#1 Neuroscientist: "Do This Every Morning To Manifest Your Dream Future!" | Dr. James Doty

Dr Dodie today we're diving deep into the Art and Science of manifestation including how an understanding of the Neuroscience around manifestation can radically change our lives for the better so I'd love to start there can you tell our audience that's listening and watching today what you think will be possible for them in their lives after listening to this interview I think there are several aspects one is unfort so many people give their agency away and what I mean is that they look outside of themselves for something that will guide them or uh that there's some

Cosmic presence uh out there that's going to uh intervene and in fact the first sentence of the book as you know is uh the universe doesn't give a about you and the reason is is because the universe has no FS to give and the point is that so many of us and I include it early in my life I looked for external affirmation people who would say well what you're doing is good or what or that's right or gez you did incredible things I like you off with the goal of sort of making me feel

okay about myself and in some ways this very much relates to that because the answer is only you have the power to make yourself happy as Epictetus uh has said and many other stoics uh you may not be able to control your circumstance but you can control how you react to your circumstance and in many ways that's the truth about happiness and also of course how you look at the world so I'm sure you've been in the situation where you've shared with uh a loved one a family member gez you know I I want this

to happen God I'm so excited about this I think this is a great idea and then they'll say something like no that's stupid I why would you do that or you can't do that and you know obviously that's very hurtful and for many people deflating but if you have your own internal compass that guides you and you have a vision of what you want to do and you do some fairly straightforward practices but it's not as if it's a oneandone it's a process I think the other thing people get confused about manifestation is that uh

there's a timeline here where it works out exactly the way you want and there's not and you have to be patient one of the things I think that causes suffering for a lot of people is um uh attachment and this is attachment to outcome when everything is focused on an outcome if it doesn't manifest or occur the way you wish you're very disappointed and you're upset the reality is most of the positive things about goals is actually the journey it's not necessarily destination the same is true of manifesting uh the the other reality is that

sometimes things don't manifest uh the way you want and there are reasons for that and some of them uh can be very complex or not straightforward uh so the idea is how do I use the tools I have to maximally increase the likelihood of my intention manifesting there are no guarantees but how do you use your brain if you will to bring about your uh intention and I I think that's what this is really about but there is nothing in this world that's 100% well there's a lot there and we're going to unpack at all

and I'm going to start off with one of the early quotes inside of the book you mentioned the first one but there's another quote that's inside the book and it's a key theme and idea for a lot of people who don't understand how manifestation works and you are not just a writer although being a writer is a beautiful thing you're explaining this from a neuroscientist perspect persective so I want to share the quote here that you shared in the book he said you may not realize it or believe it but you're already manifesting your life

the question is is it the life you want so I think the first thing that I'd love to start off with is that many people don't realize it but they're actually actively manifesting their current life can you explain that sure it's like if you will any exercise when you first start doing it uh you're not very good at it and they but the thing is you have to actually practice it with intention if you will meaning that you have to every day uh put forth effort and uh all of us have goals and aspirations but

if we have no understanding or road map how to make those reality then we're lost so sometimes it'll work sometimes it won't work but there's no uh if you will organized plan in your head and I think that's one of the first things you have to do is to one actually examine your life and see what's worked what hasn't worked and also have a vision of the life you want and that takes uh effort to do that uh the other thing which a lot of people don't appreciate unfortunately is that who we are today how

we act how we interact actually for many people is a manifestation of the baggage they carry from childhood so if you grew up in a child are in an environment where as an example you were not loved you did not develop appropriate attachment skills if people were hypercritical of you that has an impact on every relationship you have almost every interaction you have and that can be self-sabotaging so you also have to understand as part of this process what are the drivers of your behavior what are you not seeing or don't understand because as you

know many people as an example in relationships they always pick the same type of person and often times they're these codependent relationships and if you go backwards often times it relates to how they grew up let's start at the basics from a neuroscientist perspective what is manifestation and even though you touched on it a little bit give us some of the top misconceptions people have about what it isn't or what it yes okay I I I think I understand um so my definition of manifestation is that you with intention uh utilize tools to uh access

parts of your subconscious if you will that will embed your intention and as a result have an impact on what we call your uh task positive networks and then utilize that information to maximal maximize the potential of whatever that intention is and what I mean by that is there are certain cognitive networks in your brain and they work together to uh essentially make us who we are but there are certain very specific aspects uh that are important to work together to uh maximize your ability to manifest so you have something called the executive control Network

Network you have What's called the salience network you have the attention Network and then you have the default mode Network and all of those have to work together to allow you with the greatest likelihood to manifest your intention when you look around today what do you see are the top and biggest mistakes that people are practicing or not practicing when it comes to approaching this topic of manifestation well I think that and I'll use an an analogy that I hope makes sense Neuroscience has learned about uh a great deal about as an example compassion and

if you look at essentially every religion which has spans thousands of years there are certain fundamental principles that religions use uh to impart wisdom as an example compassion and in fact that's the basis of essentially every religion but they're wrapped in a Dogma okay and the Dogma is associated with the particular culture okay but the underlying tenants are actually Neuroscience has proven those to be the case as an example with compassion and uh so we know that fundamentally as a species we evolve to nurture to care because we have offspring that don't swim away or

run off into the forest they have to be cared for so genetically we have been endowed with uh aspects of our uh DNA which guide us as an example uh when you care for another uh you release oxytocin which stimulates your pleasure and reward centers okay also your physiology works at its best your heart rate decreases your pulse decreases your immune systems boosted cortisol levels the stress hormone levels are decreased well these are because we evolve to care because if we didn't care our offspring would not survive and in many ways uh religion has understood

