Dr. Don Wood - SpartanX - Oracle Park, San Francisco

So I want to introduce Dr. Don Wood. But before I do, just tell you how we met. I, about three years ago, I believe now, presented a healthcare conference and. And Dr. Wood walked up to me and we started talking about performance and the executives and companies that I work with. Dr. Wood said, do you ever get into a conversation with an executive that maybe has something that you discover along the way that is getting in the way of them performing at a higher level? And I said I did. And we started to talk and Dr. Wood explained to me what he does and the work that he does. And he's written a book, he's going to talk about that. We're going to have him come up and actually take you through a very small time frame, an exercise that will give you an idea of what Robert Killian went through. And so this is all about performance. So again, if you think about what Juliet and Kelly said in terms of our physical performance and how far we can go, and then you think about what are those things that could be getting in the way of us being the best version of ourselves or competing at the highest level. Sent a number of executives to Dr. Wood. I've gone through his program, have been really impressed with it, and we want to share him with you today and let him take you through an exercise. So, Dr. Wood, please.

Working. Yep. Excellent. Thanks, Lonnie.

I mean, obviously, Lonnie, what a great guy. He does such a great job at moderating these things. I mean, I always have to say thank you to him because he does such a great job.

And then Jess back there doing all the stuff that she does here for this. It's incredible, this look. But boy, she does a lot of work. What a great privilege to be able to work with Rob as well. I was just talking to him afterwards. You really have to watch an athlete like that perform. It's different. There's nothing like it in the world. I mean, it's incredible. He's at such a high level. It's so exciting to watch. And I've had the chance to work with a number of great athletes like Rob and all what we're doing in the program that I did is just give him a 1% advantage. Just that little, little tweak, right? He's already a world class athlete. But when you can get that little, excuse me, that little advantage. What I discovered was I grew up very, very fortunate in a home that never had any trauma. My parents never argued, never fought. I never got any kind of trauma. So my central nervous system was constantly regulated as A child. And so I played hockey. I got six concussions, 60 stitches, never missed a hockey game. I used to heal fast. I still do. I never get sick. I've been healthy all my life. And I believe that that was coming from the ability to heal quickly because there was nothing interfering with my body healing. What I discovered when I met my wife is that she was not living in that house at all. She had a very traumatic childhood, a very angry father. So she was constantly living in fear. She later in life burnt out her thyroid. She has Hashimoto's because her cortisol levels are constantly going off. So it was affecting her health. My daughter developed Crohn's when she was 14, and then when she was 16, she told us about some trauma that happened to her between the ages of six and eight, whereas another girl had been molesting her. So my wife finally we did. She had four resections done. She was constantly sick, always in the hospital. And so my wife finally said, you got to figure this out. You got to come up with an answer because she's not getting better. They took her. They took her off a gluten and dairy. They put her on a steady dose of steroids, four operations. Nothing was helping. So what I started to look at is I said, there's got to be a reason this is happening. And what I discovered is that a lot of people are getting sick and feeling bad because of trauma, unresolved trauma. And what I discovered is that if we have unresolved trauma, we create inflammation in the body. The inflammation then affects the immune system and the neurotransmitters. So people are getting sicker and feeling bad. So now that we know that trauma is having that effect, how do we fix it? What they're currently doing is teaching people to live and manage and cope with it. Gut anxiety, whatever, bipolar, whatever they're coming up with, it's all symptoms of the mind not feeling safe. What I discovered is that trauma continues to loop, just like Rob had talked about. That event that he had experienced was continually looping. Anytime you have an emotion, a feeling, a sensation or a thought, your mind is calling for an action want you to do something. So when you think about something that happened five years ago and you feel fear, the problem is your subconscious mind, which is survival based, is seeing it in real time. So it creates a physiological response to get you to do something about something that's not happening. I worked with a number of the Boston Marathon bombing survivors. So Rebecca Gregory was three feet from the first bomb that went off. She lost her left leg. She came to see me after five years. She was suffering with PTSD for five years, Nightmares every night. And what I said to her, I said as she started to talk about it, I said, do you know why you're shaking and crying right now? And she says, well, because of what happened to me. And I said, right, but your mind thinks a bomb is about to go off as you're describing it. Doesn't it make sense that your mind would try to protect you if it thought there was a bomb behind you? That's where the emotion was coming from. So she said, well, you. I was told that you could clear my PTSD in four hours. And I said, yeah, we can. She went through the program. No more ptsd. She hasn't had a nightmare in over a year and a half. Completely stopped because we stopped the loop.

