[Music] so what is the biggest misconception when it comes to manifestation I think uh one is that that there is some external Force outside yourself that decides whether you're you're worthy of having your intention materialize and in some ways uh this relates to The Narrative of uh the law of attraction that there is some entity out there and if you send positive vibrations out into the universe then magically those will be answered and the problem with that is often times they're not but it's as if it's your fault they didn't happen which I think is a false narrative the other thing that I think is a significant misunderstanding is that as the secret promotes it says I want this and it's a very self oriented uh manifestation that is about you not about being of service or looking at the world through the lens of caring for others connecting with others and by doing so you get ultimately what you do want and one of the problems is that a lot of people confuse what they think they want with what they need and I think those three things lead people down a path that one uh decreases the likelihood of manifesting your intention and two promote a western capitalist narrative that success translates into Power position and wealth and if you just get that you're going to be happy and that is a profound problem which we see throughout our society unfortunately want versus need is something I can definitely relate to there have been times in my life where I've desperately wanted a you know maybe to go to a certain college or a certain uh girlfriend or a thing and in retrospect completely wrong for me and the saying you know thank thank God for unanswer unanswered prayers is is something that really comes to mind in my experience and so because many of those things would have been complete disasters if I had gotten my way so maybe I'm not so good at manifesting which I want to want to talk about so my question to you is how do we Ure to set the stage that what we're seeking to manifest is is the thing that or person or place or whatever it is is the right fit for us well one I would say you stop listening to Social Media uh but one of the first things is that all of us are manifesting all the time most of us are doing it very inefficiently we've not been trained to do it or we've been Mist Tred to do it and we also don't appreciate appreciate the baggage that we carry with us that influences every decision we make and whether that's in terms of job interaction with others uh relationships I'm sure you've uh talked to people who say geez you know I'm going through my third divorce and I I I it's the same person who I married the first time he was abusive and violent and why does this keep happening and the reason it keeps happening is you've never examined how you got to where you're at because the baggage that we carry from our childhood gets embedded within us and influences many of our decisions and many times not for the good so we're trapped in some ways until we understand how uh our past influences our present and so this gets back to The Narrative of um what are you already manifesting yeah how does one take inventory I always like to start you know if we're talking about longevity or health we're going to establish a baseline we're going to look at you know some some biomarkers and how do we do this for manifestation how do we take inventory to see how we're currently intentionally or unintentionally manifesting well I think one of the things is to sit down and write a narrative of your life to date and the good parts and the bad parts and see if you can connect the dots as an example if you've had a an abusive partner who had no no emotion regulation or let's say I should say a a parent or a parent who W had drug or alcohol abuse issues or you have to recognize how that can influence you and once you start putting the pieces together you can see the habits that you have developed in terms of your own behavior so gaining that self-awareness and it takes time and effort to see that and maybe even talking to other people uh in terms of how they perceive you interacting or making decisions and things like that so that can give you the selfawareness I think the other thing that people don't understand when they decide to change how they think and let me preface this uh I made a comment earlier people look outside of themselves for something to guide them or to tell them what to do or to change their lives and what happens to a lot of people is is that they have given their own self agency away if you want to call it to the universe or frankly to others I mean how many times have you shared a goal a dream an aspiration of yours and you've had a friend or maybe even a loved one look at you and say oh you can't do that that's not possible and the problem is this happens to everybody of course and many people listen and if you put into your head I am not able to it is not possible I don't deserve then that becomes fact and what people need to understand is that their mind their ability to change their brain is extraordinarily extraordinarily powerful and when you're able to embed your intention it can have an extraordinarily powerful effect if you look at individuals as an example like whm Hoff or Tibetan monks who are able to control their heart rate their body temperature or there's a monk by the name of matu rard who's called the happiest uh man in the world literally if you put him him under an MRI and you are recording metabolic activity in his brain he can actually modulate it as an example if you say I want you to be 25% empathetic those areas in the brain associated with empathy light up and and and you can say well bring it up to 75% because he has meditated for