The Daily Habits To Prime Your Brain For Productivity, Happiness & Confidence EP 1263

Once every 24 hours, you're going to get a peak in cortisol, which is a healthy peak. You want that peak to happen early in the day because it sets up alertness for the remainder of the day.

You probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side. I would be working on both. And to me, the way to attack that, if you're not sure which area is to start with the body.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help to discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Are you ready to level up your business? Intuit QuickBooks has got your back. Forget stressing over unpaid invoices or tracking expenses. QuickBooks takes care of all that so you can focus on growing. Let QuickBooks be your all-in-one tool to help with the day-to-day tasks so you can stay focused on the big picture. Manage and grow your business all in one place. Intuit QuickBooks, your way to money.

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Fuel your greatness with Wonderful Pistachios no Shells Wonderful Pistachios is a great source of protein with zero guilt. Each 1-ounce serving has 6 grams of protein, giving you over 10% of your daily value. Pistachios are known for their protein power, fiber, and better-for-you unsaturated fats, for a combination that may help keep you feeling Fuller longer. And now there's a new way to snack strong with unsalted no shells holding the salt, not the flavor for a snack that packs a protein punch. Visit wonderfulpistachios.com to learn more. In a world filled with overwhelm and burnout, it's crucial to set mental boundaries and create space for yourself so you can focus on reaching your full potential. And one of the ways that I do this is by priming my brain for productivity and happiness throughout the day. Trust me, it's easier said than done, and some days are harder than others. So for this episode, I'm bringing back some of the most inspiring people that I know who provide key insights on avoiding mental burnout and perfecting the art of priming the brain for success. In this episode, we're going to discuss how to develop a routine for peak performance with neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. How to refocus on living the life you deserve with Tony Robbins. Steps to repair pAiring brain function with psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen and the best techniques for using language to build confidence and gain respect with former secret agent Evie Pompurus. In this first section, neuroscientist Andrew Huberman details a routine that you can implement daily to eliminate brain fog and start each day with mental clarity. So what's the routine then? The ultimate Morning and evening routine to set your brain and your mind up for optimal performance and not getting brain fog. Okay.

I will describe that by listing out the protocol first and then I'll give some of the scientific mechanisms second. Because in the past, what I've tended to do is give the mechanism and then give the protocols. I know some people, it's like, you know, enough for these academic guys. Just give me the, give me, tell them, just tell me what to do. But if people want the mechanism, I'd be happy to flesh that out. Yes. I should say that what I will mention is not everything I do. So, for instance, I get up and like most humans, I use the restroom and I have a glass of water. I do those things. So, if I'm not listing every right foot, left foot step through the morning, but the things that are geared towards getting the mind into a proper place, for me, I'll describe it as my routine. I generally get up somewhere between 5:30 and 7:00 in the morning, depending on when I went to sleep. I'm not super regular about when I go to sleep, but generally that's between 10:30 and midnight. I try and avoid that midnight hour, but happens. So I get up, obviously I use the restroom, I drink some water. I do think that hydrating is very important. So I'll drink some water. And then the fundamental layer of health is to set your circadian rhythm. The simplest way to do that is to go outside for 10 minutes and get some bright light in your eyes. I'll just list off some of the things that people always ask, what if you wake up before the sun rises? Well, simple rule, if you want to be awake, turn on as many bright lights in your house as possible. But then when the sun comes out, excuse me, get outside and see some sunlight. You do not have to look directly into the sun, but you do want to get outside out of shade cover if you can. Don't wear sunglasses if you can do that safely. Don't try and do this through a window. Don't try and negotiate with me on this point. Go outside. What about a window? Well, the filtration of the important wavelengths of light through the window is just too high, and so it would take hours for you to set your circadian clock that way. You want to do this because once every 24 hours, you're going to get a peak in cortisol, which is a healthy peak. You want that peak to happen early in the day because it sets up alertness for the remainder of the day. There are really nice studies done by my colleagues in Stanford Psychiatry and Biology Department showing that if that cortisol peak starts to drift too late in the day, you start seeing signs of depression. It's actually a well-known marker of depression. So you want that cortisol almost stressed out, kind of, the day's beginning, I have a lot to do feeling. That's a healthy thing. You want that happening early in the day. The sunlight will wake you up. And what's really cool is that over time, you'll start to notice the sunlight waking you up more and more. The system becomes tuned up. If you miss a day, it's not the end of the world. because it's as we call it, a slow integrating system. But don't miss more than one day. And if you live in an area where it's very cloudy outside, just know that the sunlight, the photons coming through that cloud cover are brighter than your brightest indoor lights. Now, if you live in a very dark region of the world or it's unsafe or purely impractical to get outside in the morning, then it might make sense to get a sunrise simulator or one of these lights, but they tend to be very expensive. What I recommend people use instead is it just a ring light. a blue light, this is a case where you can blast your system. So get that morning light. It sets a number of things in motion, such as your melatonin rhythm to happen 16 hours later to help you fall asleep. I would say this is the fundamental step of any good morning. And if you don't do this enough, you are messing yourself up in a number of ways.

Does this mess with digestion also?

Yeah, so every cell in your body has a 24-hour clock. All those clocks need to be aligned to the same time. So imagine a clock shop with lots of different clocks, and you don't want them alarming off at different times. This sunlight viewing or bright light viewing early in the day, I would say within 30 to 60 minutes of waking up for about 10 minutes, or if it's very cloudy, maybe 30 minutes or so, that activates a particular type of neuron in the eye called the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell. If people want to look that up, signals to the circadian clock, which is right above the roof of your mouth, but that is the master circadian clock that then releases a bunch of signals into your body. This all happens very fast. And every cell in your body gets tuned to the exact same time reference point so that your system can work as a nice concert of cells as opposed to out of whack. Your gut has a clock, your liver has a clock, your heart cells have a clock, every skin cell has a clock. And for those that are not incentivized enough by the cortisol stuff and all the other things, actually the replenishment of stem cells in the skin, hair, and nails is activated by the system. So hair grows more readily, skin turns over, and nails grow more quickly because you have stem cells, literally cells that release more cells that become new hair cells or new skin cells and new cells that make up the nails. So skin, hair, and nails also benefit. and it has to be light exposure to the eyes. When we talk about all these things like the gut and the skin, et cetera, it's tempting to say, oh, it's sunlight on the skin. No, it's actually only can be signaled through the eyes because the clock lives deep in the brain, that master clock, and you need the signal to get.

To that master clock.

So don't wear sunglasses. If you can avoid wearing sunglasses safely, right? There are people, for instance, who have macular degeneration. who have to avoid bright lights and they know this because their ophthalmologist tells them. If you wear corrective lenses, contacts, even if it has UV filtration, that's fine. In fact, if you think about what an eyeglass or a contact lens does is it focuses light onto the eye. Actually, I'm not sure. On the back of the eye, whereas looking through a window filters it. It blocks a certain amount of light coming in, even if it's a very clear window. So go outside if you wear glasses fine, if you wear contacts fine, and if you can get out on a porch and be east facing in the morning when the sun comes up, great. You don't need to see the sun cross the horizon, but ideally you see the sun when it's at what we call low solar angle, it's not directly overhead. If you wait two or three hours after waking up to get bright light in your eyes, you are setting yourself up for a complicated sleep-wake cycle that.

Leads to a lot of what we call insomnia. So, this is important to do in the first 60 minutes of waking up, get outside 10 minutes, you don't have to be in the sun, but you want to be able to look and see the sun, right? Or is it okay to be in the shade or you want the sunlight hitting your skin?

