Heroic Chat with John Assaraf: Understanding Neuromechanics

Foreign. What's up everybody? Welcome back to a special session, kind of a joint a chats with masters luminary live coaching session. Fired up to be welcoming John Osra. Your bio is insane. Good sir. You are known as the brain whisperer. I know we're going to talk a lot about the brain, the neuroscience of personal development of growth, achieving goals etc, but you're a leading high performance success coach, one of the leading high performance and success coaches in the world. Author of four books, two New York Times bestsellers, Having it all and the Answer. You are a CEO and co founder, created multiple billion dollar businesses. You've been featured in 11 movies including the Secret Quest for Success with Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama, frequent guest on Larry King Live, Anderson Cooper and Ellen. You've done a lot in your life. You've impacted a lot of individuals and today we're excited to learn a little bit more about your story and then some ways that we can use to improve our own lives and the lives of those that we serve. So welcome and I'm really looking forward to it.

Thanks Margaret. It's so great to be here and to serve your awesome community and Brian's awesome community.

I love it and thank you again to the I saw the, just a little the enthusiasm that you have for the book RT right. You and Brian had a great chat about it and just such really high praise for the book. What was it about Arete that you know, when you, you found you checked it out and obviously known Brian, but what was the, the sense of, of wow. This book is, is, is special.

So for 43 years I've been on a journey of self discovery. I've been on a journey of seeking wisdom, knowledge, skills, techniques, tools to first make my life better and then to impact the lives of, you know, my children, my wife, my family, my friends, my students. And Brian is a, is a just a brilliant researcher, passion for philosophy and a student. Right. He's a student that not only has used what he has learned by standing on the shoulders of giants that have written books or done research, but have experienced life and success, but he's been masterful at putting some of the best pieces together. And so in reading the book, it's just a phenomenal tool to get your thinking, you know, leveled up and your understanding leveled up based on the wisdom of the ages. And, and so that's one of, one of the reasons I loved it and I used to be one of the readers of Philosopher's Notes all the time and recommended it to tons of people. And so I'm a student, I'm a teacher, I'm an explorer of consciousness and human performance and behavior. And then I love to share what I learn with others. The good, the challenging, the bad, the ugly. And that's part of my journey.

I love that we'll come back to some of the good, the challenge and the bad, the ugly and the Stein cousins. I'll plant this either. But let's, let's say that you and I are meeting at a dinner party, right. And I have no idea what you're back. I don't know about these accomplishments. Hey John, what do you do? How do you describe that?

Yeah, a lot of times I said, you know, how so many of us feel like we have, you know, incredible potential, but sometimes we get stuck, sometimes we get in trouble and we don't know how to get unstuck and achieve maybe our life's goals and dreams and maybe more of our potential. Well, what I do is help people understand why they may be stuck, why they're not achieving their fullest potential. And I help them break free so they achieve more of their potential faster.

And how does that work?

It's all based in neuroscience and understanding what I call the neuromechanics. And in the last 20 years there's been an enormous amount of research on the brain. And a lot of people think that, you know, this brain, you know, is, is, you know, this three pound mass in our skull. But not a lot of people think of their brain as having, you know, like members of an orchestra. And each member of the orchestra may play a different instrument. We need a little bit more of this member, you know, this moment. And maybe these two need to be in synchronicity and harmony in this moment. And there's maybe there's a member of the orchestra that needs to lead it called the conductor. And then there's, you know, a part of the brain that is the CEO, the executive director and the leader of the imagination. But we also have another player in the band or the orchestra, you know, that's always looking for what's wrong and what could go wrong. And a lot of times the conductor, you know, and this member get into a lot of arguments and fights and there's this battle that goes on in their heads and most people don't know how to reconcile and lead the different parts of their own brain. They know how to drive their car, but they don't know how to use their hundred billion dollar brain Very well.

$100 billion brain. The, you know, the metaphor that comes up for me, too, is like going to an actual orchestra and, you know, they're all tuning ahead of time. This kind of, like, chaotic. It's cool. But then all of a sudden, it's like, tap, tap, tap. And then boom, it's all together. And that you just feel the coherence of the orchestra operating as a unit and that power. And I get excited thinking about my own brain and the times in which it's. Each instrument section is tuning itself, and it sounds like somewhat organized chaos, but then it kind of locks in and clicks, and it's this unified piece. So $100 billion brain. Yeah.