uh 30,000 hours he has that ability to control that and you don't have to meditate 30,000 hours but it shows you the power you have to control input into your brain and have access to information that is typically uh in your subconscious a couple things come to mind hearing you speak one is this idea of action putting in the Reps the exercise you know maybe you don't have to do 30,000 hours of meditation but you need to you know you mentioned Jim Carrier in your book and his his famous story about you know essentially manifesting success in Hollywood I think he had a EMP a blank1 million check made out to himself and you know I remember I I heard him speak previously about manifestation and he also had a great line you can't go manifest something and then sit in a couch and eat a ham sandwich you got to take action and so I'm hearing a couple things that I'm curious your take in terms of the the recipe for manifestation there's there's thinking there's feeling there's seeing uh writing and then there's the action piece maybe I'm missing a couple but like how do you think about all these tools at our disposal if you will and how we should be thinking about them if we're looking to achieve something manifest something right well one thing is that what happens to many people is uh and I think Jim Cary alluded to this as you were saying it's not also something where you simply say okay I'm ready to manifest let's just make it happen and you sit there all day but the other problem is as an example and I have been the type of person who says uh you know I want to run a marathon and so then I go out and I try and run 10 miles day one well it doesn't work that way and you're and the problem is when you're expect ation is too high in the sense of what you want at that moment you're going to be very disappointed so one of the things is if you will to start with baby steps and we're talking about fundamentally how do you create habits and let's say you want to uh be a runner well uh the best thing is to set an alarm get up early and not try to run two miles or three miles but simply to get up and maybe walk to the corner walk around the block and do this over and over because then it gets embedded we know that through repetition we manifest our intentions and what I mean by that there's a saying that what fires together wires together meaning that when you do something over and over you create narrow Pathways that get stronger and stronger so one of the thing is you have to do the mental exercise of learning how to embed your intentions so that they become if you will habitual and you have access in regard to the ability to do that but the other thing that's important which uh also uh I think Jim car alluded to and I think others in the book was the reality that you have to make it not about you at least if you want to maximally have the benefit of the ability to manifest and what I mean by that is I think Jim krey said you know he would go on stage and he felt that he was giving them something and they should listen to him and embrace him and he realized finally that actually he was there for them and to make it about them and not just about him and uh part of the problem with that is that when it's self-focused it actually that is the very fact that you're self-focused is associated frankly with insecurity or fear uh you want to be accepted and then that stimulates your sympathetic uh nervous system your flight fight or fear response even though you may not appreciate it at the time and that actually limits your ability to manifest it's interesting and just to tell you one more story I'm sure you're familiar with u Jimmy Paige of Leed Zeppelin love Jimmy yeah well he used to be angry at people because he would get on stage and everyone wanted here to hear them play a Stairway to Heaven right of course whole lot of love I could go down there's a whole host of songs I would request from Jimmy Page but but but exactly but the thing is you're there because you have memories feeling experiences associated with that particular song and that's what you want to hear because you want to relive that in Jimmy Page's mind it was why the hell do they want to hear me play a song I played a million times I have new music why aren't they embracing the new music and he would get very angry and upset and what he finally realized what he finally realized was that I am not here for me it's not about me it's about the other people and making them happy when he did that one he completely changed his attitude and actually was happy to play but he also set the stage by that calmness and understanding the need of others for him to maxle manifest so I love that example although I I love Leed upin so I I would love to hear Jimmy play anything if Jimmy's listening I think he's still alive I think Jimmy's still alive I think Jimmy and Robert plan are still alive well I hope so I know that botom passed away a long time ago unfortunately so building off of that I I'll use wealth as an example because I think many people you know value Financial Wellness or Financial Security abundance if you will and the the if I'm hearing correctly the wrong way to think about manifestation when it comes to wealth would be to think about you know the thing the car the the home or or The Bling or whatever it might be and we'd be better served by thinking about uh maybe the how I can provide for my family or the memories we can have in this house or what organizations we could donate to or how we could impact our community or change lives with this abundance versus this material thing which will be fleeting yeah I think that's exactly right and I'm sure you know and I know an innumerable number of extraordinarily wealthy