#223: Train Your Mind To Unleash The Best Version Of Yourself With John Assaraf

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode Welcome to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm just glad to be here. That's what I'm feeling today. Somebody said that to me in a conversation yesterday, and I thought, geez, that just so— it just so nails it. With everything that's going on in the world, everything that's been going on in the world, just to come back to that place of sheer gratitude. And that to me is— it's as magic, it's as miraculous a thing as I've yet to find. I'm a meditator. I know how to toggle back and forth and create state changes for myself. And in very many ways, I am always talking about resilience these days. And yet the one thing that will reset me faster than anything is just simply to be grateful. So I know it's simple, but it's also usable. And so I'm just glad to be here. And I have a lot of reasons to be glad. It's a beautiful day. It's gorgeous in Southern California. I don't know where you guys are all in At this moment, but, uh, you know, there's a bit of an exodus out of California. Come to California. There's, there's space. People are leaving. You can come. It's a beautiful day. I get to spend the next, uh, 45 minutes or so with an old dear friend. He's not old. He's just a good friend, dear friend. And we've known each other a while, which is also pretty cool. I'm going to read a little bit about his, his background, his bio, et cetera. And then we're just going to get right into it because He brings so much to the table. I just want to suck the marrow out of this experience. And I know you will as well. Jon Assaraf is one of the leading mindset and behavioral experts in the world who has appeared numerous times on Larry King Live, Anderson Cooper, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. He's written a new bestselling book, Innercise: The New Science to Unlock Your Brain's Hidden Power, in addition to his 2 New York Times bestselling books, Having It All and The Answer. that have been translated into 35 languages. John has been featured in 10 movies, including the blockbuster hit The Secret: The Quest for Success with Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama. And today he's the founder and CEO of myneurogym.com, a company dedicated to using the most advanced technologies and evidence-based brain training methods to help individuals strengthen their mindset and their emotional skills so they can unleash their inner power and maximize their results. As I said at the beginning, He's just a good man and he's my friend. So, Jon, great to have you today.

So great to reconnect with you today, my friend. It's always a joy. And I enjoyed our pre-talk before this, just catching up a little bit.

Indeed. It's been a minute. I mean, I think there's probably a lot of people who through this pandemic have lost track of time. I have really no sense of time right now. I'm just going to— where the pandemic began and where it didn't end. Right. Very big span of time and space in between. And you did something, you know, you're approaching your big sort of a milestone birthday. I don't wanna say it's a big birthday, 'cause again, you know, these numbers, what do numbers mean except what we say they mean? But you decided that you were gonna go back to getting a 6-pack for yourself. Tell me, I really wanna know. I wanna know more about that. I'm putting you out there on this one because I was really, I was blown away by that.

All right. So on my 59th birthday over a year ago, I said, you know, I usually do something unique for the upcoming year. So I say, okay, I've got another spin around the sun. You know, what challenge am I going to give myself so that I am proud of myself, you know, for the next birthday? So I've given up alcohol, you know, many years ago. I said, okay, I've never had a 6-pack. I've been in good shape, but never had a 6-pack. I used to do many triathlons, never had a 6-pack. And so I said to myself, well, is it possible to have a 6-pack at 60? And I looked at some pictures online of guys in their 60s and 70s, and I found even a few in their 80s that had 6-packs. And so I just said to myself, let me set a 6-pack at 60 goal. And so I actually cut out some pictures of some individuals, you know, online. This is part of my vision board, but this is a guy, you know, in his 70s that's in phenomenal shape. And I've cut out a few of them, another guy that's really, you know, healthy looking. And this is just part of my vision board. And there's an ultimate guy that I know is in his 70s, right, that, you know, is in phenomenal shape. And so I said, let me set a goal for a 6-pack at 60. And So I started a year ago and asked myself, you know, what does my exercise regimen need to be? How many calories do I need to eat a day of what type of food? What does my sleep habit need to be like? What does the, you know, the other components of it need to be? Yeah. And so I just got on a path to the mindset that I needed, the skillset I needed, and the behaviors that I needed. And I just started to do some things different. I started to journal, which I rarely have done, of what was I eating? What was I doing? How much was I was sleeping every day. And slowly but surely, I started to get into better and better and better and better shape. And then on my birthday, I did a photo shoot. I asked my wife to take some pictures of me with my iPhone to reveal that for the first time in my life, I actually at 60 got a 6-pack. And as you know, and by the way, I also had to give up sugar.

Seriously, I'm just applauding. Some of you are watching this, some of you listening to this, but I'm literally applauding this man. And that's That is well earned, brother. Seriously.

The hardest part, which was interesting, wasn't the exercise. It wasn't even the diet. It wasn't even the sleep. It was the giving up of my sugar addiction.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Because I was going to ask you, I was going to say, I recall you saying you gave up something pretty significant that you were addicted to. So yeah.

Even though I've been vegan for almost 9 years, no alcohol for 12 years, I exercised, you know, 5 days a week before anyway. There was one thing that, you know, that was my lifelong—

Sacred cow, let's call it.

Yeah, it was like my life. Like, my mother was a great baker, and so cookies, cakes were always in the house. Candy was always in the house. And I like, after dinner, I like to have like a vegan dessert every night. And my personality is like, one is too many and 8 is not enough, right? So I wouldn't eat like a small piece of pie. I would eat a third of a pie. I wouldn't eat a cookie.

If you can't go big, just like go home, right?

I'm like all or nothing. And so I had to, first of all, commit to no sugar for a year because I've done 30 days no sugar. I've done 100 days no sugar only to go back to it. And so actually, interestingly enough, Adam, yesterday was one year without even a chocolate Wow. Going into my mouth. Even on my birthday where my sister— I was in Montreal with my sister and my dad and my family celebrating my 60th and my dad's 91st. They made me my favorite carrot cake and my favorite ice cream cake that's in the freezer. I didn't even have a bite on my 60th birthday because I was 2 weeks away from reaching my goal. And now that I've reached the goal and I haven't had sugar for a year, like I don't want to start sugar again. So anyway.