And what you just described, that harmony, right, isn't because everything's playing at the same tone or level. It's the harmony that everything is working in synchronicity. And when people are not in sync, you know, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, then you don't have that harmony. And, you know, one of the first things to, you know, I think everybody understands this is we're all made up of energy, right? And how do you unify, you know, your entire being to resonate and align with maybe your vision, your goals, and what you desire? And then what do you do when, let's say, a part of you is trying to take you off course and saying, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not worthy. You don't deserve this? Don't you know what's happening in the world right now? And it means that a member of the band or the orchestra is out of harmony. And so our job is to create a unification of the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions to align with the behaviors that are easy to understand what we need to do today, you know, to achieve any goal we have for wealth or health or business or relationship or spiritual growth. And flow. The flow state. A lot of people think the flow state, you know, is everything is just balanced. No, the flow state actually begins with a stress state. And we need a little bit of that. That energy of cortisol or, you know, that adrenaline within. A perfect combination like rocket fuel, you know, is a combination that allows the rocket to take off. We have this perfect combination of a little bit of stress, a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of risk with the reward, anticipatory neurochemicals of dopamine and possibly even serotonin, oxytocin. If we're. If we've got an environment that. That is feeding us as well, that's the perfect cocktail for high performance. And everybody thinks High performance doesn't have stress associated with. No. High performers turn fear into fuel. They turn stress into fuel, anxiety into fuel, uncertainty into fuel. And that's just a skill that most people have never learned.

And how might we learn that skill?

Well, if you want to learn the skill, first you have to say to yourself, okay, what triggers my fear center, for example? It's a circuit, right? If we think about the brains made up of three core networks, the salience, executive and default mode network. Those are networks that our brain, you know, uses. When one is on, usually the other one's off or the other ones are off. But then we have these, these circuits. So let's, let's, for example, say, let's just take the word stress, Michael, and say, what is stress? Like, what's a really good definition to help somebody understand when I feel stressed, what happened? Right. The stress circuit turned on, right? So the circuit turning on is an effect. The question is, what turned it on? Right. And since every brain functionally works the same, most people don't know this, but every brain, like almost every gasoline powered car, works functionally the same. Every electrical car functionally works the same. Every brain functionally works the same. So if I have a stress circuit and you have a stress circuit, how come the same things don't trigger mine? That may trigger yours. So here's a great definition we may want to start with for, for stress when the demand exceeds your current capacity. Now I can see by the guns you know on you that you exercise, right? And so guns, by the way, everybody's like big bicep muscles, right? So he's got, he's got, he's got guns. Now, in order to grow your bicep muscle, you do a variety of exercises, right? Whether you're doing pull ups, curls, you're doing a variety of exercise to, to micro tear the muscle so then it rebuilds a little bit stronger and a little bit bigger, right? Well, you're putting stress on the muscle. So stress isn't bad, right? And £20 for me might be stress for my bicep, but £55 for you may not be enough. So it's not the stimuli that activates the stress. So if we know that when that stress circuit is activated because of something happening right now or something I'm imagining might happen in the future, or I won't have the capability, the, the capacity to handle it mentally, emotionally, financially, that circuit goes off. It's an automatic reaction. So what are the neurochemicals that get released when that stress circuit's activated stress neurochemicals, cortisol, epinephrine, adrenaline, right? And then that causes people to be hyper focused on what they think is really happening. And that's they don't have the capacity to handle that thing. And so whenever cortisol, panephone, norepinephrine, whatever is running through our bloodstream, that causes a feeling, that's what a feeling is. But all emotions are triggered in the subconscious mind based on the meaning we have around things. And so when I feel stressed, then I automatically go into a fight. Fight it, try, work harder. Like fight it. I'm going to freeze, right? Like I'm going to sit there like a deer in headlight, not do anything, hoping that's going to go away or I'm going to walk away, I'm going to do something else, I'm going to procrastinate. Is I doing what I need to do? I'm going to react automatically with fight, flight, freeze. And some people faint under a lot of stress. So when that stress circuit is activated and we feel anxious. So stress, fear, worry, doubt, anxiety, panic, even left unchecked, that just means we're re triggering, okay. Whether it's our thoughts or we don't know how to regulate the emotion. And then we react automatically based on safety and security. So we fight it, we run away or we freeze. Most people don't realize that when the stress circuit turns on, there are two, what I call our inner sizes that you can do to turn off the switch.

Why?

