The Science Behind The Law of Attraction EP 1325

Once you understand that, you can literally change your brain at any stage, any age, any mindset. It's life changing, isn't it? And you do that through welcome to.

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What is manifestation in your mind and how do you use neuroscience and neuroplasticity to manifest what we want?

Yeah, so I mean, it's so aligned to a lot of things that you speak about because at its most basic manifestation is setting a goal and achieving it. Yes. Or, you know, what I like to say is it's making into reality in the tangible world your dreams and desires. And I'm not the kind of person that, you know, always said I like to live forever or, you know, live till I'm super old or Whatever. But once I discovered neuroplasticity, I thought, I wish I'd known about this when I was 18.

Really.

You know, it's literally life changing. I think I was naturally manifesting from about the age of 18 anyway, but I didn't understand the science behind it. Once you understand that, you can literally change your brain at any stage, any age, any mindset, that's like, it's life changing, isn't it? And. And I feel that, you know, one of the things we were sort of chatting about earlier is that just because I'm a scientist and an md, it doesn't mean that in my real life, it's easy for me to just channel neuroplasticity. It's still. It's still hard. You know, I've been through a divorce, I've been through grief, I've been through career change. And those hard times taught me resilience and neuroplasticity. But the hard times were almost the opportunity. I didn't want to go through those things. I don't want, you know, our listeners to go through hard times. Yeah, pain. But you can take that as an opportunity. And I think if you really understand neuroplasticity, then you can make the worst times in your life the start of the best time in your life. And that's what I love about neuroplasticity, that it's that ability to change, to grow, to regulate your emotions, which I know you're really into, and build resilience. I mean, an example of neuroplasticity that I would share with you, with our listeners is gratitude lists. So for years in my journaling, I would write 10 things I'm grateful for every day. And they were always external things. Friends, family, travel, financial freedom, whatever. And I literally just got bored of writing the same thing. So I thought, okay, what. What else could I write? So I started writing things like my creativity, my vulnerability, my resilience, internal things. And that was a real game changer, really.

What happened when you started doing that?

It made me think that whatever life throws at me, I've got the tools and resources within me to deal with it. And I didn't always have, you know, in my 20s, I wouldn't say I was very emotionally regulated, but learning that whatever happens, the sort of the pendulum swing for your emotions, the higher it goes, the lower it goes as well. And bringing that to, like, parameters that you're comfortable with is that gives you sort of autonomy and agency in life. And again, that's the thing I love about Neuroplasticity.

I want to get back to manifestation in a moment, but you're talking about pain and grief and career changes and health challenges that come up for people. If someone is going through a really hard time. Pain, suffering, their health, relationships, breakups, death, anything. How can they use neuroplasticity to make it the greatest thing that ever happened to them, even if it's the most painful thing they've ever gone through?

It's such a hard thing to answer because obviously people go through pain and sometimes the end result isn't good. But I think just doing what you can during the process. So I think visualization is really, really important. We know that that can actually cause cellular changes in your body.

Really?

Visualization. So first, before you go further, I've heard you talk about manifestation, gratitude lists and visualization, and you're starting to sound like the woo woo self help industry, not a MIT professor. Medical doctor, scientist. But what I'm hearing you say is that there's real benefits scientifically to these things.

Yeah. And I think when I wrote my book the Source, which sort of married together science and spirituality, there was a risk element to that. A little bit like when I left medicine and started coaching and speaking, I. I look back and I can genuinely say to you, Louis, that the biggest risk in my life would have been not leaving medicine and changing my career. Really. Not kind of merging the spirituality with the science. Those would have been the biggest risks. Like not. Not doing those things.

Staying only in the science and in the medicine.

Yeah.

Why do you feel like you needed to merge both?

You mentioned that I'm sort of done with being defined by my job titles and qualifications. And that's a journey I've been on for quite a long time. I would say pre pandemic. I had a conversation with someone at a dinner party where I said, you know, who am I if I'm not a doctor or a neuroscientist? And she said to me, because you're so much more. And I just burst into tears.

Wow.

So that journey, you know, has been quite huge. And I would say that I'm on a journey of continual reinvention and that neuroplasticity underlies that. So the ability to be someone new, to be reborn, but all absolutely based on. Absolutely based on science. I know you were right to call me out and say it sounds a bit woo woo.

I mean, what do your colleagues think about this? When you speak about manifestation, gratitude, lists, visualization, meditation, when they're like, well, that's just Some like personal development, self help talk, you know, where does the science prove and show evidence that these things are effective?

In fact, I mean, I think what I would like to say to you and have you reply to is that it's in the doing. So if I, you know, I've been doing what I call action boards, but they're like vision boards for like 15 years.

Super Woo woo now, you know, the dream boards, the vision boards. Yeah, I love this stuff. I mean, for me this is stuff that I love. But you're the mit, you know, you can't talk about those things, can you?

And I think actually that's probably what my colleagues at MIT love about having me. I don't look like an MIT professor, I don't dress like an MIT professor, I'm not afraid to speak about those things. If you challenge me, I can always give you the science. You know, one of the things that the vice dean, I'll probably get his job title wrong, but he's a very good friend of mine said to me after a few years was, oh yeah, the brain body connection really is a thing, isn't it? And I just find that so frustrating because it so obviously is a thing. And there's still this perception that there's a cutoff at the neck, that what goes on psychologically isn't related to your physiology, you know. And another neuromyth is that emotions are bad. You shouldn't have emotions at work. Sure, dysregulated emotions are not good, but emotions are good. We need them to survive.

And being able to express them in a healthy way, you know. Yeah, the full range of emotions, to.

Have them, to understand what they are, to feel them, to be able to name them.

Yeah, they're signals, they give you information.

But you know, another thing that gives you information is your gut. And that connection between the gut and the brain is, we've known about it for a while, you know, sort of there's a big neural connection between your gut and the limbic part of your brain, which is the emotional part of your brain, but it's actually bidirectional. So if you're stressed, that has an impact on your gut. And you know, if you're, if you are malnourished or you eat processed food, or you drink alcohol, or you take antibiotics, then the impact that that has on your gut then affects your brain. And it's not just through nerves, it's through chemical messaging, it's through hormones, it's through other nerves and the sort of, you know, the Ones that we classically know connect the gut and the brain. So that comes back to what I was saying about visualization having an impact on your cells and your gut. Bacteria are very integral to all the cells and the rest of your body. So your immune system is connected to your gut, and then that's connected to your mental state. It's connected to your brain, it's connected to your skin. And I like to speak in normal words, but that is psycho neuro, immuno endocrinology.

There you go. So did you call it vision boards? Do you call it something else?

I call them action boards.

Action boards.

Because I do not believe that you can create a fantasy of what you want your life to look like without action.

Yeah, I agree. So what is the. Okay, can you break down the science for me a little bit on visualization and action boards? How did these scientifically support, you know, what's the evidence behind how they actually work with connecting the brain to getting the results you want in life?

So, you know, having been a professional sports person, you'll understand about mental rehearsal.

Absolutely.

And biofeedback, which is listening to messages from your body, which we sort of touched on with the gut brain connection. So if your brain has seen something or experienced it through mental rehearsal, then when it comes across something similar in real life, it's less threatening. So uncertainty is the most threatening thing to your brain. Anything new is a huge threat to your brain, which is kind of counter to neuroplasticity. Right. Because with neuroplasticity, I make myself do something new every year. So I've learned several languages.

Really?

Yeah.

How many languages do you know now?

I've learned five in my life. I'm not going to pretend.

Are you fluent in any?