All right. You know what? This is really interesting. And so many things, my God, we could go down so many wonderful roads. I got to know, John. So what do you think it is that will— and I'm not looking to predict the future, and there's no judgment if for some reason you ended up eating sugar, right? We get that. But I do want to get a sense, because part of your professional life is helping other people create new habits, break habits, use their brains to do it, etc. And there's often that saying that people teach what they most need to learn kind of thing, which I buy. And I've been in that camp myself. And I also believe that the strongest teaching comes from modeling. So you've got to be congruent. Often if you're saying one thing, but you're modeling something else, it's an issue. It's an issue as a parent, for sure. Right. So how is it that you think that you're going to get leverage further leverage, or do you even need any more leverage to keep, to maintain this habit? Because clearly it's working for you.

Yeah, no, the answer is the science or the neuroscience of habits shows that a habit is nothing more than a reinforced neural pattern, thought, emotional, behavioral pattern that's triggered by certain things. And we know that a pattern that is interrupted for between 66 and 365 days loosens the proverbial grip on the pattern or the habit. And if you replace it with an empowering habit or pattern, it becomes part of something known as the default mode network, or what I like to call your automatic self. So saying no to sugar now is not even hard for me. It's just not part of my current identity.

Right.

Right? So my current identity is just like, you know, I'm just, you know, a guy who doesn't eat refined sugar.

Right. I'm a no sugar guy. I'm a no sugar guy.

Not just, you know, I eat fruit sugar, like I'll have a banana or berries. That's okay. But my specific—

No processed

sugar. No refined sugar.

Okay.

Like when I eat a banana, I don't want 4 more bananas. If I eat a handful of berries, I'm fine. Right? But I also know the addiction levels or the addiction process around sugar and what it does to the reward center in the brain. And it just is a cycle of never-ending desire for

Right.

So

now there may be some people that think, well, what if, what if you would've just like on your birthday, let's say you had accomplished this thing, had a piece of cake. What's the significance do you think of that? And I know it's different for everybody.

I get that. It's different for everybody. So let me just share with you what I've discovered about me and my personality. And my personality tends to be all or nothing.

Right.

My wife, if my, if my wife bought a chocolate bar that had 12 pieces to it, she could have one a month till the end of the year.

Yeah.

I had 12 pieces, I would eat all 12 and see how much of yours you have left.

I love that about you, I gotta say.

Right? So, so I would want yours, and then if there's anybody else around, I said, can I finish that? So I have a personality trait that can go destructive on me, can go disempowering on me, can go negative on me if I allow it to control me. So I have learned how to, A, be aware of the destructive patterns that I have.

So first you're aware.

Yeah. There's a process that I've learned that I teach It all starts with radical honesty first. And you and I have talked about this in the past. So radical honesty about what is the truth.

So for example, the truth right now is you're saying you're an extremist on some level. That's the way you've shown up. Good. Now, a lot of people won't say that for whatever reason. They won't sort of just admit to themselves, hey, I am an all-or-nothing guy. They, ah, you know, I choose this or I choose that, but they're lying on some level if they don't just admit that one thing.

Right. So the first part is Radical honesty and awareness, right? So recognize, right? And then once I recognize, then I can ask myself a question of what is it that I'm really committed to? Not interested in, committed to. Because when we're interested, we come up with stories, reasons, and excuses why we can't or why we won't. But if we're committed, that means no more stories, no more excuses, no more reasons. And we focus on how we can, not why we can't. So my question was, am I interested in, for example, a 6-pack, or am I committed? And I said, oh wow, that, that's a serious question because, because there's, there's room for deviation, but there isn't a lot of room for deviation. And so I said, I'm committed to this. I said, great, now let me come up with how I will because I am committed. So what knowledge do I need? What skill do I need? What tool? What resource? What coach? What accountability partner do I need in order to make my commitment easier? Not easy, easier. Why? Because I have to stop certain things and I have to start certain things. And the very nature of our brain is it does not want to start certain things or stop certain things that it's already become used to and created habit loops in our brain to make them automatic to conserve energy.

Object in motion tends to stay in motion.

Object at rest tends to stay at rest. Newton's second law of thermodynamics. Correct. And so whenever I set any goal, my very, very next question is, am I interested or am I committed to achieving that goal? Now, you mentioned something that's very, very true about me. I have an extremist personality. So everybody is 100% addicted to their current patterns.

Say that again, John. I want this to drop in for people.

Everybody is, you know, some people say, well, he's an addict. I am not. Yes, you are. Yes, I am. Some of my addictions are constructive. Some are destructive. Some empower me. Some disempower me. Some are positive. Some are negative. Some will help me achieve my goals. Some will not. Period. End of story. The neuromechanics of the brain is that we are all addicted to the thought patterns that we have, 6,200 of them a day. We're all addicted to the emotions we're used to feeling. We're all addicted to the behaviors. We're all addicted to the current results that we've averaged out over, let's say, 6 to 12 months. So when we are radically honest about ourselves, our results, our desires. And when we're radically honest about whether we are committed to the new outcome, then we say, I must then become radically obsessed with the behavior change that is needed, right? And so, you know, when you have change-proof, my read of that is I am able to change deliberately and consciously evolve myself to a higher order of behavior behavior, thinking, and emotions that'll help me achieve what I want and move me away from what I don't want anymore. So when it came to—

Hey, will you remind us to come back to that point a little, in a little bit? I don't want to stop your flow, but I want to come back to that. Okay?

Yeah, go.

Awesome. No, no, I don't want to interrupt your flow, so keep going.

Oh yeah. So, you know, so whenever, you know, I want to achieve something, I know about myself. I'm an extremist. Right? I get addicted like everybody else does. So I want to make sure that my thought, emotional, behavioral patterns are constructive, empowering, inspiring me addictions.

Yes.

Not expiring me.

Right. Positive addiction.

Positive addictions, right? And like I said, like my wife, she can have a cookie and have 2 or 3 bites and leave it alone. I can't. I can't.

Your wife and I are very simpatico, buddy.

Yeah, I know. Very similar to that in that respect. Yeah, we've been out and my personality is, is not that way. My, my natural propensity of who I am is not that. I accept, I surrender, I allow.

Right. I accept, I surrender.

And now I say, how can I use that personality trait as

leverage,

as leverage, as opposed to saying, oh my God, John, you are addicted to this and you're addicted to that. I said, okay, well, that can put me down. Well, I don't want to I don't want to put myself down. I want to lift myself up.