Because when that switch is turned on, the thinking executive director part of the brain turns off. So first I want to turn off that circuit in my own brain. So how do I do that? Well, two simple ways right off the bat. Number one is called the physiological sigh. It's a breathing pattern where you breathe in, they breathe in again right away and then do that five times. That circuit turns off. We can look at somebody doing the physiological side and we could see blood flow moving from one part of the brain to the other. We can see it in nfmri machine. So the physiological psi deactivates that stress, fear, worry, doubt circuit, anxiety circuit. And then one other technique we can do if we don't want to do the physiological sign that works in like 15 to 20 seconds. We do what I call is inner size called take six, calm the circuit. So take six home. The circuit is this. Whenever the stress circuits activated, we tend to breathe really shallowly, right? We reduce the amount of air and oxygen in our lungs and diaphragm. So if we breathe and tell our brain and our body, hold on, you're feeling stressed, worried, doubtful, fearful, that's okay. The, the feeling's not the problem, that's the effect of something else. So we want to turn off the circuit first and, and then we, if we just went six deep breaths, slowly, slowly, slowly in through your nose, as slow as you can. I want you to focus on the air right at your septum, so right over here. And if you can, breathe through your diaphragm and into your diaphragm first and then into your lungs, expanding your chest so it's. And then when you're breathing, I like to pretend I have a straw in my mouth and breathe out as slowly as I can through a straw. When you do that six times in slowly, I'm giving a signal to my brain everything is okay, calm down. And then I will figure out how to navigate through this thing that's causing me stress, anxiety, worry, doubt or fear. So physiological sign number one, take six, calm the circuits. Number two. And then a third technique that I teach is called an inner size technique, is called Aya A I A. Now I got three techniques back to back that if I just started to use those, it'll change my life. And Aya, it's AIA stands for awareness. Awareness of my thoughts, awareness of my emotions, awareness of what I'm feeling, sensations and my behaviors. So why do I want to now be aware of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and behaviors? Well, awareness is what gives me choice on what I want to direct my energy and attention and focus to. So awareness. I'm stressed out because why? Well, I'm worried, right, that I won't have enough money to pay the rent, or I'm worried that I'm gaining too much weight, or I'm worried that she might leave me or he might leave. I'm worried that I'm scared that blank and fill in the mic. But when you do this in a calm state versus a stressed out state, now you've actually activated. You asked me about the Stein brothers, the CEO, executive director of the brain, the conductor of the whole brain is now you can be in a state of awareness. And now the awareness is what gives you choice. In a reactive state, you don't have choice. In a reactive state, you will always react at the highest level of your training under that stress. And most people don't practice mastering first being aware of, then managing, then mastering their awareness. So then they can go to phase two, which is what's your intention for the next five minutes? 30 minutes or one. What's your intention? Well, my intention is to write one chapter of the book. My intention is to have my relationship work. My intention is to start that business. My intention is to whatever it is, my intention is this for the next half hour or day.

Great.

Now we want to self direct saying what's one small action? So I as awareness, I is intention and a is action. Now what's one action step, small tiny action step I can take towards that which I choose and want versus where I was before. Moving away from something that's caused me stress, anxiety, worry, etc. So now what's happening? Now I am deliberately in a state of choice. I'm deliberately in a calm state so I can respond versus a stress state when I'm reacting automatically at the highest level of my training. So, so now by doing just those three and there's many, many more right now what am I doing? I'm actually retraining my brain that I am controlling it versus it. And the conditioned part of me is running my life.

I love it. And you mentioned the CEO Stein and I know, yeah, Einstein. The entire conversation is about which one of those Stein cousins is, is in troll. So go, go ahead and give us the now. Multiple times teased.

Multiple times teased. So I imagine when you're driving your car, Michael, you love having brakes and gas.

I let autopilot drive most times, but.

Yeah, but, but, but sometimes you need to take control and you want to have, you know, control the brakes and, and, and the, and the gas pedal. Right. And so what if there was a part of you just like in many new cars right now, there's radars for what cars are near you. There's sensors that tell you, are you out of gas? Is your left back tire low on air? Oh, the trunk is open. When you took the groceries out, you're leaving the car. Oh, the back window's open. Let's put it up. There are these sensors that are what I call our, our early warning or detection mechanisms. Right. To make your life a little bit easier in some cases to protect you. You're too close to a car, there's a car too close to you. You're running out of gas. You want to know that you're low on windshield wiper fluid. You know, a light might pop up on your dash. Have you ever considered when a light pops up on your dash in your car, reaching to the passenger side, getting a hammer and hitting it because you don't like the light?

Not personally. No.

Not personally.

Right.

