4 Brain Types That Unlock Your Memory Potential (Do This To Improve Your Memory) | Ed Mylett

What if your biggest memory struggles have nothing to do with your intelligence and everything to do with how your brain is wired? In this mashup episode, I bring together four of the most respected minds in brain performance and human potential to break down how memory really works and how you can unlock it at a much higher level starting today. If you have ever said “I’m just bad at remembering names,” “I can’t focus,” or “I don’t retain what I read,” this conversation is going to change how you see yourself. You’re going to hear from Jim Kwik, Dr. Caroline Leaf, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and John Assaraf as we unpack the four primary brain types and why trying to learn the same way as everyone else is holding you back. Jim Kwik explains how identifying your dominant brain type allows you to finally work with your mind instead of fighting it. Dr. Caroline Leaf dives into the science of neuroplasticity and how your thoughts and habits literally reshape your brain over time. Dr. Joe Dispenza connects memory, focus, and emotional regulation, showing how stress and identity can either enhance or hijack your ability to learn. And John Assaraf breaks down how belief systems and repetition program your subconscious to either expand or limit what your brain retains. What I love about this mashup is how practical it is. This is not theory for the sake of theory. These are real tools you can use to read faster, remember names, improve focus, make better decisions, and even communicate more effectively with the people around you. You will start to see why some people thrive in fast paced environments, why others excel at deep analysis, and why creativity, empathy, and logic all play different roles in how we store and retrieve information. I truly believe that once you understand how your brain is designed to operate, you stop labeling yourself as broken or behind. You start seeing your mind as an asset that simply needs the right operating system. This episode will help you stop forcing strategies that do not fit you and start building memory, focus, and confidence in a way that feels natural and sustainable. If you are serious about improving your performance, your learning, and your ability to show up at your best, this mashup will give you clarity and momentum. Your brain is capable of far more than you have been taught. It is time to unlock it. Key Takeaways: The four primary brain types and how each one processes information differently Why forgetting information is often a strategy problem, not an intelligence problem How stress, emotions, and identity directly impact memory and focus Practical techniques to improve retention, recall, and learning speed How to communicate and collaborate better by understanding other brain types Why aligning your learning style with your brain wiring accelerates growth ⁠⁠⁠👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FACEBOOK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LINKEDIN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 P.M. And my third day, 6:00 P.M. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff, borrow better.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior-like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1:36Ed Mylett?

  This is The Ed Mylett Show.

• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Here's our first guest. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. Today's a treat for me because I have a friend here. And not only just a friend, it's somebody that I really admire in my personal life. He's always the smartest man in the room, yet he never has the need to make you feel like you need to know that. His level of humility is so inspiring to me because he's become such a successful man. But he's a coach to so many famous people, celebrities, actors, entertainers, behind the scenes, on their brain, on their life.

• 2:22Ed Mylett?

  He's been somebody who's helped me with my own life. Every time I see him, I just want to give him a hug, tell him how much I love him. He's just a tremendous human being. And having said all of that, he's also a brilliant man. And he's one of a kind. And we're going to dial right into one of his great strengths today, which is your brain. And how it functions and how you can get it functioning better. I can't think of a topic I'm more excited about covering with the best in the world. So Jim Quick, welcome back for the second time to the show, brother. It's been too long.

• 2:51Jim Kwik?

  Yeah, Ed Mylett, thank you so much for having me on your show and thank you everyone who's tuning into this, uh, brainy conversation.

• 2:58Ed Mylett?

  Well, here's his book, everybody. It's the expanded version of Limitless. And I have to tell you, if you look at me holding it up, you're mostly listening to this on audio, but there's just pages marked after marked after marked for my own usage because it's so. Jim's been on before and we talked a little bit about this, but this time I got to read the entire book in this expanded version today. You guys, it's really a textbook on your brain. And how to get it to optimize to your full potential. And we're going to talk about that on today's show. So let's start with this. I just took a quiz right before I came online here that's in the book. About the different brain types. It turns out I'm a cheetah. What are you, by the way? And then explain to them what the heck this means. Cause I think even understanding your own brain and what type you are, gives you a lot of insight on how to make it optimal.

• 3:42Jim Kwik?

  So I am an elephant. Uh, my, my, it's my primary. My secondary is an owl. And, uh, yeah, we'll talk about, for people just tuning in, they're wondering like, what does that even mean?

• 3:51Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 3:53Jim Kwik?

  So we created as part of the new expanded edition, creating momentum in your life. I believe one of the most important parts to having fulfillment, greater levels of success is knowing yourself. I think a big part of our own success and fulfillment is having the curiosity to know ourself and then. The other part is having the courage to be ourself, which is a totally different game. So I created this assessment for people when they know themselves a little bit better and know the people around them. I pulled from, it's a cognitive type assessment, uh, which only takes about four minutes to go through. And I pulled inspiration from things like, uh, personality types like Myers-Briggs.

• 4:35Jim Kwik?

  Science and psychology is like left brain, right brain dominance theory, visual auditory kinesthetic processing. We pulled from multiple intelligence theory, Howard Gardner's work out of Harvard University. Introvert, extrovert, and so on. And, uh, I realized that after thirty-two years as being a full-time brain coach, that not everything works for everybody, just like, uh, we're all bio-individual and not everybody reacts to every food the same way. And just like there's personalized medicine based on an assessment, like your, like your DNA, or, uh, personalized nutrition based on a nutrient profile, or maybe your microbiome, uh, your microbiome test.

• 5:15Jim Kwik?

  We created this simple test for personalized learning and performance based on our dominant brain type. And so there are four brain types. We found out that are four buckets. And once you know yourself, you can lean, really lean into your strengths and leverage them. Uh, not only for reading faster, improving your memory, having better focus, but also for negotiating, for sales, for parenting. And once you understand other people's brain types, it really informs your, your next moves, if you will, to have greater levels of learning and, and, and life. And so-

• 5:47Ed Mylett?

  What's the, what's the difference between a cheetah and an elephant, for example, those two types?

• 5:51Jim Kwik?

  Yeah, let's, let's go through all four. They're, they're four animals. Um, I, I'm like the king of acronyms, so-

• 5:57Ed Mylett?

  I love it.

• 5:58Jim Kwik?

  Shortcuts. Code. Remember your brain code. C O D E. The C stands for cheetahs. And cheetahs, their primary trait is action. Like you are a man of action. So cheetahs think and act at lightning speed. They thrive in fast-paced environments. They adapt, uh, making very quick decisions. Uh, they, they trust their instincts. They have extremely strong intuition. And they're able to adapt in rapidly changing environments. They're very, very swift. The O in code stands for the owl. And the owl, their dominant trait where cheetahs go for action, owls are, go for logic. Okay, so they're very analytical, methodical, detail oriented.

• 6:43Jim Kwik?

  And by the way, we are not just one, we are a composite of all these animals. But usually there's one that's a primary, that's more dominant. So the owl are your deep thinkers. They uh they analyze information, they consider every angle before making a decision. They love facts and they love figures, they love data. The D in code are your dolphins, and these are interesting people. They are, their primary trait is creativity. They are creative visionaries. They um they see the bigger picture. Maybe other people can't yet grasp this vision. They're guided a lot by their innovation, by their pioneers in their field. Think about the Walt Disney's, the J K Rowling's in the world. And finally, the E in code are your elephants.

• 7:28Jim Kwik?

  And their primary trait is empathy and collaboration. So elephants are at the heart of any team, any friend group. They have keen sense of empathy, which allows them to understand and collaborate with a diverse group of individuals. They often serve as the glue that holds teams together. They um they want people to feel seen, they want people to feel heard. And it's interesting, when we had, I, this is a model, and remember, all models are, we know that the the map is not the territory, that the menu is not the meal, right? But it gives you distinctions and a lens to look at your performance and the decisions you make, also the people around you. And it kind of takes a judgment out of it.

• 8:10Jim Kwik?

  Even with something like speed reading, which we've talked about in a previous episode with you about memory improvement, I realized that it's not how smart somebody is, it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart? It's not how smart your kids are, it's actually how are they smart? And everybody expresses genius in in different ways. You would think that even your career paths, uh owls, if their brain animal type is an owl, they, these are your data analysts, these are your engineers, these are your accountants, these are your research scientists, your software developers. Cheetahs are your entrepreneurs, right? They adapt, they have strong intuition, they're action oriented mindset. Could be also, uh cheetah could be an E M T or a sale or a sales, a professional athlete

• 8:54Jim Kwik?

  like Serena Williams. Dolphins would be uh find roles, responsibility where they had of like a graphic designer or maybe a writer, a marketing specialist, a film director. Elephants would fall in in the, maybe they're a social worker, a PR specialist, a teacher, a project manager.

• 9:12Ed Mylett?

  Well, I think also, Jim, it helps getting people on the right seat on the bus when you're hiring too. Or moving people around like, you know, for me, I was, I was doing this, I'm like, I need to give this to my team. Cause I have a funny feeling, I have a few people on the bus, they should be on my team, but I have them in the wrong seat. Based on their brain proclivity, I have them in the wrong seat.

• 9:30Jim Kwik?

  Very, very much so. And so we could use this with the, we have companies, we serve half of the Fortune 500 companies. And they, they, they, they apply this to be able to communicate better, to be able to sell better, to be able to hire better. In the area, or even parent better, but certainly for hiring a cheetah, think about hiring a cheetah. Tends to value efficiency and results, uh, so they might lean towards hiring candidates. Who demonstrate initiative, the candidates that could quickly adapt, which is one of the most important, uh, you know, traits nowadays. People who are decisive, they would manage, uh, cheetahs would manage a very specific way too. They're great at delegating tasks, uh, to set, they set clear expectations, uh, KPIs.

• 10:15Jim Kwik?

  They might need to ensure that they're not pushing their team maybe too hard or too quickly. And so there's, it definitely informs an owl, you think about hiring as an owl. They would appreciate candidates who exhibit strong analytical skills, uh, attention to details, uh, more systematic approaches. They would manage, uh, in a more structured, predictable work environment. And they might need to be a little cautious also by, because every, every strength also has. Coupled with is some kind of maybe drawback that they might have a cognitive bias or blind spot for.

• 10:48Ed Mylett?

  Well, that was me, I, I gotta jump in and tell you that, one of my biggest mistakes I made young was I hired people that were my brain type. Because I thought they were the smart ones. So everybody around me was a, was a, was a, was a doggone cheetah. And I needed some dolphins, I needed some elephants, right? I didn't, I, I thought, well, the smart people are just like me. So I had a, that's not the right seat on the bus. I don't think you want your CFO to be a cheetah. Right?

• 11:13Jim Kwik?

  Exactly. It's like love languages. If somebody had their love language, people tend to whatever their love language happens to be, that's what fulfills them, but that's also how they often communicate. So words of affirmation. But if your partner loves acts of kindness or service, then it's like we're not meshing. And that happens all the time when we're trying to learn something, often a coach or a mentor is different than. So you have to be able to adapt like for so for an owl, their drawbacks, they can be overly cautious and overanalyze and become too rigid in the process and never take action. They're just ideate all the time. Dolphins can inspire very well because they have a lot of passion because they have this vision

• 11:54Jim Kwik?

  where they may motivate teams with their enthusiasm. However, they might occasionally overlook the details, the nitty gritty logistics of things. And finally, the elephant, if you're thinking about hiring and managing, candidates that an elephant would hire for are team players, right? However, you know, a drawback might be they might occasionally struggle with making tough decisions that might upset somebody also also as well. But it's it's interesting. Once you understand your brain type and people could go through the quiz online or they through the book, it also determines how you can parent or or even communicate.

• 12:31Ed Mylett?

  Let me ask you this. So when we go through the brain, one of the things about Jim's work is like it helps you hack your brain. And for me, because I am a cheetah wanting to be productive, right? Like I want to be productive. And I I think sometimes I lose my ability to retain information and to stay focused. So I'm reading, I read this again, and these are just things that stuck out for me that I want people to know on the brain. Like literally, you guys, we could do an hour and a half in the book and I give you hacks in that are in the book, which we're going to do now, and it still wouldn't be 20% of the book. There's that much in there. Okay. And so I'm gonna tell you something that'll shock you about him. And I said, one, he's introverted and two, I gotta tell you the story from when he was a little boy. And I could see my son getting emotional and I was getting emotional telling this story.