Yes. I was very lucky. I was brought up bilingual in English and an Indian language. And then from the age of nine, I learned French at school. And then as an adult, I learned three other languages at different times. Probably not so good at those ones. Yeah. So during the. The pandemic, I actually made a statement in the beginning, which was, don't necessarily put pressure on yourself to start a new career or learn a language. Then it went on for longer than we all thought it would. So I was actually on an Instagram live saying that I'd always wanted to learn the piano. And somebody sent me a DM and said, Dr. Tara, you can use the Floki app to teach yourself piano.

Floki, huh?

Yeah, it's a really, really cool app. And I'd been gifted a piano keyboard for Christmas by my husband, I am ashamed to say, a year or two earlier and never used it. So in the pandemic, I did use the Floki app and teach myself.

Now you know how to play piano more than Twinkle, Twinkle, Go Star.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my husband gave me tennis lessons. And then I thought, okay, if I can learn piano and I can learn tennis, and I can see how much I improve, and I can see the muscle memory from when I played tennis, from when I was at high school, can I apply that to looking at life through a happier lens? So it's a natural default for all of us to. Loss aversion is one of the biggest gearings of the brain, and it's essential to survival.

Loss aversion?

Yeah. So avoiding loss and uncertainty, like I said, we don't like that. So we like things to be safe. We like them to be the same. You know, we like to know what's going to happen. And equally, we, you know, the brain wants to look out for danger to protect us. And during the pandemic, I'd been speaking for a few years about having a sabbatical, and a few people said to me, oh, now you can have a sabbatical. And I said, you know, I'm locked up at home. I can't travel. I can't see my friends. I can't hug my stepson. It's not a sabbatical. It's not the sabbatical I dreamed of. And also, the mental health requirements were so vast that I felt I had to do my piece and really, you know, speak to that through Instagram, through Zoom, and try to help people. So I was actually busier with work than ever before.

Trying to help people. Yeah.

But I did start, you know, I saw a lot of relationship breakups. I saw a lot of people get sick. Sick. You know, a lot of people that I personally knew died during the pandemic. And it was easy to start to feel like. To focus on things like, you can't see people, you can't travel. And I didn't. I didn't want to see myself go down that road. So I actually. I got a coach. You know, I believe in having therapy, having coaching, having supervision. Love it.

I love it.

And I worked on that. And she actually said to me, why can't you apply neuroplasticity to being happier? And because it's intangible. It's. You know, you can make a vision board with a house and, you know, a dream holiday and vacation and all.

That for the Material world.

Exactly.

But how do you create one for the emotional world?

I think there are. And that's why imagery is important, because it can evoke a feeling.

Yes.

But I remember the moment I was standing sort of at the door to my garden, and a really small, nice thing had happened. And I thought, isn't that lovely? And I actually checked myself and I thought, I notice when something goes wrong all the time. I don't always acknowledge when something goes right or is really good and happy. And so I could tell that I had changed, that I was noticing those things.

You didn't notice that before?

I mean, I'm sure I did sometimes with, like, big things, but it wasn't that little.

Small. Just like, oh, this is a cool little moment.

Yeah. A beautiful flower, or, you know, somebody sent me a lovely message, or I just feel happy today.

You weren't aware?

Not as much.

Interesting until when? Recently.

Couple years ago, I'd say during the pandemic. And, you know, what happened to me during that time is I also naturally learned and then read the research, which I always do, that. It's a thing. Prior to that, I was living my life, you know, 23 and a half hours a day and doing mindfulness for, like, half an hour a day or whatever. And in the pandemic, those things merged and they would never separate. I stopped doing meditation formally. I lived mindfully all day. You know, I cooked mindfully because of my Indian culture. We. I always ate mindfully, but it kind of really leaked into the rest of my day. I remember because I used to work from the kitchen, and I had to move in the end. But if you're sitting at your kitchen table, your family don't think you're working, even if you're on your laptop. So, you know, I'd be in the middle of an email, and my husband would come up and start talking to me. And I'd sort of think, like, you know, I was just focusing on this, and you don't think I'm working because I'm sitting in the kitchen. And then I was like, well, actually, what's more important, this email or giving my husband my full attention? And so I sort of thought, okay, the email can wait. I'll put it down. I'll turn to him, I'll give him full eye contact, and I'll be really, really genuinely fully interested in whatever he's got to say.

That's beautiful. And that was in the last couple years. So the mental rehearsal. I learned a lot. I learned this in high school and in College, I used to practice as an athlete. I would rehearse, okay, the game coming up this weekend, the game coming up tomorrow. And I would be. And I remember when I was learning the decathlon, when I was a senior in college, I decided to do the decathlon, which is 10 events. So I had to learn a lot of new events quickly. And I was an athlete, so I.

Could pick things up.

But there was very technical things with pole vault is extremely challenging. And I remember watching this highlight video of the top pole vault athletes in the world at the time. This is back in 2005. And I would watch this tape on repeat like an hour before I go to sleep every night and imagine myself and then actually practicing it in bed as I'd watch it myself doing the move, like putting the pole in, going upside down, inverted, and flipping over as they were doing it. I would try to visually mentally rehearse myself being that person going over the bar, going over the bar with this technique. And then the next day I would go practice what I was rehearsing in my mind the night before. And I saw incredible results from the mental rehearsal because it just allowed me to get familiar with what was unfamiliar at the time in my mind, like you talked about. And it's something I've implemented in the business world and in life is using that. But what does the research show on why this is so powerful beyond what I've seen personally from my own results? Why is mental rehearsal powerful in attracting what you want?

So the first thing I'd like to say is that I really admire that dedication of doing it for an hour a day, every night. You know, that's the difference between people who say I want to get X or do X, but they won't spend an hour a day doing it.

And that was just an hour a day rehearsing it. I know I wasn't actually practicing implementing it then. I'd get up at 6am and train for a few hours.

Yeah, and I think it's really important to say that I was on an Instagram live with a friend who owns a huge shoe empire and said that at some point on her vision board, she wanted a house in the Hamptons. And there were so many comments that came out saying, yeah, I'd like a house in the Hamptons. But the thing is, you've got to put in the work to earn the money to get the house in the Hamptons. It's not sort of. It doesn't come so basically believing that something's possible or having had an experience of doing that thing or even imagining that thing makes it more possible in your brain. So there are amazing studies. I literally don't know where to start. I think I'll probably start with the most exciting one, which is that if you do weightlifting and you separate people into two groups. So the group that actually lift weights and the research study was on finger weights and elbow weights. I won't get the percentages exactly right, but with two weeks of doing these weights there was like a 30 to 40% increase in muscle mass with the, you know, the finger or the elbow.

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Of people who only imagined lifting weights.

Come on. What happened?

About a 15% increase in muscle mass?

No way. They imagined that they were lifting.

Yes.

Were they actually like squeezing their muscles? They just thought they were lifting without moving and their muscles grew.

Yeah.

Come on. Really? That's crazy.

That research study is quoted in my online program at MIT Sloan. Wow. So I can't like recall it the actual name of the study, but we can find out and put it in the show notes. That's crazy. Yeah.

There was a. There was another one that something similar where they had people, I can't remember exactly the layout of the study, but they had two different types of groups of people. One group practice free throws like 100 shots a day or something like this trying to get like improve their percentage, their free throw percentage. And then they had others just imagine that they were making it and something crazy like the ones that just imagined that they made the perfect shot every time had like the same amount of improvement or more or something like that where they were mentally rehearsing in their mind, not actually physically doing it and they had some crazy result similar to that. But it's fascinating. But when you can couple both of them. If you're lifting, I can imagine. And you're imagining and putting the intention so strongly into, okay, I'm lifting this weight, my muscles are getting stronger, they're getting bigger, and you're putting the emphasis as opposed to just going through the motions. It probably has an even more powerful effect as well.

