The $1000 Brain Switch

Business brain episode 571 for Wednesday, August 7th professional speakers day 2024. Greetings folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas, we crunch them from, we use them to help tune our business brains so that we can A keep living that charmed life and B, keep doing something that. Shannon, you mentioned in our pre show. A three word phrase that I love. In fact, it was my grandfather's favorite phrase. It was the advice he gave me almost every. It was how he lived his life, but it was certainly the advice he gave me and that is we're going to work with each other to help learn how to beat the system. Because beating the system is the key to leading that charmed life. And yeah, here in Durham, New Hampshire I'm Dave Hamilton.

Yeah, out here in sunny California, I'm Shannon Jean. You know that was the tagline for my first big company that, that really took off, Mac Rescue was we help you beat the system. And we was a play on words because the system was the Mac Mac os.

Yes.

But it is a great philosophy that you should be figuring out ways to do things better and you know, if you just kind of get slotted and, and follow along, that seems boring to me and oh yeah, if you're finding ways to kind of go diagonal, it's often much more fun.

Yeah, well, I was gonna, I was gonna start adopting that phrase here in Business Brand week. But, but if it's something you've already lived with, you're. You're okay with, with the reuse of it.

All right, great. I've sold that business and they have that, that tagline is long gone.

Long gone. Yeah. Well it, it is, it is one that is near and dear to my heart. My grandfather was one of my favorite humans and that's awesome. He taught me a lot. Yeah, he's.

That's really cool.

He's the guy who invented the binocular viewing machines that you see at all the tourist traps and everything.

Yeah, yeah, that's very cool. And you have one of those, right?

I am, I still, I believe that I still am the only person to privately own one. The rest are all company owned and all that. Yeah, yeah.

That's a great, great family story. And it is awesome that you know, he passed down those. Just that those tidbits of wisdom that as living his life and what made a difference for him. Man, that's great.

It's awesome.

I think it's. Yeah.

I have another little tidbit that comes from my friend Dr. Dan or as he is known professionally, Daniel J. Levitin. He is a. He's a polymath. He's a fantastic musician. He is also a fantastic musician by practice and by training. And then also by. He is a cognitive neuroscientist by practice and by training. Yep. And he. And several other things, record producer and several other things too. He. I just interviewed him for my gig Gab podcast because of the musical tie ins to all of the things. But he said something during that. Oh, he wrote a book about 20 years ago called this is your brain on music where he explained what happens in your brain with music. He has essentially the sequel to that coming out later this month called I heard there was a secret Chord Music as Medicine, which really is the book he wanted to write 20 years ago. But there wasn't enough evidence to support music being having medicinal powers. Now there is. And so that's his new book. I'll put links to all that, but that's cool. He talked about something in, in the book and also in our chat that was really interesting. He talked about our default mode network, which he gave the best explanation of. This is something that exists in all of our brains. You know, when you're reading a book, for example, and you know that you're reading every word, but you realize that for the past five minutes you haven't like, you don't know what you've read, you haven't paid attention to it.

Absolutely.

Okay, great.

Absolutely.

It happens to all of us. That's our mind wandering. That's our daydreaming mode. That is our default mode network of the brain. Okay. This exists in all of us and it's healthy for all of us. And he says that people who take 15 minute breaks every hour and a half to two and a half hours. Ish. And just, you know, invoke, somehow invoke your default mode network. The easiest way is to go for a walk in the woods or actively listen to music. Like not listening to music while you're doing something else or meditating, any of those kinds of things, to just let our minds reset and process in that default mode network where our minds are doing more in the background than the foreground. He says the people that do that for 15 minutes every two hours or so. And this is cognitive neuroscientist, so data is important to him. It has been proven that those people are more productive, they operate more efficiently, they get more done than the people who just work through and try and, and not let their minds wander. And, you know, just Instead of taking that 15 minute break, they go and have another cup of coffee and you know, caffeinate their, themselves through the end of the day.

So that's interesting. You know, after, even after all these years, I still find, and I kind of think that I live a pretty uncommon life and I've fought to, to be able to do that.

Right. Yep.

But I still fight against this. Oh, I, I gotta put in this much time and I've gotta do these things. It's tough to get your head around output, you know, just, just output. What did I get done? And now I've gotta stop and let like you say, let this default. Default mode network kind of. Default mode? Yeah. Default mode network. Yeah. Dmn. Let it reset and take a few minutes and either pick up a book that you're gonna get, get yourself out of it. I think that's a, it's a great idea.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, reading a book would. Not necessarily.