people who are absolutely miserable and I even look at my own uh life and there's a book I wrote called into the magic shop a neurosurgeons quest to discover the mysteries of the brain and the secrets of the heart and that's a memoir that talks about my own challenging background but it also includes how I met a person who cared spent the time with me taught me a meditation practice but she also taught me a manifestation practice C can we talk about that I don't want to you know I do think you've been through the manifestation ringer if you will and and you come out on the other end you are a manifestation success success story you've seen it all so I'd be remissed let's talk about your personal story let's spend a few minutes there sure uh so I grew up in poverty my family was on public assistance uh my entire childhood and beyond my father was alcoholic my mother had had a stroke when I was a child was partially paralyzed had a seizure disorder chronically depressed attempted suicide multiple times uh we were evicted from multiple rep residences and of course this is not the ideal uh situation for a child to grow up in and I'm sure you've heard the term uh adverse childhood experiences when you've been in situations where you've been physically uh mentally or sexually abused the likelihood of you overcoming that or growing up in poverty or with someone has me mental illness each of them is a strike uh against you of achieving what society would nominally call success and uh at the age of 12 I was feeling very hopeless uh I felt I didn't have a future I felt uh that for me uh this idea of success was not possible I had no resources no money no mentors and on one particular day my parents were fighting and I got on my bicycle and rode as fast and as far away as I could and I ended up at a magic shop that's the title of the book and I walked in and I had an interest in Magic but I walked in and there was a woman at the counter and she was the only one in the store if you will and she was not the owner she was the owner's mother and she knew nothing about magic she just happened to be sitting there while her son was running an errand long story short is she was this incredibly radiant human being she had this smile that you just felt comfortable with she looked you in the eye she treated you as an equal and of course what this does is create a sense of psychological safety where you feel comfortable and she asked me a series of questions I answered them which I nor would not frankly and after about a half an hour she said to me she said you know I really like you I'm here for the next six weeks if you come in every day I'll teach you something that I think could really help you and this was of course before this idea of mindfulness or neuroplasticity was even on the radar screen so I did show up and frankly it was not because I had any degree of self-awareness whatsoever the reality was I had absolutely nothing else to do she was giving me chocolate chip cookies and she was a nice person and what she said was intriguing to me so I did show up and she taught me if you want to call it a traditional mindfulness practice of relaxing the body and you know when you grow up in an environment like mine it's like a constant war zone uncertainty chaos no ability to plan so you're always on pins and needles looking for an exit if you will so she taught me to relax she taught me to focus and then um she taught me an explicit uh self compassion practice because all of us have a negative dialogue going on in our head it's how do you respond to the negative dialogue and this relates to what I said early if you say I can't it's not possible I'm not worthy I don't deserve that frankly becomes truth and so ultimately once I felt that I could handle that or decrease the Noise by statements of uh uh positive self-affirmation then she made me realize that everyone is suffering and she changed how I looked at the world because I looked at the world through suspicion anger hostility and it not being kind once I saw that everyone was suffering as well as myself I had a completely different view in fact I forgave my parents if you will it wasn't their fault they did not have the tools to help themselves it wasn't because they were angry at me or they didn't love me the other uh thing she taught me was a manifestation practice now as a 12-year-old I had no inside or self-awareness and I fell into to the narrative that so many people do which is I will be happy if I have things or if I accomplish X as an example you know I wrote in there I wanted to be a millionaire I wanted to live in a mansion I wanted a Rolex watch I wanted a Porsche and also I I wanted to be a doctor which I was impressed by a person who visited my school when I was in fourth grade and that inspired me at that time but I did I got every one of those things I I climbed all of these mountains the problem was as we were discussing you know I would climb the mountain and I would look there and I'd say well I I should feel good I this should be great I and because I was believing that external affirmation would make me feel okay about myself and whether that was driving a Ferrari a Porsche living in a mansion dating the right girl or the attractive girl I kept thinking if I just get this out this emptiness inside this fear this shame this insecurity will go away and it never did and I when I had everything which included a penthouse at the top of a building a home overlooking the ocean in Newport Beach five different uh cars Ferrari Porsche BMW Etc a villa in Florence uh I was never more unhappy than I had ever been in my entire life and what finally got my attention was I ended up losing $80 million or so in the doc com crash