Yeah. So you're absolutely right. That was a really great point to raise, which is the sort of the intentionality of what you do so you can do the same thing. Like, okay, so intermittent fasting is a great example. There's a huge difference between people who say, oh, I forget to eat breakfast, and people who eat like me, which is only between 12 noon and 8pm every day because of the intention, it actually has a different effect on your body. Yeah.

So it's like your body's, like, burning more because you're intentionally doing that, or you're losing more weight or something.

I won't go so far as to say it's burning more or you're losing more weight. But there's, again, in neuroscience, there's a difference between intentional mind wandering and just slipping off into daydreaming. And so if you slip off into daydreaming, that means your attention isn't the best, and it's actually kind of a bad sign in terms of your focus and your concentration. But if you intentionally let your mind wander, then actually that leads to more creative thinking.

I call that strategic messing around.

Yeah.

You're, like, strategically not working on something, and you're just kind of daydreaming. You're thinking you're being playful in your mind about possibilities.

Yeah.

And great things usually tend to happen.

Exactly.

When you give yourself space for that, as opposed to, I'm just gonna scroll on Instagram or just mindlessly do some.

Activity or even do an activity and try to do too much, like multitask. So, for example, a lot of people, when they go for a walk, will listen to a podcast. Because of the science, I try to never multitask. So if I'm listening to your podcast, which obviously I do all the time, then that's all I'm doing. If I'm going for a walk, I'm not listening to a podcast at the same time. No. And I also do doing nothing. And that is not going for a walk or listening to a podcast or scrolling on Instagram. It's actually doing nothing.

Sitting, not turn the tv. Yeah, it's sitting and doing nothing.

Yeah.

What does that do for you?

So it can be partly mind wandering, you know, leading to that creative, sort of more creative thinking. It's. It's being Louis. And like, we're not doing that. And I think, you know, the thing that.

Not doing. Being.

Yeah. And during the pandemic, but also since. And I think there's such a. Unknown, huge consequence of what we've all been through mentally, that I just. I see people. They don't like themselves. They don't like what they're doing. They maybe even don't like their partner, and they don't think that they can change. And that's why I'm so passionate about neuroplasticity and mind over matter. And, you know, when I was telling you about the weightlifting, then you went into your story, I was just looking at you and smiling and thinking, can you see now why I'm so obsessed with neuroplasticity? You know, like, it's. I know that those people can change. I've. I've done it myself. It's. I haven't just done the research or read the research or taught about it. I've done it many, many times in my life. And so I know that people can do it. And I. That's what I really want people to. To hear. And, you know, you. You. You talk about greatness. I don't think people understand how great they are. And neuroplasticity basically tells you that you're. You're amazing. Your brain is amazing, what it can do. You are not doing a tiny percentage of what your brain can do.

Right.

I've got so many other stories I want to, like, loop back.

Yeah. Bring them.

So a group of people in their 80s. So there was one group that just lived their life like normal. They were the control group. There was one group that were moved to retrofitted homes that looked like their homes did 20 years ago. So when they were in their 60s, they had photographs of themselves when they were 60 in the house. They read newspapers from 20 years ago. And so by the end of one week, you're not, like, you're literally. I can't wait to hear, like, how you react to this. They were taller.

Come on. No way.

They had better musculoskeletal coordination.

Wow.

They. In before and after photos that were shown to people that didn't know them, they were rated as younger in the after photos. So the. The tallness is to do with posture rather than, like, growing taller, but just, like, the way that you hold yourself because you believe that you're younger. And there was a third group that were the reminiscing group. So they didn't live in retrofitted homes.

They stayed in the same home.

Stayed in the same home. But they thought about being 20 years younger. And they also got improvements. Not as much. Wow.

I believe it. You know, there's my mom. She. I'm going to butcher this. Birthdays were never a thing of mine, so I've never really paid attention to age. She just turned 70. I can't remember if it was a year ago or two years ago, but I think it was two years ago.

With the pandemic, we've all lost.

I think it was two years ago. My mom and I were like, why don't you say every year moving forward that you're a year back now? So this year she's 68, I think.

I love it.

I'm gonna say she's 68. Yes. She's saying she's 60. And there's probably some psychological, emotional and neuroplastic connection to it as well. Just like saying, no, I am younger and just believing it, living it, stepping into that as opposed to, oh, I'm getting a year older and older. There's probably something to that. Based on this research study.

It sounds like there is and I do it too. So I'm not going to tell you how old I am. But it's like getting, that's getting serious. But from when I was 30, I started to reverse aging diet. And it's not really a diet, it's just a way of life. So, you know, it's basically healthy eating. And I don't eat smoked food. I stopped eating smoked salmon. Luckily sushi exists so I can still eat. And yeah, I just, I sort of don't think about the number that my age is at all. And if I did tell you how old I was then I think you would be surprised.

You look very young.

Thank you.

You look like you're 30 something. You know, you're 30 still.

Thank you.

You're awesome.

Yeah, you're definitely my new best friend.

It's interesting, I saw this video clip of Jamie Foxx recently online where someone was interviewing him and they were like, it doesn't look like you've aged in 20 years. She's like, I'm looking at photos of you from this movie 20 years ago. You look almost same. How do you do it? And his response was, you know, something about being in this industry where I'm in this imagination world, this playful make believe, get out of myself and step into different characters. He's like, we're constantly playing. You're playing constantly. You get to be silly and goofy and try new things. And he goes, I think that's part of it. I feel like I've never gotten older because I'm always acting young.

And you know what I think? I think what you do leaks into the rest of your life and has a huge impact on you. I interviewed Professor Amishi Jha for my online.

She's awesome.

Yeah, peak mind. Yeah, yeah, peak mind.

She, I love her research on the US Marines and mindfulness. And so I'd followed that research for a long time and I reached out to her, I think just through LinkedIn or I found her like an academic email address and she started replying and like sending me hearts and I love hearts and flowers. So I was like, wow, I'm like so grateful that she wants to be like on my program. And she was sort of saying the same to me, like, of course I would want to be on your program. I love your research too. When I interviewed her, the way that she was so the attention that she gave me when I spoke with her and then the way that she flipped into recording mode when I asked her a question, I just looked at her and I thought, if that is what decades of research on attention gives you, I would like a piece of that.

Sure.

But I would say my version of the answer to Jamie Foxx is what, what I say to people who say, you know, how, how do you stay young? How do you stay looking young? You know, they want to like do that. I say, do all the things that I speak about, sleep, eat, hydrate, oxygenate, you know, but don't stress about it because it's the stress that will kill you and age you in the end.

Really. The stress about what specifically?

Anything aging life, you know, just being stressed because being stressed. So a big area of research for me is mental resilience. Being stressed is pro inflammatory in your system and if you've got inflammation, it's aging, it makes you sick, it's know, bad for your gut, it's bad for your brain. So basically living an anti inflammatory kind.

Of, kind of lifestyle is important and stress causes inflammation. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. And what we saw during the pandemic was because it was chronic stress on a scale that pretty much no one that's alive now has, has been through before. You know, it's, it's similar to the world wars in terms of the stress, the impact that it had on people. And we're quite good at dealing with acute stress. We were wired to deal with running away from a saber toothed tiger. But this chronic stress, it was pro inflammatory and it made our systems really dry. People had frizzy hair, they had skin problems. What was super interesting to me as well in terms of neural wiring is that the wiring that's placed into your brain from childhood is obviously the deepest and the strongest. We're often unconscious of it because it's been there for so long. And there's research called ghosts in the executive suite or ghosts in family systems that looks at things like values, roles that you play, boundaries, secrets in the family, expectations, who you identify with. And boundary issues became a really big thing during the pandemic.