Wouldn't be.

It can though, like if you get lost, if you get to daydream mode with reading a book where you're not actually reading the book. Yeah.

Sometimes it happens to me when I drive.

Driving.

That's crazy.

I think definitely showering, you know, all of those things that.

Did I already wash my hair? I can't remember.

I can't remember. Right. Because you're on autopilot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's what you want to get to is where you're just on autopilot and you're not actively thinking. The times, you know, that I spend in the tank, like those kinds of things are definitely there. Yep, yep.

That's amazing.

So give yourself permission to take that break and just do nothing but meditate or walk for 15 minutes every couple of hours. You'll be more productive. It's proven.

Do you let your employees do that too?

Uh huh.

Yeah. That's pretty.

I think you encourage your employees. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's fascinating.

Yeah. Yeah. Why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you want them to be more productive?

No, you would, you would. I was trying to figure out how do you, how do you build it in to where it's like, you know, maybe if you're in a tech worker, you know, kind of thing, that's more acceptable.

Yeah.

But if you're in a production type of environment or something, you'd have to figure out how to structure it to where people could take that break and they wouldn't be seen as slacking off or something like that.

Well, I think the, I think there's Two parts of that. That's really interesting. I think one part of it is the company culture of embracing it so that it is not seen as slacking off. Right?

Yes.

And then the other part of it is structuring it so that people don't, so that people see the value in truly powering down for those 15 minutes and not like saying, well, I know I'm supposed to take a 15 minute break, but I really like, I want to like, if I, if I take a break, I'm lazy. You know, like you really prioritizing it for what it actually is. I think what it's supposed to be.

Yeah.

What it's supposed to be?

The disconnect.

That's the disconnect. Yeah.

Yeah. So while we're talking on this brain, you know, stuff, it's interesting that that was your intro topic because I want to talk about this concept that I've been, we, we've, we've discussed this in, over the years of, you know, making some, making your first independent money. Right. Making some money on your own and how it impacts the way you think. And I, I, I call it, I've taken to call it this thousand doll brain switch.

Okay.

Meaning if you can learn how to make a thousand bucks, and I'm not even put a timeline on it, it's just make a thousand dollars. That I think is, it's dramatically alters the way you think about life. And I've been, you know, really talking about or thinking about ways to help other people get to this point and I, I've been. This, this framework I've been using is like entrepreneurship. It's kind of being like off the grid, meaning you're not relying on someone else to provide your paycheck, your health care, all this kind of stuff. And you know, but also it ties into your, how can you make that first thousand dollars to prove to yourself and your brain and your inner judge that I can make it. I can. Yeah, I made a thousand bucks.

Now how can do it again?

Yeah, like do it again and over and over. And maybe it took you six months to make that thousand bucks, but it's such a milestone. Then you can work on, okay, how do I now make a thousand dollars in, you know, three months? How do I make a thousand in a month? How do I make a thousand in two weeks?

So this is interesting. I think we've all heard people, wealthy people say my first million was the hardest.

Yes, of course.

But that's something that's unfathomable to someone who has Accessible. It's not accessible. That's the right word. It's not the thousand dollars. It's the same switch, by the way. The first million versus the first thousand.

It's exactly the same thing.

Put whatever number you want in there. It's the same switch. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, you can do it. Like, I put it in a newsletter recently, ways to get there, you know, you can buy stuff and sell it. That's great. There's all kinds of ways to do that. I've done that my whole life. You can sell your talent if you're a musician, if you're an artist, if you're. One of my favorite examples is years ago, I got a gift, and it was a couple of frame prints. And I love to fish. And they were just prints of these beautiful fish, but they were printed on top of old. Like an old book, a page from an old book. In this case, it was all about fishing. And so they had this beautiful thing. And I. If you go to Etsy, you can get anything you can imagine printed on an old piece of, you know, book, a dictionary, an encyclopedia, whatever it is. And there are people that sell these pages for anywhere from, like 10 to 20 bucks. But if you look at the volume they sell, they're making thousands of dollars a month selling this. Oh, yeah, you want me to print a picture of a fish on a piece of, you know, a dictionary encyclopedia? It's just right in front of us. Easy things that are. That are easy to do, and then like selling your expertise, you know, if you're good at something and somebody needs help and figuring things out. But I just think that. And I think that accessibility is the right answer and that you hit on it. And maybe that's like. There's a great show called my. Or a great podcast called My First Million. These guys are tremendously successful. I have a ton of respect for them. But it's such a high bar that you're setting to start. You know, it's.