this through experiential effects and and wrap this around a dogma and in many ways this is true of manifesting if you look at back at the history of manifesting in the first and 2nd Century ad there's something called hermeticism and it was this idea that all is in the mind which fundamentally is true and then this then though was picked up by uh what we call the new thought wave a guy named Phineas Quimby if I recall correctly and he promoted this idea that your mind could do anything and again that is true but then

it went to the next level which went to what is it uh thinking Grow Rich and also uh fundamentally the secret now where did these go off track well let's just deal with the most recent one the secret the problem with the secret is that it creates a narrative of self-interest of selfishness I want and the problem with I want for so many people is on some level the reason people I want is because they're insecure about themselves and what I mean by that is most people want to make an impression to others that they're

okay like as an example for myself when I was younger uh I carried a lot of Shame and uh insecurity so I thought well I'll become a doctor I'll become a neurosurgeon I'll become a neuroscientist I'll become an entrepreneur and at each one of those levels I believe that well now I'm going to be okay and all these people are going to look at me and uh I'm going to feel good about myself and it doesn't happen for most people because in Western Capital Society uh there is this narrative that success means money wealth position

that then translates into happiness and of course you know as well as I do there are zillions of people who are unhappy who have all of these things and so pushing the narrative that I want uh actually decreases your ability to manifest now am I saying well that's impossible it won't happen no the fundamental techniques though that have developed actually are techniques in many ways that do support this idea of manifesting your intention but you can actually if you will maximize those effect uh effects much greater by using different techniques and one of those is

to look at the world through a different lens and that lens is through the lens of compassion and being of service to others because as I was saying modern society pushes A Narrative of success that frankly leads to emptiness we are designed to care for people as I mentioned earlier when you manifest your in attention and actually don't have it self-directed but have it directed to be in service of others it allows for all the other stuff to happen but it's more powerful when it's focused on the other and the other thing that happens is

most people have an idea of what they want they don't understand what they need and those are far different uh things unfortunately and by redirecting how you look at the world then that strengthens uh that ability to manifest I'll give you an example really quick there was a young lady who read my first book which as you know uh talked about uh my own challenges growing up but also the path I took to becoming a doctor and getting into medical school when probably by All rights uh that should not have happened at least by traditional

uh uh metrics and a young lady reached out to me and she was from Sri Lanka an immigrant and she said um you know i' I've applied to med school three times I was rejected uh you know I read your book I wanted to just ask you why did that happen can you help me and her situation was she wanted to be a doctor not to be of service but because she wanted to make her parents happy and those are completely two different ways to look at the world if you look at it I need

this to do whatever it is which which is a selfish goal to make her parents happy and there's nothing wrong with that don't get me wrong versus though looking at through the lens of saying I want to be a doctor because I can help people and be of service an indirect benefit of that will make my parents happy but my goal is to be of service and as a result with a little coaching uh she recently graduated uh from medical school and uh I've had that conversation multiple times with people and it is a distinction

uh between those two World Views to set the stage for the rest of the interview because you touched on it a little bit um I want to talk about your life growing up and the mentor who you ended up meeting who not only changed your life but taught you many of these principles of manifestation so your life growing up your early life was a tough life you grew up in poverty with an alcoholic father and you shared on our first episode together on this podcast also about your mother and her challenges of suffering from chronic

depression there was a lot of hardship there was a lot of instability that was there and then one day you walked into a magic shop for real for real like this is a true story and met a woman named Ruth who changed your life and changed your brain tell us about Ruth and what you learned from her so that we can continue and build on that Foundation yes and in fact that is the foundation uh uh imagine being a 12-year-old in the situation you described uh and there's something of course as you know and many

of your listeners called adverse childhood experiences and you know if you have poverty if you have alcohol or drug abuse if you have mental illness all of these different aspects when you add the numbers up if you will the likelihood for you succeeding in society diminishes in proportion to how many of those you have uh and that's the power of these adverse childhood experiences to negatively affect your life so for me at the age of 12 I had a complete sense of hopelessness uh despair uh a selft talk that said I had no future and

uh I walked into this magic shop and there was this woman Ruth and the interesting thing about Ruth and this is actually I think something that's very profound is this is a person who had a radiant presence and this is a person who was non-judgmental accepted you had a smile on her face did not treat you as if as an example I was a child and she was an adult and what I had to say was meaningless she treated me as an equal all of these things create a situation of psychological safety which means when

you feel safe you're open you listen to others and in fact if you look at our political discourse by creating a narrative of fear people shut down and they don't listen uh in this case though she uh made me comfortable and I told her the truth when she asked me some challenging questions but at the end of it she said listen I'm here for another six weeks if you show up every day I'll teach you something that could change your life now there were four aspects of that one was uh I did not realize that

uh my background because of its chaotic nature and unpredictability made me very tense because I never knew it was going to happen I didn't know if my father was going to come in drunk I didn't know if my mother was going to attempt suicide so you know this creates this constant fear and anxiety and uh as a result your muscles are always tense so the first thing uh uh she taught me was how to relax my body and again what you'll see here these initially are the fundamental precepts of a mindfulness practice but this was

before mindfulness was ever talked talked about this was um uh before neuroplasticity was talked about uh so she taught me this relaxation technique and again I was 12 and to be frank with you I thought it was all sort of BS and I was just showing up because I had nothing else to do and she was giving me cookies but uh um but once I mastered that then she uh taught me um essentially how to look at the world in a different way and to focus and this was using in this case a candle and

uh uh it allowed me to attend and to be present and the thing is to learn you have to attend you have to be present and so once she taught me that then she taught me a practice which I called opening the heart which was one uh many of us have a negative dialogue going on in our head and uh she made me realize that that is not truth uh and that it was within my power to change that narrative to one of self-affirmation and that was very powerful because when you're hypercritical of yourself and