It depends on how bright it is. So for instance, this morning I woke up because of where I live, there's a lot of tree cover, but I saw that the sun was, there were a lot of shadows, but it was casting a nice patch of light in the street right in front of my house. So I'm the weirdo that walked out there with my coffee. Actually, I delay my coffee. It was with my water in the morning. I'll talk about why I delay coffee. And I'm leaning against a tree. I confess I was text messaging at part for part of that. Forgive me, I'm human. And catching the sunlight coming in through my eyes for a few minutes, I allow myself to blink, obviously. You want to look directly at the sun. You don't want to look directly. There's a safety mechanism. I guess if it's a lower horizon. It's not that intense. We have a built-in safety mechanism, which is if you need to blink and close your eyes, close your eyes. But yeah, I got sunlight in my eyes, I get the weird looks from my neighbors, but they know me and they do it too. Sometimes they'll join me. Animals will naturally do this. They'll migrate to the sun. So then I go inside. It's 10 minutes or so. It seems like a long time, but it is so beneficial. And then inside, if I want to be awake, I try and turn on as many bright lights as I can. One of the big mistakes that we've made in the last few years as a culture is assuming that blue light is bad. during the day, lots of blue light is great because that's the best signal for these cells that wake up your system. It activates all sorts of important hormone pathways and wakefulness pathways. Interesting. It can reduce brain fog in some sense.

Sure.

It's in the evening that you want to avoid blue lights and bright lights of any kind. We can talk about that. Okay. So then I come back inside and then I do not drink caffeine right away. It's important in many ways, to delay caffeine enough so that you can clear out some of the chemical signals in the brain and body that lead to a feeling of fatigue. So the longer you're awake, the more a molecule called adenosine builds up in your system. And when you sleep, you push that adenosine level back down. When you wake up in the morning, that adenosine level can be zero, but oftentimes there's still some hanging around. Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist. It blocks adenosine function. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's effectively what it does. So if you wake up and you've got, let's say 20%, this is arbitrary, but 20% of your adenosine still hasn't been cleared out, that's sort of a drowsiness that you woke up with. Then you go and you drink your coffee and you crush that ability of adenosine to have that effect, but it hasn't gone away. So that when your coffee wears off mid-morning, Now that adenosine is there and you feel like there's a mid-morning crash or an afternoon crash. So I delay my caffeine intake for about 90 and ideally 120 minutes after I wake up because in that way you bring your adenosine level down very, very low to zero and then you don't get this rebound crash in the afternoon. For years I would get this post-lunch crash and I thought maybe I'm eating too much for lunch, which I probably was, or maybe I'm eating the wrong foods. Turned out it was all related to my timing of caffeine. And your system learns how to wake up naturally. You get the natural cortisol and adrenaline. Give it the time. Give it the time. And people hate this one because it's a little painful for the caffeine addicts, but I'm a pretty serious caffeine addict and I embrace that.

And I'll tell you, it also makes.

The joy of the coffee so much greater. You're like waiting for that. You're savoring it like, oh, my first sip. It tastes so much better. And that relates to the dopamine system.

Which I know we're going to talk about later.

I sometimes will drink yerba mate instead of. Yeah, I love mate.

Mate has a. You put honey in it or anything?

I don't sweet tea or something.

I don't really like sweet stuff too much.

I wish I had that disease. Yeah, it's, you know, I wish I had. I like savory things and salty things. I, I like yerba mate for a number of reasons. I don't like the really smoky mates. And my dad's Argentine, so I grew up drinking mate. But you don't speak Spanish, though, do you?

I speak four words of Spanish and.

And, and those I speak poorly.

So, is your dad fluent?

He's fluent. Come on.

I know.

Parents who are, how do you, that's.

A crime, isn't it? It's a crime. Well, it's not a crime I committed. I love the fact that you're entirely committed. Well, bilingual parents, please encourage your children to learn multiple languages. Musicians, parents, teach your kids the instrument. Have you ever seen the people who play guitar in college?

Let's just say their lives are better than everyone else's. What are the benefits as we're just As a side point here, I was just talking about Mate, what are the benefits of learning two languages in early childhood development over only learning one?

Well, probably multiple benefits in addition to the practical benefits in life and job opportunities.

Opportunities and connections and relationships.

Absolutely. And there's, well, and relationship opportunities. If you're ever with someone, I was in a relationship for several years with somebody, who was from France and spoke French. And I eventually picked up some French and I could understand, but I could never really understand the subtlety of the humor. And so there was a lot that we couldn't share, unfortunately. So there are multiple reasons to do that. I mean, there are many, many reasons to learn languages, but from a brain perspective, I mean, you've got this, as we say, neural architecture, these areas of the brain that are devoted to language, primarily on the left side, but really, it's, it's there's functionality on both sides. And those areas are like a template for whatever language you're exposed to. You can pack a lot more into that neural real estate if you learn multiple languages, and that affords you a flexibility at better language learning for new languages. So, you know, the languages that are Latin-based, so you could learn French as a child and speak English and then find it easier to speak Italian. Or learn Italian, find it easier to learn French. Just like if you learn how to play the oboe as a child, the guitar is actually gonna be easier for you just because of the neural circuits for understanding scales and pitch and these kinds of things. You can tell I'm not a musician. Those are there. So I think there's a tremendous utility to it. But the mate is for the caffeine. The mate also tends to be, you know, it's never a pleasant topic, but it's somewhat of a laxative, which I think keeping digestion, flushing your system, and it contains something called glucagon-like peptide-1, GLP-1. GLP-1 is something you're gonna hear a lot more about in the years to come. It's actually now in clinical trials for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. It enhances lipolysis, the conversion of fat into energy. And it's just a-- so does that.

Mean it helps you burn fat?

It helps you burn fat. It helps you, we should be careful 'cause sometimes this gets tricky. It helps you utilize fat as an energy source. And not needing the sugar. Right, whether or not you visibly lose fat or not will depend on whether whether or not you're in a caloric deficit. But it helps shuttle, direct the metabolism, let's say, toward using fat stores as an energy resource, which is very good. And it also has some indirect effects on blood sugar regulation through the insulin management pathway.

And that's in Mate is caffeinated or no caffeine?

Oftentimes it's caffeine and oftentimes it can be very high caffeine. The one that I like-- I thought.

You said no caffeine until 90 minutes after, right?

Right, so I'm not touching Mate until 90 to 120 minutes. after waking up. It was, we were talking about coffee. Sometimes I'm drinking coffee, sometimes I'm drinking mate. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. And if I'm really going for it, I really have this doing both. I like to see the mate and the coffee, and I like to just sip one then the other. Mate is kind of nice too, because it contains electrolytes, so it's not as depleting. Dehydrating. Yeah, well, your neurons run on sodium, magnesium, and potassium. That's how neurons fire. sodium ions rush into the cell. If you're low in sodium or you're dehydrated, your brain isn't going to work as well. So caffeine in the form of coffee is great, but you should probably drink two volumes of water for every one volume of coffee you drink in order to hydrate. And a lot of people feel jittery when they drink caffeine or they feel lightheaded or they suddenly get hungry. Oftentimes that's because they're sodium depleted. I think 2022, I think we're also going to hear a lot about the value of salt. Salt is an essential nutrient. Obviously, people with hypertension should not be consuming too much salt, but there's a lot of good science now to support the fact that if you're feeling lightheaded or you feel like you have low blood sugar, oftentimes taking a little pinch of salt, putting in some water and drinking that, maybe with some lemon juice to adjust the taste, all of a sudden your shaking stabilizes, you feel more alert. Why? Because salt Salt and water have an interesting relationship. It increases blood volume and oftentimes then you're getting more blood flow to the.

