Blair Singer explains how repetition builds neural pathways, citing research on myelination and learned optimism. He outlines a daily practice: set goals, give to others, list ten things you're grateful for, note what others do for you, and write what makes you happy.
You. Hi, this is Blair Singer, best selling author of Little Voice mastery, sales dogs, ABCs of how to build a business team that wins. And very recently I read a great book that you might want to pick up almost as good as Little Voice Mastery. It's called Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. And he talks about how in your brain, how we develop habits, how you actually become very good at something, that very little of what we achieve is by accident. It's because of repetition, the way your brain myelinates the nerve endings in your brain the more you repeat something. So what I got from the book is that you are what you repeat many times. That seems obvious, but it's not so obvious in the case of your little voice and how it can really sabotage you. A lot has been said about optimism and pessimism, but every time you look at a situation and you look at all the things that could possibly go wrong, then you. And every time you do that, now, people would say, now that's good because you're looking for the problems so that you can prevent them from happening. But the problem with doing that is you become very, very good at looking for the problems. It's expecting something bad to happen or expecting something not good to happen. So you begin to attract all the problems into your life. You ever notice that the reward for solving a problem is another problem which can be good if you have the right attitude about it. And I find that what most people do is they spend most of their lives reacting to problems rather than setting goals and actually achieving something for themselves. So the reason I'm bringing this up is I ask you to take a look at what is your natural pattern? What is it you become very good at? What have you myelinated in your brain when it comes to challenges, when it comes to goals, when it comes to things happening in your life? Marty Seligman wrote another good book called Learned Optimism, where he talks about some people are naturally optimistic, looking at what can go right, as opposed to people who are pessimistic. They're always looking at what can go wrong. And even when something good happens, they lay it off to chance and not to their own efforts. I say this to you because most of you, if you're watching this, you work very hard. You probably are very conscientious about what you do. You're probably even borderline self deprecating because you're always looking at how can I improve? What's going on with me? How do I fix that? Am I right? I know I'm right. Because I'm the same way too. The problem with that, however, is again being the pessimist here. The problem with that is that every time you look for the problem, you're going to find more problems. And what's important to do is to build habits in the opposite direction. That's why one of my mentors, Alan Walter, gave me a great process which I'll give to you right now. It's called a gratitude process. It's a process in which every single day you write down in a journal the things that you are most grateful for. Why is because you need to train your brain to appreciate the things that you want on a regular basis if you want to attract those kinds of things. If you're always looking, have a goal about what you want, but always looking at what the problems are, what the pitfalls are. You're going to face lots of pitfalls and lots of problems make sense. So daily gratitude. What's my goal for the day? Could be to learn something new, could be to meet somebody new, could be to make 20 sales calls. Whatever it is, what's my goal for the day? Number one. Number two, what am I willing to give to others today? That's right. What is it you're willing to put out to other people today? Bucky Fuller always said you may never know your true purpose in life, but rest assured you're fulfilling it if you commit yourself to the greatest number of people, to the highest advantage of others. Number three, what are the 10 things that you're most grateful for today? And notice whether you include yourself. Like for me, I include my family, my health, my God given talents, my team, my teachers, my mentors. Honor, integrity. What are the things about you and in your life that you're most grateful for? Focusing on that every single day, by the way, those can change. My 9 year old always says first on his list is are toys, ice cream and candy. So whatever yours are, I'm not sure the number four question, the question is what am I grateful for that someone else does for me? If you want people to do more for you, then write down what you're grateful for that someone else does for you. And finally, what am I happy about? And that could be a very long list or a very short list. And it may be happy just to be alive, maybe happy just to be watching this video, but whatever it is, you have to, as Dan Coyle says, you have to train your brain on a regular basis to focus on the things that you want. Then you'll go from always looking, waiting for the shoe to drop for waiting for the pot of gold to arrive. It's a much different perception. You deserve it. You work hard enough now you need to train your brain to attract things in the right direction for you.