I want to go back to the actual goal for a second, not to focus on that thing, the 6-pack as the goal, but I'm going to ask you relative to this one point, which is that I believe as part of that second piece, the awareness that you described, that radical honesty and awareness, and then this commitment piece, that for me to be committed to something, it's really helpful if I understand why, why I'm committed. Right? So I'm going to ask you in a second, why the 6-pack? Why was that important to you? And I use that as an example. So, for example, with, with my son-in-law, my daughter Chelsea's husband, Matthew, who's our son Matthew, they got married about 2 and a half years ago now. And before that, he wanted to be able to look, you know, really good in his tuxedo. And he's a big guy and he was over 200 pounds. He wanted to be just under 200 so he'd look great. And sure enough, he accomplished his goal.

Yeah.

But 3, 4 weeks after the wedding was over, You know, he didn't look like he did on his wedding day. So his goal, his why, was to look good for the wedding and the pictures and all the rest of it and just be feeling great. And that made sense. But then that, that didn't last. So I want to understand more, more at a depth how the why is important and why, in fact, you chose Six Pack at 60. Why was that important to you?

So let me talk about your son-in-law first and the rest of us, right? We can make decisions for a reason. A season or a lifetime. A reason, a season, a lifetime. So a wedding is a reason. Summertime and, you know, your, your bikini or your shorts, a season. A lifetime is a behavioral change that you're committed to beyond, okay, the strategies and tactics for a reason or a season. So when we're looking at behavioral changes for a lifetime. We're looking at a change in identity for a lifetime.

Yep.

So before my 50th birthday, and you— I don't think you and I even knew each other back then, Adam— I was 243 pounds, 33% body fat, borderline diabetic, hypertensive, and a fatty liver. 243.

Not, not a great recipe.

For my 50th birthday, You know, I got down to the best shape of my adult life because I made a decision for a lifetime and I've maintained. So then I changed my eating habits, my exercise, you know, I changed a whole bunch of stuff and got into really good shape. So why is Six Pack at 60? I teach about the power of the human brain. I believe it's the most powerful bioorganism in the entire universe. I think it's worth $100 billion or more, and it's capable of achieving unbelievable And so I know that, you know, having a 6-pack is hard enough at 25 or 35. I just want to choose another hard goal that would bust a myth, that would be— that would show people the power of innercising, which is strengthening your mental and emotional neuromuscles that then allow you to be mentally and emotionally strong to achieve more things. So we know we go to the gym. to exercise or you swim and you, you know, your muscles get stronger, your internal organs get stronger, your 9 systems get stronger, work synergistically together. But what about my brain? The greatest tool of all. Can I strengthen my neuromuscles of resolve? Can I strengthen my neuromuscles of self-confidence? Can I strengthen my neuromuscle of focus? Can I strengthen my neuromuscles of changing behaviors because I decide to? Can I change my neuromuscles of, fill in the blank. We have a variety of different neuromuscles, just like we have a variety of different physical muscles. But many people, number one, have never heard of it placed this way, nor do they focus it on every day. So I decided to use some of the stuff that I've researched and have used in my life for growing companies, for being in a great relationship, for getting into the best shape of my life at 50. And I said, well, what's like the next thing that I might be able to do that can prove once again to myself that, oh my God, It is right between my ears. It always has been, always will be. And so I just chose this goal. And it may be because I read a lot and I see magazines. I see, you know, people who are unhealthy, people who are healthy, people who are wealthy, people who are not, people who live a lifestyle, you know, that I resonate with and lifestyles that I don't. And so I am very visual. And so I have been asking myself a question. How do I, in my 60s, 70s, and 80s and 90s, I made a promise to one of my sons, Noah, when we were on a chairlift in Telluride, Colorado skiing many years ago. I promised him that I will teach your children how to board or ski. He was 13 at the time. He's 24 now. And so, I had to project what would I look like and feel like at 70, projecting when he might have kids, right? 65, 70, 75. And so, I've been on this health path so that the quality of my life is as good as it can be if I have any choice?

Yeah.

Right? Listen, I understand shit can happen, and we know shit has happened, right? So I wanted to say, how do I give myself the best chance to spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially be in the best shape of my life in my 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond if I'm given That's a strong

why. That's not a reason. It's not a season. It's that he lives life.

It's a lifestyle decision. It's a lifestyle decision. It's a, what's the human experience that I want and how do I honor life? Like to me, you know, one of my favorite memories from one of our previous discussions, whether we were walking on the beach or talking, you know, on one of our calls, you know, it's like when you wake up and you put your feet on the ground, that's one of your gratitude moments. Well, I've been doing that since you mentioned it to me. I actually talked to somebody about you and that yesterday. And so, I want to be in, I want to be living in honor of life, right? So, the physical body is just the vehicle. And so, it was just something hard to try and do. And I said, okay, I'm going to back it up with the behaviors. Yes. And to be in congruence with that. And now—

I want to put a parenthetical in here for just a second, because I'm just noticing that this question about why is a really interesting one, John. And people ask it and it's been asked and all that. Nothing too profound there. But I think what is not as readily thought of or talked about or understood even is how it is that you futurecast things. How do you futurecast it? How does the why get executed? And for me, it's what you just described, that you looked far enough down the line to determine whether, is this something I'd be committed to 10 years, 15 years, 20 years down the line or not? For Randy and I, well, you brought up the I love my life practice, this ritual that is a waking ritual. It's future casting for me. When I wake up, put my feet on the floor, say, I love my life, it's how I want to experience myself being. That day. Yes, in that moment, I want to feel gratitude. But when I put my head on this pillow at night, at the end of the day, and I'm getting ready to be grateful for the potential of being given another day, yet another day, I want to know that the day I just had was one I actually loved, no matter what.

Yeah. I call that—

And I, like, you're married a really long time to Maria. Randy and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary on July 29th this past year. We created invitations and a vision board for our 75th wedding anniversary, which is July 29th, 2064. We did that, I don't know, 10 years ago.

Yeah.