Brain simply by increasing your sodium intake. In this section, the inspiring Tony Robbins breaks down the importance of removing mental clutter and focusing on the life you deserve. It seems like what I'm seeing and hearing from a lot of people that this past year, everything has fallen apart for them. Their health, their relationships, their finances, their mission or purpose. and these, you know, their spiritual awareness, like every area of life has been in breakdown mode for some people. Not everyone, some people have had incredible lives and have stepped up to the occasion and broken through on all these things. But I'm seeing a pattern of a lot of people breaking down in many areas. Hypothetical scenario, let's say you could only focus on one thing to get you started. You only had the time and energy to focus on one of these areas. Your health, your relationships are all breaking down. Your finances, your failing everywhere, where should people lean into first to kind of create that foundation so that everything else can start to rise as well?

I think before you answer what to do, you're gonna answer why you're there. It is not because of the pandemic. I remember when 9/11 happened and people tell, oh my God, my life was destroyed because of 9/11. And there were people in the same building who turned their life around, grew spiritually, got closer to their family, made their businesses larger. and the same building burned down. I know in my case, 9/11 comes, if you can imagine, I'm fortunate to have now more than 80 companies and all these different industries and obviously, I've done pretty darn well by most people's standards of business and life. But my core mission is what I do for a living. It's why I'm here talking to you right now. It's getting people to be free and alive and have the level of fulfillment that they deserve to have. I know they desire, but I also believe they deserve to have. to deserve to have it, you got to do certain things, right? And so you're not in the place of being overweight because you lost your job. So stop the bullsh*t blame. Blame is not a strategy for a meaningful life. Blame is not a strategy for greatness. So you got to resolve that number one. And then your question was, what's the one thing to focus on if you can only focus on one? I think it's smart to focus on one thing primarily. Focus on too many can be overwhelming. Other people, it's good to focus on multiple things. It depends on your personality. So I wouldn't presuppose. But then the answer would be whichever thing you're most desirous of changing. Whatever thing is giving you the most pain. So if it's your relationship, I'd go full force on that. Now, in the world we're in today, you don't usually have the privilege of going, okay, I want to work on just being happy. Well, I can train you to be happy while hell's breaking loose. You can sit in this chair and be totally euphoric.

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But if you do that in a Western culture, people come and take your furniture, right? So you probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side. I would be working on both. And to me, the way to attack that, if you're not sure which area is to start with the body. And I know you can relate to this, Louis, because you and I both share this in common. It's like, I always teach physiology first, as you well know. If you change the body, you'll change the emotions. If you change the emotions, you'll change your decisions, you'll change the quality of your life. Because the quality of life is your emotions. It's not what you get, you have a billion dollars and commit suicide. People have done it, right? You can have beautiful relationships and commit suicide. You can have people loving you and.

Be sad all the time.

Our pattern of emotion is our home. And you have to upgrade your home. You have to train it. And one way to train it is the emotion comes from the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you speak. So if I said to your listeners, there's a depressed person behind the curtain over here and I'll give $100,000 to their favorite charity if they had to describe their body, their posture, and they're depressed, you tell me. I'll just use you as the example. What does that person look like?

They're slouched down, they're looking down at their feet, they're not looking upward, their shoulders are over, they're.

Are they breathing full or shallow, do you think?

They're shallow.

Are they talking fast or slow?

They're talking, if they're depressed, they're probably talking fast because they're not calm.

Well, no, that's usually stressed.

Depressed is different than stressed. They're probably talking low volume, slower than.

And all those physical characteristics change your biochemistry towards this feeling of being depressed, and in a depressed state, you won't do anything when I used to be depressed, I don't get it anymore. I just took it out of my life. I even took the language of it out of my life. Because the words you create create a biochemical response. But when I did that decades ago, because I was like having those thoughts, like, is there a reason to still be here? That kind of crazy in your head. I got out of it by using anger originally. I'd much like sometimes if somebody's really sad or depressed, I'll make them angry. People like, what's he doing? He's making them angry. Because anger is much more resourceful than depressed from anger. I can get laughing, I can get, you know, taking action. And then gradually I got what I didn't need, anger. It was about growth, it was about contribution, it was about meaning. So there's like stages to go through. But to answer your question, they should work on both their business side of their life and personal, one of each. And in order for either one of those to work, you need to be in a strong emotional state. And if you start with your body, like, you know, I start every morning in my cold water, start every morning with my workout, I started every morning on feeding my mind, right? So there's certain things you got to do physically so you're strong enough to remember the truth. Because remember, fear is physical. You feel in your throat or your gut. So it's courage. Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're strong enough you push through in spite of the fear, right? And courage feels different in the body. So when you go lift or you go for a sprint or a strong run or you jump in that freezing water, when you push your mind to go beyond what's comfortable, you feel a strength inside you and that strength will help you to change your body, your emotions, your relationships, whatever. But then the other thing I want to say is model someone who's successful. Don't just do this by trial and error. Like find somebody who has what you want, ideally maybe more than one person, two or three, and see what are they doing different than you in their relationship? What do they believe different than you about relationship? If it's their body, what are they doing different? They're not lucky. They're doing things differently. You might be slightly biochemically different, but there's patterns there that you can see. And so instead of learning by trial and error, which can take decades you may never learn, Jim Rohn taught me success leaves clues, man. Find someone who's got what you want, study what they do, every aspect of it, and then add yourself to it. And that's the pathway to speed of transformation. So now, like, you know, I've done it. I'm not the only person. There's so many companies that went from worse off than they'd ever been in their history to the best off because they found a way to pivot. But that required a psychological piece of not blame. So maybe it's time for you to think for yourself and model what works instead of just what you're told. That's something to consider for yourself.

It's one of the reasons you've got millions of people that model after you just like myself in many areas of my life. I've got three final questions. Is that okay to ask three final questions? Okay. I went long on that. I want to be respectful of your time since we're at the top of the hour. I just want to make sure I'm good. you mentioned, I had the opportunity to go to Fiji with you and Dean Graziosi and a group of people about a year and a half ago. And you mentioned that winter was coming. This was in 2019, I guess, or yeah, right before 2020. And you mentioned winter is coming. I don't know how, where, what, what type of crisis is happening, but something's going to happen. It may be in six months, it may be in the next few years, but something is happening. and from people that went through 9/11 to the housing crisis of 2008-2009 to then 2020, what would you say if people want to prepare themselves to create more financial abundance over the next 10 years? With winter coming, maybe again, sooner than later, what should people be focusing on in order to earn more and invest more? so that they're not overwhelmed financially with the next winter.