many of us are more hypercritical of ourselves than we are of anyone else uh that influences how you see the world so once I was kind to myself it also made me understand that everyone is suffering and uh made me look at the world through a much gentler Kinder lens uh recognizing that fact but the most important thing relative to our conversation today is she taught me a visualization technique which uh at that time uh was really uh only used primarily primarily with athletes and uh it was this technique of visualizing uh what you wanted

to be but the other components of that and what she had me frankly do uh was uh to uh write my intention down to read it aloud uh to read it to myself silently uh and then visualize myself in that position or with it with what I wanted now here is where the mistake by Me was made and which I think uh is the mistake with the secret what did I as a 12-year-old write down I wrote down I wanted a Rolex I wanted a mansion I wanted to be worth a million dollars uh Etc

and the challenge with that of course is that uh clearly those were my own self-interest but I didn't know any better or have any self-awareness or insight and I thought oh if I get those I will be whole I'll be happy my life will be full and I did go down that path I accomplished every one of those things and I did use these uh techniques the problem was that they were all focused on me and at the end of completing all of them I was empty and more unhappy than I had ever been because

I was self-focused completely and even though I became a doctor which of course is a good thing and don't get me wrong I was always a good doctor but I became a doctor because it would increase my status and also it would guarantee me a paycheck but it was about me again when I changed the focus to say it is about service it's about caring for others it made incredible things happen uh as you know from the first book I ended up uh becoming a very successful entrepreneur uh I ended up uh becoming friends with

the dolly Lama founded a center at Stanford uh I became the chairman of the do Lama foundation and uh uh and ended up knowing a lot of the major spiritual religious leaders around the world and it's interesting because the trajectory went from rags to riches and as you know though I ended up losing almost $80 million in six weeks was back to rags again uh and in in the face of that I ended up giving away $30 million which is another story to charity uh but the reason I did that was I realized I was

wrongly focused and I gave that money away to live up to sort of the principles that Ruth had taught me and that I had missed and anyway that uh made me Rich again but it made me rich in a different way it made me rich in the sense that I ended up meeting the most extraordinary people in the world I ended up doing actions that changed many people's lives it allowed me to write the first book it allowed me to write this book and so by changing that uh perception from not just me but outwardly

to be of service uh really changed everything you know you describe this time in your life and you say I was never more miserable in my life than when I had everything when you were at the peak of what many people would look at as external success public company millions of dollars you know that are present homes Vehicles Etc the question that I have for you is you described this as being wrongly focused and I want to bring up and paraphrase uh a well-known gim car quote uh you know he says that and again I'm

paraphrasing here we'll put the right quote inside the show notes he says my hope and dream would be for everybody to be rich and famous so that they know and understand that having uh riches and being famous doesn't really amount to much and doesn't make you happy was this a necessary stage in your Evolution and journey in your Soul's Consciousness did you have to go through a little bit of this materialistic external stage for you to become the person you are today well I I think that's absolutely correct uh I would like to believe everyone

doesn't have to go through that but the nature of who we are often times is that uh we don't always believe what we hear uh but that that's definitely a truism but if you go further in uh to Jim cary's story and I I actually use that as an example in my book uh uh he made a comment also that I realized it wasn't about me and uh and he attributes that to changing his life how he looked at the world uh and so once he did that he did get everything he wanted which was

if you will to be famous and to impact people's lives in a positive way uh but again as he said it wasn't about uh he realized the money and all that went with that now I have had people say well it's easy for you to say I want to have the money and try and see and see what happens and see how bad I feel and I can certainly appreciate that and and don't get me wrong listen I I think uh working hard and having that type of success is fine as long as it's not

the only thing you do and what I mean by that is we're looking at the difference between honic and emonic happiness honic happiness is self pleasure it's maximizing your own pleasure what we know from a variety of studies is that that's transitory it's not longlasting unimon happiness is more related to uh uh purpose and meaning and it's a different type of happiness but it's a much longer lasting and deeper type of happiness and so yes emonic I mean honic happiness is fine but you just have to look at it for what it is and I

would also say you also have to understand that unless you view it for what it is that will create suffering and what I mean by that is listen I live in a very nice house I have a Porsche uh I've had numerous cars uh but if it all goes away tomorrow I am okay and that is the difference for most people they use that as either their Identity or their tool which they use as a crutch to get along in the world and that is the big difference not having attachment to these things because uh

attachment and craving are one of the greatest causes of suffering I know from your story and following your work over the years one of the people that you've had the um pleasure of connecting with is e artole and one of the biggest teachings and takeaways that I've gotten from him is I feel he does a really good job of describing the difference and the distinction between attachment which sometimes people say well of course I'm going to be attached to my mom my dad my loved ones he says what we're really talking about is identification right

and it's the identification which you just use the word identity it's thinking you are that thing it's having a BMW and thinking because you have that this adds to the stature of Who You Are when you were at your height and you everybody around you was saying look at this rags to Rich's Story how are you wrapped up in the identification of the things that you had created what was your identity like at that time well uh as I said I did believe that uh I I mean imagine at one time I had a uh

