Dr. Srini Pillay explains why you keep sabotaging your own money: after a bad experience, your amygdala stays activated and drags that anxiety into new financial decisions. Your brain gets stuck in repetition compulsion, trying to master old disappointments instead of chasing what you actually want. Breaking the pattern requires pausing and using your prefrontal cortex to reframe toward what fulfills you.
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There's a concept of living with fear. And I'll quickly sort of mention what this is. You know, one of the things we asked is, why is it that we often still do negative things even though we don't want to? Well, after a negative experience, after you've lost a lot of money or after you've been in a bad relationship, the amygdala is still activating. And rather than taking a timeout or taking a step back, you go into the next venture with the amygdala still activated, and then you say, why am I losing money again? It's because your amygdala is still activating in the next situation. And unless you deliberately have a timeout or unless you deliberately influence your amygdala with that prefrontal cortex, it's actually very difficult to change what you're doing. The outcome will likely be the same. So if you've been in a negative situation in your life, whether it's a relationship or you've lost money through a big deal, or you've made a big mistake in some kind of business dealing with somebody, and it's keeping you back from making more money, ask yourself, is my amygdala activation under control before I enter the new situation? Because if you take the same activation into the next situation, you're going to get the same outcome. And then there's a really interesting phenomenon which is called repetition compulsion. And it's really about. This slide just shows the prefrontal cortex exerting an effect over the amygdala. Repetition compulsion is particularly important because it essentially speaks to a phenomenon that was discovered when the early psychologists actually looked at babies who were in a cot. And what they noticed was that if you gave the baby a brush, the baby would throw the brush out and then start crying. And then the mother would go out and get the brush or get the toy and give it back to them, and then they'd be really happy. And then when the mother would turn around, the baby would throw it out again and be like, what is this bizarre phenomenon that you want something, you cry for it, somebody gives it to you, and then you throw it away again? Think about that deeply. Why is it that so many lottery winners end up losing the money they want? What is going on in the brain that we are prone to this effect of doing this negative thing over and over again? And so one of the constructs that came up was this notion of repetition compulsion, the idea that in life, the default of the brain is to get mastery over disappointment rather than to seek fulfillment in life. The default of the brain is to get mastery over disappointment. Let me get myself into the same horrible situation over and over again so I can become better and better at it. I'm really tough. I was abused in the last relationship. I'll be even better, I'll be stronger as opposed to seeking out a more fulfilling relationship. Let me lose more money, I'll lose money again. And let's see how I deal with it. I'll keep on being stagnant and every time I'm going to come to a thing like this, I'm going to go, go back home and then I'm not going to actually do anything. And then let's see how I deal with the disappointment. The brain's default state is that. So here the take home message is how can you get your brain to seek fulfillment? And I saw it in the exercise earlier. It was difficult for a lot of people to seek fulfillment. It was difficult for you to say, I'm letting go of this memory, focusing on my higher purpose, figuring out how to approach the future with hope and getting yourself to a point where you can actually act on something. And part of that is that there's this pull to always try to make sure that you're strong enough to deal with your life. We are not here to ask you to be strong enough to deal with your current situation. We are here to ask you to be strong enough to change. That's the whole point of the next few days. So the conclusion here is if you think about it and that I think these slides are a little out of order, but the conclusion here is that if you master your disappointment, that's not the goal. The real goal is to actually frame relationships in the positive, frame things in the positive without using not. The second thing is avoiding rebound relationships or taking the anxiety of a previous situation with you into the new money making scheme in your life. And the third is focusing on mastery and fulfillment rather than just figuring out how good you are at being disappointed and dealing with it.
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 brain a thon 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 brainathon 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.