• 13:14Ed Mylett?

  But I think in some way, every person can kind of relate a little bit. So just tell them, tell them the story you know I'm asking about.

• 13:20Jim Kwik?

  Yeah, and I'll build up to just the thirty seconds before that. I mentioned I had an accident when I was five years old. A very bad fall in kindergarten class. I went headfirst into an iron grade radiator and and that's where I became very shut down. My parents said before I was very energized and very curious, very playful, but I just emotionally, socially just isolated myself. I mentioned the migraines and the sensory balance issues. I was never picked for sports ever. I was always the last one that the team had to have and and when I was, it took me three years longer to learn how to read, which I mentioned. When I was nine years old, I had processing issues. So teachers would have to repeat themselves over and over again in order for me to to understand.

• 14:01Jim Kwik?

  And I was being teased one day more than others, uh, other days. And the teacher came to my defense. She pointed to me and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And, you know, I didn't know I was broken and adults have to be very careful of their external words because they often become a child's internal words, right? And so that label became my limit. So every single time I did badly in school, I would say, oh, because I had the broken brain. Wasn't picked for sports. I had the broken brain. So that that was tough, but because of it, my superpower, I talk about superpowers a lot. Mostly because I got exposed to comic books and they they taught me how to read, something about the illustrations.

• 14:41Jim Kwik?

  It just kind of bypassed and helped me understand in my learning language and superheroes offer hope and help and one person can make a difference. I loved all those themes, right? And I would escape in those comic books because I was in a lot of pain. You know, my parents, they immigrated to the United States and my dad lost both his parents at thirteen. Couldn't afford to feed them. We live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked out and everybody has their own story. But for me, that was like superheroes just was my my escape and my inspiration. But going back to that, my superpower growing up was being invisible, like even talking about it, I could feel it in my voice. Like I would compress myself so small, punch my shoulders in, collapse my diaphragm because I didn't want to take up a lot of space.

• 15:27Jim Kwik?

  Because I never wanted to be called on in class, right? Because I never I knew the answer and I would always like sit behind the tall kid. I would, you know, get sick before every quiz or test. I would be sent to the nurse's office and it wasn't just like, it was just, it was a big challenge. And so I, I, my superpower was being invisible, but because of it, I would just watch people and I would be able to detect suffering because I know what it feels like. And also I wanted to be very quiet because I didn't want to be bullied, you know, that day or, you know, picked on. And so, um, this is every day through school. It was elementary school, um, middle school, junior high. In high school, what you're referring to is I was failing, uh, high school English.

• 16:10Jim Kwik?

  And they called my parents in and that was so embarrassing because I'm the oldest of, of three siblings. I want to be a good role model. Uh, my parents, they sacrificed a lot, had many jobs. That's probably why I had so many head injuries as a child. I wasn't very well supervised and, um, but I was so much pressure. And in this, you know, with the teacher, my parents, me, she was explaining to me, to my parents, how I was just, I was going to fail. And I begged her to be able to give me a second chance, give me some kind of opportunity to make up for it because I was very hardworking. That was the frustrating part. I would work three times harder than everyone. I mean, that was, you know, how I was raised, but I couldn't keep up.

• 16:54Jim Kwik?

  And, um, so she gave, offered to give me extra credit and to do a book report on Albert Einstein. And, you know, pretty smart guy. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to, I'm going to show this class, the teacher, my parents that I'm, I'm worth this. So every day after school, we go, I would go to the library. This is before internet, right? And, uh, and I would spend hours there. And so after doing that for weeks, I was so proud of this final product. Because I just did so much. I found out, by the way, Einstein had his own set of learning challenges, right? And he learned differently than, than people around him. And so that gave me inspiration, but the day it was due had, um, my parents surprised me and had it professionally bound.

• 17:38Jim Kwik?

  And when I saw it, I was just so excited to hand it in and throughout class, class wasn't until later in the day. I was just, I, I was always thinking about was handing this piece in. To the teacher and, uh, class comes towards the end of the class. I can't wait to hand it in. The teacher says, okay, class, we have a surprise for all of you. Jim, come to the front of the class and give your book report. Now, I didn't know I had to speak on this book report. I was just, I just thought I had to write it and be able to turn it in and get my extra credit. And, uh, and I was so scared. It's not like, I know public speaking is a big fear for everyone, but I'm phob- I was phobic. So I couldn't breathe, like my heart's beating out of my chest and I'm shaking, panicking. And I spit out.

• 18:23Jim Kwik?

  I lied. I said I didn't do it to the teacher and from the whole class. And you could see her disappointment there also as well. And, um, after the class ended, I was the only one there. And I remember. It's like it was yesterday. I'm getting choked up even thinking about it. Getting up from my desk, walking over to the doorway and on the way out. I reached into my book bag. I took out the professionally bound book report and I threw it in the trash that was sitting, you know, by the doorway. And I think I felt like I was throwing out, I don't know, hope, my potential, my worth. And that, that was kind of the place I lived in. A lot of self doubt, a lot of embarrassment, shame, uh, fears.

• 19:07Jim Kwik?

  And it's, it's funny though, right? Cause Ed, that my two biggest challenges growing up were learning and public speaking. And life has a sense of humor because all I do is public speak on this thing called learning. And it's just a reminder to everybody that our struggles can be strengths. That, um, that difficult times, they could distract you or diminish you, or they could, they could develop you, you know, we always decide.

• 19:32Ed Mylett?

  It's amazing to me that the number one brain guy on the planet was the boy with the broken brain and the, the young man who. Literally lied that he didn't do his extra credit report and throws it in the trash because he didn't want to get up and speak in front of thirty other kids in class is one of the most prolific public speakers in the world. And everybody hearing this, the reason I wanted you to hear that story is because it is true that in life, you're most qualified to help the person that you used to be.

• 19:56Jim Kwik?

  Oh, I love it. I just got goosebumps.

• 19:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, and it's just a fact. It's just, it's just an absolute fact, and that's not my saying. It's, it's been out there forever, but it's a fact. And Jim is, is living proof of that. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1's cost a fortune, and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. Ro helps people find a more affordable path to FDA-approved GLP-1 treatment. Ro wants to help people lose weight. That's why they have more affordable GLP-1 options, whether you're paying with insurance or cash. Ro's free insurance checker makes it easy to see if you're covered for GLP-1 injections. Just submit your insurance card and Ro handles the rest. No paperwork, no waiting on hold, no confusing phone calls. And if insurance doesn't cover treatment, there are still options.

• 20:40Ed Mylett?

  Ro offers the lowest-cost cash-pay FDA-approved GLP-1s, such as daily pills and multi-dose pens. I use products by Ro, and you should too. Go to ro.co/mylet to see if you qualify. That's R-O dot C-O slash my let to get started on Ro. For side effects of GLP-1 medications, including boxed warning, go to ro.co forward slash safety, ro.co slash safety. So when I, when I ended up buying the island, we had to do all of our outdoor decorating, and I spent a fortune in the first half of the place. And I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore, but I want the best stuff. And that's where Wayfair came in. My wife wanted to get this new garden bed, and Wayfair was the place that offered the perfect solution. Wayfair also helps you create a home that stands up to real life

• 21:23Ed Mylett?

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• 22:10Ed Mylett?

  But this notion of the forgetting curve

• 22:13Jim Kwik?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Ed Mylett?

  And how your brain really works from a neuroplasticity standpoint, but also your ability to stay focused. Can you explain to them what the forgetting curve is and why it's relevant when we're doing work that matters?

• 22:23Jim Kwik?

  While there's a learning curve, there's also a forgetting curve. And the forgetting curve states that when you're exposed to information just once, then within two days, 80% of it is forgotten.

• 22:34Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 22:35Jim Kwik?

  Right? And so what in the nature of our work when it comes to memory training, helping people remember client information, product information, languages, give speeches without notes, is about mitigating that forgetting curve. And when you talked about neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity is this phenomenon, this incredible phenomenon that our brains have to be able to adapt to novelty. It's neuroplasticity is driven by two factors, novelty and nutrition. And the reason why neuroplasticity, and you've covered this a lot with experts on your show, is so important because that means that our brains aren't fixed like our shoe size, that we could grow our memory, our happiness, we could change our thoughts, we could change our routines, our behaviors, our habits,

• 23:21Jim Kwik?

  because our brain is more plastic in a positive way because it's malleable. And just like building your physical muscles, you have to give it novelty and nutrition. Right? You have to give it some kind of stressor, some kind of workout, and then you have to give it proper nutrition. So what you nourish flourishes, same thing with your mental muscles. So one of the things that we added in the updated version, the expanded version, besides the cognitive types and all the applications towards learning and leadership and sales, is nootropics. And I've never covered that in 30 years.

• 23:53Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 23:54Jim Kwik?

  These are supplements that could help boost your focus, your memory, your mood, your mental energy also as well. But that's how you create neuroplasticity. And so while we could get older, we could always learn. And so it's not true. That the older we get, kind of teaching an old dog new tricks is absolutely a fallacy. It does require a little bit more work when we're past the age of 25. You know, I'm in my 50s, but it's, but it's having strategies. And this is the challenge in school. They teach you what to learn, like math and history, science, Spanish. But there's zero, literally zero classes on how to learn. There's no classes on focus, concentration, how to get into a flow state, how to be creative. Uh, no classes on, on memory. I always thought it should have been the fourth R in school.

• 24:39Jim Kwik?

  They teach you reading, writing, arithmetic, obviously spelling, they'll just spell it down with an R. Uh, this is not one of them, but what about retention, right? Socrates said, learning is remembering. And so we want to be able to fill in those gaps for every people of every age and stage of life.

• 24:55Ed Mylett?

  Let's talk about remembering. So you're going down the road I wanted to go down. One of the other things I talk a lot about is the R A S. So I'm rereading the book. This is like, I don't know, two weeks ago. And there's this little blurb in the book where you say, the question, the questions are the answer.

• 25:10Jim Kwik?

  Yeah.

• 25:10Ed Mylett?

  And it's kind of an R A S hack. This is huge for those of you that want more retention, want more focus. So explain that to them, Jim, because this is right up my alley and a, and a use of the R A S that I'd not thought of before.

• 25:23Jim Kwik?

  So primarily our brain is a deletion device, right? It's, it's trying to keep information out at any given time. There are millions, if not a billion different stimuli we could focus on externally or internally. And if we let all that in, we would go insane. We'd be completely overloaded and overwhelmed. And so what we pay attention to, our R A S kind of acts like a spotlight and draws attention to something that maybe we weren't paying attention, based on something that's important to us. Like hardwired into our reticular activating system is our name. That's why names are so important because it's one of the early things that we learned. Uh, you know, when we're children, probably one of the very first words we learned, we heard, one of the first words we learned how to write.

• 26:07Jim Kwik?

  And think about the, the love and, and the encouragement when most people were given, uh, around their name. That's why they say a name is the sweetest sound to a person's ears. So that. That is part of your RAS. If you're, I was running a marathon years ago in Washington DC. And I remember at the 18th mile, somebody was shouting my name, Jim, right? Very common name. And I know I didn't know the person, but I still looked because I'm wired to look because my RAS allows that in. So one of the ways of This is so good. stacking and utilizing your RAS is by asking questions. So questions shine a spotlight on the things that are important to us.

• 26:46Jim Kwik?

  So as an example, years ago, a long time ago, my younger sister would send me emails and postcards of very specific breed of dog, a pug dog, right? And my question was, why does she keep on sending me all the dozens and dozens of photos of pug dogs? And I realized that her birthday was coming up and she was, she's a great marketer and she was seeding her gift, right? And a funny thing happened is I started seeing these pug dogs everywhere. I would be at the health food store and the person in front of me, I swear, is holding a pug dog. Ready to, to, to, to pay the register. I was jogging in my neighborhood and there's this guy walking six pug dogs.

• 27:28Jim Kwik?