Like most people like, no. What is the light trying to tell me? So let's understand the evolution of humanity or humans. 150,000 or so years of human evolution, and our brain evolved in a very, very specific way, right? Survival and safety above all else, right? So anything that our brain, based on our own map of reality, anything that we feel may affect our survival or may affect our safety, the early warning detection mechanism activates and says, hey, look over there. Hey. What if you fail? Hey, what if you try this and you lose money? What if you make time? What if you buy this and like last time, you don't follow through? What if you read this book? What if you take this course? What if you get this coach? What if. Negative, negative, negative, negative, negative. So there's entire database of your entire life history, maybe even some genetic predispositions that activates Frankie's monster, that little inner critic. Okay, based on your past, let's leave the past. From the time you were born, there may be some reasons to believe that there's some genetic information, you know, in our cells. But let's just say from the time you're born to now, you've developed, you know, these beliefs, you've developed these understandings, these biases, and, and anytime that safety or security is on the line, it activates Frankie's monster. But what about the second highest priority of the brain? Number one priority is safety and security. We know that for the survival of the species, Number two is avoidance of any kind of real or imagined pain or discomfort. So if this part of my brain perceives that something that I want to do, I want to get. I want to go back on a diet, you know, and lose weight and get in great shape. This is a part of our brain says, but you tried that 12 other times. And not only did you gain all the weight back, you spent all that money, you starved yourself, or you ate this, or you took that potion of your pillow, why even start? You're going to end up back where you were and you're going to just be disappointed again. So we have these mechanisms that keep us away from being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, disappointed away from failing, away from succeeding, losing our friends, away from loss, away from blank. These are automatic, subconscious, biological triggers that are wired 10,000, thousand times faster in the brain to avoid a future pain or discomfort of the same nature that we experienced or observed our parents or our teachers or our brothers, sisters, or friends experiencing around that topic of what we may want to do. So before we even get to motivation to take action, our Brain's going, will this hurt me? Will this kill me? Where is there any real or imagined danger? And then the number three highest priority of the human brain, and some people think it's number one, is conservation of energy. Our brain is using 25 to 30% of all of our calories for all the autonomic processes, all the subconscious processes and the cog, the, the, the conscious processes like cognition and work, which it doesn't want to do. It's generally lazy. And then the fourth priority of the brain is gaining pleasure, you know, and, and, and getting pleasure from sex or food or, or motivating, you know, to working towards what we want to achieve. So in between the vision, the goal we have and where we are right now, there's all these mindset and emotional limitations based on our conditioning, our beliefs, our self image, our, what we perceive to be fearful to us. And so why did I get into all this is because I've been a student of why do so many people read books, go to courses, watch podcast shows, whatever the case is? And oh my God, that was so good. And then they never take action, or they take action and they stop, they procrastinate, they self sabotage, all of which are effects of everything I just talked about. Procrastination isn't the problem. Fear isn't the problem. Anxiety is not the problem. Stress is not the problem. Those are effects of other neuromechanics, okay, that most people have never learned about, not in kindergarten, grade school, high school. And unless you went to some kind of a, you know, a university level, you know, course on this, or you've studied neuromechanics, especially in the last 10 years, you're not aware of, of you own the most powerful biocomputer in the entire universe that we're aware of, but we're all shitty users of this biocomputer.

And, and bless the last 10 years and all development that's gone into this obviously work that you've been doing, the general awareness, you can feel an excitement. I'm so excited too, for, for. I've got two daughters, I've got two sons, but like to think about the, the tools that my parents had at their disposal versus the tools that I have at my disposal to be able to support them in learning these things. Things and yeah, go for it.

Just, I, I was just on a call, I was mentioning to all of you a little bit earlier before we got on, you know, with a friend in Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil, who's very deep into artificial intelligence and we have just entered an era of that will dwarf the Renaissance age, dwarf the, the information age, dwarf the agricultural industrial revolution by a million. We now have access on our mobile phone or on our computer that is voice activated that we can ask the AI tool. There's, you know, thousand different tools right now. You know, how can I fill in the blank, stop this, start this, do this, do that. What's the best diet for me? Well, can you analyze these numbers? Can create a plan, anything that we want right now, in literally 15 to 30 seconds, we can not only have the answer, but we can have the plan that we can follow and have it coach us, train us and keep us accountable and tweak and measure iterate and change our plan right now. So not knowing how to is just been removed off the table and then we have a way to do whatever we want 100 to a thousand times faster. Not in a year. Right now. Now. A lot of people are afraid of it. A lot of people, you know, don't know how to use it. But it's a tool. It's. It's a tool. It's like a lot of people are afraid of, you know, nuclear energy. But you can use nuclear energy to light up a city or to destroy a city, right? You can use a knife to kill somebody or slice a tomato. You could use a microwave to warm up a nice hot cup of tea or to, you know, to nuke. Nuke a human being. If the mic is big enough, microwave is big enough.

So.

So right now is one of the most fascinating, phenomenal times in our lives where we're learning not only more about our human brain, but we have just taken literally a quantum leap in technology that can help us use our brain. And over the next five, 10 years, the integration of AI, the human brain and all of the knowledge, audio, video, text that ever has been created will be readily available for us in the next phase and evolution of our species and integrated into the electromagnetic switching station, which is what the brain is.