to the point where I was $3 million in the hole and I had to deal with this ISS issue and fundamentally sell everything and it put me through this period of reflection about what the hell happened to me and I realized ultimately that I was focused on me it was all about me if I get this then everything will be okay and uh it wasn't okay and no matter what I did that fulfilled The Narrative of success in Western Society I was miserably unhappy and when I gained the Insight after going through what Ruth had taught me I realized that I uh did not really listen and it and she emphasized although I didn't hear it it can't be about you and so uh I was at this point and it's interesting because my lawyers called me because I had to deal with all these issues as well as my banker who I borrowed $15 million from the bank and the my lawyer said you know Jim you put all the stock aside to charity and it turns out we did not file the paperwork uh so you can actually keep that stock because I know it's worth a lot of money and after this period of reflection even though I was $3 million in the whole I said no go ahead and give it away and when the company went public that ended up being $30 million and people go how could you possibly do that that's insane you were $3 million in the whole but what I realized was that what was keeping me a prisoner was poverty I was terrified of being poor and I had created a narrative that said if I just have this I am going to be okay I'll be whole and when I gave all that money away it liberated me that no longer held me captive and so I went from rags to riches to rags uh if you will but the riches I got were not oriented around money as an example I created a center at Stanford the D llama became the founding benefactor I became friends with the Dal Lama became head of the Dal Lama Foundation met spiritual and religious leaders all over the world who I've become friends with and the depth of those relationships those connections the insights the self-awareness and the reality that our job in this world is to be of service to care for others that's how we evolved as a species and this gets back to the difference between honic happiness which you were alluding to or Hedonism about the things and what happens with that is it's all wonderful on the short term sit there and go wow that's great I'm you know I'm here I'm a success but that feeling of wholeness or fullness or if you want to call it happiness is very shallow and very transitory versus emonic happiness which is associated with purpose and well-being or being of service to others is deep and very longlasting and that's how we were designed as a species and if and in some ways this is the difference between fear and love if you're only focused on yourself it's because of your own insecurities and fear about scarcity and not having enough if you focus the other way about others it's about love connection and we know whether as an example you look at the blue zones which have been written extensively about or the Harvard study uh that's been going on for 85 years called the adult development study what supports happiness connection is depth of relationships and caring for others that's how we evolved as a species that's how our brain works at its best that is how you are able to maximally manifest your intentions when you are in that mode and when you're in that mode you realize that the bling as you said it's fine but you need to let go of that and what I mean by that is I have bling now even now yeah I live in a very nice house uh and uh I drive a Porsche and if it all goes away tomorrow I'm perfectly fine it's not that I don't enjoy it I just don't need it so I well said and a lot to unpack and and one thing I'll just use house as an example because I think people can wrap their head around it so someone wants to manifest a home walk us through how would one approach that if you know again building off of what we discussed earlier you know a home that you know provides safety shelter memories family like walk us through because I've hearing a lot of I'm hearing we need to be you know I've heard I heard positive self-affirmations I heard gratitude and there are other things we haven't discussed which you know there's vision boards there's you you have to feel it you can't just see we we we've heard and seen a lot walk us through how we should do this in the James Dodie approved way of manifestation you've been through the ringer well I have been through the ringer but I I I I would say it's not the Jim doie approach it's the how do we use Neuroscience to maximally increase our ability to manifest Our intention even better yes because the science is there it's not the wo woo and the pseudo science or the false narrative uh that actually contributes to unhappiness but to get to your question so what is your intention if you sit there and say I want to live in this house because it is bigger than everyone else's house everyone will look at me and believe I am a success and then I will show everyone that I'm worthy because I have this that's the wrong way to approach it versus if you sit there and say I need a home so that I can uh have experiences with those I love uh and as you said uh memories and experiences and it is a place of warmth it is a inviting place it is a place where people can be comfortable and be themselves it is a place where strangers can come and feel comfortable and at home those are completely two different narratives and the way to have that then is to believe or focus on the latter and not the former I love that and what about the tactics is it a vision board is it going to look at how I I've I've heard it all walk us through the tactics for someone listening