  Now, my question for every single person listening is, did those pug dogs law of attraction just magically pop into my neighborhood? They teleport and manifest around me? No, they were always there, but my brain was deleting it. Because that wasn't important until I started asking the questions and then I started seeing these pug dogs everywhere. Even a basic study tip is you read all these reading comprehension and all these paragraphs, maybe multiple pages. And then you get 10 questions at the end that the, the testers want you to be able to answer. Well, the first and foremost, you should read those questions first, right? Because you don't want to get to the end of reading, you know, multiple pages on a timed test and then say, oh, that's what was important. Then you ask the questions at the end first and then all of a sudden when you're

• 28:13Jim Kwik?

  reading it, you're like, oh, there's an answer, there's an answer, there's an answer. And it just makes it more seamless. Like even how we designed the book, it's not just teaching you accelerated learning, speed reading, memory improvement, focus flow. But it's also, it's also structured in a way. Like every chapter starts with three questions, right? To get people's RAS engaged. So when they're reading, they're looking for those answers specifically.

• 28:38Ed Mylett?

  Okay, that's brilliant. That is brilliant right there. Okay, so everybody, you're teaching something to someone and you're trying to retain information. It's the questions that guide that light in your RAS to find the answers. Here's the other thing I've always struggled with, and I know the answer now because it's in the book, but I want you to give it to everybody or one of them. I had a hard time in college, particularly during lecture where I would write notes and then I'd remember nothing. And then a lot of the people listening to my show go to events. They go to business events. They're taking notes the entire time. And I know this because I host events and I speak at a lot of them. The retention level, I think even most people listening to this, to be honest, to say is very, very low. So one of the things in the book, you actually teach hacks on how to properly take notes.

• 29:22Jim Kwik?

  Yes.

• 29:23Ed Mylett?

  This is stuff, you guys. This will help the students in your life. This will help those of you that are trying to learn and grow. Here's how, I know this is big. Sasha, my producer, just leaned in as I asked that question because people want to know this because it's something everybody relates to. I've gone back and looked at notes from meetings that are two and three years ago in my life, brother. And I'm like, I have no recollection of writing this down. I have no recollection of anything this person just said. And I even noticed this with my son. He's a really, really good golfer. When you play golf, Jim, with someone who's a great golfer, you and I have talked about golf quite a bit, actually. And my son can remember every shot on every single hole that he's played. I can't, I could play a golf course on a Saturday, come back on a Sunday, I don't even remember the fourth hole. And one of the reasons, I believe, is my son is taking

• 30:08Ed Mylett?

  notes on his round as he plays it, and it upgrades his retention. So give us some note taking tips and hacks for retention.

• 30:17Jim Kwik?

  So as you mentioned, you and I, we We produce events, we speak on the same stages and we know that with the forgetting curve, if they hear a speaker just once, within a couple of days, most of it is gone, eighty percent at least. And then over time, it just, it just disappears for a lot of people. And one of the ways of mitigating that is by taking proper notes. Now, it's interesting because people could take digital notes or handwriting notes, but when university students are tested for the things that matter, comprehension and retention of the information, then actually handwriting notes by far get performs better for both understanding information and retaining information. I would say also, one of the reasons, like, digital note taking is great for storage and

• 30:58Jim Kwik?

  sharing information, but if you can do the handwriting notes first and then digitize it, or you have a device that allows you to take notes and it digitizes it automatically, then that's preferred. But the reason, one of the reasons why is most people could type pretty fast, and you could probably type and transcribe as fast as Ed and I are speaking, but nobody can handwrite notes that fast. So part of handwriting notes, one of the reasons why it's more effective is it forces you to filter the information, to organize it and prioritize the information, because you're not writing every single word down, right? Even when university students are tested, the actual worst way of taking notes, besides not taking notes, is full transcription.

• 31:38Jim Kwik?

  The best way is having key ideas and key thoughts, you know, and maybe putting it and capturing it in a way like more whole brain, like mind mapping is a very famous way of using both your left and right brain. I have a very simple way that anybody, a lot of people won't, they won't grasp mind mapping because it has colors and it looks a little bit too creative. So if you're not a dolphin, maybe it doesn't really mesh with you. Then I would say, simple way of taking notes is take a piece of paper, and if you people happen to be watching this video, I'll just illustrate it, but just, you don't even have to see this, put a line right down the page, and on the left side, I want you to capture, on the right side, I want you to create. Now, that's very, very subtle. So on the left side,

• 32:21Jim Kwik?

  The things we're talking about here, what are the best brain foods, what are the top entropics to boost your your focus and your productivity? How do you read faster? Right? That would that's your capturing. But if your mind is going to wander, your right brain is going to search for entertainment elsewhere. I'd rather it go on the right side of the page instead of thinking about other things. So what you're going to write on the right side is you're going to write your impressions of what you're capturing. So I'll say it in a different way. On the left side, you're capturing your note taking. On the right side, you're creating your note making. And so it's very, very subtle difference, but you're on the right side, you're writing your impressions of what you're capturing. So maybe you're putting things like, how does this relate to what I already know?

• 33:05Jim Kwik?

  How can I use this? When will I use this? What questions do I have? You know about this about this subject matter? And so that's a very left brain, right brain, more whole brain way of taking notes. It's very simple and I feel like it's so important nowadays. Most of your listeners have forgotten more about personal growth and wellness and and success than most of their friends and family have, right? And they're probably thinking like, you know, but you still need to keep it elegant. Taking complex information, I'll read all the white papers, but I always realize that education doesn't really get the result. If you can make it super simple, like what is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal?

• 33:46Jim Kwik?

  Where I can't fail. And this is something so simple and the return is so the reward is so huge.

• 33:53Ed Mylett?

  What about teaching something? So when you leave an event, is it healthier for retention if say you go home and your boyfriend or girlfriend or your spouse says, hey, what did you learn there? To actually download and teach them what you learned? Do I've always felt like I retain more when I teach or is that a fallacy? Or is there some accuracy to that?

• 34:11Jim Kwik?

  Yeah, it's absolutely true. They call it the explanation effect. The explanation effect basically states exactly what you said. When you learn something with the intention of teaching somebody else, you're going to learn it so much better. And so even when people are listening to this episode, why wait? Do it right now. Think about if you had to think about somebody you wish was listening to this. And obviously they should post it and share it and and spread your podcasts, you know. I think everyone listens to your podcast already, but if they had to give a TEDx talk. The following week, would they focus better? Of course they would. Would they take better notes? Of course they would. Would they post more questions on social media? Of course they would. They would own that information. So when you teach something, you get to learn it twice.

• 34:56Jim Kwik?

  And that's the explanation effect. It's a wonderful way of accelerating your learning.

• 35:01Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so I'm gonna ask you a dual question. I wanna go back to something you said earlier because you finished it. And then I was so excited to ask you the next question. But this nootropics idea, there's a couple of things in the book that are new. The nootropic stuff I'd like you to talk about. And this is gonna sound disconnected, but to me, it's like nourishment. So I'm gonna ask both questions together and then you can go. You also talk about the second brain in the book. The second brain being the gut. So talk about nourishment. And I'm just gonna throw the ball at you and let you kinda kick it around and answer it back. But you know why I'm asking them together. One, what nootropics do you recommend? If you do, I know you do, but if you do. And then tied into that, because it's like kinda nourishment for the brain, so to speak.

• 35:44Ed Mylett?

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• 36:28Ed Mylett?

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• 37:09Ed Mylett?

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• 37:48Jim Kwik?

  So, I mean, everyone can imagine like their brain is the leaves of a tree and then going down and the soil is, and the roots are coming from your gut. And so your second brain is incredibly wise, but if it's clogged up with all this processed foods, high sugar food, refined foods, lots of ingredients that we don't even know how to pronounce, then there could be some issues there. There are certain foods, every ingredient that we talk about, we talk about the best brain foods, but also we added a new chapter. The new book's all about momentum. You know, it's all, we talk about mastering your mindset, your motivation, how to overcome procrastination. I have a formula for that. And then also the methods for accelerated learning, speed reading, memory enhancement, focus flow and all that.

• 38:32Jim Kwik?

  And the focus of the new book was really about momentum. And so knowing your brain type gives you momentum, right? And knowing the brain type of other people allows you to sustain it. AI, we talk about AI, improving your HI, your human intelligence and different ways you could do that to create momentum. And nootropics is, and this whole area of science called neuronutrition. So there's certain things that, ingredients that your brain is only 2% of your body mass, but requires 20% of the nutrients. And some of those nutrients are different than the rest of your body. And so in no particular order, and I would always prefer people get it from foods, but we know how depleted foods are. And sometimes when we're traveling and eating at hotels or fast food, we don't get those nutrients. So for example,

• 39:16Jim Kwik?

  There are brain supplements and they're nootropics and I'll go through some of each. So choline would be a brain supplement. It's a nutrient, you know, it's usually found in eggs and soybeans. It plays a vital role in brain health. It's a crucial component of acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter that supports things like memory, things like cognitive function. And so, you know, if you're not getting it from your eggs, then you could supplement with it. Another brain supplement are omega three fatty acids, particularly DHA, because your brain is mostly fat and DHA is the primary, it's the structured component of the brain that plays a key role in memory and overall brain health and function.

• 40:00Jim Kwik?

  And so if you're not getting it from wild salmon, sardines, you might need to supplement. So a nutrient profile, because I talk about in the book meta learning, the heart and science of learning how to learn. But that's the software. We still need to take care of the hardware, that three pound matter between our ears called our brain. And so if you're lacking vitamin D, your B vitamins, so important, especially B6, B9, which is folate, B12, it's vital for brain health. You're not going to be able to get, it affects your mood, it affects every brain function. Magnesium, I mean, these are the basic supplements. It's so important. It's literally responsible for hundreds of physiological processes. But it affects your learning, your memory, your mood. And it could also affect your sleep also as well.

• 40:46Jim Kwik?

  The magnesium 3 and 8 has been shown to help people to sleep better. But going into the nootropics, some of my favorites, ashwagandha. It's an adaptogenic herb. And again, I'm not a nutritionist or a doctor. You could just, but everything we put into the book, I reference all the human studies.

• 41:04Ed Mylett?

  I've noticed, I'll just jump in, ashwagandha has helped me with like anxiety as well.

• 41:08Jim Kwik?

  Yeah, it's incredible for, it improves mental and physical resilience. It can help, as you mentioned, reduce stress and anxiety and also improve cognitive function. There's a nootropic, it's a whole coffee fruit extract. So whole fruit from the coffee plant, it's usually a Byproduct that they throw out, but it has it's an extremely strong antioxidant. It has a positive impact on cognitive function. There's something called phosphatidylserine, which is a phospholipid, and these are big words, but it is so important for for brain cell membranes. It's been shown to improve memory, learning, cognitive function. L-theanine is an amino acid. It's often found in green tea. It's a very popular nootropic.

• 41:53Jim Kwik?

  It promotes relaxation without the drowsiness and it can enhance brain function. What I like about it is if you pair it with caffeine. For me, I'm very sensitive with caffeine personally, and it really can affect my sleep and my my kind of my give me the jitters. But L-theanine helps to to mitigate that. And so you pair it with caffeine, you know, it's when in the morning, I have to do it in the morning because I can't do caffeine past like 12 or 2 o'clock. It gives you more of a relaxed alertness, if you will. But something that I think that people don't realize is a popular workout supplement called creatine. And it's a substance that's naturally produced in our body. It's primarily found in meats and fish.

• 42:37Jim Kwik?

  But if you're not getting enough of it, it plays a crucial role in energy metabolism, specifically not just for your muscles, but also your mental muscles. So it helps you to to create more energy, more brain energy. So if people, you know, suffer from mental fatigue, a little brain fog, you know, it could improve your cognitive function, especially in tasks that require a really strong short term memory.

• 43:01Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 43:02Jim Kwik?

  Um, and quick thinking. So creatine's a fun one. We talked about last time, some of the foods, turmeric was one of the brain foods, but it's it's the curcumin.

• 43:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Jim Kwik?