So what I always ask people is I'll ask you and you can all do this together at the same time. Think about this. What did you eat for dinner last night? Just think about it for a second.

As you think about it. You saw pictures, right, of what you ate? Pictures of maybe where you were and what you ate. That's how humans store information about events and experiences. But because last night wasn't disturbing or threatening, it was stored as a fairly low resolution file. Your mind's not going to respond to that. There's no threat to it. But when we have traumatic memory, all our senses are sight, smell, hearing. How's it recording it? High definition. So anytime anything sounds, looks or smells like that experience, there's something called the time slice theory. The subconscious mind is actually viewing the incoming information or data 400 milliseconds before you're consciously aware of it. When I saw that research was developed by two scientists at the University of Zurich, I said, it explains exactly what our program is all about. In the 400 milliseconds before you're consciously aware of it, your subconscious is doing a Google search. What does this look like, what does this sound like? And what happens? It looks at the old high res images, data. And what's it going to do? Instantly engage your nervous system to protect you. Now, if that keeps happening over and over and over and we create inflammation in our body, we're going to affect our immune system. We're going to get sick and we're going to feel bad, our neurotransmitters get affected. So in a four hour session, I can get the mind to reset that old traumatic data into the same format as what you ate for dinner. And it stops the response. Rebecca Gregory. This year was the sixth anniversary. She went back to the Boston Marathon. She said, I'm going to walk the entire same route that I did when the bomb went off. And I'm going to stand right where I was, where the bomb was. And she sent me a picture and said, no more fear, I'm standing there. She says, this wouldn't have been possible without that program. Without the program, all we did is get the mind to reset. Our mind and body, just as we heard earlier, are designed to heal what's interfering with it. Healing. For my wife, it was her trauma. My daughter, it was her trauma. Right. It can also come from food. We can get inflammation from food as well. So what we did is developed a program in the four hours. And I don't have four hours to take everybody through it, but I do it individually. We also have it online and I also do it in groups. And it works just as well on all of those. So what I wanted to do today, and this is because we don't have that much time, I want to take you through a little quick exercise. The key to performing, and this is why I call it a performance program. It's not trauma therapy because I start from the basis that there's nothing wrong with anybody. Everybody's mind works perfectly fine. What's interfering with you getting to that next level of performance. And if you read all the self help books, they'll tell you, stay present, stay in the moment. But our minds don't work that way. If it's continually feeling fear and if it's in a fight or flight response, it's going to constantly be activating which is going to affect. That's why I never got sick. That's why I was able to stay. I was always able to stay healthy because my mind could do the maintenance.

So what I want to show you is the key is to get into an alpha brainwave state. Alpha brainwave is basically between 7 and 14 Hertz. We have beta, alpha, theta and delta. Beta is basically 14-30 Hz cycles per second is active, pretty active.

You know, working on a whole bunch of stuff that's beta. When you go into Alpha, it's between 7 and 14. They believe Albert Einstein lived in that state. Information just flowed. So what we did when we worked with Rob is to say we want you competing in alpha brainwave state because the mind feels very relaxed. Information flows, there's nothing else coming in except what I'm doing now, staying in the present and the only thing that he needed to be focused on is running and staying in the best space that his mind could be. When you go into Theta, you go into sleep. That's where we dream. And the mind is processing, processing everything that happened during the day. Plus, for my wife, and probably for a lot of people here, it's also processing unresolved. So my wife never slept very well. We talked about sleep here today, too. So if you're not sleeping, you're going to affect your health. My wife's mind was constantly trying to fix her childhood, trying to do it differently because it kept seeing it in real time. And then when you go into Delta, it's dreamless sleep. That's where the maintenance gets done. My wife had trouble getting into delta sleep. I would go into it quickly. So I got a lot more maintenance done. So I'm going to take you through an exercise just to sort of get you into that alpha brainwave state. We develop a whole technique that gets you there and gets you into that alpha brainwave state instantly. But I also want to show you in this exercise how the subconscious mind responds to stories, symbols and metaphors. It's more of our primitive mind, and that's how it responds and responds to its environment. So this exercise is basically going to take you. Everyone's going to have their eyes closed. I'm going to take you through it, and I'm going to allow your mind to see some imagery. And then when we're finished, you're going to be able to go on our site, we have a link that will explain to you what your mind saw. Everybody has a different interpretation of what we're going to go through. But you can go through the exercise and find out what all those things mean. And at the same time, I'm going to get your mind to bring you something that needs to be either resolved or maybe it's something that your mind wants to show you, that it's something that was a great time in your life. Your mind will come up with its own interpretation. So this is going to take just a few minutes. Going to have everybody have their eyes closed. So if everybody would just close their eyes and just follow along, there's nothing that you need to do. As your eyes are resting closed, just simply listen to the sound of my voice. As your eyes are resting closed. And now as your eyes are resting closed and you're listening to the sound of my voice, you'll notice at the same time that you're listening to the sound of my voice, you're Also able to listen and identify other sounds, other sounds that may be inside the room, other sounds that may be outside of the room, other sounds that may even be outside of the building.