People didn't have boundaries.

Well, we were restricted. We were told not to go outside, not to mingle with people.

They had certain boundaries, but then they also didn't. Yeah, then you didn't have privacy in your own home, I guess. Right, exactly.

Your own space.

And your skin is the physical boundary of your body, obviously, but it's also psychologically very related to boundary transgressions.

Interesting. Oh my gosh. It's so fascinating you're saying this because about two years ago, I was in a different relationship and I started to get this like, kind of skin rash right here, like a little bit, like a little patch of like this redness right here. And then I started to also get it right below my belly button, like this kind of like red rash. And I'm thinking, like, something wrong with me. Do I have some like, disease or something? And after I ended this relationship, literally that week, it went away. So I was in this relationship that was a challenge for me, and a lot of it was based on my values. I was abandoning myself and my boundaries were being crossed almost daily. And I kept giving in to try to create a peaceful relationship. But then me giving in to myself was crossing my own boundaries, was abandoning my values.

Right.

To make someone happy. And so, and I, and I started to do a lot of healing and therapy after the, during and after this. And I was like, man, this is going away. And she's like, well, you're reclaiming yourself. You know, you're, you're creating your boundaries again. And you're not letting someone walk over your boundaries and you're not abandoning yourself. So it was like my skin, because I did all the tests. I did like every allergy test. No allergies, no nothing. I go, what is this, like, little rash thing? I go, what's going on? You know, I cut out foods. I was like sleeping the right amount, all these things. But it Was like the skin still had this irritation. I don't wear creams, I don't have anything. I changed the shampoos, all that stuff. And it was my internal psyche emotions that was screaming at me. It was literally like screaming. Stress and inflammation.

Yeah.

And it was fascinating to see it go into, I guess, remission or just leave my body as I started to create more peace inside of myself. It's fascinating.

And you know, just going back to what you said about as a scientist, as a professor at mit, how do people view the fact that, you know, you talk about spirituality, I talk about spirituality, or the thing about that is, if I was your coach and I would have known that was psychological straight away.

Right.

And so looking at a person holistically is important. And that's why I'm very lucky that I have the privilege of having a PhD in neuroscience and an MD from Oxford that I can say those things.

Because you studied medicine, you studied the body, you studied all these different things.

And you know, there's loads of people out there saying great things, but they can be slammed down as woo woo really easily. But it's harder to do that to.

Me because, you know, the science too.

Yeah. And I know the science and I've implemented it in my life. And I have so many stories of people that I know that I've worked with, that I could share with you, you know, who've changed career, changed relationship, changed where they live, you know, made the things that they want happen in their life come true. And so I'm going to go back to another.

Give it to me.

You'll know this story probably. But you know, Roger Bannister was the first person that ran a mile in under eight minutes.

Four minutes, Four minute mile. Four minute mile.

Once he did it, several people then did it in the next few months just because they knew it was possible, because we thought it was impossible before that. Right. And so what I sort of say to people is, if you are embarking on something new, think about your own past successes. The chances are you've done something similar before. So then you can tell your brain, okay, I am afraid of this, or I am, you know, not sure that I can do this, but I've done it before. If you haven't yourself done whatever it is that you want to do, find somebody, preferably like you or just somebody that has done that thing before and tell your brain that it's possible.

Right.

And then there's two other layers, the science behind, you know, sort of that maximizes that. I would Say, and one is your negative self talk. So you know, the inevitable voice in your head that might say, who do you think you are? Do you really think you can do that? You can't do that. You know, that's for other people, that's not for you.

What happens to the body and the brain when you put those thoughts inside and you say those things to yourself?

It's basically your brain's protective mechanism. You know, your brain wants you to survive until you reproduce. It doesn't care about anything else. Your brain isn't here to make you thrive. It's literally, literally here for you to pass your genes on. So, and in cave times, that helped us to survive as a species. In modern times, it's no longer helpful. And that's why we talk about positive affirmations. And you know, you might again say, that's. That sounds woo woo, but in Buddhism they say replace any negative thought immediately with a positive thought. And the neuroplasticity says the same thing. Because neuroplasticity is amazing, but it can be bad. If you have a breakup and you obsess about the person, you're wiring that deeply into your brain. So you have to direct your neuroplasticity. And if you do get that voice in your head, which is normal for all of us, you need to, you know, override that with a positive statement. So what, what I say to people. Yeah, and you know, we could do this together. So if you have a recurring doubt or negative thought, then go one step below that and ask yourself what the belief is that's driving that thought. What do you believe about yourself? You know, you've mentioned today, and I've heard you speak about this before, about being abandoned, and that usually relates to deserving love. So you could create a positive statement that is the opposite of the belief that drives that negative thought and keep saying that to yourself until the road in your brain for that belief becomes stronger than the one that's been wired in since you were a kid.

What if someone's like, okay, I can say this, but I don't believe it because it hasn't happened yet. And essentially I'm lying to myself. Like, you know, so how does someone believe it even though it hasn't happened yet?

So I don't love the statement, fake it till you make it. I don't like it either, but I will.

I like, face it till you make it.

I like that too. I would say believe it until you are it. You know, that's kind of what neuroplasticity would say so interesting with neuroplasticity. It's psychological work, right? But it's actually not. It's actually physiological work. And so I work with a lot of guys in financial services who, you know, emotional intelligence is a big thing that we need to work on. And I've had, you know, these people who are very, very successful genuinely be so frustrated. I don't understand, like, what am I supposed to do? People say I'm not nice to them. You know, what am I actually supposed to do? So this is what I say to them. Imagine a field of grass. And on day one, you walk through the field and the grass is high and you know, you're sort of flattening as you walk.

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There every day until you've trodden a little path into the grass. And then you keep walking there until it becomes like a muddy path. Then you might lay some paving stones and then you build a proper path. That's what you're doing in your brain when you change any behavior. And I remember when I learnt Danish, which was super hard. Yeah. And I, you know, I've mentioned to you that I prefer to eat healthily, but I was literally taking like a can of Coke or like a bag of Maltesers to the Danish lessons. And it was 90 minutes. And by about an hour I would feel so tired and so hungry.

Exhausting, isn't it?

Exhausting? Yeah.

I'm learning Spanish right now and I'm trying to change my language around it being exhausting and being hard because I think the more I say that, it's going to continue to reinforce that it's exhausting and challenging. So I've been trying the last few months to say, you know what, this is a fun experience. You know, this is an experiment. It's, it's challenging, but it's a good challenge. And I'm learning every time it's hard for me. And it's trying to add a positive reinforcement as opposed to, man, this is hard because I, it's, it has been challenging up until now to learn Spanish fluently. And I also think I have this huge expectation, like, I'm gonna be able to speak like a native, you know, Mexican speaker.

But.

And I think sometimes we forget how far we've come, you know?

Yeah. Acknowledging that is so important.

Yeah.

Can I give you a bit of inspiration?

Give it to me.

So I did eight weeks of lessons. I then went to Denmark for some holidays and I came back and had a lesson. And at some point she said, okay, great, you know, see, we're done for now. See you next week. And I was like, was that 90 minutes? And so basically the 90 minutes had got. I hadn't got hungry, I hadn't got tired. I'd got through the lesson. And I realized I've gone past that tipping point of neuroplasticity. You're at the point where you're digging for gold and you'd like to give up, and you just have to get past that point.

I feel like I've been there for like a year.