  That that's the active ingredient that has potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits, very neuroprotective. Many people know I had a traumatic brain injury when I was five years old. I was put in special education because I had learning difficulties. I had migraines every single day. I just thought it was normal for kids to just kind of be in chronic pain. And I had balance issues and took me three years longer to learn how to read. And then the last one I'll mention is lion's mane mushroom. Getting a lot of, especially the past few years, a lot of, lot of attention. It's a unique nootropic. It has neuroprotective effects. Whole area of science we're talking about. It's called neuronutrition again, but it's been shown to stimulate the synthesis of nerve

• 43:52Jim Kwik?

  growth factor, which could enhance cognition by reducing inflammation and promoting overall good brain health.

• 43:59Ed Mylett?

  You said something about trauma when you were young and I'll let you in on something. Both Jim and I are shy.

• 44:07Ed Mylett?

  I, I think we bond over it. So when we're in green rooms or there's lots of speakers around Jim and I usually try to find a way to be alone together or we actually get alone because we're both extremely, I think it's safe to say extremely introverted, both of us, which surprises people because we're both speakers, we're in public all the time and but it's definitely true for me and I.

• 44:27Jim Kwik?

  And I, I think people are surprised to hear that if they're hearing that from you the first time because you were like the best speaker on stage. And I think people, but you have to be that expressive because otherwise you won't, your stories wouldn't land, right? Or you won't have the impact that, that you're, you desire and that, you know, people deserve.

• 44:47Ed Mylett?

  Thank you.

• 44:48Jim Kwik?

  But yes.

• 44:48Ed Mylett?

  Well, I, I think they'd be surprised at that with you. And I think one of the reasons I love Jim, one, he's just a kind, gentle, generous, brilliant man. He'll give you the shirt off of his back. He's done things for me. You guys, just so you know, like on short notice, moved things, moved his world around to be there for me. And it's something I've told him I'll never forget and I will never forget. But the other thing that I've never forgotten, if you just share it for a minute, you talk about trauma when you're young, is I picture little Jim in school and he's not doing very well. So he gets a chance, I think the story is do the extra credit and to do an extra work. But this notion of, I think every human being can relate on, in their way to this moment that happened to you in your life. And I don't want to tell the story. I want you to tell it because you lived it.

• 45:33Ed Mylett?

  But I actually was telling. My children, because they knew I was interviewing you today for Thanksgiving, I was talking to them about, hey, what do you have coming up? I said, I'm excited to get to talk to Jim again. And I said, my son really loves Jim's speaking style. It fits my son's personality very, very well. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm so excited about today because the woman sitting across from me is the definition of brilliant.

• 46:08Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, you're sweet.

• 46:09Ed Mylett?

  It's just true. And she is always the smartest person in the room and never feels the need to prove it to you. And that's the real definition of humility and brilliance combined. She's a cognitive neuroscientist and a true mental health expert, and her works made a huge impact in my life. The last time she was on the show, you guys went crazy because of how detailed her messaging is and her content is. And so, Dr. Caroline Leaf, thank you for being here today.

• 46:36Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, Ed, thank you so much for that lovely introduction. I'm very, I'm very, very flattered, very honored. Thank you. And I love talking to you. It's always just, you're an amazing interviewer.

• 46:45Ed Mylett?

  Thank you.

• 46:46Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You pull the best out of me.

• 46:47Ed Mylett?

  Well, I love listening to you. She also has a new book out that you can preorder right now, depending on when you listen to it, but you can order it at any time. But How to Help Your Child Clean Up Their Mental Mess: A Guide to Building Resilience and Managing Mental Health. What is, you, you wrote this for How to Help Your Child, but when I'm reading the work, I'm like, this just helps humans, right?

• 47:06Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, that's what it's for.

• 47:07Ed Mylett?

  But, so what is something, a strategy? You said awareness of the thought helps it lose its power over you. I'm using my description of it, right? So I've always said that, now I know why.

• 47:17Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes.

• 47:18Ed Mylett?

  Okay. What is something, a tactic, or a strategy, or a technique that somebody can use for their child or themselves that can help this in these 63 days that you would be proposing they do?

• 47:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Okay, so what you do is you do the five steps of the neurocycle, because what I did was strategically look over the years at how can you actually Find the signals and do this whole deconstruction, reconstruction thing. So you can't do it in one shot. So you, what you wanna do is do a neurocycle, which is five steps. What are they? And I'm gonna, and, and I'll go through this in a moment, but you're gonna do five steps in the sequence. The first part of the sequence is the first more or less three weeks, where you go through the five steps in around forty five, fifteen to forty five minutes, not more and not less. Then the second forty two days, where you're stabilizing, you just do it in five minutes. So the five steps are basically gathering awareness. Awareness. And notice I say gathering. Okay. So it's a very conscious and deliberate, it's not like a mindfulness awareness, which this is beyond that.

• 48:12Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So when we talk about mindfulness, meditation, breathing, decompression, all of those are very important to prepare the brain. So what you would do before you dive into the neurocycle, and you'll see this in my books and in my app, I've got an app as well called the Neurocycle. There's a two to three minute brain preparation, which is could be anything from focusing on Maimon Tumori to doing a seven three ten breathing exercise. So it's something to just get the neurophysiology under control. Then you, or it could be a meditation, a prayer, whatever. Then you move into the actual work, and I'm about to slip off this chair. Okay, go ahead. Then you move into the, I get so into this, um, into the work of gather awareness, step one. So gathering awareness is a very specific process, everything's very layered.

• 48:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Your mind, brain connection, psychoneurobiology, mind, brain, body, I'm actually a psychoneurobiologist, to study that connection, is very ordered and sequenced and structured. And if you want something to change, you've got to follow the steps of the order. So the neurocycle is a system in that you can put CBT techniques, you can put prayer, you can put whatever works for you, but put them in the right step. So when we gather awareness, we ha, we are gathering, like gathering apples off a tree, we're not just randomly looking at things. You're very organized, okay, what am I gonna gather awareness of? My emotions, I'm feeling depressed, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling frustrated, whatever, just, just label them. What am I, what, related to that emotion, what am I doing? What are my behaviors? What am I doing? What am I saying? How am I doing and saying them?

• 49:37Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So maybe it's depression and maybe it's withdrawal. Then the third thing is you're going to say, how do I feel in my body when I'm feeling depressed and withdrawing, maybe cardiovascular issues, heart palpitating. And then fourth category is, how am I looking at life in this moment? As I feel depressed, gut ache and withdrawing, I feel that life sucks. Very simple example, those are four signals. So you go, step one is to gather those four. Step two is to ask why, okay, you're going a little deeper. Why am I feeling these emotions? And you're not solving the whole problem. Don't try and solve it in one day, just go as much as you can handle. It's very draining. So that's why I say limit. So it's, why am I having this? Maybe I'm having this depression, I seem to be having it because of, it's happening a lot. I'm not sure why, but it's happening five times a day.

• 50:22Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Or it's feeling, or it's happening once a week. Oh, if it is once a week, what am I having the same behaviours? Why am I getting that, why am I doing that withdrawing? How often am I withdrawing? What other things am I doing? Why do I think I'm doing that? So you work through each of those signals and try and get some more. Don't stay too long on those two steps and then you write. Now, you don't journal, you write, you dump, you literally dump what you've gathered awareness of and what you have reflected on. Cause the first step was to gather awareness, the second step was to do this reflection thing. And then you dump it down on, and literally in mind, I'm just write it all over the page. I've developed a system called the meta cog. And for kids, it's the bubble cog. And it's basically writing in a way that looks like a tree. So it's starting from the middle and it's working around in circles and branches and colours and arrows.

• 51:07Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And everything's connected. Everything's either on a line, in a bubble. If you don't like doing that, just write any old way. But try to write dimensionally, don't do it in lines. Try and just put it all over the page. Cause it brings in, forces the two sides of the brain to work together. Creates a very strong connection between the conscious and the subconscious through the bridge of the subconscious. Yeah, and it starts diving deep. I mean, it's like, I can tell you now that when I worked with patients that who had symptoms of schizophrenia. This is an extreme example, but just to show you how well this works, we would have them just basically metacog out what all these steps I'm going through. And they would have one whole personality on this side and they'd be continuing the same conversation in another hall. So you'd see the shift and then we could show them, hey, look what's going on.

• 51:51Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And from there, we could unpack and find roots and things like that. So it's phenomenal in getting insight. Now, you spoke about introspection earlier on. Introspection, insight, it means diving into the depths of the unconscious. That's the most intelligent part of us.

• 52:03Ed Mylett?

  So is writing part of step two or is that step three?

• 52:05Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Step three, so writing is step three, sorry. Gather awareness, step one. Reflect, step two. Writing, step three. You're bringing order out of chaos. You're getting, those three steps are taking deeper, deeper, deeper, getting, increasing your introspection, insight, pulling up things that are associated. Now, that is, things all over the page, a lot of it won't make sense. Things may shock you that come out. Day one, not really, but as you progress through the days, more and more will come up. And like, for example, around day seven, people start saying, oh, I never saw this connection. Um, day fourteen, I, like, insight, insight into, oh, that's associated with that, I didn't see that, this is why I'm doing this. So there's tremendous growth if you don't force it, you just go through the cycle.

• 52:46Ed Mylett?

  I don't want to interrupt you, but I want to ask you.

• 52:47Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Go ahead.

• 52:48Ed Mylett?

  Do you think during that awareness and the writing and that you are uncovering some of the things that may trigger you as well?

• 52:53Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Totally. So it's step four. Excellent question. Step four is what, looking at what you've gathered, awareness reflected on and written, you look, what are my triggers? What are the patterns? This has happened, what can I do? So step four is moving towards reconceptualization, reconstruction, healing, putting food on the, plant food on the roots to heal them. It's leading to that acceptance. You're not going to know why someone raped a child, why someone did this, that's their story, but that's your story. So you need to find out, I'm not crazy, I don't have a broken brain, I'm not genetically flawed, I don't have a mental illness, I'm showing up like this because of what happened to me. I can't answer why I have to get to a certain level of acceptance, but at least I know why. It's not me, it's because of, and that helps you heal and move forward. So it's very progressive.

• 53:38Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's not walking in circles round and around and around. You know, this is where you can bring in things like this all psychodynamic theory and ACT. There's a lot of different therapy techniques that people can bring in experiences from EMDR and into all these, because this is a system. Yeah, into these spaces.

• 53:54Ed Mylett?

  What's the fifth step?

• 53:55Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  The fifth step is an action, active reach. So you're going to from the triggers and and things like that, you want to move towards an antidote for today, an action for today. So what can I do today to keep me in a safe space? I've done the work for today. I'm not going to fall back into working on this anyway. I've got to get going through the day. And also your brain and mind need a rest. They get tired. So it's an action. It's like a visualization, a statement, a combination, a little prayer, an affirmation. So this is where you would fit an affirmation or a CBT type technique, like maybe a little visualization exercise or a, so it's something that you do and say, maybe something as simple as, I can do this. I don't know how, and then visualize a rainbow. I mean, it could be something as simple as that to

• 54:36Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  an actual little technique, or it could be a breathing technique. So it's an action that keeps you going through the day, which helps you focus on the fact that you are moving towards healing. So you're removing energy from this thing because this process has brought this from the non-conscious to the conscious and it's weakened these branches. In the non-conscious, it's strong and driving. In the, when the non-conscious and conscious are working together, then this is weakened, the protein branches, the chemicals. So I can start restructuring and reorganizing.

• 55:06Ed Mylett?

  See, what I'm, I'm gonna tell you what I'm thinking when you're doing this, because this applies to two different people. So everybody stay in here, okay? So those are the five steps to sort of begin to rewire yourself or change your brain. The other part of me listening to this is if you're thinking, I really don't have a lot of these issues of anxiety or worry, depression. I also think that's the formula to create a change. Like if I had a goal and ambition, I'd become aware of what I wanted, right?

• 55:29Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Tendency.

• 55:29Ed Mylett?

  I'd have all these reflections about it. I would then write about it. So, and I like the idea of it not being linear like a book, but actually all over the place. So there'd be like, that's almost like a dream, personal vision board or dream board that you're doing. Then I'd think about what were the triggers I need to create to generate this state? Could be snapping my fingers. It could be seeing something. It could be walking into my office. It could be getting into my car. It could be a particular person. So I'd use that trigger to then create that state. And then obviously, the fifth would be, what's an action that I can take towards this step?