Well, first of all, I want to acknowledge that every generation, there's a book everyone should read, it's called the Fourth Turning. It's not a great read, I'll be honest with you in advance. I read it 25 years ago. One of the most seminal books I've ever read, because what it will show you is that every generation goes through different stages. A winter time, a really, really rough time. A springtime, like after the rough times, we usually see this easy growth. A summer where, God, I'm working hard, doesn't seem to reward. And then a fall where all the rewards show up in a major level. But those seasons, which may be 10-20 years, are a way of thinking. For some people, those seasons happen in their youth, some midlife, some later, because there's a cycle of history. It's a thousand years of history you can study. It's fascinating. I'm not going to try to explain it to you right now, but if you want perspective, it's there. The generation you're speaking of, the millennial generation, a very special generation. I don't mean special like you're so special, special because they have a unique place in human history. They've experienced certain shocks at a certain time. They are an archetype of one of the four seasons of life. The last one is called the Great Generation. Think about this. If you were born in the year, say, 1900, 1901, 1902, something like that, when you're coming of age, 20 years old, when you want to think about your life and where it's going and all that stuff, right, let's say 1910, excuse me, when you're coming of age, if you're born in 1910, the stock market crashes. The biggest depression in human history, at least that we're aware of, modern history, happens. You know, 50% of the people seem to be losing their jobs. There seems to be no hope whatsoever. Right as you're coming to your early prime, we're gonna make things happen. Oh, so that's 1929. What happens a decade later when you're about to turn 30? Another seminal time in your life. World War II breaks out. Holy, the whole world likes it's gonna break and over. We're talking about World War II, all over the earth and it looks like Hitler's gonna win and that we're gonna have Nazism everywhere and countries are dropping like flies and the economy's going through the floor and you just turned 30. But guess what? At 40, the greatest bull market in the history of the world began for that generation. But they were so tested and so strong from everything they've been through, but then they were tested by their own kids. who didn't have to go through that suffering, who thought life should be easy for them and said, look at you, you're not balanced, you aren't fair to women, and they weren't, but they were busy fighting wars to get to the point where you'd have time to do that. It's like, see, people say, art for the sake of art's sake is for the well-fed. It's like, these people have a different, and so it's not like challenges disappear, but they're called the great generation because they found their way through those things, because it was a generation that was not taught to look for excuses. I think the millennial generation is the next great generation if they play their cards right. And I think there's enough great people in that generation to help lead a new direction for it. And I think there's technology allows them to connect in new ways, but technology, unfortunately, also pits them against other people because if you've seen the social dilemma, you know there are people manipulating your brain and your biochemistry and your dopamine right now. But I think they'll figure that out. I think they really will. Now, the answer to your question, I want to give that context, because without the context, all this is about survival or doing okay for yourself. And I think you're not going to feel a great life just trying to take care of yourself. Don't get me wrong, it's like if you know the Indian tradition in India, they teach these four aims of life. The first aim is Artha, A-R-T-H-A, and what that means is prosperity and security. It's important to take care of that because when that prosperity and security is there, it's not like that's not spiritual. Taking care of yourself and your family is part of life. And so you need to do that. And then the next level of development, the next aim of life is K-A-M-A. And that means pleasure. And it's good to find pleasure. Like if you found good work that serves more than yourself, you're gonna prosper. But then do you enjoy it? And do you enjoy your life? And do you appreciate things? And it's like, Finding that appreciation, it isn't just sensuality or sexuality, it's music, it's art, it's family, it's all these things. It's the history of your own country and finding the good. And then the third level for that most people have heard of is Dharma, which is your purpose or your truth. But notice, you really don't have a real clear Dharma in most people unless they got some level of prosperity, security, some level of enjoyment of life, but they get to the point of thinking broader. Now, some people early on are trying to find their purpose. What's my purpose? What's my purpose? I gotta find my ultimate purpose. Who said there's one frickin purpose? Where did you get that delusion? And why does it have to be so huge? I know like when I was a young kid, I'd have this purpose statement. The purpose of my life is to be a passionate, loving, incredible creation of what God shows is possible by serving all its humanity and lifting them. I mean, it went on and on and on. Now, like, what's my purpose? How can I help? I mean, serving is what my purpose is. I don't need all this bullshit. and that means I can do it when I introduce, when I say hello to the mailman, I can do it in front of 50,000 people, I can.

Do it with my child, right?

And there's lots of different purposes as you go through your life. But most people trying to get that, they haven't even figured out what the hell they're gonna do, they haven't even figured out how to enjoy their life.

Your purpose will unfold if you do the right thing. In this section, Dr. Daniel Amen discusses some of the most common habits we should kick to increase daily brain function. I'm gonna ask you some controversial questions about brain health. How much does, is it a third of Americans are obese or is it two thirds? Oh, no. Two thirds of Americans?

72% of Americans are overweight.

Or overweight.

42% of us are obese.

Obese.

I published three studies. In fact, I did an NFL study. One of them was an NFL study. I took players at the same position who were at a healthy weight versus those that were overweight. The overweight had sleepy frontal lobes. They had decreased activity in the frontal lobe. I just published a study on 35,000 people. It's one of the largest imaging studies ever done. And there is virtually a linear correlation between as your weight goes up, the function of your brain goes down.

Really?

Oh.

Morbidity obese was worse than obese, which was worse than overweight, which was worse than healthy weight.

So healthy weight versus- so healthy weight.

Would be the best activity and then overweight and then obese and then morbidly obese.

What consists as overweight versus obese? Is this body fat percentage?

Well, it's something called BMI or body mass index, which in NFL players actually doesn't correlate very well for them. It's their waist to height ratio. So their your waist should be half your height or less. So if you're six feet tall, that's 72 inches. Your weight, real your waist. And you got to measure. You can't go by your pants size because the clothing industry knows that we're unhappy. And so you guys got to put a tape measure right around your belly button. And so if you're six feet, your waist should be 36 inches or less.

That's good.

If it's not, then it's good to work on. Right. And you just see it as a problem to solve. But if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, if it's headed to the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. I have a mnemonic for that. I write about it in the books called Bright Minds. Well, if you're overweight, that automatically means you have five of the risk factors. Really? Because being overweight decreases blood flow. That's what my studies showed. It increases inflammation. It stores toxins, fat stores toxins, like if you smoke pie. It actually stays in your body for 30 days. Wow. It changes your hormones. And this is like shocking for me and my NFL work that these big strapping, virile men, are almost all low in testosterone because when you have subconcussive blows, it damages the pituitary gland, which turns off the production of testosterone. Oh my gosh. And so, belly fat especially takes healthy testosterone and turns it into unhealthy, cancer-promoting forms of estrogen.

Ooh.

And so, you have the diobesity, risk factor, blood inflammation, toxins and hormones.

And so- that's all from being overweight.

That's all from being overweight. It's just a thing we should be working on. And what I often say is the real weapons of mass destruction, ISIS has nothing on our food industry. They're highly processed, pesticide sprayed, high glycemic, low fiber food like substances. stored in plastic containers. This is what's really killing the health of America.

Okay, so obesity is a, what I'm hearing you say, obesity is a big factor to mental health stresses and brain stresses.

And Alzheimer's disease.

And Alzheimer's.

I mean, they're all, it all sort of goes together from depression to problems in school to memory problems later in life.

What's your thought? I mean, I'm all for people loving themselves, where they're at, where they're at in their life, and loving their bodies for where they're at and not shaming themselves and the self-love movement of accepting yourself for where you are. But that's only going to hurt our brains if we're not actually saying, okay, I accept and love myself where I'm at and decisions I've made to be here. But I've got to start working on these things. otherwise there's going to be some challenges emotionally, mentally, anxiety, depression if I don't work on it, right? My health.

The don't worry be happy people die the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. And I want people to love themselves, but doing the right thing is an act of love. Like if you're really unhealthy, walking is an act of love. And so, so it sort of catches me in this funny place.

Yeah.

I remember I was on a plane once and, and I'd figure out this connection between as your weight goes up, the size and function of your brain goes down. And I was sitting next to someone who is very overweight. And we were on a tiny plane going to Des Moines, Iowa, for public television. And in my head, I'm like, oh, you want to talk to her about that? And then I talk to myself all the time. It's like, no, you don't want to say anything. Don't need to upset her day.

And.