But, you know, if you think about. I'm genuinely sure this will help you going forward, and please let me know if it does. If you think about it, like building that pathway, building that brick wall like that, then you. You sort of acknowledging that it's physical work sometimes takes away that frustration that you think you should just be getting it and you're not. Because I don't think you would blame yourself in the same way if it was like a sport. No, exactly right.

But it's like a physical workout.

Yeah.

Why does it seem like a physical workout when you're just thinking something and speaking and listening?

Because it is physical work. You're. You're building a pathway in your brain. You're not just thinking. Thinking doesn't happen without neuronal connections. So you're, you know, you're building. Sign up. You're connecting neurons through synapses, your myelinating pathways. You know, all this stuff.

And what does that do to the body when you're doing that to the brain?

It's the same as doing a workout. It's using energy, it's using up glucose.

Yeah, Fascinating. Which makes you hungry or tired or.

Whatever it might be, and frustrated at points as well, you know, because once you've made enough synapses and connections and maybe myelinated the pathway. So there's three physiological aspects to neuroplasticity. Myelination is literally just making a pathway, a faster, faster pathway. So, for example, we have myelinated pathways to snatch our hand out of fire, but we have non myelinated pathways for pain. Because if you immediately, you know, felt the pain, you wouldn't be able to remove yourself from the danger. And the most, what you're doing in your brain now with Spanish is you're connecting up neurons that already exist through synapses. So you're making a new pathway for Spanish. Judging by how hard you're finding it, it's possible that you are in the memory centers of your brain, actually inducing neurogenesis, which is embryonic cells becoming fully formed neurons, and then connecting up through synapses with established neurons and then maybe getting myelinated.

Okay, what does that mean?

That's really hard work. So in the adult brain. So, you know, Children can learn, like, five languages at the same time, you know, from a young age. And if you do have kids and you want to bring them up, oh.

I'm going to definitely do that for sure.

Yeah, yeah. So you have to have a different parent speaking a different language or a different, you know, a grandparent or interesting nanny or whatever. Interesting. So that they understand daddy's English, mummy's Spanish.

Interesting.

Otherwise they muddle up the words and that can be.

That's interesting.

So, yeah. So kids can do that easily because they've got lots of embryonic neurons that, you know, in the first two years of life, it's amazing. They go from being completely helpless to walking, talking. For us, it's harder, but it's possible.

Right.

And neurogenesis, which is literally embryonic cells becoming neurons, may not be happening that much in the adult brain, but the synaptic connection is happening a lot.

What's interesting, I've never felt like I've had a good memory when it comes to books, like, things I'm reading in school, I think because school was so challenging, and I always. The belief was I was tested poorly. And so it just reaffirmed that I wasn't good at it. Right. Based on the way that school was created for us. But in sports, I could remember really well. So I could remember other things or if I'd meet someone and they told me some weird things, thing about them, like, I would remember this, right. And I could remember 10 years later, something like that. So when it was more physical and active, I felt like I had incredible muscle memory. Right. And I felt like I had incredible wisdom. But I didn't feel like I was smart. I felt like I understood people, but I couldn't remember something I read in a page two seconds ago. Like, I would have to repeat reading something over and over again to be like, what just happened?

What.

What did I just read? I couldn't comprehend words, but I could connect with people and emotions and movement and things like that. So I'm trying to figure out what's that way to learn Spanish through that or anything new. Because I think one of the greatest parts about life, especially after childhood, is creating new adventures and not staying stuck in the same routine, but having new experiences, new adventures and learning new things. I love that you like to learn something new every year. I think that's a secret to keeping you young and youthful and looking 31, you know.

Thank you. So two things I'd like to raise about that. One is that you've obviously done the work and become very successful. But there are a lot of people who would be stuck in that. I'm not smart. And I was stuck in I'm not creative till I was 35. Starting to give the numbers away two years ago. So I was told at high school, because I wasn't good at art, that I wasn't creative. And I completely believed that I wasn't creative. I didn't think I could do anything but be a doctor for the rest of my life. And through a series of events which probably I am not aware of the complexity of, I woke up one morning and I thought, I never chose to be a doctor. My parents told me to be a doctor. I was told at school I was smart. I was so smart that I didn't just do an MD, I did a PhD as well. And I said to myself that morning, if I'm so effing smart, what do I actually want to do with my life? Yeah. And so that was the start of my life. And in within a short period of that, I realized I'm creative. You know, I might not be able to do a good painting, although I actually can now. So the belief, you know, also changed me. I started doing more art and stuff as well. But, you know, I created a business, I created a new life, I created a home. When I do my cooking, I'm creative. I've even, you know, I mean, there was a time that I looked in the mirror, had this narrative, I'm not a writer, I'm not an author. Because my PhD was so traumatic. Writing, it was like, really what? The worst thing in my life. And I looked in the mirror and I was like, tara, you've got a best selling award winning book that's translated into 38 languages. You are a writer.

I know, it's crazy, right?

So there's that whole narrative that even you and I have got things in our head which are like, I'm not smart, I'm not creative. So, you know, think about people that haven't had the opportunities that we've had or who don't know about neuroplasticity. That's, that's why it's, you know, my passion and my heart. Because I just believe that that's such a key to unlocking things for so many people.

Yeah.

And I think I have forgotten the other thing that I was going to say. I said two things, right? So one was the narrative about not believing that you were smart. I think the other one, you know, was this sort of understanding neuroplasticity to Become things that you maybe think you are.

Sure, sure. So what is happening when we are in the field in our mind and the grass, we start walking over the grass and then we start putting, you know, then it's muddy, then you put stones down and then you have a paved road. What is happening to your brain when you start to learn something new that is challenging and you get to a level of mastery or close to mastery on this? What is happening to the brain? What is happening to the body and everything else?

So what's happening to the brain is that you had a pathway that was established either from childhood or later in life. And the brain is obviously a small percentage of your, your body weight, like 2 to 5% for most generally. But it's a very energy hungry organization. So it's using up 20 to 30% of what you eat.

Wow.

And again, yeah. And so, you know, I think, you know, having been a sportsman, you would think about what should I eat so I can have big muscles or you know, what should I eat so I have lovely skin or whatever. But actually you should be thinking, what should I eat so I can make the best decision today.

Wow, interesting.

So when you're asleep, your brain is using up 20% of the glucose that you have ingested that day. Huh? When you are focused on a task, it's using up 25% of your dietary intake. When you're stressed, it's using up 30%. So you know, in terms of, you know, I sort of like to live in a brain first kind of way because if you're doing that, everything else is going to fall into place. Your cardiovascular system, your gut, so, you know, hydrating foods, good fats, all that kind of thing is going to feed your brain. And so, you know, what's happening in your brain and body is that you are creating the pathway, that dirt road into the paved road that should become the default pathway for your brain. So your brain is going to go down the most energy efficient route because that's, that's easiest and what it knows and what it likes and it's using up less glucose. So what you have to do is build the pathway so that it's so strong that it's stronger than the pathway that's been there since childhood.

How do you do that?

Okay, you're not going to do that with Spanish because you're never going to be better at Spanish than you are English. Right. But in terms of things like emotional regulation, if you were the person and there's so many people like this, who would Cry and yell and slam the door and walk out and then come back. You can actually change that. You can become somebody who's got good boundaries, who's got self worth, who feels that they deserve love. And you do that through neuroplasticity and building the pathway, giving yourself the examples and acting like that in life until you do believe it. And just going back to the two things, I remembered what the other one was, which is what I have found personally, is that when you have no choice but to do the thing that you have to do, you do it. So I would say, I would ask you, have you gone to a Spanish speaking country on your own, to a village where nobody speaks English?