• 55:59Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You've got it.

• 56:00Ed Mylett?

  So that that cycle can be used to uncover trauma, you know, reverse trauma, create brain health, but can also be a creative process in order to change your life.

• 56:09Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So you are brilliant, because that's exactly where I started my research thirty eight years ago, with people with traumatic brain injuries and learning disabilities, and people that just wanted to improve their life. They just wanted, and it's called brain building. So it's the neuro cycle. And that was the first iteration of this thing was to develop brain building. So it was helping kids learn, so getting data in, as opposed to deconstructing. It was constructing.

• 56:29Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 56:30Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So it's taking from the knowledge in school to learn for the exam, or what is the goal in your vision? So that's the brain building aspect of the neuro cycle.

• 56:38Ed Mylett?

  This is huge right here. I gotta tell you something, because everyone always wants to create change. They're like, alright, do I get a vision board out? Like, do I? So this is a five-step process.

• 56:46Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It actually does it.

• 56:46Ed Mylett?

  To actually do it and to do it reinforcingly. And by the way, in sixty-three days,

• 56:50Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Exactly.

• 56:51Ed Mylett?

  You're a different human being.

• 56:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Totally different.

• 56:53Ed Mylett?

  I do a thing, you're talking about visualization techniques. I should share this with you, and then maybe you can speak to why it might work. So everyone asks me, I don't visualize very well. Yes, you do. You just need to get quiet, and it's a muscle you build. You know, when you decide to start visualizing your life, it is difficult. But one thing I've done is I've created, I teach it to a lot of my athletes, is I use what I call like a highlight reel technique. So what I actually start with is I start, I've never said this on the show, because it's part of my private work, but I want you to speak to it. I actually start by visualizing memories from my life that are highlights. So it could be, for example, you know, the birth of my son, the birth of my daughter, a home run I hit in baseball, an award I got, a sale that I closed that was important. These are things my brain are already familiar with, to your point earlier.

• 57:38Ed Mylett?

  It's already been wired. I've already repeated the emotion. It's already in there. And so I see those things, and those are easy for me to recall because they're familiar. And then I move to what I want. So my brain, I think, begins to think they're one big highlight reel. Is there any data to prove that that's true? Meaning, I'm already visualizing what I've already, something I want. I've seen an achievement, I've seen an achievement. And then I see the one that I want to achieve. And for me, my brain more easily sees the future. When I start with things that I'm already familiar with in my past. Cause I think we do that in reverse. So if we've had a traumatic, someone's hurt us in our life.

• 58:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:16Ed Mylett?

  We see this, we repeat it over and over. And then we then regenerate it in our real life with the next relationship. And that's why people end up dating the same person over and over again in a different body.

• 58:25Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Exactly.

• 58:26Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 58:26Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Exactly. Okay, so I'm jumping out of my chair with with excitement because you've you've said exactly the correct thing.

• 58:31Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 58:32Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So what you've just described, remember I said a moment ago, you have, I said, um, spoke about how I'll recall this conversation. Cause it's a great conversation and I'll build it.

• 58:39Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 58:40Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  That's what we're talking about here. So you are recalling these, you're recalling those and you're using those to unmask your natural resilience.

• 58:47Ed Mylett?

  Yes, that's exactly right.

• 58:48Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So I actually call these insurance policies.

• 58:50Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 58:50Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So they literally, so when I work with a person to actually be able to build their brain. We're building an insurance policy. So you you should be spending time on doing exactly that. So as you do that, you activate a whole different way that your energy flows across the two sides of your brain. You go into the highest level of intelligence, you unmask resilience, you increase your wisdom. You tune into the depths of your unconscious where intelligence, pretty much your intelligence resides.

• 59:14Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 59:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Cause your conscious is basically a workhorse and it's guided by your unconscious. So what we've got to see is what is dominant in the unconscious. Now your unconscious is gent- is a is a gentle lady, gentleman. Um, and it's basically always looking for the things that are blocking this growing and keeping you stuck in those. So it's on your side, but you have to tune in to what's coming up. So when you describe, when you wanna do something difficult, you first think of something good. What you've done is you've listened to wisdom from your unconscious, which is that process. You've then called those up, you've activated your resilience, you've put yourself in a highly intelligent, wise state. Now you're in a state that's more able to cope with it. So when I work with a patient, for example. I would never start with that.

• 59:59Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 59:59Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I would say, okay, let's talk about, you know, your favorite moments or you'll tell me a story about, tell me a great movie.

• 1:00:05Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:00:05Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You know, let's talk about a great book, anything, and then you would focus on that. When they were in that state, I knew that I had got the mind brain connection, the psychoneurology.

• 1:00:12Ed Mylett?

  I like, I feel like thinking about the things that have been positive in my life or experiences creates a neurochemistry to which I can create out of.

• 1:00:20Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  That's exactly what you do.

• 1:00:21Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:00:22Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes, you have. You've changed all the flow, you've, these change what we, they increase gamma, which is, which is the way that you want to flow.

• 1:00:30Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:00:30Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And when your eyes are open, you want like this, what we call low gamma across the whole brain.

• 1:00:36Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:00:36Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And then, and then there's certain other patterns. I don't, I won't go into the details.

• 1:00:39Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 1:00:39Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And that's got to go into have a certain beta pattern and so on. Those energy waves, when they are flowing in that state, they activate the different parts of the brain to then be on high alert to respond and do what they designed to do.

• 1:00:51Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:00:51Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Which then impacts your neurochemistry, then your endocrine system, your cardio. Everything then comes together and you are in this prime state, your HPAX is now on high alert and you now are in the ideal state for solution finding.

• 1:01:03Ed Mylett?

  This is so good. You guys, this is why I do the show right here. So let me just give you this again. Step one, gather awareness. Step two, reflect. Step three, write, play, draw. Step four, recheck. Step five, active reach, which is basically what we've been describing here.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

• 1:01:24Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to Max Out with Ed Mylett. Super excited to bring this gentleman to my left here today because if you take his IQ and you take mine and you average them together, you may actually get an average IQ out of the two of us here. So this is Dr. Joe Dispenza and Joe is, I think he's a peak performance expert is what I would really call you. I think you help people reach their peak and their ability to perform in their life. But he's really an expert at the mind, body, spirit sort of connection and helping you really be a happier version of yourself. And so we're going to talk about all the details of that today with you. So Joe, thank you for being here today.

• 1:01:54Joe Dispenza?

  You're welcome and happy to be with you.

• 1:01:56Ed Mylett?

  That's wonderful. And we are at Bulletproof Labs, by the way, in Santa Monica, California, which is one of the most impressive places I have ever been in, in my life, in terms of the cutting edge of human performance as well. And so check out Bulletproof. When you get an opportunity to do that, so let's max out our time here together today.

• 1:02:11Joe Dispenza?

  Alright, let's go.

• 1:02:12Ed Mylett?

  So you say all kinds of things that I'm fascinated with, but I think you're fascinating because you've become this expert in a field that's very unique really to you. And the way you explain things, people always want to know how to perform better, how their brain works. And I think you show them how to do it, but also why it works. And I'm fascinated by that, so. But you didn't start out in this industry, right? So before we go to all the great stuff, how the heck did you become you? Like, I've read about you, you were actually, you're a chiropractor prior, correct?

• 1:02:42Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah, I started out as a chiropractor.

• 1:02:44Ed Mylett?

  So tell everybody about you just a little bit.

• 1:02:45Joe Dispenza?

  Well, uh, let's see, I, uh, got started on this, I think, most of the time when, uh, we wake up, we need a wake-up call. And I was in Palm Springs, California, I was in the triathlon. I was on a biking portion of the race and I was making a turn and I was passing two cyclists on the corner. And there was a cadet, a police officer, kind of pointing at me, waving on to make the turn, like this.

• 1:03:10Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:03:11Joe Dispenza?

  And he had his back to the oncoming traffic. So when I made the turn, a four-wheel-drive Bronco going about 55 miles an hour caught me from behind and catapulted me out of my bike.

• 1:03:21Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:03:22Joe Dispenza?

  Anyway, when you land that hard on your rump or on your back, the force of that compression takes the columns of the vertebrae and compresses them. So I had, uh, broken six vertebrae in my spine.

• 1:03:33Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:03:34Joe Dispenza?

  And I had bone fragments on my spinal cord and the very top segment, the eighth thoracic vertebrae, I broke T8, T9, T10, T11, T12, and L1. And T8 took the compressive force and I flexed. And so when I flexed, it compressed that vertebrae more than 60%. And the arch where the spinal cord passes through broke like a pretzel. So I had multiple compression fractures of my thoracic spine. I had bone fragments on my cord because when you compress a volume of something, the volume has to go somewhere. So it went back on the cord and the neural arch of the eighth thoracic vertebrae was, was compressing the cord as well. So, anyway, um...

• 1:04:17Joe Dispenza?

  Typical procedure for something like that is called the Harrington rod surgery. And they cut off the back parts of your vertebrae. It's called a laminectomy. In my case, it would be from the base of my neck to the base of my spine.

• 1:04:29Ed Mylett?

  God, chills.

• 1:04:30Joe Dispenza?

  And then they screw in these stainless steel rods. And the action of screwing into the bone causes a cantilever. It kind of pulls the column off the cord in some cases.

• 1:04:42Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:04:43Joe Dispenza?

  And opens up the nerve supply.

• 1:04:47Joe Dispenza?

  And then they take bone fragments from your hip and they paste it over the top and they hope for the best. And so I had four opinions from four of the leading surgeons in Southern California, and it was unanimous that I needed that procedure. Now, I was in a lot of pain. I had some neurological problems. And they told me if I didn't have the surgery, I would never walk again. So I decided against the surgery.

• 1:05:09Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:09Joe Dispenza?

  And I thought, I didn't want to live handicapped. I didn't want to be in a wheelchair, and I didn't want to be addicted to pain medication. So I thought, I might as well take a chance here. So I didn't really know what I was doing at the time.

• 1:05:22Ed Mylett?

  I was gonna say, the chance on what? Did you know what the alternative was?

• 1:05:24Joe Dispenza?

  Well, I think that I believed that this voice kept coming up in my head, saying, "The power that made the body heals the body." And I thought, well, God, this power is an intelligence. An intelligence is consciousness. Consciousness is awareness. Awareness is paying attention. It must be paying attention to me.

• 1:05:43Ed Mylett?

  Can I ask a question?

• 1:05:43Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:44Ed Mylett?

  Did you think this way prior to that incident?

• 1:05:46Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah, to some degree. I think that most of us are philosophical to some degree. You know, we have a philosophy about life.

• 1:05:52Ed Mylett?

  So what?

• 1:05:53Joe Dispenza?

  But when you're initiated, that means you have to initiate that philosophy. So.

• 1:05:58Ed Mylett?

  Love that.

• 1:05:59Joe Dispenza?

  I had to take what I knew and weigh it against what I didn't know. And I think one of the worst places we wind up as human beings is indecision. And so I had very, very strong authorities telling me, "You're never gonna walk again. You have a head injury. I don't know why you're deciding against the surgery." If it was my son, he would be on the operating table. Anyway, I checked out of the hospital and I began the process. I wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't doing anything. I was laying face down, and I said, "I'm not gonna let any thought slip by my awareness that I don't want to experience. And if this intelligence is truly a consciousness, I have to be present with it."

• 1:06:42Joe Dispenza?

  And so what I did was I just start, started reconstructing my spine and my mind, vertebrae by vertebrae. And then, you know, you'd start, I'd start off doing that and the next thing you know, I'd start thinking about, should I sell my home, should I sell my practice? And I realized that the template, the design that I wasn't, was creating wasn't complete. So I'd stop, start all over again, get frustrated, then it would get harder. It sounds like me when I began meditating. Yeah, it's the same thing, yeah. Because meditation requires being present and that's a skill. You gotta practice it. So I didn't have a teacher at the time. I was just going off my intuition and it would take me three hours to go through the whole entire process just to complete it.

• 1:07:25Joe Dispenza?