I think you're 68 million house overlooking the ocean I had a a villa in Florence I had a penthouse on the to a building in San Francisco I had a Porsche Ferrari a BMW a Range Rover and there's another one in there somewhere Ferrari uh anyway I had all of these things and you know and I was single at the time and I was dating uh sort of uh the Starlet type not that there's anything wrong with being a Starlet type but uh my intention was uh you know to go out with attractive women and

be seen and uh um uh it was uh on one level it was wow this is great but it was great because all my friends said wow you have everything it wasn't great though because I felt I had everything because I was still empty inside I wasn't fulfilled I was still insecure I still needed these things as crutches right to give me my identity I mean you know as well as I you see somebody in front go oh wow man God they must have a great that's cool and you know that's what I was doing

and it wasn't so much uh necessarily just enjoying the F it was like driving around and being seen in the Ferrari and on some level again it's okay but you have to see it for what it is you know you write about this in your book and also in the new book as well but ultimately you went through uh a pretty stressful bankruptcy but in going through this what again many people could see as a rock bottom moment in your life you completely set the foundation for something new walk us through that you know during

this most painful period of life how did it deepen your understanding of not only who you were but the true meaning of manifestation well again as you said uh by for all intents and purposes I had done everything the secret told me to do and I was horribly miserable and after losing almost $80 million I went back and reflected in my home uh which was overlooking the bay in Newport Beach and I did go through a period of great reflection and uh I realized the mistake I had made I had focused on um selfish goals

and um and they had not made me happy and so I reached an inflection point where um I had to make some decisions and it was interesting because in my particular case after losing all that money and being effectively bankrupt and $3 million in the whole uh two people became my friends one was a banker and one was a lawyer I had borrowed $15 million from the bank based on stock that I had at that time which you could and the stock was now worth nothing and so the banker came to me and wanted his

money and asked me how I was going to give him his money and my lawyer of course I consulted with uh and uh I had to sell essentially everything now the interesting thing was I had made some Don to charity based on stock that I had and um that was my only asset and my attorney uh when I was talking to him he said you know Jim our Junior partner he actually did not file the paperwork you don't have to give any of that stock away and uh I thought about that for a while and

I after this period of reflection I said no I want it all to go to charity and so it turned out uh when the company went public that ended up being $30 million and so here I gave away $30 million when I was $3 million in the hole and people uh including my present wife said I was insane at the time but uh uh it was the best decision I ever made and the reason it was was because it liberated me and what I mean by that is so many people who are poor every action

you make is not to be poor and it holds you prisoner cuz you look through the lens of I have to have this I have to have this to feel safe when you can walk away from it all then you're liberated it's not driving you anymore and you realized it has no meaning it it can't control you it can't make you do things you don't want to do as an example I'm sure you see there are people uh you know we're in Santa Monica right now and I'm staying in West Hollywood you know there are

people who sell their soul either to be famous to get money and it has no basis on morals ethics or anything it's they're fixated on money and money gets you nothing in fact in many cases it makes you miserable you know in this process you write inside of the book is you reconnected with the original true intention and meaning behind Ruth's advice right Ruth's advice and part of that in the book moving forward from here now that the audience is caught up to date with the story of where you were at the time is helping

people understand how to get what they actually truly need not necessarily what just shows up on the surface of what they want um so I'm going to jump around a little bit and we're going to come back to the brain but talk to us a little bit about that for people who are trying to clarify how to distinguish between The Superficial wants and the deeper more meaningful goals is there any exercises tips strategies you can share with them that could help prevent them from having to go through their own version of their Rock Bottom sure

well again uh as you said use the word clarify uh one uh you also mentioned that uh this idea we're already manifesting the first exercise is to sit down in a quiet space and you can get a pen and paper and write it down but to really think through the trajectory of your life to date to see where what are the mistakes I've made if I repeated these mistakes were my actions uh aligned with who I wanted to be and for most of us if we do that we realize we made many wrong turns but

we also we'll see patterns that limit us and also understanding that uh there is no outside magic that's going to fix everything and this is this idea of taking over yourself agency where you realize that within you there is an incredible power and tools within yourself that actually maximizes your ability to get everything you need not necessarily everything you want and for so many the want though is the thing that causes suffering it's the one thing that misguides them as an example uh you look at influencers you know why do they want to be famous

why do they want to appear as if their life is perfect because they're coming from a place of scarcity emptiness and fear so by putting on this act that everything is okay I have everything look where I'm at today look at my makeup it's perfect look who I'm with uh it's a hollow narrative that doesn't get you anything now the sad part is as you well know I mean you have number of sad situations where influencers realize the emptiness and they go into deep depressions and unfortunately there's a group of people who follow these people

who believ the narrative and they go into depression and some have committed suicide sadly because again when it's self-focused there's nothing there it's only through connection being of service and the reason I say that look at as an example the blue zones or uh the work of uh uh Robert waldinger at Harvard with the longevity study this these are uh uh in terms of the blue zones these are people in different parts of the world who are happy and they live a long time now in regard to the blue zones people say well you know

they eat a plant-based diet primarily they exercise they don't smoke they drink a little bit but all of those things are important but the most most important thing is human connection and relating to other people depth of relationships and this is true also in the longevity study why is that important it emphasizes the power one of your mind by being able to focus in these areas which actually are good for you in terms of your mental and physical health and is associated with longevity versus saying I want I want I don't care about anybody else

I don't need you it's all about me that is a empty you know dead end place to be and it's sad because people repeatedly confuse that and part of it is a narrative that we've created in Western Society by again relating happiness uh by the acquisition of things and you're also distinguishing in the book that there's nothing wrong with accumulating some things but if your entire life's purpose is things you're going to end up in a a place where you're completely unfulfilled is that a correct distinction yeah you know I'll give you an interesting example