I mean, I have been on my own in Mexico recently where my girlfriend speaks Spanish. And so I'm like, I practice with her. But this is the thing, when I go to Mexico with her, she's a crutch for me, right? Because I'm like, I gotta order this thing. And I'm just like, I just want the chicken and vegetables. Can you let us. And there was some days where I was alone because she was off working. And I was like, okay, this is an opportunity for me to practice, to mess up, to be embarrassed and be okay with it. And by doing it, I felt like I was getting way better because I was forced to practice and try and ask questions and listen intently and not just speak, speak in English and translate it.

Exactly.

It's powerful.

I mean, at your age, you will always. The way that your brain will speak Spanish is to translate it from English. So there's three types of being bilingual. And one is, you know, if you're bilingual from the time that you start speaking, and one is if you learn it. So for me, the Indian language in English. And then the second one is a language that you learn as a child, but you're not, you already speak another language. So that's French for me. And then my adult languages. And so I learned Afrikaans when I was about 25, which is like Dutch and then Danish when I was a bit older. And I was saying to my friend who's a professor of neuroscience in London, that when I try to recall a Danish word and I'm struggling to recall it, I always think of the Afrikaans word, but never the French or the Indians. And he said, isn't that fascinating that your adult languages are stored in a different part of your brain? And, you know, so for a neuroscientist to understand that my adult languages are stored in a different part of my brain to My childhood languages that, you know, at a certain point with Danish, I reached that tipping point where I wasn't tired and hungry from, you know, trying to do it. And I'm going to admit that I then gave up Danish because you get.

It, it's just too hard.

Yeah. I was like, but I. I've changed my brain.

Yeah.

And that's actually what I wanted. That's why I was doing it.

Sure, sure.

So, yeah. And with so many things in life, like, you know, when I gave up the regular paycheck of being a doctor in the nhs, a lot of people said to me, you could just go and do a locum for one weekend and you'd be able to pay your rent and your bills.

A what? For weekend?

A locum means when you just do like a temp, temporary job, you know, you just go and like sub in for a weekend or a day. But for me, that would have meant failure because it was going backward and I had to force myself to make the new business work.

You had to burn the boats.

Yeah.

You had to burn the ship that got you there so you couldn't go back into the old, you know, the land.

And that's not for everyone. I'm not saying that if you want to start up your own business that you shouldn't have another job on the side, but for me, I had to. I had to burn my boat.

I was talking to. I was watching this TED talk recently of a guy who was teaching about how to be fluent in a new language as an adult and why it's so challenging and things like that. He said, listen, the reason why most people fail is because they keep speaking their native language so frequently and you take a 50 minute class three times a week, you're not going to become fluent. And he's like, the only way that I was able to do it. He's like, I tried this for years and all these things until I finally went into a program where I think it was three months, something like that, where you get kicked out if you speak any other word other than the language you're trying to learn. And he's like, if you say a word in English at all, you're gone. So it's like total focus on, okay, I just need to learn how to survive. And this is not even allowed. And if I'm doing this for three. And he was like, I was completely fluent in three months or something quick like this. Three, maybe six months. But it was like a full immersion program. You can't translate anything. Maybe the Teacher is able to, but you're not allowed to say anything in your language. And he was like, it's because I was forced, like you were saying, to go to this other country essentially by myself. I had to learn how to survive and it was faster because I couldn't just go back to the place where I was comfortable. So I don't know, I haven't had the time to do that yet. But I still need to use my language. But. Yeah, but I'm sure it'd be. It's amazing what the brain can do under these types of conditions, I'm assuming.

Yeah. And I think that sort of, you know, speaks to what we were saying earlier, which is none of us want to go through hardship. We don't want to see the people that we love and care about go through hardship. But it can be taken as an amazing opportunity. And even with the hardest thing that I've ever gone through in my life, that there has to be an opportunity that comes out of it. Otherwise it was for nothing.

Right, what is the thing you're learning this year? What's the new thing?

So, yeah, I've been sort of navigating a personal journey and I want to do some different things with work. So, you know, I was a. I had a break. And it's so tempting to go back to doing the keynote speeches and taking on the high net worth clients. And, you know, I've been tempted. I have sort of like done a little experiment and gone down a keynote and, you know, sort of met a new coaching client. But I think this, you know, belief that I had for a long time that I'm not creative, it's really important for me now at this stage of my life to, to live that dream and be the creative person I've always wanted to be. So I've actually co written a song with my colleagues in a music studio.

Look at you, look at you.

And the COO of the business said to me, you know, I need you to sign a document because you're a songwriter now. And that was like, I never ever thought I would hear those words. You know, when you go to medical school when you're 18 and the arts.

Are not in your cards. Yeah.

And you know, I get why, and I'm very, very grateful for my education. But my parents were immigrants from India to England and they wanted me to get an education and be professional. I never had the luxury of being creative or doing sport. You know, I, I was like always in my sports clothes once I was an adult. But that Wasn't something that was valued by my parents. It wasn't a big thing for me, me at school, at high school. So, yeah, art, creativity, sport. I'm the trustee of a charity for gynecological cancers. That's, you know, again, something that I sort of thought that, you know, you have to be a very privileged person to be able to, to do that. So, yeah, I think this constant journey of reinvention, of really being, like, the maximum that I can be. And in my book, the Source, I talk about the six ways of thinking, which are logical, emotional, intuition, physicality, creativity, and motivation. The holidays are back at Starbucks. So share the season with a peppermint mocha, Starbucks signature espresso, velvety mocha and cool peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls together is the best place to be at Starbucks. Let's face it, everyone's juggling long, busy days. That's why Icebreakers gum is made for the go getters. With flavor crystals that deliver a bold cooling effect, Icebreakers keeps you refreshed and ready to take on whatever's next. And here's a bonus. The pack fits perfectly in your car cupholder or bag, so it's within reach when you need it most. Grab Icebreakers gum online or at a store near you. You know, trying to have, trying to build all of those pathways in my brain and not. And I think it really comes back to, like, where we started with you saying about the woo woo, which is that my logical pathway is well built. I don't need to build that pathway anymore.

You got that?

But, you know, I really want to explore. I have worked very hard on emotional regulation myself, but, you know, and I think my motivation is good, but it's kind of, you know, having a strong work ethic was still a part of being a doctor and being a scientist. And so really taking that opportunity now to not do the things I could easily do that would, like, make lots of money for my business, but more fun and creativity.

Yeah. Things you love. What was the biggest challenge for you, the biggest trigger for you that you had to learn how to overcome and emotionally regulate? Was it that you would get frustrated or angry or triggered in certain ways by things in life, or was there another trigger that kind of blocked you emotionally?

I would say two things. So I'd say one was being overly defined by my job title.

That was your identity.

Yeah. And, you know, because I went, the system is a little bit different in the UK. So at the age of 18, I went to medical school. So my Whole adult life, I was this medical student or a doctor. And, you know, it was sort of. You'd call up and you'd say, oh, I'm, you know, I'm Dr. House's, you know, junior. I'm the junior doctor belonging to him kind of, you know, you were. It was almost like you weren't a person then. I think the other thing is probably quite similar to yours, which is like fear of abandonment. So just the way that you behave emotionally, if you believe that you might be abandoned, a huge thing to.

Wow.

Yeah.

When did you start to become aware of these things and start to kind of rewire your brain and regulate your emotions?

So they connected, I would say mid-30s.

A couple years ago.

Are you doing that to sort of like, flatter me or to make me give away how long ago it was?

You look in your 30s, though. You look young.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, sort of my. My life changed a lot around that time in that I got divorced and I changed career at the same time.