  And I'd start all over because I wanted it to be a complete model. So, six and a half weeks of just a dark night of the soul. Because I think when we're traumatized or we're under stress, we tend to focus on what we don't want to have happen and what we do want to have happen. And I think in survival, we're always preparing for the worst-case scenario. So it was, it was a battle that I couldn't get my mind to do what I wanted to do. The end of six and a half weeks, one day, I went through the whole entire thing without breaking my focus and I swear it was like hitting a golf ball right in the sweet spot. It just, it just clicked and I clicked. And from that moment on, my body started to heal. That's incredible. I started to have less pain, my neurological symptoms were diminishing.

• 1:08:08Joe Dispenza?

  And the moment I started to correlate the changes that were happening in my body with what I was doing inside of me. I started doing it with more passion and more enthusiasm. Anyway, I was back on my feet in nine and a half weeks. I was back training again at twelve weeks. Come on! I was back in my practice and, you know, they told me that I would have to wear this body cast for a year, six months to a year. And... Well, gosh, I put it on once and took it off and said, "There's just no way I'm gonna wear this." And so, I just made a deal with myself. And the deal was, in those lonely nights where I couldn't sleep, if I'm ever able to walk again, I'll spend the rest of my life studying the mind-body connection and mind over matter. And pretty much, that's what I've been doing.

• 1:08:53Ed Mylett?

  That's amazing. So, that's the... See, I'm a layman. So, I start out introducing you as a peak-performance person, because I see everything through performance, I guess, right? But, that's incredible, because the sophisticated version is that you're this... You've studied this convergence of, like, neuroscience, quantum physics, epigenetics, sort of the convergence of that, right? What would you say you do? In other words, if someone said to you... Because I know we talk a lot about healing. What would you say? Someone says, "What do you do?" What would your answer be to that?

• 1:09:19Joe Dispenza?

  I get that question every day, every week, when I'm on a plane. Someone sits next to me, they go, "So, what do you do?" And then, I wind up talking to them for four hours. I teach people, really, a way to live a better life and to heal themselves of past scars, to provide the tools for them to realize that they're more than they really perceive themselves to be. And I believe that your personality creates your personal reality.

• 1:09:49Ed Mylett?

  Can you elaborate on that? I was gonna ask you about that.

• 1:09:51Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah, so, your personality is made up of how you think, how you act, and how you feel. So, the present personality who's watching this show has created the present personal reality called their life. Means, then, if you want to change your life, your personal reality, that means fundamentally, you have to change your personality. That means you have to start thinking about what you've been thinking about and change it. You have to begin to become aware of your unconscious habits and behaviors and modify them. Then, you have to look at certain emotions that keep you anchored to the past and decide if those emotions belong in your future. And I think, after all these years, Ed, I think that most people try to create a new personal reality as the same personality, and it doesn't work.

• 1:10:34Joe Dispenza?

  You know, you literally have to become someone else. So, the process, then... Most people, they're thinking the same thoughts, they're making the same choices, they're demonstrating the same behaviors, they're creating the same experiences that stamp the same networks of neurons into the same patterns, all for the familiar feeling that they call themselves. And if you keep doing that over and over again, there's a principle in neuroscience that says that nerve cells that fire together, wire together. So people begin to hardwire their brain into very finite signature, into these automatic programs. Turns out by the time we're 35 years old, we become a set of memorized behaviors, emotional reactions, beliefs, perceptions, unconscious attitudes, that function just like a computer program.

• 1:11:18Joe Dispenza?

  So when people want to change, they're using 5% of their conscious mind, and they can think positively all they want, but the programs are running subconsciously, telling them that they're negative. So the only way to do that then is to get into the operating system. And getting into the operating system of that, where those programs exist, requires then, people beginning to do some inward work. If you sit down and you disconnect from your outer world, you close your eyes, we play some music in the background, you sit your body down, and not smelling anything, or tasting anything, or experiencing anything, or feeling anything, and you're not thinking about or anticipating the future, or remembering the familiar past, that moment, that elegant

• 1:12:02Joe Dispenza?

  moment where you fall into the present moment, is where the magic happens. And so after looking at enough brain scans in the process of studying the transformation, yeah, I call that getting beyond yourself, because when you disconnect from your present personal reality and personality, now you're ready to create something else. And so what thoughts do you want to fire and wire in your brain? What behaviors do you want to demonstrate? And the act of rehearsing The behavior begins to install the neurological hardware in your brain, primes it to look like the experience has already happened.

• 1:12:40Ed Mylett?

  Yes, yep. Let's step back for a second. I want to stay on that. I want everyone to be with us. So, a couple of things you said, because you said a ton there, right? And so, I want everybody to catch a couple of things here. A basic thing, a base model, is that people don't think about what they think about enough. In other words, just taking a second to think about what you actually think about is a breakthrough experience. Just something that simple, right? And we have, you can correct me, but we have somewhere around 80,000 thoughts a day. Is that about right? And at some point, 70% of them, I just want everybody to understand this, are the same thoughts on every...

• 1:13:11Joe Dispenza?

  Ninety.

• 1:13:11Ed Mylett?

  Ninety percent of them. So ninety percent of those thoughts are the same thoughts on a daily basis. And we wonder why, if we really are what we think about, why our lives continue to sort of perpetuate themselves over and over again.

• 1:13:21Joe Dispenza?

  You got it. You got it.

• 1:13:22Ed Mylett?

  And so, we have these patterns. You've talked about beginning to consciously choose and decide what these thoughts and behaviors are that you would like. So, is there a way specifically, maybe one technique you give today outside of some of the seminars and books that we're going to talk about in a minute? But how do you break that pattern? And how do you become conscious of getting new thoughts that serve you, that create that person that you want to be?

• 1:13:43Joe Dispenza?

  Look, it's really simple.

• 1:13:44Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:13:45Joe Dispenza?

  Your brain is organized to reflect everything you know in your life. Your brain is a record of the past. It's an artifact of everything you've learned and experienced to this moment. Feelings and emotions are the end product of past experiences. And we can remember experiences better because we can remember how they feel. So, most people wake up in the morning and they start remembering all their problems. And those problems are connected to certain people and certain things at certain times and places. The moment they start thinking about those problems, they're thinking in the past. Those problems have an emotion associated with them. And the moment they start feeling those emotions, the body, as the unconscious mind, doesn't know the difference between an experience that's creating an emotion and the emotion the person's fabricating by thought alone. Now, thoughts are the language of the brain

• 1:14:30Joe Dispenza?

  and feelings are the language of the body. And how you think and how you feel creates your state of being. So, most people's entire state of being, when they start their day, is already in the past. So, you have a choice. The choice is, you're either defined by a vision of the future, or you're defined by the memories of the past. And when you decide to say, "Okay, I'm gonna change", and you decide one thing, "I'm not gonna eat this food, I'm gonna wake up earlier, I'm gonna do something aerobic, I'm not gonna have sugar after 6 o'clock", whatever it is, whatever choice a person makes, the moment you make a choice to do something differently,

• 1:15:11Joe Dispenza?

  and the hardest part about change is not making the same choices you did the day before, get ready, because it's going to feel uncomfortable. It's going to feel unfamiliar, there's gonna be some uncertainty and unpredictability, and that's the moment the game is on. Yes. So then, most people, their body has been conditioned emotionally to be the mind. So now, the body says, "Wow, I'd rather hang on to my guilt than take a chance in possibility. I'd rather live in fear than trust in the unknown." So, so once the person feels uncomfortable, the body goes, "Whoa, wait a second, we're out of the program here", and body starts influencing the mind. That's right. So it says, "Start tomorrow, you'll never change,

• 1:15:56Joe Dispenza?

  you don't have the money to do this, you're not good enough, your mother told you you were this, your father's fault, it's your ex's fault", you know, all of the voices that come up. Now, here's the deal, if you respond to those voices, those same thoughts as if they're true, by the way, they're always going on behind the scenes of your awareness, but now they're amplified because you're outside your comfort zone. You believe in that thought, that thought's gonna lead to the same choice, which is gonna lead to the same behavior, which is gonna create the same experience and produce the same emotion, and the person's gonna say, "This feels right." No, no, no, that feels familiar. Going from the old self to the new self is a neurological, it's a biological, it's a chemical, it's a hormonal, it's a genetic death of the old self.

• 1:16:38Joe Dispenza?

  And people will say to me, "In that void, in that unknown, I can't predict my future", and I'll say to them, "The best way to predict your future is to create it", not from the known, but from the unknown. I love it. So, close your eyes now and think about that vision. Once you start thinking about that vision of your future, you're activating the creative centers in your brain. And naturally, you begin to think about putting yourself in the scene. Yes. And the act of doing that, when you're truly passionate and truly present... The moment you're defined by that vision, when the thought in your mind becomes the experience, you begin to feel the emotion of the event before it's made manifest.

• 1:17:20Joe Dispenza?

  Now, you're giving your body a sampling, a taste of the future. And now, if a thought and a feeling create a new state of being, you're combining a clear intention with an elevated emotion, and now you're beginning to change your biology. And you're seeing a whole new landscape that you could never see before because you're no longer viewing your future through the lens of the past.

• 1:17:42Ed Mylett?

  I love this.

• 1:17:43Joe Dispenza?

  Now, this requires then, something really specific because most people will wait for their wealth to feel abundance. They'll wait for their success to feel empowered. They'll wait for their new relationship to feel loved.

• 1:17:58Ed Mylett?

  They'll get all these things when?

• 1:17:59Joe Dispenza?

  Yes, so think about that. The absence of getting those things causes people to live in lack their entire life.

• 1:18:07Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 1:18:07Joe Dispenza?

  And so they're waiting for something outside of them to change how they feel inside of them. And if they're not creating a new life, then they're not applying the proper principles and they keep all their manifestations, all their dreams at arm's length. Well, think about this. If you get up feeling gratitude, if you get up feeling empowered, if you get up feeling whole, if you get up feeling unlimited, why would you worry about whether it was gonna come or not? You would feel like it already happened.

• 1:18:35Ed Mylett?

  How do you do that when you are stepping into the now? If you give us one strategy, one thought, one technique that keeps us? Is it just, for me, candidly, for me, it's just always been because you're explaining to me at a much more deep level, things I've understood through my own experience, right? Everyone that's listening to this has had an experience where these formulas, these concepts, and these ideas have worked for you. They have. You've all had an experience like this. For me, it's just being conscious of it. For me, it's literally, for me, taking control of it and being conscious about it. How would you answer that?

• 1:19:05Joe Dispenza?

  Well, I absolutely agree with you, Ed. You're absolutely right. We're wired to create. This isn't something that you have to try to do.

• 1:19:13Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:19:14Joe Dispenza?

  You just have to get beyond the memory of your past and all the associations to create a new future. Now, theoretically... That sounds really easily, but everybody's done it at least once in their life.

• 1:19:24Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 1:19:24Joe Dispenza?

  What happened? You get a wild idea.

• 1:19:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Joe Dispenza?

  You get a crazy idea and you think, what would it be like to be happy? What would it be like to be in love? What would it be like to be rich? Whatever it is.

• 1:19:32Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:19:33Joe Dispenza?

  And you, all of a sudden, you ask that question.

• 1:19:35Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:36Joe Dispenza?

  And you turn on the creative center in your brain.

• 1:19:38Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 1:19:38Joe Dispenza?

  It turns on.

• 1:19:39Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:19:39Joe Dispenza?

  And then, now, the frontal lobe is the boss. It's the CEO. It's the symphony leader. And the frontal lobe, as an executive, has connections to all other parts of the brain. Now, when you ask that question, it's gotta answer it. So it's gotta look out over the landscape and see, what kind of raw materials do I have? Well, you only have a few things. Knowledge you've learned and experiences you've had. So it begins to call up different networks of neurons. And it begins to seamlessly piece them together. And you get a vision in your mind that's called intent. And if you're passionate, you start to feel the feelings of when it happens. Now, you're giving your body that energetic boost.

• 1:20:15Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:15Joe Dispenza?

  Now, everybody's done this. The moment you've said that, no one can talk you out of it. No person.

• 1:20:21Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 1:20:21Joe Dispenza?