so what I would say is even though the typical Narrative of manifestation is associated with wooo and pseudo science like many things there are kernels of Truth within what is said and in some ways it's like religion and I'll use the analogy as follows there was a survey done by a woman named Karen Armstrong who's a former nun who's written a lot of books about religion she won the Ted prize in '08 and she got together 19 spiritual and religious leaders and they said what's at the core of every religion and it's compassion and the Golden Rule but what we've seen is even though experientially that has been acknowledged what has happened over thousands of years is that reality has been wrapped around a Dogma associated with culture and unfortunately often and unfortunately often times people's Egos and it's created a religion narrative and the same has happened with manifestation uh we as an example we talked about the law of attraction or we talked about the power of the universe or we talked about you know putting out positive energy and and some of these things are in fact factually correct you mentioned boards you mentioned gratitude you mentioned using your senses such as uh visualizing it uh writing it down reading it silently reading it aloud uh closing your eyes and seeing it and all of these things do work but again uh and I had a conversation not so much about manifesting but with the Dil Lama the fact that it can work on some cases and you sit there and go oh yeah it worked and all my things were selfish it can happen that's what happened to me the problem is it made me miserably unhappy if you do it the right way and understand it's not about waiting for the universe it's not about some magical power it's about the power of your mind to change who you are and that is a very very powerful ability then you understand how utilizing those techniques with the right mindset maximizes your ability to manifest and that's not to say if all of your intentions were wrong they don't manifest they can but if you want to increase the likelihood of that happening if you want to actually do things that will make you happy you have to look at it from the lens of how am I of service to others how do I help others and when you do that actually you also find that your motivation changes it's not just about you and in fact if you look at simply people who are depressed once they get into themselves and and it's about them that only aggravates their depression if they go out and do something to help others that dissipates their depression and in some ways uh this is a very powerful narrative to help you not only be a better person to be happy but to understand the power you have in your mind to make yourself happy and to change your life you know you mentioned the quality of our relationships and blue zones uh we've had Dan Butner on the show many times he's a good friend he's in he's in Miami where I am you know makes me think about the role our environment plays here in terms of our relationships in terms of our surroundings uh what media social media music we consume there's a lot there H how do you think about our surroundings and sabotaging our our our manifest station through the the energy we surround ourselves with well I think you're absolutely correct I I mean as you know uh you can call them energy vampires there are people who who for whatever reason just suck everything out of you and and invariably these are people who it's all about them now it's all about them because they're miserably unhappy or it's all about them because they're a sociopath regardless though being around people who are takers creates a very very negative energy but the other aspect of this is that we are in a society that frankly most of us did not create and it has in many ways a horrible influence and on the one hand a capitalist Society is it's probably one of the best societies but ruthless capitalism that takes advantage of people or is extractive and what I mean by that is they take advantage of people who are poor or suffering or in need uh that actually ruins people's lives and uh but we're surrounded by that and in fact if you look at social media of course they hire a ton of psychologists and Neuroscience scientists to figure out how to create narratives that cause you to have a dopamine release which addict you to these brief stimulation of your nervous center in the context of I want to this and uh that has actually had a huge negative impact on our society because people get confused used again it's like I was talking about earlier about what I thought I wanted versus what I needed I chased after all of these things and I did get what I thought I wanted and I was unhappy you look at high school students as an example if you survey them I mean a beautiful thing would be if they sit there and said you know I want to help people I started this charity I did this you know I my friend he had a health issue I went out and helped and what what do you hear you hear I want to be wealthy I want to be an influencer I want to be a professional athlete I want to be a celebrity and these are all horribly negative statements that we have created for our children to want and it makes them miserably unhappy and that is why we have an epidemic of anxiety uh depression loneliness uh stress because people are chasing something that has no substance in the belief that if they just get it that is going to off for them nutrition and sustenance so the more altruistic you are you're greater your greater chance of success with when it comes to manifestation absolutely and the science Bears this out irrefutably when you have selfish intention and look you know people tend to me go well Jim what you're