I love and I want to circle back to a couple pieces then. And then I got some curiosity around coaching, specifically in now the introduction of AI and coaching. But I want to circle back to one, the tool and the tools. I love your metaphors around tools. It's one of the things we talk about often with our app, right? And the technology. What if you could turn your phone into a tool not for distraction, but for traction, Something that helped you move towards you being the best version of someone Every single time you touched your phone or you felt the pull Towards I'm gonna reach in my pocket, I'm gonna go check that impulse. That impulse instead of being directed towards consumption or entertainment, whatever it is, was directed towards you being your best, more consistently closing that gap, doing who you're capable of being here actually being. Forging excellence, activating your potential, fulfilling your destiny with the support of what we've been so excited for. I know you use technology in a similar kind of way, but to emphasize the power of these tools that we have when we are aware of how they're impacting, I said that intention and I love that AIA awareness, intention, action. Step in the space between stimulus and response. The Viktor Frankl quote that's so right. Can you be aware of what's going on? Just extend that gap between things are happening and you're responding and then can you set your intention for where you want to go next? Can you close that gap? You're capable of being and here actually being. And then I love the metaphor. Brian Kane introduced it to me first. Mental performance coach, huge part of our, of our community. And he heard it I think from the success hotline. I can't remember that guy's name. Was like three. Three frogs are sitting on a log. One frog decides to jump off. How many frogs are still in the log? There's three. Just because you decide doesn't mean you action but you have to take action so you're aware you're setting that intention that you're actually taking action. One of the things that we're most proud of, particularly with our coach program, with the app as well is helping people actually put it into practice. We are not aware of other programs out there that in order to earn a certification actually required to do the things that you say you're going to do. So it's not about how much can I learn and can I regurgitate back the information that guess what? The tool that are surrounding and technology and our watches on our speakers our smart. They can regurgitate information. But are you actually doing it in your life? And then can you actually support other people to do the same? Which is, you know what I think a coach is best is like supporting other people. But I'm curious for you, being one of the world's most highest regarded performance and success coaches, what do you think is the difference between someone who's a coach at an elite level and the kind of swarm of mediocre or average coaches? What, what are the different ways that that that high level coach is approaching things or thinking about things or supporting Their clients, what distinguishes those groups?

Sure. So I think there's, there's a couple, a couple things. Number one is how much knowledge and skill do they have at recognizing situational awareness? Like, what is my, you know, the person in front of me, what is she really experiencing? You know, what is she saying is very, very different than what she's experiencing? And what she thinks is the problem is usually not the problem, it's the effect. So that a really good coach has got to really understand cause versus effect, part one. Part two, coach has got to understand the underlying motive for their actions, whether they're extrinsic or intrinsically motivated. And how do they combine the two when they need to or have the client focus on the one that's going to get them to actually take action? Number three, I guess. And, and this is, you know, I, I charge 10,000 an hour to work with a client privately. So I have to have these skills and I have to have the results for them. And one of the things that off with every client before I agree to coach them, and that is this. What do you want to achieve? You know, tell me the vision, tell me the goals. Great, I got that. I don't care if it's personal or business. What obstacles are in your way that you can see or are aware of. And then on a scale of 1 to 10, where are you in your motivation to resolve this and get the results you want and remove, eliminate the obstacle? And then I ask them a final question, and this will determine whether I work with them or not. I say to them, are you interested in this, in achieving this vision or goal, or are you committed to doing it no matter what? And many of them will ask me, John, like, what's the difference? Okay, well, if you're interested, every time we get on a call, you're going to come filled with your stories, reasons, and excuses why you didn't do what you said you're going to do. On the last call, every time you come onto the call or every text I get or email you send me, you're going to tell me all the things that are not working without the solution for how you're going to make it work. Every time we get on a call, you're going to keep regurgitating your stories, reasons, excuses, and beliefs that are going to keep you stuck repeating the same patterns. But when you're committed, you're going to upgrade your identity, your beliefs, your habits, your knowledge, your skills every single day so that you and the vision and goal you want are in Alignment and there are no more reasons why you cannot achieve it. So tell me if you want me to coach you, are you prepared to say you're committed now and follow through to completion period? If you are, I can help you. If you're not, nobody can.

How many people say I'm just interested?