It's like there's. I was gonna say there's a lot of people. I would say most people out there think they will never make a million dollars.

Correct. And so my. The framework thought process more is like, let's. Let's make the thousand first. And then. And this is. We've repeated this ad nauseam over the years. You make the thousand, then you can learn to make 10,000, then you can learn to make 20, and then you can learn to make 30. Because you learn it. It's like a muscle. It's just getting started. It doesn't matter what you do. And it doesn't. More than likely you won't make any money at the beginning, but you're, you're.

Learning, training yourself that you, you, that you can create value people.

Yes, you, you can do it. And you know you're going to make mistakes. You know, we, our philosophy mistakes are tuition and, and then you're just going to keep going and going and so embracing this concept of where is my thousand dollar brain switch? Where is it? Is it. What can I do? Can I sell stuff out of my closet on Poshmark? Can I, you know, do I have something I can do on Etsy? Like one time I thought, you ever seen those like steampunk lights that are kind of bent and they have, they're made of like black plumbing pipe and they're really cool. And I looked on Etsy and I'm like, I wanted to buy one. It's like, that's $700. That's ridiculous. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do it. So for sure I was like, I can make that. So I went down to the Home Depot and I bought all this black pipe, very expensive, by the way. Had no idea. No idea. And then I, I did some little research and I wired this up and then I bought some very cool LED Old fashioned LED bulbs.

Oh yeah. And I made this old fashioned looking led.

Old fashioned looking, but they're led. And I was like, dude, I'm gonna. This was. I must have been bored at some business or another. I'm like, I'm gonna make a business out of this. But it, it took me so long to make, I was like, I'm not gonna make a business out of this. But I hung it up in my family or above our kitchen table and I look at it all the time and I'm like, I made that. You know, I could, if I had to, I could make those things and make money on Etsy.

And that's the. I think that's another really valuable thing to bear in mind is the if I had to clause. Because you might not ever have to. And that's okay. But what you're talking about with the thousand dollar brain switch is you're training yourself to be confident that you can make the next thousand dollars.

Exactly.

And that confidence buys you freedom because you don't feel like, well, I just have to do the thing I've always done because that's the only way I can make money. You've proven to yourself that there are other ways to make money. Right. So. And that simply having that knowledge is where the confidence to make the next, you know, big progress comes from. And the, the, if I had to stuff like you looking at that lamp like, okay, well, if everything else fell apart, if I had to, it, things haven't really fallen apart. I just need to do something different and you know how to make money. And more important, you know that you know how to make money.

Yeah, it's, it's a switch, man. It's your like inner judge. Because people get trapped and I, you know, I just rail against this concept that it's less risky to work for somebody else. I hate it. Because it's not true.

False.

It's false. It's a myth. And it's taught since we're little kids. Oh, you go to work, you get a good job and they take care. No, they don't.

No, no. They take care of themselves.

Learn. Yes, you're just a cog, you know, and so you can learn to take care of yourself and do it yourself. Get off the grid, you know, from the economics that, you know, everybody else gets involved in. And then hire those people that don't want to go out and don't believe in the thousand dollar brain switch. Those are great people and they need jobs and so you can do that. And, and, but yeah, I, I, I really like this concept and I've been thinking about it for a long time of how to phrase it and bring these things together that we've discussed. And so I'm, I'm really kind of leaning into this thousand dollar brain switch. You're going to hear me talking about it all the time.

I like it, man.

It's wear a T shirt one day.

I like the T shirt idea too. That's a great idea. That's awesome.

Yeah. So, so if you, you know, if you think I'm crazy or we, we maybe we figured it out, I don't know. But you know, feedback Businessbrain show Share what you've done to, to flip your own switch and become an entrepreneur. Build those muscles so you could be successful. We would love to hear it.

Yeah, absolutely. Like he said, feedbackusbrain show and let us know. What, what, what specifically have you done that helped you flip that switch? Or what do you think you could do? Or do you need help flipping that switch? Let us know and we'll help you flip it because that's what we want to do because we want you to beat the system. We want you to lead that charmed life and we can all do it together. So we'll see you on Friday, folks. Later.