I was in Aspen one time giving a talk and I was invited to a party put on by a very wealthy fellow and uh so we pull up to the residence and you know it's one of these 30 to 50 million mega mansions right and the guy's a widower and uh he's in his 80s you open the door there's a painting that's like super size of him holding a set of skis a set of keys a SE skis like you know skiing on the mountain right so you walk in and I end up talking to

the guy and uh he looks at the watch I'm wearing and he he turns me goes do you know what this is like yeah it's a watch goes that watch is a million dollars okay and uh uh he says come here and I don't know why he's doing this right he says come here he takes me out to his garage and you know there's a Ferrari there there's a Bentley there etc etc right and uh I'm going I'm not sure why you're telling me and he says well you know I just want you to know

uh you know uh that I worked really hard for this long story short is he then tells me he's miserably unhappy and I say well look you have all this stuff why are you unhappy he says I want somebody to love me and uh I said okay and he and he Saidi heard you're a guy who you know coaches people and you have these insights he says could you help me and I said yes he says how would you do that and I said to him I said I'll meet with you for 10 hours okay

it'll cost you $1 million okay now here's a guy who's worth hundreds of millions of dollars right he looks at me goes how about 00,000 and you look at the guy and then his daughter comes over and she overhears his conversation and or his uh granddaughter and uh uh she says uh May was his daughter but she says you know Papa why why wouldn't you give that to him that's nothing and you know you could be happy and uh he goes oh you don't know anything about money or life you know that money is for

you and she says I I already have more money than I can spend I don't need any more money he looks at he says foolish girl and he never did anything and my point is here's a guy he he knows he's miserable you can tell by his actions of showing off you know this massive home this million dooll watch these several million dollars in cars there's nothing there and he keeps trying to impress people by showing you the stuff which has no meaning name is that what you normally charge somebody at that level or were

you just kind of messing with him a little bit I would geez I would hope to God somebody would pay me $100,000 an hour but no I was just messing with him and and I would have charged him that because I would have given him what he wanted if he just listened uh because I mean the point was for many people like that there has to be a price attached to it for them to think it's worth anything and in fact actually that's the way it is for most people in fact if you give away

a program people will be suspicious if you charge them for it they think it has value and it's an interesting Paradox you know step one in people going down the path you know zooming out here for a second actually I'm going to back up when I think about our interview so far for the 30 minutes or so that we've been chatting and I'm imagining myself as an audience listening to it and I'm hearing that you've written a book about manifestation but how manifestation used correctly with the right Focus can actually give you what you need

and not necessarily what you just think you might want and there's a caveat which is you're not denying the fact that tapping into the power of manifestation could also give you some things in your life and sometimes there are very Noble things that are there somebody might be a small business owner and they want to see the size of their business double not necessarily just to put extra money in their pocket but to hire more people to pay pay their team members more you know it's uh both the interweaving of the selfish and the selfless

combination of those two things that are there so I'm I'm hearing as an audience member is we don't want an extreme of one situation or another we don't want to be the person who's solely motivated by external things in one aspect you have this gentleman who lives in Aspen there's another aspect that's there and I would say that that other extreme is some who for go all sense of worldly worldly items and says I'm going to devote myself to a cause but their entire identity is wrapped up in they have to do something I'm the

protester I'm the activist I'm the person that means to make all sacrifices I don't need you know everybody who stands against it is completely against me or this cause and I've met people like that just I'm sure like you've met people like that and that would be like another extreme so from an audience standpoint they're seeing that you're kind of somebody that's navigating them through the middle of it which is there's nothing wrong with having things it can't be the sole motivation of our life and if we learn how to tap into the power of

manifestation we can actually not just create for ourself yes some things but not only things the deeper riches that we're actually looking for which is true connection impact and meaning in the world is that a fair way to understand the conversation you summize the book I don't need to say another damn word you ruin the whole eny no I think that's exactly right and that's an incredible Insight you know it's interesting this the extreme of this person who you know he sacrifices everything that as is as pathologic as in the other direction because this guy

has created a narrative his identity is tied up into sacrificing everything and having everybody recognize that he sacrificed everything right because that is a a thing that he is carrying with him that uh causes just as much suffering because you see then he looks at it I did this I'm doing all of this and I'm against the world but I'm doing it you see that's just as the same actually as the other direction yeah of course and that's the challenge now I would contrast when you talked about the example you gave of a small business

owner if the small business owner is going through the perspective of okay how can I make the most money okay I'm going to raise the prices maximally I'm going to pay the employees the most minimal wage uh uh I'm going to figure out a way where I can skim my taxes da da da da if that's his primary motivator he that is wrong okay and he's going to be unhappy and he's not going to be able to manifest if it's a narrative of I want this business to succeed in this community to be of service

to people to offer them goods and services that will improve their lives I will pay my employees a fair wage and and doing all of that he will prosper because again uh and this gets into some other aspects of the book but then you have an energy about you that's a positive energy and when you have positive energy that actually affects everyone around you you know the first step that you talk about in the book to step into that positive energy when it comes to manifestation is reclaiming the power of your mind to focus why

is so why is focus so key and how do we step away from the noise that's causing us to be unfocused or focused on the wrong thing well I think that is a challenge especially in modern society because we have so many distractions and whatever social media platform you're talking about you uh I'm sure appreciate and many of your a members may but you know these people hire neuroscientists and psychologists to figure out how to make somebody addicted to their narrative their social media platform and it is a Time sync that takes people away from

doing all sorts of uh wonderful things but again you have to reclaim uh your ability to focus as I was saying earlier what Ruth what Ruth taught me was how to focus and uh uh because that's the only time you can learn and that's the only time you're present when we have your attention your full undivided attention so I think that's a a uh critical aspect of regaining uh your attention but it takes effort and uh but it's readily available and once you reclaim your attention then you can direct your attention and then you can

direct uh your intention inward to impact your subconscious and what happens is is when you have an intention and you use your attention to embed your intention into your subconscious then the process of these cognitive brain networks which are parts of the brains that work together in different circumstances then it empowers them and as I was mentioning uh as an example we have this thing called the salience network so once you are able to embed your uh intention there then that creates this process on a subconscious level where you're looking both internally and externally for