Probably one out of every 20. They'll say, you know what, thank you for asking me that, because I think right now I'm just interested. But in order for me to even get on with them, they've already been vetted and they, they are people that are like tired of being tired and being stuck and like they're committed. They, they want to turn their vision into a reality. And, and, and again, I'm going to say if they have the desire and they have the ability, right, the, the, the ability we can achieve as, as you know, and everybody that's watching and listening knows we have so much more power. Humble like a, humble like gifts, right? We, we, we have, we have evolved, you know, from walking in the deserts to surviving days without food. Only get hyper focused on how we're going to survive and innovate and, and stay alive. I mean, just staying alive and if you go back in time was like, holy mackerel. They had to hunt down animals and figure out how to kill something that was ten times bigger than them in order to survive and eat. Yeah, that's how brilliant we are. We've been able to overcome such unimaginable things. We're able to innovate because functionally we have, you know, a genius part of our brain that can tap into the field of all intelligence where we don't have the solutions within our own neural networks. And then we can rely on each other to lift each other up as we climb and figure things out. And, and so I believe that there's a genius within everybody and there's a, the ability for everybody to tap into the universal intelligence. If you study, you know, energy and vibration and quantum physics or quantum mechanics a little bit, you understand that everything is connected and past, present and future are an illusion to us. You know, because of, you know, you know, making sure that not everything happens at the same time. We're kind of like, we look at the past back there and the future back there, but in the quantum physics world, it's just here. So there are so many tools that we have to use. But again, most of us, you know, relied on what we learned at school or from our parents or teachers or maybe what we observed and then obviously books and stuff like that. But the new stuff that has come out in the last, you know, 10, 10, 10 years is just mind boggling. There's almost nobody that has a real excuse. I, I get excuses, circumstance, I get that. And there's some real ones, but for the majority of us, it's whether you're committed or interested, period, end of story.

I love that. And electives as an undergrad of mine included the science of time and the philosophy of quantum mechanics. I love, love it. I love the alternate realms. I want to emphasize genius within everyone, right? Genius, I think is the Latin, Latin word. The Greek equivalent for genius is daimon, which is where eudaimonia comes from. The summum bomb. Ultimate good. How do we achieve eudaimonia? In a word, arte. Obviously it's on the book title, but love that that's bringing forth the genius within everyone. And then your emphasis on understanding in a coaching context, being able to identify cause and effect and then the motivation. I think back to all the things we've talked about previously and how important it is in our own minds. How many times you talked about the cause of something versus the effect of something and to feel stress or fear or anxiety or all those things and recognizing that's an effect of something and how do we look at the underlying cause, make some of those shifts, practice those breathing patterns, but that, that. Go for it.

Think about this, right? We're born, right? And hey, did you see that? Did you hear that? Did you watch that? We're so used to navigating the world with our physical senses. Hear, see, smell, taste, touch. And we talked a little bit earlier. Maybe intuition, right? Like I get this feeling, I walk into a room, something's not right. I say, what's wrong? And people go, nothing. Come on, the dog knows something's wrong. What's wrong? How do you know? Well, that's your intuitive, like sixth sense. Well, let's shift for just a moment and go take a look at any result in your life. Any health result, any financial result, any business result, any relationship result. Take a look at any result and ask yourself this question. Was there something that caused that result? Something I did or didn't do, Something I took action on or didn't take action on, right? Was it a something? I thought about it like every effect has a cause and every cause has an effect. And we are so used to focusing our energy on the darn effects we don't want. And we spend very little time reinforcing how we got the effects we do want. And so when we Take a look at what drives the behavior. And I consider taking action is a behavior, not taking action is a behavior. And so if behavior equals results, the ones I take or don't take, what drives most of my behavior? Do, for example, emotions drive behavior? Yes or no? Yes. Now, the behaviors that I take, okay, that are emotionally charged, move away, move towards behaviors. Right. Is where I feel safe, motivated and focused on what I want. The reason I move into a state of, you know, fight, flight, freeze. I don't take action, procrastinate, self sabotage is because the emotion is a move away from emotion. I have. I have doubt, fear, anxiety, worry. So I'm moving away because I don't feel safe going forward. Right. So emotions do affect behavior. Great. What are the core emotions of a human being other than fear? Right. We have a lot of sadness. Yeah. No. But we have other emotions that are moved towards eliciting, soothing love. Move towards emotions. Energy in motion. And we have emotions that move us away from the things that we want because we're protecting ourselves. What about beliefs? Do your beliefs, specifically your. Well, we have two types of beliefs. But do your beliefs drive behavior?

Yes.

Okay, so what is a belief?

Do.

Does everybody have the same belief about making money, let's say, or. Or getting in shape?

No.

Was. Where was there any baby? As 107 or 8 billion humans have walked the face of the earth, Was any baby ever born with any belief about anything?

I'll say.

No, you're correct. Zero. So, so how did a baby develop a belief? And what is a belief in the brain?

An assumption of a future state that will come to fruition or not.