saying is I shouldn't have things no I I'm not saying that at all that's perfectly fine but if you one I mean uh that is your only intention because you believe if the more I get the happier I'll be you're going to be unhappy and also if it's in the context of a zero sum game mindset I win you lose and that's what you th you know Force down people's throat I'm a winner you're a loser so if we've got that right if people have Noble intentions if you will whereing you view do they go wrong is it the action stage is it the feeling stage like what do what are some of the common pitfalls if they if they do have the the the right intention well I don't think there well I think it's when you're what you're calling pitfalls I think having the right intention is how we should all function that we get interfered with by our own ego and desires and attachment and craving that's where the pitfalls are but it's not that if you have the right intentions and it doesn't happen there's something wrong and this is also an idea that has been promoted through books like the secret Etc it's as if well the The Law of Attraction of the universe didn't want you to have it you must have done something and you're at fault no the reality is that there's some situations and I think you mentioned earlier you know I wanted some things but I realized if I got them it would be the worst thing that happened to me retrospectively and a and actually uh on a subconscious level there's a lot more going on than you appreciate so if on you embed this intention and you've done it correct directly and you think oh I did that because it's the best thing for me the reality is sometimes it doesn't work out because that is the worst thing and and you've made the wrong statement but secondarily things don't necessarily work out in the time frame we want as an example there's a project I've been working on for 13 damn years and it still hasn't happened well is that because I'm wrong or the intentions wrong no it's just sometimes these can take an extraordinarily long period of time another funny example is do you know John Ham the actor of course he did a blur for you yeah he did and John Ham actually acquired the rights to make a movie out of my book into the magic shop right amazing when's it coming out I have a feeling oh it's Hollywood exactly so is it because I was a bad guy and had the wrong intention and not that I ever thought that somebody would acquire it but I did believe that it could be helpful to people it wasn't I want John H to make so I make lots of money it was I think this movie could be a benefit to people who are suffering and have similar experiences as I did so my intention was not wrong and it's moved forward but has it happened no and how long has it been five years we're just waiting for for Ryan Reynolds or the rock to become available no no no Tom Hanks Tom Hanks Tom Hanks okay there you go but anyway uh yeah so again was the intent wrong no did it happen not yet could it happen I believe it will but again another point you brought up is attachment what creates unhappiness for people they want right and the problem is if if all you think about is I want that is the problem because I want comes from again the inside of if I don't get something bad is going to happen or I deserve so how do you think about the about the balance between intention and subsequent action which seems to be somewhat at odds with letting go or Surrender and you kind of need both you need you need to take action you need to have the right intention but at the same time you can push only so hard and sometimes you need to just let go surrender not be attached to the outcome yet you need to do the work to pursue the outcome they're they're in lies the the rub you said it all well uh the thing is it again no got you know as you know what the first sent of the book says the most provocative first sentence I've ever encountered in a in a book and I will read it to the audience uh out loud the UN quote unquote the universe doesn't give a about you end quote and what follows is a statement that uh uh the universe has no to give but the other aspect which can sort of be the opposite is God only helps those who help themselves you can't sit on your butt all day and say oh well this is just going to happen I'll just sit here and I'll say it over and over and it's going to happen so one is how do you embed your intention two once your intention is embedded what are the processes that then happen but as I was saying earlier things don't always work on our timeline and something times the things you want aren't what you need and they don't happen and sometimes our subconscious has better idea than we do but also there are other things that are going on in this world that interfere with things so not getting them it just happens sometimes this isn't a 100% uh way to do it and I don't know of anything that's 100% it is what tools do we have within our mind that allow us to create the circumstance that allow for one's maximal ability to manifest and again it's not 100% it may not even be 75% but it is using these tools to get as close as possible one of the things you alluded to is well I want to work hard for this goal what if I don't get it well you know there are interesting aspects of that as you know there are people who are so focused on that goal they'll sacrifice anything to reach the top of that mountain well but what do they get when they reach the top of the mountain if you've sacrificed relationship ship if you've sacrificed everything that for most people are the most important things in your in their lives what did you get to stand at the top of the mountain and have achieved yet you have three divorces children who