events that actually will make you manifest your intention and this is also where your attention network uh uh gets empowered if you will because once you are searching around finding those things that will connect you to manifest your in intention then that will uh activate your attention Network so you then become focused on that and it will then downplay your default mode Network and also the nature of what we call your executive control network will actually uh make it manifest if you will uh because when your executive control network is empowered it is actually the

to-do part of your brain it makes it happen so once you embed your intention that then uh activates your salance network which then empowers your attention Network which then allows your executive control Network to actually make that uh intention manifest maybe that was all confusing no I'm with you I'm with you and people can always hit rewind yes and practice attention right exactly and the thing is uh in the book uh there's actually a a six week program that goes through every aspect of this which is you know one uh uh understanding what you have

been manifesting how inefficiently that may be and and why you're doing that and then actually clarifying your intention and then actually embedding your intention if there was one thing that people listening today could start and one possibility of something that they might stop for example to strengthen this power of attention which goes back to this step one reclaim your power to focus your mind what would be something that you might suggest to them one thing that they could start and maybe one thing they could stop one of the problems that I have uh is that

I have a tendency to say I have to do this and I'm going to do it now and I pick something that's really hard and complicated and I go I'm going to do it and invariably if you do that you almost always fail the most important thing is baby steps and you look at a book uh uh as an example by BJ fog which is called I think tiny habits and then there's another one called Atomic habits but if you look at changing little things in your life will where they actually become habits in some

ways that's learning how to embed your intention if you're doing just one thing okay and you're making it happen that in and of itself is a process of focusing your intention and uh creating these little habits can be extraordinarily powerful because what happens is when you're not directing your attention then you're you're wandering around all the time and once you start doing things that require this effort you realize how powerful that is to make things manifest and you start small and then you uh move to larger things I think the other thing is you have

to give up attachment to the outcome uh because again and this may sound strange but in some ways we're talking about the difference between fear and love and what I mean by that is attachment to an outcome in some ways creates anxiety and stress which is a manifestation of Engagement of your sympathetic nervous system which fundamentally is a fear reaction okay so if you're attached to that you're always worried about that I have to get there I have to get there yet the very nature of that internal dialogue is actually working against you and that's

not to say having a goal isn't important it's to say that goal becomes so prominent that there that's the only way yet we know for manifestation that it can take different paths and turns and in some some ways it is smarter than you are about knowing the best way for something to happen as an example let's say you wanted um uh let's say a different house and you created this whole uh uh narrative about that and the narrative being though uh I want this bigger house because I have a large number of children it has

a larger yard and not just I want this house to impress people again two different perspectives but if you go through all of that and you say I want it in this place in this neighborhood and I want it this big and da d da da da and you go through this whole exercise and then suddenly another opportunity comes up which is a completely different type of house than you imagin but then once you get into it you realize actually that was a much better choice for me for all these different reasons let's say oh

it turned out that the School the best school you know in the area was there and that's where my children will go that's a much better than the place I had initially picked because your subconscious is sorting through all this different information that's at a subconscious level so you don't appreciate it and so when you get a different alternative May sit there that's crude I I wanted this why didn't that happen well there are all sorts of other things that were going on there that you weren't aware of and that in some ways your subconscious

actually guides you sometimes to a better choice when a lot of us go back and we look at our life and some of the key things that we're proud about could be finding a partner a job maybe that you got involved in so much of it when you look back if you really pay attention to it so many of the good things that have happened to us that have made us who we are today have happened largely because of some version of happen stance and so I'm continuously amazed at how a lot of us including

me forget about the power that we might have wanted one thing and yet life took a different course and it sounds like saying our subconscious could be involved and we got something better than what we could have ever imagined and I think that's exactly right and this is the nature of synchronicity uh which I talk about in the book or Serendipity if you want to call it that uh is that often times the way these events occur again on a conscious level we don't understand why they occur but they occur for a reason uh that

actually is much more powerful uh than what our initial uh goal was in terms of our manifesting and that's some of the extraordinary things about it is that once you are able to unleash this incredible power that you have within and embed your intention which I talk about these techniques in the book is this almost gives a direct line into your subconscious which allows it and I think I use the example of uh a blood hound you give it a mission or a scent and the subconscious Blood Hound starts going around uh looking at the

circumstances I'm sure you've been at a party and that's there's a lot of noise but if you hear your name you immediately turn to it right because it's deeply embedded in your subconscious the same is true when you let the blood hound Loose as an example there was a project I'm working on right now and uh again I use these techniques of manifesting and I was at a coffee shop and again very loud but a fellow about two tables started talking about something that exactly related to this project and uh you know I turned and

I actually I went over and introduced myself and we're working on a project together now right and this is how this works because on an a subconscious level this Blood Hound is always looking around to make Serendipity or synchronicity happen and that's the way it works one of the areas that often gets misconstrued with manifestation that you chat about also in the book is the idea that it's devoid of action can you talk about the relationship between manifestation and action if there was maybe an additional criticism that might be there about something like the secret