Right. So it was a big transition.

It was a big transition. I had already become very interested in spirituality and read a lot of, like, Jungian psychology and Buddhist Buddhism and things like that and sort of mentor training books. But I'd read them but not done the work, if you know what I mean.

You understood them, but you didn't understand them.

Exactly.

You didn't experience them.

No. And I remember a point being, like, at the place that you had to sign the document for your divorce. And I mean, I'm still very good friends with my ex husband. He was. He was with me. But I remember just thinking, I have to dredge to the bottom of the barrel to get a piece of resilience to even, like, go through this next 10 minutes. And it was after that that I started, you know, changing my gratitude list to things like my resilience and my creativity. And so that point of hardship definitely taught me a lot. And something I'd like to share, actually, which I experienced during the lockdowns, was that all the work that I had done since then came to help me and serve me when I needed it. So what I learned was that even if life is fine, you're plain sailing, you're happy, everything's okay, keep doing that work, because when you need it, then it'll be there.

It's so true. I'm in. You know, every two weeks I meet with my therapist coach, and my life's pretty good right now. I feel a lot of peace. I'm not like, in Breakdown. I don't feel like I'm. There's definitely challenges I need to overcome consistently, but it's not affecting me emotionally, where it's, like, exhausting me. Right. Every day there's a challenge in business, but I'm not taking it personally. I'm not, like, affected by it. I might be frustrated or disappointed for a few moments, then I get back into my mission. But the reason why I continue to do therapy when things are good is because I'm like, I want to have this for if there's some big breakdown that I need to be ready for. So I think it's important to be practicing when things are good, rehearsing when they're good, to stay good.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of, you know, I felt like the pandemic. I was going through more personal relationship challenges during the pandemic, but I felt like the pandemic itself, kind of like the economic breakdown and all these different things that were happening. I felt like I was training and preparing for. Because in 2008, I had nothing when the economy crashed in 2008 in the US and I felt like I was not prepared. And so I told myself, when this happens again in life, no matter what it is, I don't know what it's going to be. I'm going to be financially prepared, mentally prepared, like, have my life in order. And so I felt like, okay, let's go. It's time to, like, use what I've learned for the last, whatever, 12 years to put into practice. I still hadn't figured out the relationship side of things, but everything else, I was, like, ready for. So this is fascinating stuff. I'm curious. On action boards, mental rehearsal, visualization, gratitude, lists, practicing, just manifestation in general, which of these do you feel like is most crucial for someone to start implementing right now?

Okay, so there's crucial. And then I would say impactful, so they could be different. So if there's one thing that somebody listens to this podcast and goes away and does in the next two days, I would say an action board.

Really?

Yeah.

What would they put on this action board?

So I prefer to do it by hand, you know, create a collage. You can do it on, you know, digitally, but I think if you've never done one before, it's really good to do it by hand and to look through magazines. And the reason I say that is that if you go online to look for images that you want, you're limiting yourself to what your brain knows it wants. If you are open, discovering, yes, Then you might be drawn to an image that you wouldn't have thought of. I actually leave quite a lot of space on mine because I like to leave room for magic. Manifestation is so incredible. Once you go down that road and backed by the science that you start, you almost start to think, be careful what you wish for, because it's going to happen. Yeah. And I don't like to limit myself to only things that I can consciously think of. So I like to leave it a bit open as well. So when after I got divorced, I basically became a workaholic, and my vision boards were all about business and travel and money. And I got to the point where I admitted to myself, I'm using work to run away from letting my heart ever get broken again. And so in 2015, I made a vision board that was business and travel and money with a tiny heart on it. You know, not really.

Kind of, yeah, not open to it.

And, you know, I had another successful year and I was still, you know, single. So for 2016, I thought, okay, if I believe in this stuff, let's see if I can really do this. So December 2015, I looked through magazines and newspapers and I found a picture of a massive engagement ring. And I put it on the top left corner of my action board. I saw an advert that said, joy comes out of the blue. And I didn't know why, but I just liked it. So I put that in the center. There were some other things there, but they were sort of like house things and travel. And so February 2016, I met the person that was going to become my husband on a plane. Joy comes out of the blue.

Wow. Geez.

And we were engaged six months later.

Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

So that was a big one for me. You asked, like, what's been the biggest challenge in terms of emotional triggers? I think getting to the point where I remember thinking to myself, this person could break my heart. And I never thought I would let that happen again, but I'm so proud that I did.

Wow, that's beautiful. So where does the science from action boards to actually manifesting these things on the board? When you discover something in a magazine and you see it and you cut it out and you put it up on a board and you have this design, this map of a future thing that you want to create for yourself. Where does the science say that this actually works? And it's not just woo, woo.

Yeah. So one of the things about the action board is that it must be visible to you. Obviously, I believe further than that. That it should be in like a place other people can see it. Because a lot of people gather the images but don't stick them down or they hide it, you know, inside their wardrobe or somewhere. And I believe that equates to believe, to not believing that you deserve those things. So when I had actual amounts of money on mine, it was in my bathroom. So anybody that came to my apartment and used the bathroom would see it and wow. Yeah, obviously, you know, only people that I knew were coming into my apartment, but still it had an actual amount of money on it. It's very un English to talk about how much money you want to earn. So it was the boldness of that and it was repeatedly looking at it obviously has an imprint on your brain. So there's something in your brain called value tagging, which is how your brain prioritizes what's important. So today, if you were to read the LA Times, you would receive more information than somebody would receive in their lifetime 100 years ago. So we are bombarded, overly bombarded with data. And so the brain naturally filters out things that aren't important to us. Like you're not aware of the clothes on your body. So. And again, the brain is wired for survival. So it'll, you know, it'll prioritize things that are important to your survival. And it does that in a warm and a cold way. So it does it both emotionally and logically. So if you repeatedly expose your brain to the images of the things that you want, you are more likely to notice things that are related to that in your day to day life. But because they're more likely to be things that will make you thrive, you might not have noticed them if you weren't intentionally repeatedly exposing yourself to that visual imagery. On the negative side of that, another demonstration of neuroplasticity is that people who repeatedly looked at images of the Twin towers falling in 9 11, who had no personal connection to New York, didn't lose a loved one or, you know, anybody that they knew could get PTSD just by repeatedly looking at those images. Yeah. So the power, both for good and bad, of neuroplasticity is that, you know, is that huge. So if you channel it proactively for the things that you want, then you're more likely to both notice and grasp the opportunities that come up in your life.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Do you do one once a year or twice a year? How often do you do it?

I do once a year.

Once a year. And do you pretty much manifest and attract everything on that action? Board every year, or are they so big? Sometimes you're like, I don't know, sometimes.

Sometimes it's not. Everything doesn't happen in that year.

It happens.

And, you know, I do remember in 2015, the same professor of neuroscience that talked about my adult languages, he said, well, you said you were going to find husband number two this year, and you haven't. But it just leaked into early 2016. And I think when my book came out, the managing director of Penguin Random House in the UK gave this amazing speech and he said, you know, the only thing that's left on her vision board is Netflix. And I remember going like this because I was so embarrassed that he told everybody that I wanted to do a TV show. And so that was 2019, when my book came out in the UK, and now it's 2022. But, you know, this year I'm working on a TV show. Nice.

Amazing.

Patience is important too. You know, like, even with a language, there's that kind of hard part where you feel like giving up. And so with something bigger, like maybe having a TV show or I'm launching my podcast.

It might take a few years.

It might take a few years, but.

That year, you're setting an intention. You're starting to walk over the grass. You're starting to lay the pathways in different areas of life to make it available for you. Is that right? By having that clear intention?