But then I went to Pittsburgh and I went to GNC, you know, the supplement company. And one of my core values is being authentic. I live the message of my life. And the message of GNC is health. And their number three guy, their marketing director, took me to dinner, was morbidly obese. Really? And that thought in my head is, you, should talk to him about this. And he made the comment, he opened the conversation. He's like, you, know, I don't know why I'm overweight. But my numbers are okay. And I'm like, what numbers? And I'm like, Tom, you don't want to be a dinosaur, because I had figured out, big body, little brain, you're gonna become extinct. And we had this great conversation, because my favorite verse in the New Testament is John 8:32, Know the truth, and the truth will set you free. I'm like, do you not want to be like the number two guy or the number one guy? You're not going to do that if your brain's not healthy. And that conversation the next year, he lost 80 pounds. Most people don't know that this is a serious health, mental health, brain health risk. And I just want to tell people the truth, and I want them to get healthy. And people go, But I don't like any of, one of my NFL players, But I don't like any of the foods that are healthy for me. And I'm like, None, not one. And we did this great exercise. And it turned out he liked like 70 of the foods that were on the list. You only want to love food that loves you back. Interesting. It's a relationship, right? I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship. But I've been in a bad rela- I've been in a 20-year relationship. their marriage with someone who didn't like me very much. I'm never gonna do that again. I'm just not. It's a boundary for me. I'm damn sure not gonna be in a relationship, the bad relationship with food. I want to be in a good relationship. I mean, I love food. I just want it to love me back.

What are the five foods that we should have to help our brain the most?

Salmon, wild salmon. Blueberries, walnuts, olive for avocado oil. Yeah, healthy protein, chocolate. I make this great brain healthy hot chocolate every night for my family. I just look at the six of them that live at home, I'm like, okay, who's up for it tonight? So Costco, of all places, organic vanilla, unsweetened almond milk, raw cacao, it's a superfood, so organic raw cacao, and a little bit of Sweet Leaf is a company that makes flavored stevia. They make chocolate flavored stevia and put it in the blender, heat it up, it's phenomenal. Good for me, I love it and did love loves me back.

It loves you back. So salmon, blueberries, walnuts, avocado or avocado oil, raw chocolate are some of the.

Top favorite foods for the brain.

For the brain. Why are these foods? Is it high in antioxidants?

Is it proteins that they have?

So blueberry, it's. You know that old saying? It's not what you say, it's how you say it. I think that goes for how we live, too. It's not just what we do, it's the energy, the intention, the presence we bring. And that's exactly what the Range Rover sport brings to the road. The Range Rover Sport is built to take on roads anywhere without any unnecessary details. It combines a dynamic sporting personality with elegance and agility and delivers an instinctive drive. Its assertive stance hints at an equally refined driving performance. Defining true modern luxury, the Range Rover Sport features the latest innovations in comfort and convenience. The Cabin Air Purification System alongside the Active Noise Cancellation creates a new level of quality, comfort, and control. Terrain Response 2 offers seven terrain models to from fine tuning the vehicle for any challenging roads ahead. Build your Range Rover Sport at range.rover.com/us/sport. We all know that staying hydrated is.

So important, and we've heard it a.

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It's the phytonutrients. They've actually done studies showing cognitive enhancement with blueberry juice, Salmon, it's the omega-3 fatty acids and the complete protein. Avocados, it's the healthy fat, especially omega-3 fatty acids, same with walnuts. Your brain is fat. Low-fat diets are bad for your brain. People who go on low-fat diets actually have an increased incidence of depression.

Really?

Yeah.

So now you don't want bad fat. fried fats particularly. You want healthy fats, avocados, nuts and seeds, green leafy vegetables.

Olive oil is in there.

Olive oil, avocado oil, Damien nut oil.

Yeah.

So.

How much food should the brain have? Is it, you know, it's your buddy, our buddy Dave Asprey talks about fasting a lot. A lot of people are in this fasting craze if we're not giving the brain food or nutrients for a day, three days, five days. Does that help the brain? Does it reset the brain? Does it hurt the brain?

So, intermittent fasting, where you go 12 to 16 hours from dinner to breakfast or lunch is good. They've actually found your, there's a term called autophagy where your brain begins to clean up some of the trash.

So, it works in the brain too.

Not just the It works on the brain as well. Now, I grew up Roman Catholic and long suffering was one of the gifts. And I never got that one. I'm not a fan of long suffering. I'm not doing a marathon. It's like way too much stress for my brain. And I'm not fasting for three days. But I can go 12 hours. I mean, like, that's not a big deal. And it helps people lose weight. helps them be healthy. And I come from a family of fat people. My dad used to say when I would say that, but I have a brother who's 150 pounds overweight despite me loving him, nudging him.

And.

You just have to be thoughtful, know your vulnerability and bright minds. And gee, is genetics. So know what you're genetically vulnerable to and you know, I have to work on it. Right, right.

How you mentioned you don't do marathons. If you're not traumatizing the brain through contact sports, but you're an endurance junkie, you love to run marathons, you run them every year, you do triathlons, you do ultra marathons, you're doing mountain climbing, are these activities good for the brain to put some extreme stress on it, even if it's not physical contact to the brain? or does it long-term hurt the brain?

The scans I have of extreme athletes are not good.

Really?

Yeah.

I think it's too much stress for the brain. I love HIIT training, high intensity training, that's been shown to increase mitochondria in cells. I'm not a fan of putting your body under a lot of stress. It's just not good for it. Some stress is good. We call it eustress. A little bit, so your fibers grow. That's why weight training is important. The stronger you are as you age, less likely you are to have Alzheimer's disease.

Really?

But you want to love your brain. You want to make sure you're sleeping for your brain. That's the essence of Bright Mind.

So someone's like, you know what? Okay, I hear what you're saying, but I really love to do a marathon or two a year. A few times in my life I wanna do, you know, wanna climb Everest or something like that. I wanna do something to challenge myself.

And I go, Is that gonna hurt the brain?

Is that gonna hurt the brain?

Is that gonna, if you're doing everything else right. So one of my NFL players just signed an $80 million deal. So he's gonna play. He's going to play. But if you're gonna do something that is potentially damaging, to the brain. Make sure you're doing everything else right. So for example, being a firefighter is a brain damaging profession. We need to own that. Just like we need to own playing football is a brain damaging profession. It's like own it. Everybody knows it. Now when I started my work in 2007, very few people know it. Now everybody knows it. But they don't know that being a firefighter, because they're our heroes, those are the people we need when we need them and we need them healthy. But because of the toxins they breathe, because of the emotional trauma they see day in and day out, because of the head traumas they experience, they have a higher incidence of depression, a higher incidence of suicide, and a higher incidence of early death. We should not be okay with this. But it doesn't mean we're not gonna have firefighters. What it means is we should put their brain in a rehabilitative environment all the time. We should be teaching them about brain health, like with NFL players currently. We should be teaching them, look, if you're gonna do this, own it. It's a brain-damaging sport, so let's just do everything else. Right.

What are the other things right that you talk about? Are there are a few main keys? Is it nutrition? Is it sleep?

Well, we think about Bright Minds, it's such a good model. So, blood flow, B is blood flow, so exercise. And foods like beets that increase blood flow or supplements like ginkgo that increase blood flow. The R is retirement and aging. New learning is absolutely critical. your work and studying greatness, you're always learning something new, which is great for the brain.

Retirement plus aging, is that what you said?

Retirement and aging.

So continuing to learn in those stages.

And always putting yourself in an anti-aging environment. So, the food you eat, the exercise, new learning, being passionate, never retiring, right? I mean, maybe you go and do something else you like better because you have enough money. But never retirement, because when you start not doing things, your brain actually starts to disconnect.

In this final section, Evi Pompuri shares techniques used by the Secret Service to help build confidence and poise in high-stress situations.

Find alternative ways to let people down.

Why is that?

To preserve the relationship.

Because when you say no to someone, even if it's a friend, they might take it personally.

