This short video/transcript features Mark Waldman explaining how positive and negative thoughts activate brain regions (frontal lobe, thalamus, visual cortex, amygdala) to form mental images that reinforce either negative self-concepts or positive states; John Assaraf promotes an upcoming six-hour online "Brainathon" event to help participants release self-doubt and achieve financial success. The piece links mindfulness and focused positive thinking to reduced stress and altered neural patterns, and warns that brief exposure to negative cues can harm emotion-regulation circuits.
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And I want to show you a little animated video made by my colleague Andy Newberg at the University of Pennsylvania of what's going on in your brain when this happens. This is what happens when you enter a state of mindful awareness while staying deeply relaxed. And you use this strategy to focus on your deepest purpose, your deepest values, your deepest goals. Lights down. It all begins with a thought in your frontal lobe consciousness, positive or negative. And the information is sent to the thalamus, grand central station of sensory processing. The thalamus deals with your thoughts as if they were real incoming sensations from the world and it sends it to the visual cortex of your brain. So whatever you're thinking about, positive or negative, a picture is formed. Once this picture is formed, the information is sent to the you center of your brain. If you're holding negative thoughts, you begin to see yourself as being negative and self doubting. It will light up your amygdala, a warning center. And this is what turns on the memory centers in your brain and embeds these negativities as deep as it possibly can. And it creates an ongoing cycle where you begin to believe in the negative thoughts that you're having. But the same thing holds true if these are positive thoughts. If you consciously hold a positive thought, then your amygdala does not get turned on. And the negative you that you formed from all of your past bs, from all your past crap, begins to fade away. And you'll feel a pleasant sensation in your body as you begin to relax. But if you stay focused and ruminating on your negative thoughts, it's going to put your body into stress. It's going to release stress. Neurochemicals. Simply seeing the word no for less than 1 second can damage the parts of your brain that help to regulate and turn off the negative emotional centers buried deep down inside. Just coming into the present moment when you think you're not thinking at all begins to do two things. It shrinks this old negative self. It begins to disappear. And even though you think you're not thinking about anything at all, your frontal lobes become more active than ever before. If you're focusing on peace, peace becomes the other, the entire awareness of your universe. And if you are focusing on fear, that becomes your entire reality.
Hey, this is John and I hope you truly enjoyed that short little video clip. There's many more coming just like that. Now remember, the brainathon is coming up soon, and so tell your friends and your family. And be sure that you click on the calendar below to schedule it. If you haven't done so already. The six Hour Brain A thon is going to be something that you can watch and participate online, so we'll be doing Q and A as well. And myself and the other brain experts are going to show you how to release any of the self doubts, insecurities, fear, embarrassment, shame, procrastination, or anything that may be holding you back, causing you to feel a lack of confidence or uncertainty. Now, all of this is ingrained in your deeply rooted beliefs, neural patterns that are now crippling or at least holding you back from really achieving financial success and shattering the financial glass ceiling that you and everybody in the world has. And so get ready for an amazing Brain A thon and look forward to more killer content from us.