  No thing, no experience. You're possessed by it.

• 1:20:24Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:24Joe Dispenza?

  So then, what happens next? You start writing down.

• 1:20:27Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:27Joe Dispenza?

  All the choices you need to make.

• 1:20:28Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:20:29Joe Dispenza?

  All the things you gotta do.

• 1:20:30Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:20:31Joe Dispenza?

  All the goals and experiences you want in your future. And every time you write one of those goals or experiences down, you start to feel more of those emotions. And now, you're basically assembling more of your future. Now, the astute person does something really amazing. They start learning more information. You wanna be wealthy? Study wealthy people. You wanna be healthy? Study healthy people. As you begin to gain more knowledge, you're adding more stitches into the three-dimensional tapestry. And you got more raw materials to dream in new ways. Now, here's the part that is the most important. Take out a piece of paper and say, what thoughts do I have to stop thinking? You know, I can't, I'll start tomorrow, I'm too hard, I don't feel like it, I have a headache, I gotta go to sleep, I'm tired.

• 1:21:13Joe Dispenza?

  List those thoughts and become so conscious of those thoughts that you would never let one of those thoughts slip by your awareness unchecked by you.

• 1:21:22Ed Mylett?

  Can I say something about that? I wanna jump in on that. One of the powers of writing those thoughts down is you completely eliminate and weaken their influence over you. They become minimized when you write them. Lose their power over you when you grab control of them by writing them down. It's a significantly powerful exercise is to write down those thoughts.

• 1:21:37Joe Dispenza?

  Yeah, from a neuroscientific standpoint, what's called metacognition. Because the moment you can observe the thought and become conscious of it, you're no longer the program. Your consciousness observing the program and you begin to literally objectify your subjective self and now you're pulling out. So then, write down the choices you have to stop making. Look at the things you have to stop doing. Do you complain? Do you make excuses? Do you blame other people? What do you do? List those things and be really honest with yourself. What experiences do you have to stay away from, from certain people at certain times? Stay away from them so that you are not in the environment that triggers it. And now here's the most important point.

• 1:22:17Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:22:18Joe Dispenza?

  Write down those emotions that keep you anchored to the past. Because those emotions are literally residue from the past chemically. So then, the moment you start feeling suffering, the moment you start feeling guilt, the moment you start feeling unworthy, the moment you start feeling despair, the moment you start feeling any of those emotions, you're back in your past.

• 1:22:38Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:22:38Joe Dispenza?

  And you can't see the future. You're thinking within those emotional states. And we've looked at enough brain scans to say that when you think within a certain emotion, you're gonna make your brain worse.

• 1:22:49Ed Mylett?

  Thoughts are physical. What are thoughts when they happen in your body? The power of this.

• 1:22:54Joe Dispenza?

  The stronger the emotion that you feel from any condition in your environment, the more you pay attention to the cause. So the higher the threshold of the emotion, the more the brain narrows its focus on whatever it is in the environment does it. And the brain takes a snapshot and that's called a memory. So now, people think neurologically within the circuits of the past experience and they feel chemically within the boundaries of those emotions. Now you say to the person, "Well, what happened?" A person say, "This person did this to me, that person did that, then this happened." And the latest research on memories says that 50% of what you talk about in the past isn't even the truth. That you don't have the same brain then.

• 1:23:36Joe Dispenza?

  So you make stuff up, which means now you're reliving a past that you didn't even have just to embellish it, to produce the emotions, to reaffirm your limited state.

• 1:23:46Ed Mylett?

  Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max Out, everybody. What an honor it is to be with this gentleman here today and to share him with all of you. I guess probably the thing I admire most about him is that he came to this space, I think similarly to how I did, which is that, almost reluctantly, he was a person building businesses and becoming successful in the real world, applying the things he was learning from personal development and making those things a reality in his life. And then after he had business success, being sought after enough, he decided to start to teach the things that had helped him become successful.

• 1:24:28Ed Mylett?

  And I love that there's a track record behind the incredible things we're going to cover today. Multiple time New York Times bestseller, company called NeuroGym that you're going to fall in love with, everybody. Bunch of different books. His recent one I read in two days called Inner Size. I highly recommend you all get this. Most of you are probably familiar from him for the first time from The Secret. He's one of the stars, if not the star of The Secret. Bunch of different books. The Answer, so many great things. And it's an honor to have him today because I consider him, on earth, one of, if not the greatest expert on the brain, on the inner mechanics of the brain, mindset, and peak performance. So I know it's what all of you want to talk about. So I have John Assaraf here with me today. John, thanks for being here, brother.

• 1:25:12John Assaraf?

  Ed, it's so good to be here and thank you for giving me the honor to be here with you.

• 1:25:17Ed Mylett?

  Talk to us about beliefs. How powerful are they? What are they? Why do they matter?

• 1:25:23John Assaraf?

  So I'll start with the story first and then I'll share beliefs and then what to do. So we have some practical things that you can start doing today. So back in 1987, when I bought the franchising rights for RE/MAX of Indiana,

• 1:25:40John Assaraf?

  I had no idea how to build a company. I was, you know, 26 years old. And but I had another mentor who I invested $75,000 to become his partner, to have the opportunity to learn from this man who at the time was probably $100 million. And so I was very, very keen on learning and I didn't know how to build a business. I didn't know anything other than how to sell real estate. And I set a goal to generate $1 billion a year in sales. And I set the goal for five years in the future, not knowing... A billion-dollar goal is like, mind-boggling big for me. And I... There was an interview, the second week I was in Indianapolis. I moved from Toronto to Indianapolis for this opportunity.

• 1:26:25John Assaraf?

  And I was interviewed by the Indianapolis Business Journal. And I said in the interview that I had a goal for $1 billion. And the reporter said, "Are you aware that there's two companies that have been in the state of Indiana for 80 years, one, 100 years, the other one? And they haven't hit $1 billion in real estate sales in all of these years?" And I said, "Yeah, I know. It's Graves and Tucker. And you can let them know that I'll be the first." Right? And as I said that, I almost felt like I put my foot right in my mouth because I didn't know how I was gonna do it.

• 1:26:54Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:26:55John Assaraf?

  Long story short, five years later, we sold enough franchise, recruited enough agents. We did $1.2 billion and we were stuck, which is a great place to be stuck. And I was asking myself, "How is it possible that I'm training these agents with strategies, with tactics, with selling skills, marketing skills?" We were like the gurus of, "Here's the books, here's the cassettes, here's the trainers, here's..." Like, out of the deep end. And the agents who, for example, would make $30,000 a year, kept making $30,000 a year. The agents who made $50,000 kept making $50,000. The agents who made $100,000 kept making $100,000. And so I realized that they weren't missing the skills or the knowledge. There was something else at play.

• 1:27:39John Assaraf?

  And what helped me from the age of nineteen to twenty-seven, twenty-eight, thirty, was every single day, and I still do it today, and I'll share this with you in just a little bit. Every single day, I was priming my brain with the beliefs and the self-image required to achieve the goals that I wanted. So I got seventy-five agents together who agreed to pay three thousand dollars each to be part of an inner game training. Forget the outer game, the inner game training. We worked on affirmations, visualization, mindfulness, meditation, listening to our affirmations on our vision, on our cassette recorders. We had the little cassettes we put in our cars.

• 1:28:22John Assaraf?

  And so I had them work on their self-image and self-worth and self-esteem, and to develop the beliefs that we were gonna imprint or impregnate into their subconscious mind by listening to these audios every single day, twice a day, and while they were driving. And those seventy-five agents, over six months, increased sales by one hundred million dollars.

• 1:28:46Ed Mylett?

  My gosh.

• 1:28:47John Assaraf?

  We didn't teach them one thing about selling more.

• 1:28:49Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 1:28:49John Assaraf?

  We taught them about changing their identity and their belief structure so that it matched the goals they wanted to achieve. And then I said, holy shit, this works even for other people, not just me. So we started to teach that to all of our agents. And we created these cassettes with these recordings on them of the beliefs that we needed them to believe, the self-image that they deserved, that they were good enough, they were smart enough. And we went from one point two billion to four and a half billion a year.

• 1:29:18Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 1:29:18John Assaraf?

  Within four years.

• 1:29:20Ed Mylett?

  Wow. And that's my beliefs. And so, guys, that's a belief.

• 1:29:23John Assaraf?

  A little bit of beliefs and believing in a new self-image and identity and a new story.

• 1:29:29Ed Mylett?

  God. So good. You're gonna tell us about beliefs, what they are.

• 1:29:33John Assaraf?

  So if you think of, yeah, so, so when you were born, were you born with any beliefs?

• 1:29:38Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 1:29:38John Assaraf?

  Were you born with any habits?

• 1:29:40Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 1:29:40John Assaraf?

  Were you born with any fears?

• 1:29:42Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 1:29:43John Assaraf?

  No. So, from a neuroscience and neuropsychology perspective, a belief is nothing more than this. Imagine that you're born and your brain's made up of a hundred billion marbles. And every time you have an experience, or somebody says something to you, you read something, or you watch something, these marbles make these connections. And the connections that are reinforced go from conscious connections to subconscious connections. And once these subconscious connections are made and reinforced, they run the show ninety-eight percent of the time. So a belief is nothing more than a reinforced pattern in the brain. And our conscious brain can choose what we want when we're in that part of our brain.

• 1:30:26John Assaraf?

  But our subconscious mind can't choose. It's programmed from the age of zero to three in the imprinting years, three to about seven or eight, the modeling years, and then eight on, it's the experiential years. And so if you have these powerful beliefs that you're good enough, you're smart enough, you're worthy to achieve the goals that you have. If you have these powerful beliefs, you are able to achieve any amount of income you choose, no matter what the amount is, you just need to learn how. So if you have these empowering beliefs, you have brain coherence between conscious and subconscious. What if you said, okay, I wanna make, let's just say a hundred thousand dollars a year, or a million, it doesn't make a difference. And I asked you, what do you need to believe about yourself to achieve it?

• 1:31:11John Assaraf?

  So I need to believe I'm smart enough. Good. Write down, I am smart enough. What else do you need to believe? I need to believe that I am worthy. I need to believe that I deserve this. I need to believe that it's possible. I need to believe. You write down five or six or seven beliefs that are just words on a sheet of paper. Now let me stop for just a moment, I'm gonna tell a story and come back to this. I want you to imagine that somebody tapped you on the shoulder sometime today and say, "Hey, I work with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks in Hollywood, and we have this new script, okay? That if you get really good at this script, where you could read it in front of a camera without the script, we'll pay you 10 million bucks." Now, I want you to imagine you've never seen the script, you don't know how to act,

• 1:31:56John Assaraf?

  but they said to you, "We're gonna give you an acting coach, we're gonna give you everything you need to memorize the script, we're gonna give you everything you need to act it perfectly." What would you do to take that script that's on a piece of paper that you've never seen before? What would you do to take that script to make it yours? For you to own it? And the answer is you'd probably read it like, what, once? Would you read it maybe 100 times, 200 times, 500 times? You think you might role-play with somebody while you're holding the script in your hand? Do you think you might research the role? Do you think you might take a camera and practice it? And do you think that if you practice it one time, 50 times, 100 times, 500 times, you could finally put the script down, and you can get in front of the camera and go, "Boom, here is the script."

• 1:32:41John Assaraf?

  Do you think you could do that? Well, guess what? A script that's on a piece of paper that you don't believe with practice, you start to believe. So what happens if you take a belief system and you start to imprint it into your subconscious mind, initially through conscious repetition? But there are ways to access the subconscious mind that we know today that are faster and easier than just doing it consciously. And so you take a vision of you achieving your goals and dreams, you take the beliefs you need, you learn how to manage your emotions a little bit better, and then you develop the habits, which again are nothing more than neural patterns in the brain that have been reinforced. And when you learn how to deactivate the destructive ones and activate constructive ones

• 1:33:26John Assaraf?

  through spaced repetition and reinforcement, now you are resetting your default way of being. Oh. So a belief is nothing more than a reinforced pattern that if you learn how to deactivate it and create a new one, it's like a software upgrade for your brain.

• 1:33:45Ed Mylett?