Stings, right? Why are you saying no to me? Why do you have to say like that? You can say, you can reject people in a thoughtful way, in a professional way, and it just, it depends. Do you care about the relationship? And if you do, your no, your hard no can hurt people's feelings. People become sensitive because you're rejecting them. And so I'm gonna think of a different way to say no. That's not gonna impact you as much. It's really using language thoughtfully. So for example, you brought up lying. I love that. And you said, you know, when I was a kid, I lied. So I would never say to you, Louis, you're a liar. Or, Louis, no, Louis, you're lying to me. I would say, Louis, I know you're not being truthful with me. Louis, you're holding something back from me. Sounds different. So it's the same way with language. We don't, we throw our words out and we don't realize that they land on someone. And so then we scratch our heads wondering, why did this conversation not go well? It's this person's the problem. When we don't have the ability to think about how did I deliver this? So if it's a business relationship that's important to you, but you want to say no to this, you want to think of a great way to say no. So we want to think about how do we let people down without hurting their identity? Going back to identity.

Was there ever a time when you were interviewing or interrogating someone and you didn't believe them ever, but they were telling 100% the truth?

Oh my God, you just reminded me of this case.

You're just like, I know this person's lying to me, but at the end of the day, everything he said was pretty true or almost 100%.

This was, I've never, I had, it was such a simple case and it was not even for a lot of money. It was an eight ATM scam. This man was going to ATMs and he was taking, stealing money. Somebody would go in, use their credit card, he'd come from behind, take money. Very simple. On the ATM. Like put him up with like a gun or something? No, no, no, no, no. Just follow them in. There's these little skimmers that they put on top of the machine. So when you scan your card, that it would pick up your information as well and then you could go, there's all these different scams. So, but when you go to the ATM, there's a camera there. It's got your full picture. So, I have a picture of this guy, my perpetrator. It's a picture of him. I see him, his face. He's wearing a hat. He's wearing a New York Knicks hat. And I was like, here's my guy. All right, you know, I've got it. All I gotta do is lay the picture on. So, he shows up for his interview wearing the same New York Knicks hat. So, I start speaking to him. I don't take out my evidence, right? 'Cause I'm saving that. 'Cause I'm, that's my, that's my- She knew this is a slam dunk. This is a slam dunk. I was like, and he didn't even steal a lot, $500. It was something small. I don't know how it landed in my lap, but it did. And sir, you took the money. No, no, miss. I swear to God, I would never do that. Sir, we have this. So I'm doing this with him for like 15 minutes.

And this was a mistake on my part.

We have evidence, we have proof, we have, you know, video footage of everything. He's giving him everything. No, never me, never me. And I pull out, I think I'm being slick, and I pull out my photo of him. Boom, right on the table. Who's that, sir? Right, and I'm sitting down, I'm all smug, I'm like, I got this guy. And he takes it, and he looks at it, he's like, Looks like me. Yeah, he looks like me. He's not me. I was like, what? That's you. He's like, Looks like me, that's not me. Same hat, New York Knicks hat.

The guy's wearing the hat right now.

Yeah, no. And it was a craziest interview, and I remember it was for money. It was not for a lot of money. In fact, when it came to financial crimes, crimes that had to do with money, it was actually harder to get people to confess to those.

Why?

Less guilt.

Less guilt. They didn't hurt someone physically.

Yes.

They might have hurt them financially.

Yes, I'm at home, I'm sitting behind my computer, I'm in my fuzzy slippers. Or even if I'm doing it at the ATM, I'm not stealing from you, I'm stealing from the bank. But it's different when I walk by you and actually put my hand in your pocket. It's different when I go into your home and I assault you. So there's that level of guilt when it's money, and especially if you steal it from an institution. Zero guilt. Those were the hardest to get. But yeah, that was my guy. I will never forget it.

So I started last- Was it him.

Or was it not him? It was him. We arrested him anyway, 'cause we had the proof. But it's always great to get, it's always helpful to have a confession, because it really just kind of seals everything. You've got the evidence, you've got this.

The person said it.

But he never agreed to it.

No, no.

He said, Looks like me, but it's not me. No, same New York snake hat. Yeah, I don't know. I guess he's from New York. Who doesn't like the Knicks? He just nothing. And you could see his face. Looks like me. I got nothing from him.

Really?

Yeah.

So he never actually told the truth, but it was in fact him.

Who was him? I mean, we had evidence. We had prints. We had all that stuff. But yeah, no, he, you know, to the end. No, not me.

Could you tell?

Like- I couldn't tell.

You couldn't tell he was lying or not?

I couldn't tell. No, he was so believable. But I knew going in that he was my guy.

Right.

So that's why I was like, I know it's him, but it was just like stoic. And there's a moment I'm like, is it not him? Right?

These are so good.

You're like, am I seeing this?

Right?

Turn the photo around. I'm like, no, no, it's him, it's him, it's him. No, no, this is you. So some people aren't that good. Some people are that good. They will. Some people. And I think this is. Look, this was also somebody who committed.

A lot of crimes, and he was used to it.

He's used to it. So certain people who who lie a lot usually become better at it, or they don't feel bad, it becomes better at masking it. You obviously have a great conscience and so it bothered you and so all your tells were shown. You can't lie to yourself.

Yeah, it's like your heart is bumping, like your chest is tight, your throat is clenching, you're like, ugh.

It bothered you.

Yeah.

Which is a healthy thing. It's actually a healthy thing when it bothers you We tend to see in people who have sociopathic tendencies or antisocial tendencies, those people don't tend to be bothered. And so they can lie and can be quite calm about it because they don't feel that guilt. The majority of people will feel guilt. So the majority of people will feel the way you feel because you know it's wrong, you feel it. Whereas those individuals with those tendencies, they don't care.

What about a situation that you lied your way through where someone believed you? Is there a situation like that in the last three to five years where you lied about something you're not proud of maybe, or people believed you and more than just, oh, I'm having a good day, lie?

You know what I did? I could probably confess that this was so long ago. I went and got It was back in the day I got a money order from... Western Union? The post office.

Post office.

And you know, I was like young, I was a kid, I wasn't making a lot of money. I was in college. And so I asked for a money order for like $3.99. I pay, I get it. And then as I'm leaving, I see $4.99. And I'm like, oh!

100 bucks!

100 bucks! And I took it. And to this day, I remember it bothered me. Really? Yeah, it bothered me.

Did it bother that you didn't tell the truth right then and say, Hey.

You guys gave me- no, I took the money. Yeah.

It bothered you that you lied about it?

Statute of limitations, I think I'm okay. I took the money. It bothered me afterward because I knew it was, I knew it was wrong. I will tell you this one story.

We went- Did that come up in the Secret Service interview? Did you ever steal something, like money.

When you were younger? You know what I did lie about and did come up in my Secret Service interview, I'll tell you that. I, when I applied for the job, when I went to college, my parents, and I love my family, they weren't very supportive. They weren't very supportive of my decisions. My dad was a bit difficult. They didn't really want me to go. And so when you apply for college, you need their paperwork, their tax paperwork. I needed aid. They couldn't afford it. And so my dad was so upset with me He wouldn't give me his tax paperwork.

To go to college?

Yeah. They didn't agree with my decisions because I was going to private school that they could not afford. And I was like, I'll figure it out on my own. But either way. And so I lied when I went to the school. I said, I can't get this tax paperwork. You know, the main person was there is like, well, you think you can't get aid? And so I went back to the school later on and I said, I'm not living at home. I'm alone. Can I get aid? I can't get access to this tax paperwork. And then I got aid. So I flat out, yup, I lied. And I spilled the beans in my polygraph. I was like, I told them this is what happened. I said, I lied to get financial aid. Because I couldn't qualify for aid. And so I was like, you know, they didn't care that I was like, look, my dad, my mom, they won't give me their tax paperwork. They're so upset with me, they don't agree. with my decision to go to this school to do this. And they're like, no, unless you don't have your parents in your life, I was just like, I was like, I'm going to college. And I lied, but in my polygraph, I was like, I have to tell you something. Actually, I said it before they hooked me up. And I said, Look, I lied about this. I did this, you know, like, why did you do it? I was like, I wanted to go to college. I couldn't get money to go to school.