Or present. Right. So it's a belief. It's a feeling of certainty about something based on input, you know, from our environment, based on the meanings we gave things. But from a neuromechanic perspective, cells fired around the stimuli, cells wired. And the cells, the neurons that fired and wired together and then were repeated over time became a belief structure that went from a conscious process to a subconscious process. And so now we have these beliefs about ourselves, about money, about business, about work, about love, about sex, about everything. And then beliefs, then, are the lens by which we see the world and sets up all of our expectations. Because our brain wants to make 100 certain that what we believe is reflected on the environment. We are actually the equivalent of being in a movie theater. All right, Watching a movie on the screen. And all of a sudden you see something on the screen you don't like. Have you ever considered, like, running up to the screen and scratching the image on the screen. No, if you don't like what's projecting on the screen, on the canvas, you go up to the, you know, up to where the projector is, they say, give me that tape and then you rewrite the script, stick it back in the screen, then what's showing is going to be what you want. So our beliefs are the lens by which we see the world. Our beliefs are the expectations that we have to create the reality we believe is true. So we weren't born with any beliefs. We weren't born with, I mean we, we, we developed, you know, you know, emotions, the energy, you know, that is triggered at a subconscious level. So, but we didn't, we weren't born with one fear, not one fear. We weren't afraid of cats, snakes, dragons, fast cars, slow cars, bullets, guns, arrow zero. And yet if I said imagine right now, okay, for some of the people that are watching that a ten foot python was slithering fast towards you, There are some people go, oh my God, whole snakes or, or spiders. No, like some people have never even seen a ten foot snake or python, but they have this idea that they're dangerous and they're going to kill me, so they're going to react automatically. But some people might say, get, get where, where's my camera? I want to take a selfie with it quickly. So the same stimuli may not cause the same response. So we learn what to be afraid of. And if we feel that there's danger, risk, pain, we just walk away like, no, I'm gonna not do what I need to do. But then let's go again, what else drives behavior? Self image, self worth, self esteem, self confidence, right? Part of our identity. So if we don't feel we're worthy of the vision or goals we want, we may take action. But we will quickly self sabotage because we don't feel we deserve it and we don't keep what we don't feel we deserve. Hence, 87 of all lottery winners lose the money within three years and say it was the worst experience of their life. Right? The outside world will always match the internal map of reality around our identity and self image. And so if I don't feel I'm worthy enough, deserving enough, even if I feel I'm skilled, but I don't feel I'm worthy, I will not take the action consistently that will give me the vision and goals that I want. So now we have self image or identity, now we have fear, now we have limiting beliefs. And then cause of behavior is Is also tied to. These are like the four things that hold 99% of people back. If I don't have the knowledge or skill on how to break free from what's holding me back or the path that I need to achieve the goal that I want, right. Brain wants to know, what is it you want to achieve? When do you want to achieve it? By how are you going to achieve it? So what? When? How are three parts of the brain that need to have an answer in the absence of an answer? Think about this. In the absence of what, when, how, clarity, being specific, what do you think that does in the brain? Does it create certainty or uncertainty?

Uncertainty.

Uncertainty. And a brain that is uncertain. Is that a motivated brain or a brain under stress?

Under stress.

The brain under stress activates the stress reaction. Fight flight freeze. So now when I don't have the path laid out, that would be the equivalent of getting on a plane. And the pilot taking office says, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flight number 114. On our way to, I don't know, hey, can I give you some ideas where we want to go? We got enough fuel for about, I don't know, two hours, three hours, where should we go? Everyone's gonna say, what, I thought we're going there. No, no, I thought we're going there now. We have uncertainty, we have doubt, we have fear, we have anxiety, we have stress. And people start to panic without a path. So limiting beliefs drive behavior, self image drives behavior, fear drives behavior, and lack of knowledge and skill and a path to the destination deactivates the motivational and behavioral cortex in the brain. So I know we're getting a lesson right now in neuromechanics of how this thing, this hundred billion dollar biocomputer, right? And yes, your why is one of the other things. The why is the emotional reason, okay, for achieving success. So we are, we're talking a lot about the, you know, part of the limbic system right now and part of the deductive reasoning, the orchestra leader. But the orchestra leader also needs the emotional capital to shut down Frankie's monster. Because Frankie's monster is focusing on doubt, fear, worry, anxiety, because of all the reasons. And the why you must achieve this goal has to be bigger than any story, reason, excuse, fear, or doubt. And if you're why capital, why I must do it is bigger than why you might not or should not or don't want to, then you will take the action you need, but you still want to do it in a way where you feel safer. We can manage the risk through emotional regulation. But you want to be able to calm down the brain down so you activate all of its genius while you keep the the automatic early warning detection mechanisms and ally to you just in case. So you don't want to. You're never going to stop the fear circuit. You're never going to stop the doubt, worry, anxiety circuit. You actually want to love it and say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for having this system. Now let me regulate you versus you regulating me in my life.