I'm going to ask you what you did like about the secret in a little bit too I want to be fair to uh you know that you know that work that body of work uh but one of the criticisms would be that people walked away thinking that action is an important part of the equation can you talk about action you know at the start of the book I I said you know the universe doesn't give a about you uh but I would also say God only helps those who help themselves and what I mean by

that is it's not like you just sit down and go okay I want this and it's one and done I mean it takes work and uh as you know uh uh the main uh ways to embed your intention uh is to make it familiar because the brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's not real and by writing down by uh reading silently reading it aloud visualizing that taking place seeing yourself in that position and when I was a kid I literally would do this 10 15 20 times a day I mean I

had this list of 10 things that I wanted and I would just go through it all day long now some people talk about vision boards uh anything to constantly remind you and put at the top of your list but there's another aspect which is the reality that the brain receives about uh 10 million bits of information a second through your sensory organs and of course that defines who we are and it's primarily related to homeostasis on a conscious level we're only able to process 50 to 100 but that 50 to 100 we can actually direct

with intention into our subconscious through something called value tagging we put a value on it then that stimulates the salience network on an unconscious level to constantly be looking around for opportunities to have that intention manifest and it directs our attention to that and then once that happens and we see an opportunity then again that stimulates or empowers the executive control Network which gives you access to memory experiences and also the to-do part of uh manifesting and so using the technique with intention of taking the information that is at a conscious level and if you

will value tagging it then that uh fixates it in the uh subconscious and uh gives it the greatest likelihood to manifest you know some people uh think well I should be able to manifest anything I want it doesn't work that way nothing's 100% and as I said it doesn't always work out the way you think it should uh and also it doesn't often work in the timeline you would like I mean there's some people say well you know I want this Mansion to magically appear and I I'm going to give it till next week and

if it doesn't uh you know this whole thing is a failure again there's no way it works like that at all and again to maximally have this work I will again will suggest you you have to change your perception of uh how you see the world it has to be in my opinion in the context of how can I do actions that improve the lives of others or have a larger meaning Beyond Myself by doing so you benefit you benefit in all sorts of ways and you know we were talking about compassion in some ways

having that perspective is uh a compassionate act when you are compassionate based on our Evol solution every part of your physiology works better you're happier you're more open you're more thoughtful your physiology Works its best your heart rate variability is decreased which is a good thing your heart rate is decreased your blood pressure is decreased your immune systems boosted your cortisol or stress hormone levels are diminished the expression of inflammatory proteins are decreased all from being thoughtful and kind and compassionate and look at at the world through the lens of of how can I be

of service and improve the world you have a dramatic positive impact on yourself but the very nature of that it changes your goals and aspirations you realize yes it's nice to have a Ferrari but it's not the farar the Ferrari doesn't identify me I don't need it but it's nice to have it if it's there and you're not attached to that you're not attached to these uh uh things which people confuse with them and some how having more uh makes people feel better about themselves when at the end of the day they don't feel better

about themselves and that's the sad uh situation you know you see some of these extraordinarily wealthy people you know they have 10 homes you know they each cost $10 million a piece they have a hundred million doll yacht and they fly everywhere and all they're doing is running away because they're trying to find the next experience like I'm going to be with this celebrity I'm going to be at this dinner I'm going to be at the Yacht but it's all about the thing it's not about a deep-seated sense of happiness and the horribly sad thing

is for so many of these people they're so fixated on that that they have lost this and and they're running around chasing nothing when simply by changing their perspective they could enhance the lives of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people uh by just a small amount of uh the resources that they have when you take an inventory of your life today day and you're thinking about things that you want to put your attention on both for yourself and for the betterment of all the projects that you're involved in and the different leaders around

the world that you work with how are you approaching what you actually want to manifest does it look like some sort of traditional goal setting is it more spontaneous or do you use any other fra framework to actually get clear on what you want to bring and allow to unfold in your life again like I was mentioning habits uh the way my mindset is uh uh I work on projects that uh obviously benefit me in some way but almost all of them in fact pretty much all of them are focused on uh being of service

as an example uh there's a company I started called happy. a that's hai. a and it is a um actually a health counselor for uh individuals who have stress and anxiety and loneliness associated with living in the modern world the unique thing about it is that it uses an emotion assessment engine combined with a AI knowledge base of psychology and compassion Focus therapy actually connected to a human Avatar and so the Avatar actually talks to you and guide you in terms of uh queries you have about things that are causing you to stress and and

so uh on the one hand it's a private business but on the other hand its goal is to be of service and it's very much structured to it's not going after how can I look at every customer as a profit center it's saying you know we need to make X to survive and to uh satisfy our investors but the goal here is primarily to be of service and uh uh and also as an example I'm working on a project uh a compassionate countries index uh where we look at different countries and uh see uh how

they're functioning in terms of for the individual in terms of thriving what the country is doing and what the country's obligations are to the rest of the world and so again this is outwardly focused but the benefit of that is that uh uh it will if it's successful allow me to do other interesting projects and again nothing to me at least is more deep than connecting with people and making their lives better and it's pretty simple I there's uh and I think you know that's what you're trying to do and I think uh uh using

the different techniques we described uh this allows you to live a happy life a life of meaning and purpose but also understand uh uh that it's great to have things it's the things aren't the point though it's to enjoy them it's not to get lost in them so once you've gotten to take this one step further once you've gotten clarification on some larger goals projects things that you want to give love to within each of those there's going to be micro things that you want to do now that you've gotten the macro clear do you

have a framework or methodology that you use to to support the principles that you were taught by by Ruth in addition to the mindful practices again you outline a lot of them in the book making sure that you are not in constant fight ORF flight making sure that your nervous system is set up in a beautiful way making sure you're practicing mind uh mindfulness techniques on a regular Bas basis meditation you've written about that is there anything else that you do are you actively a journal journaler do you practice any kind of vision boarding that's

there that allows you to um tap into these things to help supercharge those projects yes so I have a list of things I want to accomplish and I will tell you uh uh one has been sitting for 16 years uh but it's an important one and I still put effort into it and it may or may not manifest in my lifetime but yeah so I have a list of things that I go through and I uh review what I have written about them and look at the different aspects of connections I have to make them

manifest and I think about it uh I mean I will actually meditate about that particular po project and what I find is that when I do that it unfree my mind in the sense I'm not just focusing everywhere on these different things I focus on that and I sit with that and then I see all these different connections that can happen and uh um and then hopefully they do manifest as an example I've been working on uh creating an international day of compassion so uh uh one of the aspects of that is you need to