At the same time that you're listening to the sound of my voice, you're also able to listen and identify other sounds. And as you're listening to the sound of my voice and listening and identifying other sounds at the same time, now you can bring attention to your breathing. And you'll notice that by bringing attention to your breathing, you can notice that your breathing has begun to slow down. You can notice that your breathing has changed. And at the same time, you can continue to listen to the sound of my voice and listen and identify other sounds. And now I want you to imagine yourself taking a walk. And you're taking a walk in a forest.

And I want you to take a look around and take a look at the trees. And as you look at the trees, notice whether or not the trees are in a straight line or the trees are scattered in random order.

Take a notice of whether they're in straight lines or the trees are in random order.

At the same time, now you can notice whether or not this is daytime or nighttime as you're walking in the forest.

And at the same time, you're noticing whether it's daytime or nighttime. As you're walking along the path, take a look at the path and notice whether or not the path is wide or is the path narrow.

Is the path old.

And worn or is the path new?

And as you're walking along this path, you'll notice on the ground is a key. I want you to take a look at the key and notice, is the key old or is the key new?

Has a key got an ornamental shape or is it just a normal key?

And now, as you're looking at the key, you can make a decision whether to pick up the key or continue walking and just leave the key on the path. Make the decision to either pick up the key and take it with you or leave the key on the path.

And as you're walking up the path, you'll notice you'll see a cup and this cup on the path. Take a look and notice, is the cup old or is the cup new?

Is it big or is it small?

And notice whether or not there's anything inside the cup or is the cup empty?

And as you continue walking, passing by the cup, you'll notice up further ahead on the path, in the distance, you can notice a bear. And as you see the bear on the path, Notice whether or not the bear is big or the bear is small.

Does the bear look friendly or does the bear look menacing?

And you'll notice the bear.

And then the bear walks off the path. And you continue walking along the path. And you'll notice at the end of the path is a house. Take a look at the house and notice is the house big or is the house small?

Is the house new or is the house old?

And now as you're looking at the house, you'll notice that everything around you, up, down, sideways, everything turns white.

Everything you can see in front of you, behind you, everything has turned white.

And you can notice all the white all around you. And. And now let's ask your mind to scan and search throughout your entire life for an event, an experience that your mind wants to share with you. And the event and the experience that your mind is going to share with you may be something you needed to know, something that needed to be resolved. Maybe it's just a time in your life where it was a great time. Or let your mind bring that event into your mind now.

And as you're noticing this event.

You'Ll notice that now everything around you has changed color. And the color that your mind is going to choose for you is a particular color for you.

It's possible that the white could stay or the color could change. Just allow your mind to bring whatever color you see. At the same time, it continues to scan and search for an event. And perhaps your mind will bring the event to you. Now, perhaps your mind will bring the event to you tonight or tomorrow, but your mind will definitely bring an event to you.

And now.

When you're ready and in your own time.

You can allow your eyes to open.

Wow, we got quiet. It was very quiet.

Up on the. You'll see this.

Website there. If you go to that, you can just. There's going to be a link which will give you the definitions to all those things. There was a definition to whether or not it was light or dark. The trees were in order or the trees were random.

The colors, all those things have a meaning. Your subconscious mind would create that meaning for you based on the way it's experienced life. So just something for you to look at. And at the same time, one of the events that your mind will bring to you, right. Hopefully, is a great experience for you, something that your mind can help you with. If you have any questions, I'm going to be here for a little bit longer and I appreciate your time. Thank you.