How The Mind Works

How does the mind work? This is a tough question. If I figured this one out, I think I would be a billionaire, right? How does the mind work has been the question of everything we know, from human philosophy to psychology to modern studies of neuroscience, just trying to figure out, how do you tick, how do you think, what's going on in our heads? I think that's a great question and obviously that was just my way of stalling to try and get this answer. I think that how we think is always framed really in four ways. How our mind actually works. We can talk about all the neural mechanics of it, the biology, right? From the hormones and the molecules released in our bodies to the actual operational components of our neurons, to exactly what parts of our brain fire off what types of thoughts or control what types of movement or sort of development in our body. And all that is really great. There's a lot written on that. So let me just contribute some four simple ideas about how the mind really works. Because I like to make it a little more simple than some people. Because at the end of the day, the question about how does the mind work? I think it comes down to this question of how can we learn how it works in a useful way? To us, it's really great to learn about all the different synapses between our neural pathways. It's really great to understand how myelin works and what controls our DNA structure and everything else like that. But at the end of the day, what's useful for us? And I think the first thing we need to know about how the mind works is it is so incredibly driven by the current information at hand. And we don't give enough credit to that. We often think, well, the mind is completely past conditioned. Your past conditioned how your mind is today. And it conditions to everything that you're going to do today. But that may or may not be true based on the environment, the circumstance, the situation you're in. The situation has a lot to do. The social circumstance or the physical environment that you're in has so much to do with how your mind works, right? You know that it's so basic, right? You could be sitting watching a horror film and you could be watching it and you be fairly comfortable in your house, you're on your sofa, you're consuming some popcorn, everything's going pretty good. You're like making fun of the actors. You're like, I would have tripped there and got killed, right? You can be comfortable and peaceful watching a horror movie, but let's put you in the actual situation. And now Your mind is flipped out and you're terrified and you're running and you're tripping all of yourself because fear is driving you. Adrenaline, cortisol, you're fired up, you're terrified, and you make the same mistakes. The difference was the situation. Where were you? Where were you at peace? What was the physical circumstances around you? So I think like to think of the first part of how our mind works is it takes in information about where we're at. It takes in an information to how we feel in that circumstance that we're actually in information. Think of your mind as a consuming and projecting organism, if you will. It's not really an organism because we can't see it or feel it or touch it. But let's just say that the mind is consuming and it's projecting and what it's consuming around us makes a big difference, right? You know this. When you're around negative people, your mind works differently. Suddenly you can easily become negative yourself. You can easily become sort of a gossip. Your mirror neurons are firing off and you're sort of mimicking or conforming to what's around you. And later on you're like, I'm not usually like that. What happened to me, it was just the information coming in. It had a lot to do with how your mind started focusing and how it started operating. So I always tell people, be cautious about what information you consume between by what physical environments or social situations you enter, because those things shape how you think, how you feel, how you behave, your overall psychology. But now what happens? Okay, some information comes in. So what? Well, the second part of our mind is so powerful is not only can it consume information, but the most powerful part about it is now it interprets it. It interprets information. It says, is this good? Is this bad? Is this safe? Is this dangerous? Should I approach? Should I not? Should I deal with this? Should I not? What does this mean to me as a person? Does this mean, you know, I'm good as a person, I am bad? Does it mean the world is good? The world is bad? Interpretation happens. It tells us what to do. Should we deal with this or not deal with this? All these questions, right? Any amount of information, but people interpret it different. And that's a big telling point about how our mind works. You put seven people on a street, they all witness the same information. Car A smacked into car B. But all seven people will tell the story of what they saw happen differently because their mind was conditioned differently from their past. Their mind took in different parts of information. Some People were more auditory, they heard something that, that pointed their focus in one way. Other people are more visual. It made them pay attention to something. Some other people have a bad memory, so they interpreted something differently. But all seven people might interpret the same thing, the same physical, real world event differently. And that's the power of the mind, interpretation. We could all see the exact same thing, but interpret something different. That's a good thing. And sometimes it's a frustrating thing. I mean, think about the last fight you got in with somebody you loved. It was probably really a fight about interpretation. They felt disrespected. But you're like, I didn't say anything that would disrespect you. And now you're fighting about who's respected. And it is only a game of interpretation. Part of the mastery of learning how to understand other people's psychology is simply understanding how they interpret things. Do they interpret things as positive or negative? As things they can deal with, they can't deal with? As things that mean they are safe or unsafe, challenged or unchallenged, good or bad? All of those things shape our mind. Well, if we take in some information and we interpret it, what happens next? And by the way, I don't mean to make this a linear conversation, but all these things are happening at the same time, right? You're getting information right now, and you're interpreting it. You're getting this information from me