I love that. Let me regulate you. And you, you said as well too with the practicing the AIA and the breathing. I will direct my brain rather than the brain directing me. And there was a great line as well. But talk to yourself, don't listen to yourself. Right. Allow you to be in control of that process and giving us a a micro master class there on the things that hold us back. Emotion, limiting beliefs, self image, identity and then you know, missing a plan, missing a path. And I know you've also got a lot of resources around goals and how to set goals, to achieve goals. Having that clear what the when, the how, the why, that over is greater than any limiting beliefs, fears, et cetera. And folks can Google to find more of that. And I know we've also just scratched the surface obviously but folks want to go connect with you, learn more about you. Where would you direct them?

Sure. One of the things that is really a phenomenal best selling book is my book called Inner unlock your brain's hidden power has got some just great research and great paths to follow to understand if you're a coach. It's like a must have in your library so you can take your clients to it and yourself. I think you know I created my inner size app with 500 brain training inner sizes for health, wealth, leadership, sales, business, et cetera. And so there's an inner size app in the app store that we launched in October that has tens of thousands of users right now. The got five 4.9 star reviews. So that's great. And then listen johnass.com is a, is a great place. And yeah, I've got my book the answer as well. I don't think it's up here. My having it all book which is right there is for setting and achieving goals. That was my New York Times bestseller. And then the answer is my other New York Times bestselling book for achieve, you know, grow any business, achieve financial freedom. And the answer is all about quantum physics, neuroscience and business growth strategies. You know, very, very detailed business growth Strategies So a variety of different pieces to use to, to help people. I'm, I'm all about. Well first and foremost the inner game is, is critical right the inner game getting my mindset right, my self talk, my emotional regulation, my focus and my direction and plans. But I'm also very, very big on doing the right things in the right order at the right time. So without strategy mindset is useless. Without, you know mindset, strategy is useless. So I like to integrate mindset plus your skill set plus your consistent actions equals predictable results. And I'm all about creating more predictability versus possibility.

I love it and super aligned with our community here obviously. Want to help heroic hero, protector, strength for two. Want to help create a flourishing world together. Each of us here on this call, particularly those on the call who are coaches really want to have that impact, spread that impact hour to be a guide for others, right Transform our own life and then transform the world through our collective actions. I'm curious, what's one thing that we could do for you as a community to spread ripples out into the world, Help create more of this change that has been building that you've been working on and you just love to see ripples spread outward.

Thank you. My real body of work now is you probably remember this, there's a guy many years ago called Jack lalanne to develop you know, the jumping jacks and he really started the exercise revolution to help people be healthier. Well I want to, I'm building right now the, the number one mindset, coaching and mental fitness training AI driven platform in the world. And inner size is the body of work that I am bringing to the world. And I created the first 500 inner sizes and I'm going to keep creating thousands of thousands of inner sizes to help people strengthen their neuro muscles around identity, beliefs, self image using all of the evidence based methods that I've been researching for many, many, many years. So any help on spreading the word on inner size and about the work I'm doing. As much as I love spreading the work that all of you are doing with heroic and bring out the very best in us. We're doing a similar work with a slightly different angle and together we lift each other up as we climb.

I love it. A rising tide lifts all boats and the world is in need of of services like that impact like that. Individuals who are willing to bring their best to give their, give their best gifts in service. And I know everyone on the call that's been joining us live is feels that same drive that same desire, that same motivation to create that change. So thanks so much, John. Anything we didn't touch on, you want to make sure that you make sure we know about.

I, I mean, I always like to, to remind people that the reason we have this, you know, desire, desire of the Father from, from the intelligence to, to have more, be more, give more, love more, accept more, receive more is that's what our inherent nature is like. People say to me, monks don't want more. Sure they do. They want more understanding, more compassion, more love, more awareness. We all want more. That's the spirit within us. It doesn't mean more stuff, right? But how do I become? How do you become? How do you help me? How do I help you become just the best version of me? Of you. And so let's just help each other remember that and let's, let's just help each other. You know, when another hundred billion dollar brain, okay, has a perspective, like, I want to see how you see it. I want to see, like, show me what got you to that perspective so I can add that to mine. And that's actually one of the beautiful things right now with AI is oh my God. The collective intelligence is now at my fingertips and yours, trust me, I'm going to become way smarter in the next five years because of the tools that are now available to all of us for free. I mean, most of it's free, which is amazing. And you can't do better than free. So let's just lift each other up and become the best version of ourselves.

I love it. Thanks for joining us. Thanks everybody for joining us live, everyone on the replay and much more soon. Hundreds, hundreds of these now in the Coach program. So fired up about that. And yeah, day one, all in. Let's go.