So I was okay. I got the job. Wow. How many things did you tell, did you confess to before you took the polygraph?

That was my biggest thing.

Yeah.

That was my thing. Drugs, like, I didn't. I never had. I. Despite growing up in New York, I never had any issues. I. I always stayed away from it, I think, because I saw so much around it of that around me. And the more people kind of put it in my face, the more I was kind of like, I'm not doing that. Yeah. But probably would have been the opposite. If nobody did it, I'd be the one to be like, oh, I'm gonna try this. I think that was the biggest thing. It weighed. the heaviest with me because I was like, I did this bad thing. I lied on my financial aid paperwork to get aid. I'm hoping the statute of limitations has expired on that as well. I paid back all my loans.

I'm sure it's fine.

Yeah. I paid back all my loans.

When you're in an interrogation or an interview, or you're on a first date, or you're at a job interview in your career, or any type of first interview with any situation, what's the best way to build command, authority, and credibility?

Yeah. So you can do very simple things like when you greet someone, hi, how are you? Come on in. Why don't you use the bathroom before we get started? So I'm not asking you, would you like to use the bathroom? I'm telling you, why don't you go use the bathroom? Why don't you have something to drink? What can I bring you? Right? So I'm In this subtle way, I'm telling you to go to the bathroom and you're gonna go because of the way I said it. Why don't you go to the bathroom? No, no, go before we get started. You just said authority. Why don't you have something to drink? Oh, no, I'm good. No, have something to drink.

We're gonna be here for a little bit. Have something to drink.

So now I'm planting these little seeds telling you I'm in control. I'm not telling you, but I'm doing it subtly. Have a seat there. You know, you can show me where to sit. Or on the flip side, you could also practice something called autonomy, where you let somebody choose their own seat. And that's a different tactic. So there's two tactics here.

Where would you like to sit?

Yeah.

Where would you like to sit? So you may use that on me if you want to talk about a topic that I don't want to talk about. And so autonomy makes me feel like I have a choice. You let me choose where I'm gonna sit. because you're gonna let me have it later. You're gonna try to push me on something later.

I gave you something now, the law of reciprocity means you give me something later.

Exactly. But also autonomy though, it's actually also not reciprocity, it's actually more of I feel in control because we don't like to feel like we're not in control. So if you wanna talk about something where I'm really uncomfortable, I don't feel like I'm in control. I will give you control, elsewhere. So I will give you control in picking where you want to meet. I will give you control in what time I will give you control and where you want to sit. Little things like that you can do where that person has autonomy to choose. We can do it here. We can talk about this or we can talk about this. Which would you prefer? That's nobody likes to feel like they don't have control. So a way that you can deal with a resistance person is by giving them some level of control.

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When you're going on a first date, how is and you've been maybe in an abusive relationship in the past where you were a doormat. You were walked on, you had no control, no authority. The person that you were in a relationship with walked over your boundaries, took advantage of all that, and you've had time to heal and now you're getting back out there. How can that person create a great dating experience in that first date to put themselves more in the driver's seat with some authority and not a doormat mentality?

All right, so there's two things. I think the first thing is don't take out on that person what was done to you by somebody else.

That's the worst.

Because we've all been victims of things to some degree, right? And let's say even if it was abuse, if it was horrible, it was that, it is also not fair to take that out on an innocent person, like to take your trauma out to someone else. we can feel trauma elsewhere and then project it onto someone else who didn't cause that to us. So I would say that's the most important thing because it will allow you to connect. The other thing I will say is the majority of people tend to trust. When we have relationships with people, we tend to go and trust people. So when someone says something to you, you tend to believe it.

Believe it.

The average person.

Why is that?

We're just engineered that way. And I don't even know why that is, but we tend to sway towards trusting the person in law enforcement, actually. It's the opposite. Law enforcement officials are notorious for thinking people are deceitful. So the average person believes people are honest. Law enforcement believes people are deceitful because they deal with more people who lie. That causes a problem elsewhere because when you do have innocent people, We're telling the truth. They're telling you the truth and then you get false confessions. You get problems. You're looking at the wrong person because you're confirmation bias. That's a whole other animal over there. But knowing that we tend to give people, we tend to believe people automatically, just hold a little bit of that back.

Believe less.

Just be more reserved in how much you trust.

Discerning about it.

Yes. Just don't put it all out on the table. Oh my God, this guy's great or gal's great. I just connected with them. And then what we do, we go nose in. And so you don't want to give unconditional trust. So unconditional trust is like, I give you now trust across the board. I trust you in everything. When you start dating someone or any new relationship, even in business, always conditional trust. I'm not going to trust you all the way. I'm going to trust you part of the way. So now here's the thing. We love to trust unconditionally, which is probably why we tend to just want to give people trust. It's less work. I could just turn my brain off. I can trust you, Louis. Great story, yeah. Louis asked me anything you want because you asked me in the beginning, is there anything off the table? I'm like, no, Louis, go ahead and ask. But you give that person unconditional trust. and I don't have to think so hard. I don't have to worry if you're going to manipulate me. I don't have to be on my guard. It's easy. It's easier that relationship. Conditional trust means I have to be a bit more careful. So it's like me going to buy a car. I know I'm dealing with a car salesman. I know I should be careful. It's just understood that they try to get you to buy certain things. They use certain language. So when I go in, I go in with conditional trust. And so I'm better protected. That's why there you're less likely to get hurt in those situations where you understand, I can't fully give everything to this person. I can't fully trust them conditionally. I can, excuse me, unconditionally. So I have to just be careful. The thing is, that's work. It's a lot of work. We get tired. We access a specific part of the brain when we do that, a more complex part of the brain. So that's why unconditional trust, you don't want to give it right away. And that is why when we get betrayed by people close to us, that's why it hurts most. It's usually by people who betrayed us on who we give unconditional trust to. Yeah. That's my advice for dating.

That's when it stings. Would you use the same approach if, let's say, you're, you know, I haven't been on a first date in forever, but let's say you're on a date, your first date with someone, would you say, Hey, why don't you have some water? Why don't you use the restroom first?

Where would you like to sit? Would you do the same approach there? I would not because I don't want to establish authority there. That's not, if you're looking to have a relationship, I would not do that.

That's creepy.

That's a controlling on her.

What should you establish?

Trust. I think rapport and trust, and I think probably the best thing you can do is just not talk about yourself and listen to that other person. Just ask about them.

What would be the-- you- did that.

To me when I walked in. Yeah. I was like, heavy, boom, boom, boom, boom. I was like, ah.

What would be the three most fascinating questions someone could ask on a first date that would not be interrogational, but be connecting questions?

Ted, tell me about yourself. Explain to me what your dreams are. Describe to me what your hopes are. Don't create a question because you may ask a question that you think is fascinating and they're gonna look at you like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You don't know what they think like, what their aspirations are, what their- We're.

On a hypothetical first date. What would you say to me?

Tell me about your podcast. I'd love to hear all about it.

Okay.