So, we're future casting that we are going to be healthy, that all of our parts and pieces are going to be working, and our kids and our family and loved ones are going to be around, and we're going to be in our favorite place on this little island, and all this kind of stuff's going to be in place. And for that to happen, it informs the present moment. It informs every step between here and there, including whether I lose my shit in an argument with her or I learn patience, or she learns patience with me, which she's had to learn much more patience with me than the other way around, or how it is that we are taking care of ourselves, taking care of each other. It informs everything backwards if you can think far enough ahead. And so it's just wonderful that you tied your why not to because, hey, look, I just want to, I don't know, I want to be that guy in the picture that has that 6-pack or that 8-pack when I'm 60 years old. It's more like, you know, where is this going to impact my life? So I'll be able to be on a ski slope when other guys are sitting in their rocking chair. I'm going to be teaching my grandson how to ski. You got it. That's a, yeah, that's really Yeah,

it's, it's, um, part of my promise, promise to me of the life that I want to live. You mentioned something that sparked something that I do every night when I go to bed. I call it signing my day. Mm-hmm. So as I lay in bed, just before I, you know, go to sleep, I review my day. And like an artist signs what she wrote or what she painted or what, what he painted or what he wrote, what he sculpted, I want to make sure I'm proud of signing my day. Today was the masterpiece I created with the life and gift I received, right? I want to make sure that I have many more days where I am proud of that signature than not. And I've got plenty of experiences in my life in the past where I am not, many of my younger, younger years. And so, as I've gotten older and hopefully a little bit wiser, I want to invest my days in the moment so that, you know, I'm living in the moment, which pretty much guarantees the memory I'm gonna have in the future, right? Mm-hmm. So if I pay attention to right now, this hour, this morning, this afternoon, this evening, then the building blocks for amazing memories and being proud are laid. Mm-hmm. So if I focus on the now and I sign my day, okay? And if there's things, you know what, tomorrow, Let's adjust here. Awesome. Then part of the signature for the day was to learn the adjustment for tomorrow. If I can keep creating these calibration points, then I'm going to trade my life for what I'm proud of and what I love for me. And that's really what's important.

It is. I want to put a footnote into this show because I know we won't have time to go into it, but it's something I want people to just pay attention to if they If they didn't already pick it up. You know, John, one of John's famous, very famous sort of acts, things that he did, which was featured in The Secret, was this vision board that he created. And he mentioned a vision board. You showed us, actually, those of you that might've watched this on YouTube, you got to see John's vision board, including dudes looking pretty good that he wanted to look like, you know, like the Jack LaLannes of the world. And I mentioned a vision board a moment ago for Randy and I and our 75th wedding anniversary. Yeah. So I know we're not going to talk about that at the moment, but the vision board's a really important part of this process for you, John, right? I just want to footnote that and get your moment of thought on that. Super important. Yeah. Still.

Well, this is my Exceptional Life Blueprint. The first few pages, you're going to see my family, the important stuff that's there. And then it's a blend of my current lifestyle and the lifestyle I want to live. And I blend them in, you know, in pages for health, wealth, charitable contributions, you know, things that I want to create. And then I have everything in here around the story of my life, my results for health, wealth, relationships, career, business, finance, charity contribution, now, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years from now. And the reason I do this is I get very, very deliberate about what is it that I want to trade my life and time for?

Right.

So, and every day I look at this so that I prime my brain, my biocomputer, of these are the instructions that I want you to focus on, right? And so, if I prime my brain, if I give my brain the instruction, the biocomputer the instruction, then I can start to use the genius parts of creation, right?

You're a coder.

2 million years of evolution has created this sentient being called a human with a $100 billion biocomputer, I want to be a really good operator of that computer. And so, if you're going to look at computer software, the output is only going to be as good as the software and the input. So, I want to consistently feed my brain the information, the energy information, so my brain doesn't have to figure out, well, what do you want? I already know what I want. I know what I want my energy to be like, my health to be like, my focus to be like, my wealth to be like, my charitable contributions to be like, my trips. I already have taken the time to say, this is what I choose that will make my life worthy for me, my wife, my family, the people who follow my work, my children, et cetera. Yeah. And I don't need you to like what I like or to approve of what I want for my life. I'm trading my life for what I want, my fullest expression of that And so, I want to be very deliberate with flexibility, of course, for things to show up and come up, which we know they do.

To pivot where pivoting is needed. Yeah.

To pivot and to adapt. That's okay. But I am locked and loaded on what I want to trade my life for, period.

Yeah.

And so, I start off with a like you and Randy do for, you know, when you're 75. You know, I start off with what does it look like upon, you know, completion, and then I can change it along the way. So I'm giving my brain, the Einstein part of my brain, the occipital lobe part of my brain, the motivational side of my brain, the behavioral cortex part of my brain, I am giving it the input it requires in order to create the output. And, you know, somebody once said garbage in, garbage out. Bullshit. Garbage in, garbage rots. So I don't want to put garbage in. I want to put the best information in, the best instructions in, the best processes, systems, skills, tools, resources in because that's the way I'm going to achieve the masterpiece that I want for my life. Yeah. I don't want to live an ordinary life.

Wow, the pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about, and it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. I think you need to amp up your energy just a little

bit. Oh, that's like—

No, really.

I wasted so many years when I was younger, right, that I made a commitment to put as much as I can into my life so that I'm proud of it for me.

To me, the word that really dropped in is the word deliberate. First of all, it's a word that isn't used all that often, I think. And it's really, I think, the one thing that I want folks to take that word today and where can you apply it? Where can you use that word deliberate for yourself? Where can you create more deliberate intention and action for yourself in some area? And I want to I want to use this moment to pivot. There's a nice way to segue from what we're talking about now into how it is that, as you say, you're deliberate about your desires, your intentions, your goals. You create almost like a blueprint for what it's going to look like, future-cast it. And then we know life happens. And that's the part that I think where it can take people sideways because life will happen and things will take you out of your great plan. I think maybe it was Mike Tyson that said, everybody's got a plan, then they get hit in the face, and then there's no plan. Right? So The Pivot, as the book I wrote some years ago would suggest, is a way to deal with that. Inside of that book is a chapter on resilience. I have a new book that's coming out later this year called Change Proof. And you brought that word up, that term up earlier. So I really— and this book, the subtitle is how it is that we utilize, how do you utilize the power of uncertainty to create long-term resilience? That's the key, leveraging the power of uncertainty. And I was looking at an article in HBR earlier today that said our brains were not built for this much uncertainty. So what I want to do now, Jon, is just transition into a conversation about resilience.