Yeah. And so, again, in the book I write about abundance, so that's overriding the negative thinking manifestation, which is bringing into reality the things that you desire. Patience is part of it. Harmony and universal connection are part of it. So it can't be something that's, like, bad for other people.

Sure.

And then magnetic desire is probably the most important part. Which is, what is that? It's basically the emotional intensity. So neuroplasticity is grown through repetition and emotional intensity. So if, you know, sort of even a traumatic situation can bond people. Right, we know about that. So it's a similar version of that, which is that your. Your emotional intent is so strong and so aligned, and your motivation is so strong that you don't give up.

That's magnetic desire.

Yeah, that's what I called it because it's basically emotional intensity in scientific speaking.

So it's connecting the emotional desire internally to the idea of something, of having something or wanting something or creating something. And what, rehearsing that desire and rehearsing that kind of emotional intensity, thinking about it. Is that what it is?

So I'd say the final piece is create the action board, look at it daily, because that's all the value tagging and the selective filtering of data. And then the final piece is believing.

That it's already true and feeling the experience of it's happened. It's already happened.

Exactly.

There's something to that, you know, and this goes back to gratitude. I just feel like, because I'm a grateful person all day, I mean, I guess I have challenging moments, but I mean, I'm intentionally in the morning, in the evening, and throughout the day. Speaking of gratitude to others and to myself. And I think because of that, more good things continue to come into my life. They just happen. And now I'm actively working to make them happen. But I'm also actively grateful for what I have. And I will think about with the mental rehearsal, I think is really powerful. When I would do this, I would imagine how I would celebrate when I would win, or I would imagine how I would react when I'd go over the bar at a new height in the pole vault. I would imagine how I'm going to compose myself as if it already happened. So I would rehearse these feelings and emotions. Amy Cuddy talks about this as well. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Amy Cuddy's work, but she. She really talks about the body positioning and also the body posturing and imagining yourself in these moments being this certain way. And I think that's really important to do is to feel the feeling of gratitude that the thing you want is here. And what is that feeling? Start experiencing it consistently because you're going to start to magnetize that thing to you. I think it's really powerful.

Interestingly, a friend sent me on Instagram a thing that was exactly about that, which is basically the things that you want already start being grateful for them. It's exactly what you've just said. And I. I just absolutely loved it as well.

How does that connect to the science?

So what I was thinking as you were speaking was that it was similar. Similar to that, you know, coaching that I did for happiness or, you know, gratitude is that you notice the good things. More so noticing it is basically reinforcing to your brain that these good things can happen. And so sometimes now I actually do my action board on Pinterest. And what I do is I. When I manifest something, I move it to a separate section called manifested, so that I'm actually seeing that, you know, I'm ticking these things off because that makes me more likely to believe that I can tick off the bigger things. That might take longer.

It's of kind. Cool.

Yeah. So it's basically just reinforcing to your brain that good things happen, that you can achieve the things that you wanted. And it's that self belief, isn't it, that if I've achieved that, then I can achieve the next thing.

The action boards. I love it. Manifestation, gratitude list, visualization, action boards. And the action board is to create the action board, look at it daily. And then the third thing was to feel the feelings as if that thing has already here now.

Well, I feel like we've made up a new thing which is better, which is be grateful that it's definitely existing.

It's here. Being grateful, feeling the feeling and then being grateful that it has happened. I think it's hard to attract and manifest what you want if you're not already grateful for where you're at with what you have currently. You may not be satisfied with your life, but you got to find the things you're grateful for. Why would life bring more goodness in your life if you're not grateful for what you're currently having? Right. So the gratitude, I think is key. If you're ungrateful that you're not accomplishing this every day, that you don't have the house or the car, whatever it is you're trying to have, I don't think it's going to come faster.

No. And remember what we talked about, Loss aversion or loss avoidance is that the natural gearing of your brain is to focus on the things that you don't have. So overriding that is a really, really healthy and powerful thing to do in modern life. Because it's more likely to make you get the things. Because we're trying to thrive, not just survive.

Right.

This is powerful. What else do we need to know? Anything else? Any other interesting facts you think would be powerful for us? This has been inspiring so far, but is there anything else you think we should share?

I think there's so much that I think we could do a part two.

We'll have to do another part in the future. I want people to follow you. They can get the book, which is on your website or on Amazon or anywhere you want to get your books. That's called the Source. I think it's really powerful. I think you guys should check that out. You've also got a new podcast called reinvent yourself with Dr. Atara and it's a deep dive into your message on self actualization and transformation. So it's you working with Neuroplasticity and working with other celebrities and executives and everyday individuals on how they can improve as well. So very excited about that. Taraswart.com taraswart on Instagram, Twitter and all these different places.

Dr. Taraswart on Instagram.

On Instagram, Dr. Taraswart. Not that titles mean anything anymore, but, you know, Dr. Taraswart was taken. That's the endeavour. This is powerful. Anything else we can do to be of support to you today besides checking these things out?

Oh, that's so kind. You know, just being here with you is really a dream come true. It's something that I've manifested and I definitely changed my language around it from I can't believe I'm going to be on Liz's podcast to I'm so grateful I'm going to be on Liz's podcast. And so that's a little example of, of, you know, that in action. And I think I do think of myself as like on a continual journey of reinvention based on neuroplasticity. And I am so grateful that that's literally now my podcast, my TV show and my work.

Yeah, it's amazing. Well, when's the TV show coming out? Is that announcing?

Can't say yet.

Can't say yet. Check it out on social media and we'll see, we'll follow along there.

Yeah, you'll be the first to do it.

Just a question I ask everyone towards the end called the three Truths. So imagine you've accomplished everything on every action board for the rest of your life, right? And you have lived the life of your dreams. It's all happened, but for whatever reason, it's the last day and you got to take all of your message and your work and your knowledge with you to the next place. So we don't have access to anything that you've shared before your book, this interview, it's all gone for whatever reason, but you get to leave behind three truths to the world. Three things you know to be true or lessons you would share with the world and this is all we would have to remember you by. What would those three truths be for you?

The first one jumps to mind immediately is you are so much more amazing and powerful than you believe you are. The second one would be about sort of resilience and internal tools that that's that you know who you are inside and what resources you have gained through wisdom are more important than any qualification.

Or job title or amount of money.

And then one thing you know, I've been following your podcast and I know the particular message that you are trying to point out about romantic love. But I would say that love, true love, like living with love as your primary motivator, is the most important thing.

Beautiful. Well, Dr. Tara, I want to acknowledge you for the incredible transformation you've had. You know, you. You went into your life with your parents wanting you to be certain thing, and you did it to the perfection, I'm assuming, of what they wanted you to be. The standard and then some. Right. And you had lots of different challenges that you've overcome, and you keep reinventing yourself to learn new things, to tap into your creativity and to be more expressive, which I think is a beautiful thing. So I really acknowledge you for not being stuck in a box that you felt like you were supposed to be in, transforming even at the young age of 37 and overcoming a lot of personal challenges as well in your life. You've gone through a lot of personal loss and grief and challenges, and it's hard to leave an identity as a doctor, as a professor, all these different things, because it's hard to have these big titles and say, I'm going to walk away and do something to try to reach more people. So I really am inspired by your work, your message, and how you keep showing up to be of service. So thank you so much for your gift.

Final question.

What's your definition of greatness?

Neuroplasticity. I mean, it is. It literally is the definition of greatness, which is that you have the power at any age, at any stage, with any mindset to change, to train your brain and become everything that you want to be. That's greatness. And it's in everyone.

Yeah. There you go. Dr. Tao, thank you so much. Appreciate it. 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.

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