Explain to me how you got into that. Describe to me like what it's like when you interview all these different people. I'm gonna shut up and I'm gonna let you go, Louis. Because now I get to hear you. I get to see what you, you're like, your values, your beliefs, what excites you, what doesn't excite you. Excite you. You're gonna tell me about why you started it. You're gonna tell me about your background, what got you into it, any growing pains or heartaches or how this happened. You're gonna tell me about your favorite you're not favorite guests. You're gonna tell me about the amazing things you learned or maybe some of the things that you were like, I can't believe I brought this guest on. And so now you just opened up this world and I had to do no work and I can just listen.

These are more indirect questions, is that right?

Or open-ended questions?

Open-ended questions. So don't ask a direct question. Who is your favorite guest?

Don't say that. I would tell me about, tell me about your guests. And then I would allow you to naturally tell me on your own because you feel like you're in control and it's more likely that you will tell me on your own. But if I ask you directly and if you want to protect the integrity of the people you interview because you don't want to say, this is my favorite guest to make it public because then it's going to hurt the people that come on the show, right? Your clientele, so to speak, your guests. So I would, you're not going to answer it. You're going to be reluctant. Oh, Evie, I love everybody. It's like my kids.

You know, you can't say you have a favorite kid. It's all you It is.

You're gonna say that. It's like when people ask me, who's your favorite president? I always say, I love them all. I love protecting all of them. But if somebody says, tell me about the people you protected, or tell me about the presidents you protected, now I feel comfortable. I'm in control. I'm talking. The more we talk, the more we leak, I'm less guarded, it's less direct. I don't even know you're trying to find that. And I may naturally on my own get.

Tell me about a characteristic of a president that wowed you the most. You know, you like that opener? You like that opener?

I think he used his head on me.

A characteristic from one of the presidents that you were just like, obviously they're all inspiring in some way, I'm assuming, for you, but tell me about a characteristic or a belief, a mindset, an approach, a strategy that one of them used that that wowed you?

I liked, there's a couple, there's like little things. I'll tell you, former President George Bush Sr. He used to write note cards to everybody. He had a little, he wrote note cards, thank you so much. He would just send little note cards to people. And I saw what an impact that made to people to receive a handwritten note. He hand wrote it. from someone saying thank you or I appreciate you. And to this day I do that. And I took that from President George Bush because I saw that and I was like, what a wonderful thing. And I saw how much of an impact that did. It was a very little thing, but I took that from him. So whenever I meet someone or there's an exchange or something, I will write a handwritten note card. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. It does a lot.

Did he write you a card?

He did not write me a card. He wasn't my full-time protectee, but I watched.

Yeah, you watched him actually write it for other people. Yeah, or you saw other people get it.

Both. You would see them when they would work and you would know what they did or didn't do. That's what he did. And another characteristic is I think I liked President Obama. I liked the way he spoke. and for me that was very, I appreciated that because I, although I was an agent and an interviewer, I didn't know how to speak for myself. It's weird, right? I could speak on behalf of the government and the law and all that, but I never paid attention to the way I spoke to people and what I loved, you could hear him, you could hear him, usually you call Renegade I could say it, it's public, it's in his book, Renegade on the Move. You could hear the agents say that, but you could hear him. You could hear him. I love the way he echoed his voice and projected his voice and didn't hold it back. And how he took his time to speak, where a lot of people speak very fast because we feel that we're not worthy of somebody's time. I don't want to take up too much of your time. I'm gonna speak fast. We do that. We feel like, let me just hurry up and say this. This person's probably busy. They have things to do. And then he really projected his voice. Like it boomed through the hallways. And that was a person who was not shy of being present, of taking a space and letting you know I'm here and my voice is relevant. I like that.

That's powerful.

Yes.

Any other characteristics from anyone else?

There's so many.

The ones that wowed you that stood out.

They all did, like they were all great. George Washington, George Washington.

Oh my God.

How old are you?

GW, President George Bush, he, like, I love going to the ranch with him. I'm from New York City. I go to Texas and I was just like, what? you know, it was like we were out in the wild. He's like, we're going, we're gonna make trails. I was like, why are we gonna make trails? There's a road right there. You know, we'd cut trails and hike. And he was very authentic. Who he was on camera was who he was off camera and vice versa. He was very just real. And so you'd see these qualities with different people and you know, it's kind of interesting. I just thought of it. I was almost like in my own school of greatness by being in the White House. And then over all the years of about you're around all these people, these influential leaders, despite forget politics, it still takes a person of some-- To get there. Yes, to get there. And so you watch them, and they're not just them. They've got cabinet members, other individuals who, you know, you watch and you listen to, you see how they problem solve. And I was in my own school of greatness where I just got to be front row and you're doing your job. At the same time, you're like, you're listening, you're watching, you're absorbing. I loved it.

Were there any strategies you witnessed or watched or observed from them telling you or not telling you on how they commanded respect and authority? in just their way of being, tonality, was it touching people, you know, on their hand, is it, you know, whatever it is. Look, eye contact, what were the things that they did or that some of them did that really stood out to you? So I'll tell you this, they didn't have to work as hard. Because they're already the authority.

They're already the authority. So you don't, so I want to say that, like they don't, the president can look at you and be like, hey, how you doing? And then like blow you off and you're like, oh my God, I got like a whole solid second. Whereas when they're talking to me or you, it's just like, he only gave me a second. Right? So they don't have to work as hard. So even the little attention they give you lands on you. However though, eye contact is huge. When you talk to someone and you want to convey, you want to convey, hey, trust me. And rapport, this is huge. In fact, if you go to the supermarket and you look at cereal boxes, They have cartoon, the characters on the cereal boxes.

They're looking at you.

You know where a lot of them look down? They're looking down. You know who they're looking down? You'll see cereal boxes where the character looks down. At the cereal. No, I'm a cereal box, right? I'm the Trix rabbit or whatever, right? Now, you go shopping, I'm not looking.

At you, I'm looking down.

Why am I looking down? The rabbit's looking down.

Right, the rabbit's looking down.

Thank you.

Wow.

'Cause the kid's the consumer.

Yeah, not the adult. No, the kid's gonna say, Mom, come grab me.

Mom, buy that for me.

Oh my God.

So they designed them to actually look down and they also put them at a certain level. And so maybe in adult cereal, they'll have the person looking at higher up because they're looking at the adult. Eye contact is huge. It conveys trust me, talk to me, I'm here, I'm connected with you. Even when you want to listen to people, Normally we do break eye contact, but good communicators will lock in. They're not uncomfortable. They're there. I'm with you. I'm connected with you. That is huge. But you touched on literally touching people. And you would see a tactic. I don't want to say a tactic, but no, it's a tactic. It's a strategy. It's a strategy. It's, you know, Hey, you know, Louis, and you know, and maybe I like to touch your forearm. Yeah. You can do that. But I will say today-- you- can't do that. Today is very different. You know, they would teach us that. They're like, hey, you can touch the top of a person's knee and just be like, hey, and I could be like, whoa, unwanted touch. So now, I would actually go against that. I would actually encourage people not to do that just simply because you don't know how it's going to be received. And now today, you got to be a little bit less is more with that.

Yeah, I mean, shaking your hand maybe, and that's it.

I think so.

A second hand on the top, like a genuine heartfelt for two seconds and then let it go.

Yeah, I think so. I think so. You want to respect people's space. It's a little bit different. I think we have more, well, we do have more social space now. And it's interesting how that's going to change the dynamics of how we interact in the future.

Interesting. How do you build that trust without being present and more connected and touching and...

Right, and you have a mask. You can't even see the lower portion of a person's face, which conceals their expressions, their gestures, so it's even harder to read them.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. Hey, everybody. Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co-host Woody Harrelson. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name, and we're back for another season. I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it. Listen to Where Everybody Knows yous Name.

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