Sure.

And I want to start first of all with your definition of it. So how do you personally define

So first and foremost, you mentioned Mike Tyson, right? So he and I just delivered a keynote address in the same place a few weeks ago. So, uh, and he actually mentioned, you know, all your best-laid plans go right out the window when you get punched in the face. So yeah, I was looking at that, not being rude, but just agreeing. So, so—

You got it, you got it from the man's mouth himself. How big are his hands, by the way?

They're not that big. They're not that big. His trunk and legs, very big. His hands were not as big as I thought they were. I thought he'd have like a club hand, but his torque, you could tell that he is built for speed and strength. So listen, so resilience, right, is of the visual I would have is think of the bamboo, right? The bamboo is both firm and resilient and bendable and pliable. to a certain degree. So it's flexibility goes along with this resiliency. My ability to endure is how I would frame resiliency, right? And you mentioned something that's really, really important to understand. When we're dealing with the human brain, the way that our brain actually works is our brain is taking in information from sound and sight and tactile, our tactile senses, and it is projecting into the future any potential consequence— into the now and into the future any potential consequence based on the neural networks in our memory system and the associations and the meanings that we have for things— positive, negative, fearful, not dangerous, or not. And so we're actually living just slightly in arrears of real time because our brain likes predictability, and it is predicting every second of every day except when you're asleep Right? What is going to happen based on what happened in the past? But it's releasing the neurochemicals that cause you to feel either the positive constructive consequence or the negative destructive consequence based on what's in the memory bank. So we don't like change. We don't like uncertainty. Right. We don't like doubt. We don't like things like that. There's what I call is the Einstein part of our brain is trying to imagine, you know, a beautiful future with possibility. and how we could achieve that. But there's another part of our brain that I call Frankenstein's monster that is always doing this. What if negative? What if I fail? What if it doesn't work? What if she rejects me? What if I lose money? What if I succeed and fail? What if I'm embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, or judged? What if this kills me? What if it kills my wife? What if it kills my children? What if negative? So we have this constant battle between the left prefrontal cortex and the right prefrontal cortex, it's like gas and brakes in a car. And until we become better operators of these parts of our brain, which means we need to recognize, you know, the thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, and behaviors, we need to learn how to reframe things so they empower us instead of disempower us. We need to learn how to release the disempowering emotions that want to deactivate our motive for action and deactivate our behavior. And we want to retrain our brain to be in a heightened state of awareness or mindful so I can make deliberate choices versus reactive choices that actually not even reactive choices, but just to react automatically. We want to learn how to respond versus react. And these are just skills that we learn. So resiliency is something you can learn. Being an adaptationist is something you can learn. Being more mindful, some of you can learn. Now, in the absence of training, we will—

An adaptationist, an improvisationalist, understanding that again, that the plan is going to change. It's one thing to set, have a vision board, but it's also something you have to recognize that, yeah, maybe the thing is going to turn out exactly how it looks on the board, but it's likely to look differently. And even if it turns out exactly the way you pictured it, it will likely feel differently than you imagined it would feel when you first intended it. Yes?

The vision board is an instruction to the brain of, in some cases, I want to look exactly like this or something like this. Right? So many years ago, I had this, I saw this incredible painting by this artist. His name is Spar Street. And it was a beautiful, beautiful painting. And I took it and I put it on my vision board. I said, oh, one day when I can afford, you know, to pay for this type of painting, I want something like this. I want to commission him to do it for me. Well, upstairs along this wall over here, there's like an 8 by 12 painting that Spar Street created for me. That's not the exact painting that I had, but it's just like it. it. So it gave me the visceral experience, right, of what I wanted it to be like. And then I said, okay, what do I have to do? How much do I need to earn? Who do I need to become? What are the knowledge and skills and tactics that I need to implement to be able to one day afford a piece like that? Right? So the painting caused more questions and a commitment to

And what you said earlier, Jon, I think really important that we pause for a second to sit with this because it's the experience that we're after. Our lives are a collection of experiences. On our last breath, wherever we go from here, we don't know necessarily, but what we'll have in that moment is the felt experience, the visceral, to use your word, experience of what it was like to be alive for however long we were lucky enough to have that experience. So wealth or rich, you know, people want to be rich. Rich is not a number. It's not a set amount of money in a bank account. It's not the car or the house. It's a feeling. It's an experience that you associate with wealth or richness. Yeah.

And I agree with that.

Does that make sense? Or am I saying it, you know, in language that— Yep.

Here's, you know, an exercise that I've done myself and I've taken some of my students and friends and even my kids kids is, who do you or what do you refuse not to become? Like, I refuse, okay, to stand on the edge of my potential and not go for it and do the very best. I refuse. I refuse to be on my deathbed saying, why didn't I do this or that when I could? I refuse. I just refuse to have that dialogue with myself then. And so then I asked myself, then what needs to happen today? What needs to happen in my identity? What needs to happen in my behavior so that I never feel that? So I can go into my future and at 60, 70, 80, whatever the case is, I'm at 60 now. And I say, what do I want to make 100% certain of does not happen? Then I can come back to today. And say, how do I make 100% certain, okay, that I've become what I want to become? And then, am I committed to this or that?

Yes.

Right? So you can use a negative move away from frame just as much as you can use a positive move towards frame. But I want to know what my own line in the sands are.

Indeed. So, you know, you said earlier that, that of course the, the human brain hates uncertainty, or let's say the mind hates uncertainty. And fear is the thing that's created when there's any sense of unknown or uncertain times. We're living in the greatest of uncertainty and uncertain times at the moment, which is why the book is actually, I think, really well-timed to meet the moment. Yeah. And I'm not here to talk about my book. I want to get your thoughts on uncertainty. One of the things we discuss is how Now, resilience is in essence an antidote to that uncertainty. But resilience isn't one thing. It's not one amorphous thing. It's not, you know, it's kind of a setup question to even ask somebody how they define it, because there's as many definitions for resilience as there are people you would ask how to define it. But what we have through research found out is that it can be chunked into 4 zones: mental, emotional, physical, spiritual. And you are, among other things, known as a brain expert. So I want to talk about the mental side of it. I want to talk about how it is that you yourself, or in leading a company and working with other people who are interested in this and interested in elevating their results, how it is that you create mental resilience. I want to know what that looks like for you, Jon, and where you can point to something that would help to alleviate some of the uncertainty that has people in abject fear, And some folks really stuck at this moment even.

