A short motivational monologue (Vishen Lakhiani) explaining how to "become the CEO of your brain." Presents three core insights: (1) the mind acts on what you tell it—beliefs shape outcomes ("belief without talent..."), (2) feelings arise from mental pictures and words so improving imagery and self-talk changes emotions, and (3) the mind prefers the familiar—make positive self-praise familiar and make self-criticism unfamiliar. The speaker gives practical suggestions (daily affirmations, rehearsing desired feelings/behaviors, erasing negative self-talk) and uses examples to show how changing thoughts alters feelings and behaviors.
Chapters
You can actually understand the workings of your mind probably in five minutes. And I'll tell you what they are in five minutes. Your mind does what it thinks you want it to do, and it bases it on one thing, what you tell yourself. Belief without talent takes you further than talent without belief. We all watch reality tv, we all see people with no talent, but they have amazing self belief. If you have belief and no talent, you probably will do better than someone with huge talent and no belief. If you have both, you can go anywhere. How do you dialogue with your own mind? How do you become the CEO of your own brain? And they're going to put it all together. I'm going to teach you something. It's what I call a nicer meditation. How to be a powerful manifesto. You cannot find high self esteem. Looking for a place outside of yourself. Your mind's job is to make your thoughts real. Your thoughts aren't even thoughts, they are blueprints. Every thought you think, your mind, your body and your psyche work to make real. If your mind's job is to make your thoughts real, what's your job? Think better thoughts. Because every day your mind makes your thoughts real. And you've got to be very careful. This is the genie. Your wish is its command. Be careful what you wish for. If you start saying things like oh, I'm not good at attention, or I want attention. I want lots and lots of attention. That sounds like a good thought, doesn't it? Let's imagine I wake up and I'm thinking I want attention. I want attention. I want so much attention. The genie is tuning into what I want attention. But I could have explosive gas going to get lots of attention for that. I could go out and start shoplifting. I could start acting in a really weird way because I didn't tell my mind. I want positive attention for being smart or kind or interesting. So the mind is not logical, it just tunes into what you think. And when you think better thoughts, you change your life if you haven't got what you want. But if you've got lots of stuff you don't want, you haven't learned how to explain expertly. Dialogue with your mind. Point two is the way you feel about everything is really simple. The way you feel about everything comes down to the pictures you make and the words you say. That means that your job is to make better pictures and say better words all the time. And it becomes really, really easy. And the third thing our mind loves, loves, loves what is familiar and really hates what is unfamiliar. If our mind could choose it would always run back over here to what's familiar and run away from what's over there which is unfamiliar. So something unfamiliar. I've got to learn a new language, go to a new school, meet new people. I got to do something new. The mind goes, no, no, let's go over here. If your mind loves what is familiar, all you've got to do is make good stuff familiar to make self praise familiar. I'm good, I'm smart, I'm kind, I'm nice, I'm interesting. Make self praise familiar and make criticizing yourself unfamiliar. Move away from that. I'm an idiot. I got rocks for brains. I mess everything up. Your mind can't go in two lanes. Here we are. This is a highway. I'm confident, I'm making praise familiar. I believe I've got something to offer the world. I'm nice, I'm smart and this lane is. Oh God, I'm really anxious and I get things wrong and I'm not very good. But you can't be in both lanes. There's no way you can drive in both those lanes simultaneously. So decide which lane you're going in, which is always that one and stay in it. The mind cannot hold conflicting beliefs that really messes up your mind because it wants to go into one lane or the other but it can't go into both. This is a ladder. It's what I call the ladder of looping thoughts. So thoughts always come first. You might think feelings come first. They do not. I'm not enough. I think that thought and after the thought comes a feeling and after the feeling comes a behavior or an action. Listen behaviours. I wake up and think I'm not enough. I feel sad or I feel angry. How am I going to behave? Behaviours are. I don't take risks, I cry, I lose my temper, I bully people or I just sit in the house. So imagine we took out the word not. We get rid of that because that's not true. And we wake up and go I am enough. I don't believe it. But hey, I did a lemon, I felt a magnet. I did that. So I might as well say I'm enough. And if I said it every day because my mind doesn't know or care it if it's true or false. If I said I'm enough every day. So now we've got great feelings. Happy, I'm not going to write them. Energized. Powerful. So what kind of behaviors would we do? What kind of actions would we take if we think we're enough and we feel happy, powerful, loved, secure, self trusting. What kind of things would you do? How would you behave if you thought that thought and felt the good feelings, how would you behave? Yeah, you'd work on your goals of the belief I can achieve my goals because I'm enough. I talk to people, they can't reject me. Nobody can reject me except me. And I'm never going to do that because I'm enough. I would take some risks. Belief without talent takes you further than talent without belief. We all watch reality tv, we all see people with no talent, but they have amazing self belief. If you have belief and no talent, you probably will do better than someone with huge talent and no belief. If you have both, you can go anywhere. This technique won't self implode every day before your lessons. You can go, I've got a phenomenal memory. I'm awesome. What does that feel like? Well, I got a phenomenal memory, I aced my exams and if the voice goes, well, last time you messed it up, I'm just going to sway from side to side and let that go. You have the power to impress upon yourself, to install and instruct your mind with how you want to be. Call it in, code it in. Notice what it looks like, feels like and that little voice that goes, mmm, just erase it. Stay in the right lane. Use powerful words, powerful languages. Make your mind your best friend and grow your self esteem yourself. Because no one can do that better than you. Thank you so much, You've been amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