  Wow, so guys, what he didn't say, so good, John, thank you. Guys, this is stuff that you pay thousands of dollars for, but you, by the way, can get in his book and you get here, because I know him for free. But guys, what he didn't say is beliefs are necessarily true.

• 1:34:00John Assaraf?

  No.

• 1:34:01Ed Mylett?

  And this is important, you know, I've told you many times, everybody, that your thoughts aren't necessarily true. Your beliefs are not necessarily true, they're patterns reinforced over time. And so if you could create this new script that's reinforcing these patterns over time, that's a conscious way of doing it. Give us one key, so we know now there's subconscious ways to do it that are faster and more powerful. Give us one, that is a new hack to do this.

• 1:34:27John Assaraf?

  So one that everybody's heard of and very few people do unless you're a professional athlete, astronaut, or Navy SEAL, is visualization.

• 1:34:34Ed Mylett?

  Yes, thank you.

• 1:34:35John Assaraf?

  Simple, simple, I know you had Phil Mickelson on in the past and I watched him. And if you think about, visualization is simulation. Now, here is the difference.

• 1:34:46Ed Mylett?

  Whoa, that's good, okay, go ahead.

• 1:34:48John Assaraf?

  So visualization is simulation, so when we close our eyes, or even if our eyes are open, and we start to use our Einstein brain, the imagination, we now have just activated one of the biggest centers of our brain, the occipital lobe, that's connected to the motor cortex, it's connected to the motivational circle, the nucleus accumbens that releases that dopamine that makes you feel good, that makes you want to take action. So if you visualize yourself achieving the goal, if you visualize yourself behaving in ways that match the new belief, if you even visualize the words, or you take the words on a sheet of paper,

• 1:35:29John Assaraf?

  and you read them, run your right finger across it, run your left finger across it, close your eyes, see it and feel it, your brain is creating a mental movie with the words. And as it creates a mental movie with the words, that's happening in your subconscious mind. And when you give the subconscious these instructions, a couple of things happen because of the way the brain hierarchy works. Number one is survival, but then number two is safety, and then number three is energy conservation. Now, when you do something 20, 30, 40, 50 times, it takes about 66 days to 365 days of repetition to override an old habitual circuit.

• 1:36:12John Assaraf?

  Not 10 days, not 21 days, 66 to 365. So if you visualize yourself achieving the goal, feeling the success that you want to feel, seeing the belief on the screen of your mind, you are actually creating a neural network through the science of neural plasticity, and the networks that you reinforce become the most dominant networks. And since your brain wants to conserve energy, if you do this on a consistent basis, your brain says, "Okay, you're doing this so often, let me just make this automatic, let me set aside the old beliefs, let me replace it with the new beliefs," and now you've deliberately and consciously evolved yourself.

• 1:36:51Ed Mylett?

  My gosh, so guys, it's patterns. John, thank you. John used a word earlier which was coherence, and it can fly by. But when you've done this hard work, and I say fun work, by the way, on your subconscious brain, on your subconscious mind, what happens is now when you set that ambitious goal, there's a coherence between what's lying underneath you and what's on the surface. And that's why you know people, you all have someone you know, that boy, when they point their mind at something, it's almost like a weapon. When they point themselves at a dream, they draw it towards them. Part of that's energy, part of that's vibration, but a big part of that is coherence in your brain. And so you've got to do this difficult work that you might think is difficult, which, by the way, is fun, is easy, and it's really just a matter of patterns and taking control

• 1:37:36Ed Mylett?

  of your life, taking control of the things you do. You can literally, everybody, change your life. You can change the external parts of your life by changing the internal or the inner sizes that he teaches part of your life. That's why I do this show, that's what we're talking about.

• 1:37:54John Assaraf?

  Can I just piggyback on something?

• 1:37:57Ed Mylett?

  Please.

• 1:37:58John Assaraf?

  Since you picked up on the word coherence, and you mentioned the law of attraction earlier. For the people who think that the law of attraction is, you know, think, believe, and you'll achieve, first I'm gonna tell you that's bullshit. So let's call it- I love this man. I love it. Bullshit. But I want you to think of your brain just a little bit differently and think of it this way. Let's say you love rock and roll. And let's say rock and roll's on station ninety-five point five. If you're on station ninety-two point one, that might be classical. If you're on station ninety-eight point seven, that might be punk rock. But at ninety-two point five, that's rock and roll.

• 1:38:38John Assaraf?

  So imagine coherence just means locking your electromagnetic spectrum of your brain. Lock it and load it on exactly what you want. So what's the vision, what's the goal, what are the beliefs? What are the emotions that create coherence? So you're locked and loaded to the frequency of the universe that is matching that goal. Part one. Part two is when you get locked and loaded, you've actually activated the Einstein brain, connected to the motor cortex, connected to the dopamine release in your body. And when that happens, okay, now you're in coherence. But there's another part that happens in this Einstein part of the brain.

• 1:39:19John Assaraf?

  That's actually what the latest neuroscientists, psychologists are thinking is connected to this GPS part of our brain, to the frequency of where all of the tools, resources, people are that resonate with that frequency. So we've been evolving for what, two and a half million years? This Homo erectus to now a hundred and eight billion humans on Earth with a brain that's been changing and growing. And my belief is we're just scratching the proverbial surface. And we talk about, you know, little quantum mechanics or quantum phase with entanglement, how we're all connected, we're all tuning into the frequencies that are us and within us and all around us.

• 1:40:02John Assaraf?

  Now, when we learn to use our brain better, it's just mind boggling how we can achieve goals and dreams that we thought were impossible to achieve before. This is the fun part now.

• 1:40:14Ed Mylett?

  That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max Out, everybody. I'm so excited to have this guest here today. By the way, she's made a huge sacrifice. She's, at the time of recording this, there's a storm where she lives in Texas. Snow's rolled in. There's no power. She went and got a hotel room so that we could do this today. So if you see the background, that's where she is. And you wouldn't know it from the background, but this is one of the most remarkable people I've ever talked to in my life. I had the great honor of being on her show. She's a cognitive neuroscientist, which just even saying those things is a miracle that I can get that out of my mouth, never mind understand what it is. She's one of the most brilliant people you're ever going to meet in your life.

• 1:40:59Ed Mylett?

  She's a bestselling author. She's got a PhD in communication pathology. She's brilliant. And you're going to write a bunch of notes today. I mean, like a bunch of notes. So Dr. Caroline Leaf, thank you for being here and making the sacrifice to be here today.

• 1:41:13Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Ed, I wouldn't have missed this. Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. And I just absolutely love talking to you. We had the most amazing talk on when I interviewed you. And I think you're incredible as well. So thank you.

• 1:41:24Ed Mylett?

  You teach like, I think you call it like five steps to mind management.

• 1:41:29Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes, the neuro cycle.

• 1:41:30Ed Mylett?

  So give us a quick, what's the difference between brain and mind? And what are these five steps to managing our mind? Maybe you just listed a few of them there, but I like lists. So I'm just wondering what those are.

• 1:41:40Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Absolutely. Well, first of all, the five steps we call the neuro cycle. I call it the neuro cycle. So with your mind, you're cycling through your brain. You're directing the neuroplasticity, which is really nice to know. You can actually direct changes in your brain. So my whole premise is that if you are always, your mind is always working and it's always changing the brain. And it's always happening, can we direct that process? So for three, three, three, almost four decades now, I've been researching that. And the answer is yes, and that's what's in the book, cleaning up your mental mess. So if you add the nearest cycle to your lifestyle, and it's a lifestyle, you actually will literally improve your ability to manage your mind by eighty one percent and more, which is phenomenal, because it means that you influence cellular health through the telomeres,

• 1:42:25Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  which we can unpack as well. Um, you can reduce inflammation, you can improve your immune function, your cardiovascular function, neurological, kidney, like, everything about your body will respond to mind management. Because your mind basically is driving all those functions anyway. Your gut health, your gut-brain interaction, all of it isn't hap- if you're dead, your brain and body are dead. So what's keeping, what's the difference between a dead person and an alive person? Mind. So if mind is messy, brain and body are messy. If mind is cleaned up, and it's a process, because we're all going to be messy, because we have free will, and part of getting a, a mind sorted out, man, part of mind management is dealing with the mental mess. It's accepting, I'm going to be, make bad decisions, I'm going to get into arguments, I am going to make,

• 1:43:10Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  you know, misunderstand people, I am going to have acute traumas and toxic traumas and imposter syndrome and people pleasing and all this stuff all of us go through in different ways. So I'm going to have that, and it's okay, but how am I going to manage it?

• 1:43:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:24Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So for me personally, what's happened over the years is that I still go through these things, but the difference is I'm eighty one percent more efficient in identifying and managing. So instead of something that could throw me years ago for days and affect my work and everything, I can deal with it within seconds and minutes and get back on track. So that's one part of the answer. So before I go to mind-brain, do you want to ask anything or unpack anything? With what I said.

• 1:43:50Ed Mylett?

  No, are there specifically five things like it are going in a sequence?

• 1:43:54Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes, it's a sequence. So before I tell the sequence, let me tell you mind, brain, because it'll make so much more sense.

• 1:43:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:43:59Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Because I alluded to it a lot. So your mind is separate from your brain, but inseparable. So what is the brain? The brain and mind are not the same thing.

• 1:44:07Ed Mylett?

  Got it.

• 1:44:07Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And the brain and body collectively are made of thirty seven to a hundred trillion cells. And your mind is, and then those thirty seven to a hundred trillion cells arrange themselves into this incredible, the brain and the heart and the lungs, et cetera. And your mind is what actually is the external force that keeps them going, the blood flowing, the chemicals, electricity, electromagnetics, all of that, which is phenomenal. So that's why if our mind's not managed, the body and the brain will be a mess. And so, and that goes down to even like if you are eating, if you're eating, maybe eating a farm to table, wonderful diet, et cetera, but you're not dealing with your anxiety or you're not, you're trying to stuff it down, or you're not dealing with that bad habit or that toxic trauma, you will lose up to eighty percent of the nutrition.

• 1:44:53Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Because your mind has affected the ability of the digestive system to actually digest and get to assimilate the nutrients. And sometimes it's kind of messy and sometimes it's great and we all, if we're human, we are going to experience messes and there's no shame in that. The sooner we get rid of the shame and guilt and condemnation around being messy and the sooner we, as leaders, talk about the mind more authentically, the more we give people that follow us a permission to talk about mind. Only three percent of leaders are talking about mind, which is terrible. So that's creating the stigma that they're pretending they'd be perfect. And that's why we see people that seem to be perfect in their lives and they're committing suicide. Meanwhile, it's because we've got this philosophy in this day and age of not being open and

• 1:45:35Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  seeing issues of the mind as helpful messengers of an underlying issue. The neurocycle then is these five steps. It is how you manage your mind moment by moment. So it's a lifestyle. So the neurocycle is what you do when you're awake. And conscious and it then automatically prepares you for sleep because sleep is fixing up your brain. So your mind is always with you. So your mind always needs to be managed. And so an analogy, and then I'll dive into the five steps. You can go three weeks without food. You can go three days without water. You can go three minutes without oxygen, but you don't even go three seconds without using your mind. So you're always thinking, feeling and choosing. Yeah. So it's gather awareness. Second step is to reflect. Third

• 1:46:19Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  step is to write. Fourth step is to recheck. And the first step is an act of reach. So each of those, they're so profound, they do the most phenomenal stuff in your brain. And the first half of the book, where I talk about the mental health system and I talk about my clinical trials, I do explain what each of those steps are doing. So the first thing is to gather awareness. Gather awareness, and I've chosen words very carefully. If you think of a big fat apple tree and you're apple picking, and this apple tree is so full that you actually can't, like you just go up and you just nudge it and the apples are just falling on your head. That's how we often feel when our minds are messy. Just everything's just falling on our head and it's just too much. So what you can do with a neurocycle is when you feel that situation coming on, remove yourself from the tree

• 1:47:04Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  and stand back and watch the tree.

• 1:47:06Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:47:06Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And gather awareness of all of that. Don't be scared of it. Don't run away from the apple tree. Just stand back and observe the apple tree. Observe what's going on there.

• 1:47:35Speaker 06

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