Sure. So it's a complex question that can go down a variety of different channels, right? So think about going to the gym.

Well, I'm going to— I'll target it a little bit more. You do something called a Brainathon, right?

Oh, sure.

And so what I want to do is I'm going to say a person that wants to work on their mental resilience, their resiliency between the ears kind of thing, that that's— What, what does that look like for a person when it comes to, say, working that out when they're, when they're working out in the NeuroGym, your company?

Sure. So there's only 4 things that hold people back, or 4 categories that'll cause somebody to be stuck and stay stuck or not fulfill their potential. Number 1 is when they don't have the knowledge or the skill to achieve the goal that they want— health, wealth, relationships, career, business, whatever it is— they don't have the knowledge or the skill, that activates the self-doubt, the lack of confidence, the uncertainty, and maybe even the fear neural circuit. The fear circuit's connected to the motivational circuit of whether you take action or not and whether you are motivated to move forward or not. So we have these, we have the 3 networks in the brain, the salience, executive, and default mode network in the brain. Those are the 3 major networks. And then a whole host of circuits that turn on or off like light switches. So when we have the knowledge and the skills, right, we lower the chances that we're going to feel uncertain because we have the knowledge or the skills. So in the absence of knowledge and skills, if you think about the word stress, what does stress really mean? It means that the demand is exceeding your current capacity.

Hmm.

What does stress really mean? The stress circuit gets activated only when the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, relationship demand exceeds your current capacity to handle it. If you have the capacity to handle it, there isn't stress, right? And so when we're dealing with the brain and we're dealing with this biocomputer of circuits and networks, If we have a lack of knowledge and skill, we trigger the uncertainty, self-doubt, lack of confidence, stress circuit, fear circuit. And we know that these circuits are interconnected to other circuits of whether we take action or not. Part 1. Part 2 is let's say I have a conscious or an unconscious fear, and there's 50 different types of fears. So I might have a vision and a goal. I might be resilient, but if I have a fear of failure because of what failure means to me or my family, if I have a fear of trying my best and being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, or judged, or disappointed again, I know that if the fear circuit is activated, any one of those 8 or 9 fears I just suggested, I'm not going to take inspired action most of the time. Number 3, if I have limiting beliefs, like what is a limiting belief in the brain? It's nothing more than a reinforced neural pattern that I developed either, you know, in childhood or in adulthood that got reinforced, that now is the filter by which I see the world and myself in it. So now if I have limiting beliefs, that means I have networks in my brain that is limiting my perspective, my paradigm, my emotional abilities, and my behavior. That's actually the neuromechanics of that. And then let's say I have a vision, a goal, and I have a big why. I wanna change, I wanna pivot, I wanna have this instead of that. I wanna leave this to get that, start this and stop that. But let's say that I have a hidden self-image that questions whether I'm worthy of it. Am I really deserving of that? This imagination of mine that sees a better future future, a better job, a better career, sees me as a coach, sees me speaking on a platform, whatever it is that we're envisioning, that happens in the occipital imagination side of our brain. But there's a hidden self-image that may be disconnected from us actually believing and feeling that we are worthy of that or deserving of that. Well, if I have a disconnect between the vision and my hidden self-image, that's like having one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. The foot on the brake wants to keep you stuck here. The foot on the gas wants to go somewhere else. Now you have a lot of movement, but you're not getting anywhere. So when we're talking about the neuromechanics of change and performance and resiliency, it's a little bit more complicated to understand why is it that I could be resilient at work, but not at home? Why is it that I can be resilient when I'm working out, but not resilient, you know, in in this other part of my life, right? So it starts to get a little bit more complex. However, when we have these constructive beliefs about ourselves, when we have these constructive memories of when we were resilient in the past, it is transferable because now we have references that we can transfer over to here. And the truth is we all have all of these character traits, but our belief in the character traits, the good ones and the ones that maybe not are proud of, okay, our belief about what they mean will determine the feelings and the behaviors. And so we are a complex creature. I get that. But we're not so complex that just like the Rubik's Cube that I always have on my desk, If we are committed to solving the Rubik's Cube, whether it's 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, or the mother Rubik's Cube, if we are committed to learning how to solve it and we practice diligently and we rehearse, what we practice creates permanent patterns. And the permanent patterns that are constructive are the permanent patterns that build our lives. And the permanent patterns that are destructive Destroys our life. So either way, we're more in control and we could deliberately and consciously evolve ourselves. Just like if you're committed to solving the Rubik's Cube, go to YouTube, just follow the play-by-play instructions on YouTube. You can solve it in 3 minutes.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals And habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Couldn't agree more that we are complex beings. So I'm going to do something maybe sacrilegious because I want to simplify or even perhaps oversimplify this. Because I think that for me, at least in my life, getting out of my own way has always been the most important thing. A lot of other things could be in my way and I'm able to deal with that. But me, I'm usually the one hardest nut to crack. So the way I've cracked this nut has been through deliberate, use your word, deliberate actions that I take consistently over time. To me, I call those rituals. Habits are things like I brush my teeth with my left hand. It's a default. I just do it. I want to do something different. I pick up my toothbrush in the right hand. In fact, I'll offer that up. Anybody that wants to just check out how addicted, as Shawn said, you are to doing things the way you do them, just brush your hand— brush your hand— brush your teeth with the opposite hand for the next week and see how that feels for you. But rituals, these consciously created new ways of doing things has been the one thing that we've seen in our research to help people to create something that provides resiliency. So mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, in any of those areas, you can create a ritual and a specific kind of ritual. And that's why I want to get into this with you now, which is ritual for recovery. The research is fairly clear that endurance or trying to endure through situations is actually the most prevalent way people deal with And it's actually depleting. It's actually in the long term, not the thing we want to do to create sort of the get the night owl award, but rather what we want to do is create recovery zones because it's in those recovery moments, just like at the gym, you're not going to work out for 10 hours at a time or work one muscle group day after day. You're going to rest that muscle group so that you can then get growth. And ultimately, it's through recovery that you do create new results. So, Jon, I want to find out more about your own rituals. And specifically the ones that are more on the mental side or for brain health. Because again, I know you are very famous for a number of different things as an author, but you also do something called a Brainathon, which almost sounds like a marathon or sounds like there's exercise in it. Exercise. You have a book called Innercise, right? So it makes me think about exercise, but for the brain, for the mind. So rituals for recovery. That's one of the unsung heroes for creating resilience. I want to understand what your rituals for recovery look like mentally.

