This content was created by Dave Kashen. This content was uploaded by Dave Kashen. This is a YouTube video titled "Why Your Brain Overreacts to Fake Threats! #innergame #clearthinking #entrepreneurmindset" (uploaded/created 2025-12-01). It contains a monologue by Dave Kashen explaining, with a river-and-crocodile metaphor, how human neurobiology overreacts to perceived (but often non‑existent) threats, the experiential difference between 'above the line' (presence, trust, responsibility) and 'below the line' (bracing, victimhood), and the Conscious Leadership Group framing of responsibility and creating one’s experience — a mindset/inner-game talk aimed at clarity and emotional regulation for entrepreneurs and leaders.
Chapters
Imagine you're floating down the river of life and you trust the river. You know, then you can kind of like, ah, you know, you can kind of kick back, pretty relaxed, right? You might be curious and intrigued, like, oh, where's it taking me? But you're in a pretty peaceful state, right? Because you trust the river. And then out of the corner of your eye, you see a log that looks like a crocodile, and our minds being, you know, as they are, you think it's a crocodile. Well, now you're in a really different state, right? Now you're like swimming upstream, right? Like trying to control where you end up, maybe holding on for dear life to a branch so you don't go forward toward it. It's not actually a crocodile, right? This is what's so pernicious, I think, about our wiring is that we're like wired for a threat level 10, even though we live in a world where threat level's actually 1. I think that's because our neurobiology hasn't evolved that much, even though our environment has. So we think we see this crocodile. Now we're in this state of threat. It's not a real threat, but we perceive it. And so you can kind of imagine your experience. You're bracing against the river, right? You're constricted. So I can often feel in my body whether I'm above the line in a state of trust, presence, right? Am I here now or am I paying attention to this crocodile that in the future I think is going to attack me and eat me? So I'm scaring myself and I'm in threat. And my mind wants to be right that it's a crocodile, even though it's not. I believe that story and then I'm in fear. So that's kind of the dynamic of it. It's like, am I bracing against life? And that's like resisting life, resisting what's happening. Or am I open, curious? Another way to think about it is, I don't think I mentioned this, life hap— below the line, my stance is life happens to me, right? I think maybe I did mention this. Above the line, life happens by me. So the shift from below the line to above the line is in taking responsibility for that which you previously have not taken responsibility. And what I mean, what the Conscious Leadership Group means by the word responsibility is seeing yourself as the creator of the experience.