hate you uh wow well that's a great narrative and I've seen this over and over again with people that go I was so focused on this and you know I got it and and yeah tell the kids uh that who you've ignored for years or tell the wife wives that you're paying alimony to uh sometimes it's not worth it but more importantly if you don't get it and you've done everything you can there's no reason to beat yourself up either this is the part of letting go right it makes me think of we have two uh little girls uh seven and soon to be five and they're both athletic they love sports and which we we fully support well I would say that typically happens when the parents love sports I I am like I was an athlete and and I I just believe especially for young girls we live in a it just there there's so much in terms of building self-con confidence self-esteem learning how to deal with adversity grit perseverance like I just and a lot of it my greatest life lessons were from playing basketball all through college and so something I say to them they're competitive they like to win which I appreciate is a good trade work hard have fun on bcom it's not about the goals or the baskets or the out like I try to I try to even though I know they want to win we all want to win it's more fun when you win but like be put in all the effort yet try not to get attached to the outcome is that it sounds like that that's the right thing we should all be we should all be approaching life exactly and and that is exactly right and that's great that uh you do that uh as an example to me I TR I try it's hard sometimes look we all we all tried we're all human I hope you're not like one of the soccer parents who are you know screaming at their kids along the side you get the hell out there right I've unfortunately seen that from other parents but yeah yeah well haven't we all and that's like one of the worst things you can do I mean some of the most moving uh videos I've seen or as an example somebody running a race and somebody Falls and they actually stop and help them right that's what it means to to be competitive it's not to run them over or push them aside and the people who do that again they're so focused on winning they forgotten their humanity and we all want to have purpose and and meaning and doing those types of actions are selfish self-serving and negative and they're only ultimately going to create pain and suffering for you or those around you and so you you mentioned God earlier and in the book you had a you had a couple reference points points of very popular books of the last 100 years and one of them was The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peele which I read uh had a profound impact on my life I read it as a teenager my mother gave it to me her mother gave it to her I still have the copy what's your take on on that work specifically in Norman VD Peele let's see I think I was actually referencing Napoleon Hill well you had you had Napoleon Hill you mentioned Peele Hill and then and then Ronda burn we could talk about any of them well I think that again these types of book which books which are inspirational and Empower you and promote a positive narrative about who you are all of that is great but the caveat and I think it's exemplified in in Burn is again it's not about I want this I get this I think the underlying narrative was more like if you do this your life will be happier because you share with others your success it wasn't I get the big mansion and nobody can come in and you can watch me in my Mansion so I think the narrative in the the first two well it's not quite what I would do exactly but ultimately The Narrative was I am doing this to be of service or to help others or to be generous the other I don't sense it that is the central part of that message I also want to bring it back you mentioned the subconscious earlier in the book I love this you talk about the filing Clerk and The Blood Hound who run our subconscious please elaborate let me get into a little of the neuroanatomy here to give that a a point of reference so I alluded to uh the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system which are part of the Vegas nerve it's the autonomic nervous center or system the sympathetic nervous system is what many of us refer to as the flight fight or freeze response it's how our brain reacts when we are fearful or scared or anxious certain things shut down and we're focused on survival and in that mode actually this part of your brand called your executive control network uh limits your choices because you have to make decisions fast and therefore you have to have the shortest path to the destination uh the parasympathetic nervous system actually is we're meant to where we are meant to live that's when we're open we're generous we're thoughtful your executive control Network functions at its best you have access to Prior memories and experiences and so we are meant to live in the mode of the parasympathetic nervous system our peripheral physiology works at our its best our neurophysiology works at its best so there are these cognitive brain networks one of which is the executive control Network one one is what we call the salience network and the other is called the attention Network and most importantly for at least the start of manifestation is uh the default mode Network and this is associated with mind wondering it's associated with a daydreaming it's self-referential it's where we consolidate mental representations integrating past experiences with future goals it's where we Foster self-awareness and which which is a foundation for internal action and this works in conjunction with the salience network and the attention Network well how does