Sure. So when I wake up and I start with my gratitude practice, then I do a morning meditation.

You do an I love my life, of course, every day, right?

I love my life every day, all day. Then I do a meditation every morning for 15 to 20 minutes. And then I actually have some custom-made inner size audios for me. that cause me to be in a state of peaceful relaxation first. I use visualization, mindfulness, affirmations, declarations, promises, subliminal programming to prime my brain every single morning.

Yep. And how long, how long is that, the audio?

About 15 minutes to 20 minutes of that as well, from 6:30 to 8:30 every morning. That's my time That is my time.

6:30 to 8:30 sacred. That's you.

That is me for my inner game and my physical body and my spiritual connection. So I do my exercise, my inner sizes first, then I do my exercise for about an hour, and then I have my shower, and then my very, very ultra-healthy protein and some good fat for my brain, omega-3, 6, and 9. and some fiber protein smoothie every day with about 500 to 700 calories. That's how I start off every day by 8:30.

Yeah.

I don't care if I'm in a hotel room, I make it happen there. I don't care if I'm at a guest house. I don't care if I'm in Antarctica or Alaska, makes no difference. That is my morning routine. And then I have a meeting with my assistant after I shower to make sure that my day is planned out and that any calibrations for my day are discussed, planned out, and we do that. Now, every 55 minutes, as long as I'm not in a meeting, my mobile phone, okay, will ring like a little bell. Yeah. And I do 2 inner sizes that take about 3 minutes. Inner size number 1 is called Take 6, Calm the Circuits. And all that is, I take 6 deep breaths in through my nose, slowly, slowly, slowly as possible. I hold at the top for about 3 seconds. And then as I release it through my mouth, I pretend that there's a straw in my mouth and I just blow it out through a straw very, very slowly like this. And even as I'm doing it right now, I can just feel decompression. Now, why do I do that? I know that when I'm going, right, I can get amped up and I get a high degree of energy. And so I know that we have a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. So the sympathetic nervous system is usually the fight, flight, freeze reaction part of my brain. But the calm to respond part of my brain activates my Einstein part of my brain. So I want to operate more from the Einstein part of the brain, which is known as the left prefrontal cortex, more of the day than with my Frankenstein brain or the stressed part of my brain. And so when I take 6 deep breaths in through my nose, out through my mouth, as slowly as possible every hour, Like, look at the time, it's 1:55 right now. That gives my brain the instruction to decompress, deactivate the stress circuit, activate the calm response circuit. So I do it deliberately. Now, doing it deliberately means that my brain learns the pattern. Once my brain learns the pattern, it does it for me.

Right.

So I know that pattern. Then I do— so that's interesting.

It's a ritual that ultimately You ritualize to habitualize. That's what you do.

I ritualize to habitualize. So then right after I do my Take 6 Calm the Circuit innercise, I then do my AYA innercise, awareness, intention, action. So now what am I looking to do? Awareness of what? I want to be aware of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, and behaviors the last 55 minutes. Well, why does the captain of an airplane or the captain of a ship want to know their coordinates of where they are because they can make adjustments a lot faster if they know exactly where they are. So I want to once per hour make sure that my thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, and behaviors, my state is moving me towards the goals I want to achieve for today. Now, if I do that every day with this rule, pay close attention, everyone. No judgment, no blame, no shame, no guilt, no justification. I'll repeat, no judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification. Wow. When I'm looking and observing and mindful of a pattern for the last 55 minutes, all I want to do is practice observation and awareness. Being mindful without any judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification allows me to be an observer of patterns. And then the I in AYA— awareness is the first one, I is intention— I say, okay, my intention for the next hour is this, this, and this. Awesome. Now I have a refocus. Now I've just recalibrated if I need to, or now I can just accelerate if I want to. And then I say, okay, the A is action. What is 1 or 2, or what are 1 or 2 action steps that I could take in the next hour to be on track, on purpose, heading towards what I want to achieve? How I want to feel, what I want to focus on. So now let's take a look at this throughout the day. If I've done that 10 times in a day, times let's say 5 days a week when I'm working, that's 50 opportunities I've had to be more mindful, more aware, more in control, out of my stress zone, into my calm and respond zone, deliberate, focused, attentive. Can you see that? That's a ritual and a pattern that then builds on itself.

Yeah.

So I can calibrate, calibrate, calibrate.

In the middle of that, I want somebody to picture themselves in the middle of what John's just laid out. You get an email that you didn't expect that hits you right between the eyes, that kicks you right in the gut. I want you to just— it's like the— can you imagine the wheels of the car just screech to a halt right now? Every good thing that was happening comes to a halt because you just received this unexpected piece of news. And it is, uh, it has kicked your reptilian brain into fear, into fight, flight, or freeze mode. So, Jon, putting yourself in that situation, what's different about the way you've trained yourself, deliberately trained yourself, to deal with that moment? Because you, you receive those moments, you have those things happen.

Let me, um, forget about they happen. 2 and a half weeks ago, I was in Montreal with my wife, my kids. My brother was there with his kids. My sister's there with her kids and grandkids to celebrate my 60th birthday and my father's 91st birthday. We took pictures, we were outside, we have amazing pictures and videos of everybody being happy. My father is celebrating and happy, etc. He lives alone, still able to walk and talk and 100% cognitively there. I fly back to San Diego, all right, with my kids, and 24 hours after I land here, I'm actually On a live training, I get a text from my sister, call me right away, Dad has fallen, he is being rushed to the hospital right now. I get the text and first thing I did, right? First thing I did was take 6 deep breaths.

Yes.

First thing I did. I'm aware of

it.

I felt the surge. Okay?

