and intentional about it. Last thing, by the way, I love this conversation. I really do not want it to end. I'm just trying to be respectful to you and my audience at some point because they're used to a certain length show because we really have not got into so many of the things that I want to. I'd love to have you back.

• 1:03:56Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Oh, I'd love that.

• 1:03:57Ed Mylett?

  This would be something we would do again, but just as a basic thing to start. So I want to, we've done, you've gone pretty complicated. We've gone in and out of different topics, but someone just listening, they said, "Look, I'm gonna get peak mind." And I would like to be more present. I would, I, let's just to start. You've given me lots of practical things today. But if I ran into you in a coffee shop and it was Starbucks and we're sitting here having a cup of coffee and you, and someone just said, "Where should I begin? Where should I begin? I'm at the end of the interview now, but where should I begin? We're gonna leave everybody now."

• 1:04:27Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Right.

• 1:04:27Ed Mylett?

  And your final thing to them would be, "This is where I would start," or "This is what I would think about," or "Here's a strat," whatever, however you would answer that.

• 1:04:34Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Yeah, that's

• 1:04:34Ed Mylett?

  What would you, what would you say to them?

• 1:04:35Dr. Amishi Jha?

  It's a great thing. I think the one thing I'd want people to take away from this conversation and any insight to then promote taking action is pay attention to your attention. And I, and I really mean that. I mean, watch yourself in that way. And, and do it, by the way, from a distance, which is gonna sound a little bit weird. Like, almost, we call it, I mean, and it's called formally discentering, but like as a bird's eye view.

• 1:05:02Ed Mylett?

  Get above it.

• 1:05:03Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Like, get above it and look at what's going on moment by moment. "Oh, she's really feeling a lot of anxiety right now," or, "Oh," and, and even name yourself. Like, you know, "Amishi actually is feeling really nervous right now," or "Amishi feels a little bit sad." Part of the reason I'm saying to do that, and that is a way of paying attention to your attention because you're like, "Oh, this is what's going on moment by moment." The reason to do that at a distance is because then you can't, remember what I said, you cannot have your attention in two places at once. By pulling yourself out, distancing the flashlight a little bit, you're gonna get more clarity of, of the, the whole scene. And then you can take action. And that's just sort of like, just try that out in your daily life. And then I would say, really do read what I have to say in the prescription I offer because I, I wrote this book really out of

• 1:05:47Dr. Amishi Jha?

  wanting to take it out of the lab. We found so many people had benefited. And I, I wanted it to be a benefit to a lot of people because frankly, it's not just soldiers, athletes and medical people that have stress in their lives. All of us do. And it's not just them that have periods of time where there's enduring challenge. We all will at some point, and we may not know where it comes. So when it comes, so it's like, train your attention like your life depends on it.

• 1:06:11Ed Mylett?

  Amisha, you're awesome. And I was just thinking, you know, the work from my audience is what you've just said. And here's the one thing, everybody, in this day and age, when there's so much information available to you, and then there's what I would call sort of new or more breakthrough information, like what you're sharing, your job is not just to digest the information. The work in our lives now is more not finding the information, because there's brilliance in this book, it's the application for you. How are you going to apply it? And what areas do you apply it? For me, the applications of Peak Mind are in almost every single area of my existence. When I say almost, just because I think it is every area of my existence. It's making me a better friend, a better interviewer, a better speaker on stage, a

• 1:06:54Ed Mylett?

  better businessman, I think a better father. And just, I'm happier as a result of it. And so, I'm really happy you were here today, and you came to my home to do this. So, thank you so much.

• 1:07:06Dr. Amishi Jha?

  Thank you, this was a lot of fun.

• 1:07:07Ed Mylett?

  I enjoyed it, it was really good. Alright, everybody, please make sure you get Peak Mind. This is the fastest-growing show, all the data shows this on the planet, that's because so many of you share it, and it's getting all kinds of accolades and notoriety right now, as many of you know, simply because of all of you, and the way that the show is spreading to people. I'm so grateful for it, and I do this as a service to you, because I believe we can make a difference in the world, and I think today's show proves that we can do that. So, God bless you all, Max out, take care.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  This is the Ed Mylett Show.