that do that well the salience network looks at the relevance it looks at what's going on around you and it takes what you have created if you want to call it in the daydreaming mode to help it become a reality well how does it do that it looks around at your environment that ultimately becomes The Blood Hound that you have had this goal filed and now it looks at how do I manifest that goal so what happens is that this ultimately directs your intentional resources and serves as gatekeeper it prioritizes information pertinent to accomplishing your goal while filtering out distractions that take away from you achieving your goal and then that actually activates the attention Network which fine-tunes if you will uh your filters it enables individuals to attend to relative cues and it gives you laser-like focus once you're there that then shuts down uh your default mode Network and then activates your uh executive control area which I think I call it the CEO where it actually is part of the task positive Network to allow then to you for you to accomplish the goal on a much more conscious level and uh as an example I'm sure you have been at a party where it's very noisy yet if you hear your name even in the den of all the noise you turn to it why is that who you are or defined yourself as is deeply embedded within you so even though it's like having Siri or uh uh Alexa always on right right uh it's always on even though you don't know it's on so when you hear your voice it you hear it it's suddenly there and you go wow okay who's talking about me but the same is true when you've adequately or accurately embedded your intention and this is something called value tagging which I talk about in depth in the book you tag a uh uh intention that gets embedded in your subconscious and goes to your default mode Network well The Blood Hound is always searching for ways in which it can have that that manifest as an example I was at a coffee shop recently and there's a project I've been working on for quite some time completely noisy packed everybody talking yet even among all that Den I heard somebody mention this thing I was interested and had been working on out of all of that and I turned to it and I saw these two people talk I ended up walking over and introducing myself and now we're working together to make that uh Project work well it's because I was attuned on a subconscious level to be aware of surroundings and this what is what many people end up calling synchronicity or coincidence uh we have created within us using our mind to be a filter for all the other stuff but to focus on the thing that we're interested in and that's how it works at these other let me just finish this one statement so these networks do not work efficiently or at their best if you are fearful anxious or um completely self-focused well said you mentioned the book I want to hold it up it's called My Magic mind magic excuse me everyone should should pick it up it really is a remarkable read where do you think the science is headed here or where do you want it to go on the one hand we certainly know more about the brain than we ever had but uh many aspects ects of it are still a mystery uh that being said we we are neurobiologic beings and the more we understand about actually the power of our mind uh it benefits all of us the problem of course is each of us gets in our own way often times because we don't most of us don't grow up an environment where we say okay we've set aside how uh we're going to raise our children and we've gone through the science and here's the best way to do it and everybody gets this it doesn't work that way and uh as an example look at the school system unfortunately the school system is funded by local tax well if you're from poverty you get the worst school system if you're from an affluent eni environment you get the best what this book is offering is the ability to get the best science that is available to help you uh manifest a good life and that's really the point and I think the more uh we learn about the the more powerful it is to help each of us be our best selves because we get confused often times about uh who we are or who we should be and we get distracted and unfortunately that's the nature of being a human being so we've covered a lot of ground today in closing are there any words of wisdom uh or advice or or anything more you'd like to share that we didn't cover before we close well I I would like to say that every day we have a choice and it's interesting because so many people believe that they don't have agency or they don't have power but all of us do and the other aspect is to understand that everyone is suffering and no matter your circumstance uh it has nothing to do with power position or money every day each of us has the ability to improve the life of another person if we just open our eyes and understand that there are people around us uh who are suffering and sometimes even a smile uh can help them and so I think if people look through that lens uh not only were will they make the world a better place they'll make uh their own lives better you know the Daly Lama has said if you wish others to be happy be compassionate if you wish to be happy be compassionate beautiful James thank you so much thank you I appreciate it your time and thanks for uh having me on your podcast I want to take a moment to invite you into our mindbody green ecosystem where you can explore the infinite possibilities of health and well-being all you have to do is click the Subscribe button to hear more thought-provoking interviews with leaders in the health space I am so grateful for all of you who have tuned in over the years and let me tell you it's only going to get better