The oh shit moment is, uh, right?

Just with him, 24 hours later, he's being rushed to the hospital. I felt the surge, and I know I don't want to react, I want to respond. Felt the surge. I said, hey everyone, just give me one second. Hey sis, I'm on a call right now, training right now. Is it okay if I get back to you Can I call you in 17 minutes? Yep, sure. No problem. De-escalated the situation in my reaction to response. And needless to say, I find out a little bit later, it wasn't that 17 minutes because we didn't know what was happening. But needless to say, my father broke his nose, broke his cheekbones, rushed to the hospital and intubated and was in a 12-day medically induced coma. So I flew the very next day to Montreal to do what I could do there versus here. And I stayed there for 8 days. Then I came home and my brother went there. So why am I sharing with this? Life is all about what you do when shit happens to you, right? So I wouldn't be much good in a reactive state.

Yeah.

Right? And the thing that I always like to remind people of is this, Firefighters have to learn how to calmly go into a burning or exploding building. That's a trained response. Astronauts, when all hell breaks loose, okay, as they're traveling at thousands of miles per hour, okay, have to learn how to stay calm in the worst of situations. So do police officers. So do Navy SEALs. It's a trained response that with training becomes an automatic reaction.

That's the point. Exactly.

That's the point, right? So whatever we practice becomes permanent. So we can practice really stressful situations, right? So that we respond instead of react, because we will always react under stressful situations at the highest level of our training. Because it's automatic.

Exactly.

There's no thought.

Practice does not make perfect, as we've been told. Practice makes permanent.

But perfect practice makes permanent patterns. But it's not even permanent patterns. They're just more softwired until you change those patterns. So when we are looking to, you know, create some high-performance rituals and habits, let's understand that the best way to create habits is to reduce it to the ridiculously small amount of a ritual initially. You mentioned something earlier that made me smile because 2 years ago, over 2 years ago, I started to brush my teeth instead of with my right hand, with my left hand. I haven't stopped and it's been 2 years and 9 months or 10 months. I still am brushing my teeth with my left hand. It's still uncomfortable, and I will not move back to my right hand.

This is what I love about you, John. I love that about you, buddy. All right, as we're wrapping up, look, as you all could probably tell, you know, John and I can continue to talk for hours and hours, and maybe that's what you'd like, and that's great. But for now, we're going to bring this thing in for a landing. I want you to be able to go to the show notes to find out more, of course, about John, about his books, and about his Brainathon, because that's coming up really soon. We'll have a link that you can join there as well. John, and I know this is not ever easy to ask a fellow speaker, trainer, all out there, to limit an answer to sort of 60 seconds, but tell us about the Brainathon if you can in just a little bit here. Call it a minute. I just want people to know what this is because we mentioned it a couple of times.

So, we're about to do our 9th annual Brain-A-Thon. And 9 years ago, I decided to invite some of my top neuroscience friends and fellow researchers and share what's some of the latest stuff on changing our brains so we can change our income and our lives. And I brought on the best from Harvard or Oxford or Princeton. And they started to share, here's what we're discovering about mindset. Here's what we're discovering about emotional control. Here's what we're discovering about self-talk. Here's what we're discovering about what holds people back. Here's what we're discovering about potential and actually achieving it. Here's what we've discovered about high performance versus being stuck, you know, in a, in a, a habitude, you know, of more of the same. And so I started doing these Brainathons and every year between 50,000 and 150,000 sign up for our free 6 to 8 hour event. Many people stay for the whole time. Some people stay for 3 or 4 hours. And this year we're focusing on how to change your brain so you change your income and your wealth and the peace of mind and the lifestyle that comes with that. And so we're doing it again for free and people can sign up and I'll give you a link and we'll have a little bit of fun.

I love it. Beautiful. All right. So, John, I'll ask you one final question. And that is, I know you love your life, but I want to know, do you love your entire life? Yeah,

I do. I love where I'm at in my life right now. It's the first time in the last probably about 10 years it started where I'm starting to feel that I'm becoming wiser, right? And I've learned the art of slowing down so I could pick up speed, if that makes any sense. When I was younger, I was like, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. And now it's like, slow down, you know, slow. One of my friends, Phil Town, said, you know, I think he learned this in the Marines. He said, slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Well, like a rubber band, you know, if you played that when you were a kid, made a little rubber band, you know, gun out of, and you had to pull it back. You pull a rubber band back slowly, you pull it back slowly, and then it speeds up. So yeah, sometimes we need to slow down to speed up for sure. I just, to say this in the most direct terms. I love you. I love, I love how you, how you help people, how you show up in the world and you model what you speak about, because not everybody who talks about things or teaches or writes about things is always actually living that way. And I know how you live, and, and the two things are quite congruent. So if you don't mind my saying that to you, I appreciate that very much.

I appreciate you and love you too, my friend. I, um, I know it's important for you to be in congruence also. One of my holding companies is called Praxis International. And praxis means the integration of your beliefs with your behavior.

Loving your entire life is what it means to be change-proof. And so, here's to all of us being agnostic to change, meaning if change doesn't take us out, we just—

It's the only constant.

It's the only constant. Exactly. Now, I put up on the screen for those of you that may be watching this on YouTube, there's There's a URL that says resiliencerank.com. Those of you just listening, resiliencerank.com, you can write that down. It's in 3 minutes, 16 questions that you can answer to determine where it is that you are showing signs of great resiliency and where it is that you might actually be in need of some improvement mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, as John was talking about. Resilience is a complicated topic. So we try to simplify it. 3, 4 minutes, you'll have those answers. And then most importantly, And most importantly, you'll get the kind of resources all for free that might help you to create some of those new rituals for increasing your resiliency in one of those areas that might be lacking. I absolutely love the fact that we got to do this today. I love the conversation. We welcome your comments. You can go to adamarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment or leave one on iTunes or anywhere else that you'd like. But we want to keep the conversation going. And if you've got questions for John, Of course, we'd love to be able to direct you to John for those answers as well. But otherwise, it's an absolute pleasure. I hope in this moment, more than anything, you've enjoyed yourself and that you truly do love your life no matter what. You love your entire life. That is absolutely our goal in doing this, and we appreciate your help as well. So ciao for now, everybody.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights To build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.