and you're like, this guy's an idiot. It means nothing to me. Or, or you're saying, you know, right now in my life, this is valuable to me. I don't know how you're interpreting it, but I do know that there's a high likelihood that you're intending to watch this now, because part of the mind that's so powerful to you is intention. We have intentions for who we want to be as people, for how we want to relate with other people, for what we want to create and contribute to the world. And those are our dominant intentions in life. Who do I want to be? How do I want to interact and relate with other people? And what do I want to do? Those are our dominant intentions. So that can form a very powerful aspect of our mind that can actually overwhelm the other things. So let me give you an example. Let's say something terrible happens. Some information comes into the world, it's terrible. We could all interpret it as something that's fearful and driven, and all of a sudden everyone starts to run from it. Say, for example, a burning building, burning bit. That's information, there's a building, it is on fire, right? Interpretation. People say danger, they run. But other people can have the intention that supersedes their interpretation. They can say danger, and every part of their body could say run. But their intention is to be a servant. Their intention is to be a hero. And their intention overrides their interpretation of danger. And they run in the building to save people. Our intention of who to be can rewrite our past history. Because maybe, you know, you were in some bad relationships, you got hurt a lot, you had a lot of frustrations, you know, people didn't treat you well in the past. It would be easy to see anything that someone does as an interpretation, that they're threatening you or that, you know, they're minimizing you. But if your intention is to remain open to love, your intention is to remain open to relationships. Your intention is to trust people. Let your intention to have healthy, positive, powerful, deep relationships, you can let that can override your past. That's another power of the mind. Intention. And then, of course, what do we do with all this? All this comes in. Well, the mind shapes our initiative, our behavior, what we're actually going to do. And our mind is shaped by what we have done, right? If you've acted for all of your life as a coward, that conditioning has gotten into your mind, right? The habit of running away, of not speaking up for yourself, of remaining silent, of not asking for what you want, of not taking initiative towards your dreams, suddenly is added up to a mind that says, I'm weak, incapable and unworthy. But if you found yourself taking action throughout your life, having a lot of initiative, your mind develops a greater level of self determination, self regulation, the ability to say, oh, I can direct myself today. I can direct my mind and my thoughts today. And initiative. We forget this is such a powerful shaper of mind, right? Your past habits shape your current thoughts. And once you become aware of that, now we can put it all together and understand a lot about how the mind works. The mind works because it focuses on things. And as the brain is focusing on things, the mind starts shaping up some thoughts, interpretations about what things mean all around us and what we should do with it. Our intention kicks in and says, great, I got this information. I feel this way about it. What's next? What kind of person do I want to be? How do I want to overlay my consciousness to the this so that I can act as who I want to be, relate how I want to relate, and do what I want to do? And then we either take action from that, or we don't take action from that. And our initiatives start adding mind and strength to our mind. And that all becomes the momentum of how we think today. So your mind is shaped by what information have you consumed in the past? What have you seen, experienced, saw, be part of? What physical realities have you been in, social realities? And how did all those add up to shape a worldview, shape the way that you interpret things, the way you interpret yourself, the way you interpret other people, the way you interpret even why you're here? Thinking about your intention, how clear have you been in the past years about what you wanted to think, feel and do that shaped the power of your thoughts, whether or not you feel like you have agency and control in your life or other people do. Because if you haven't had any intention for yourself, guess what? The world's had plenty of intention for you. The world's told you who to be, the world's told you how to act, the world's told you what to do. And if you let everyone else's intention override yours all the time, your mind becomes weaker, less confident, less strong. And ultimately your actions. There's no better yardstick of measurement of a human being than their actual initiative. The actions, what have they done? What do they do on a daily basis? Are they taking action? Are they moving forward? Or are they just stuck? All of these things begin to shape your mind. And I hope that gives you an idea about how your mind works. And once you kind of understand those things, you start paying attention to them. I'm going to consume and be part of information. Physical environments that activate the good parts of me. I'm going to interpret things in positive ways for myself and for my life and for my health and relationships. I'm going to set powerful intentions when I ever go into a situation so that I'm clear about what I want. So my mind is focused on generating the reality I want to experience and taking action so that your mind feels stronger, more confident and more capable. If we can do all these things, we can start to experience what we call the Charge life. Hey guys, it's Brendan. Did you like this episode? If you did, you can do three things right now to continue your journey. First, you can subscribe right here to my channel, which I hope you will, so I can keep sending you videos on a weekly basis to change your life. Second, you can get my brand new book for free by clicking the link right here. And third, you can also go to my website, sign up for my newsletter so I can send you free offers, free products, free programs, updates on my events, new podcasts, and everything else that we don't do on this channel here. Here. If you like to do that, just go ahead and click any of these buttons you see right here. Look forward to seeing it on the next video. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly, and make your difference today.