have uh a a leader of government write a letter in support of this right well I just happen to be in hi hirad and an ashram and Modi ended up coming there and he had planned to come there but getting him on board with this project uh pres of India yes yes or uh uh I was reached out to by the king of Bhutan who I just happen to end up talking to after they asked me to and now I'm heading to Bhutan uh to talk about this further with uh him so uh did I

plan from the start that it was going to be two these two individuals no but that's where the process led me right but you do actively think think about these things you meditate on them you get you know messages from what your subconscious yes absolutely in terms of possibilities that would allow these things to further and even some insights about what would be the pathway to it and then do you write those things down yes yes and uh and sometimes I will write them down and I will rewrite them and refine the vision and uh

uh yes and so that's sort of uh the process actually and so many of the techniques that people are familiar with they are powerful it's just tweaking them a little bit in the context of how you activate your mind to make them manifest are really the keys here I'm not dismissing uh um manifestation and some of the techniques that have been described what I am dismissing is the woowoo and the pseudo science that floats around with this and that limits people as an example sort of being self-focused when the power is in actually being of

service to others and then you're getting all the other things it's not I want this first and the other thing doesn't matter the other thing is the most important thing when it comes to the topic of manifestation one thing that I often hear from my audience whenever it comes to goals manifestation strengthen their focuses what if you're somebody that actually doesn't know what they they want in life but rather feels that the life that they're living right now there's something more there for them they just don't know what what would your recommendation to this person

be well I think that's an excellent question I would suggest there's probably a lot of those people uh who don't know for sure what they want in fact actually I have many friends you know I knew in fourth grade I was going to be a doctor well that makes it pretty easy and if you will I manifested that uh uh but I have friends who are in their 30s 40s who still have no clue and they sort of get bounced around I think that uh that's okay I think if you attune yourself though again uh

to looking at the world through the lens of how can I be helpful that in some ways gives you Direction uh versus worrying about if your house is uh bigger than the next person's or you're driving the latest car again that's where people get sidetracked uh and so if you go through if you live a life looking at the world to this idea of what are the actions I can do to just be helpful the world seems to have uh a desire to help you now is this true 100% of the time of course not

have people had horrible things happen to them who sort of were on the right track of course and that's why on some uh level you know people say well um you know the universe is against me the reality is that uh there's so many different things going on that uh we can't control everything and even doing everything the absolute correct way uh will lead to disappointment and that is the way it is you know I use this technique of uh of um um Optimist uh having an optimistic disposition or dispositional optimism and the idea is

that I have a deep-seated belief that things will work out the best for me uh I have a deep-seated belief that if I'm kind and thoughtful that that will be a tool to make that happen but I also accept that I have no control over things and on some level uh and that um all I can do is the best I can do but have I had major disappointments of course and I the key is not to get lost in them the key is to understand that um uh disappointment the ups and downs are just

part of life and yes people have some horrible circumstances and yes people unfortunately are in circumstances of which they have absolutely no control and they're suffering and being punished for things that are not in any way their fault and uh I cannot sit here and tell tell you geez just do everything in my book and life is going to be roses it's not going to work out that way unfortunately it doesn't work out that way and I do not have every answer for the world's suffering so I'm not going to pretend that oh just read

my book and you'll have a happy life uh there are circumstances where uh that are horrible that people have to live through or die from and uh uh I do not have nor does anyone else I believe have the power to make those instantly disappear or or make them get better I wish I did uh but it also begs the point that uh each of us though has a world in which we live in and within that circumstance we can have an impact and so what I suggest to people is within your sphere of influence

and your ability to have an impact that use it uh to make people's lives better and sometimes that's just uh saying hello to somebody sometimes it's buying them a meal some times it's just reaching out if they seem uh hurt or upset it's and again this is the nature of being present it's being present uh that actually results in a happy life you're present to events that are happening every step of the way versus as you know there are people who they set a goal and they discard everything in their Pathway to get to the

goal because the goal is the tent to the only thing that is important in their lives and they miss their life because they're focused on that you know it's like these fellows who uh you know we have people who say you know I wake up at 4 in the morning and I run half a marathon and then I eat 1,900 calories a day and then I go and I do this and I do that well what type of a life is that other than sort of a selfish uh um narcissistic view of the world it's

uh but this is only my opinion there some of these people have millions of followers so You could argue I know nothing well whether they have millions of followers or they only have one follower uh the real question is is that life working for them and maybe there could be a situation or circumstance somebody wants to go through a period of life where they really want to challenge themsel and they want to overcome limiting beliefs and at that point in time in their life they're focused on that and they could end up being somebody who

might be you know deeply happy purs no I I think you're absolutely right and I I think your point about limiting beliefs people are suffering and they will do actions that overcome those limiting beliefs I think the problem is for some of those people though is the statement is if I do it and you're not able to do it you're a loser and I think this is the message the projection to the audience yes and I think unfortunately for some people this is the message and they beat themselves up every day saying well you know

this guy said he does this and I've been working on this you know and I can't do it and you know why isn't that possible for me so I think there is a balance like there is with everything and so yeah some of these techniques to make you healthier and to overcome these limiting beliefs which is really uh what we're talking about in the nature of manifestation your own created limiting beliefs because you have to overcome those to have the power to change your life and uh so I think that is important you know again

I'm taking this to the extreme that happens to some individuals who in fact I know a guy who uh uh he's sort of that way and he says you know you're you're a loser man because you don't do these things I said well I don't think anybody's a loser I think people have different paths and uh it's not fair to call somebody that you know and not everybody is you right of course for sure you know on the topic of limiting beliefs there's a whole section in the book it's step three which is remove the

obstacles in your mind and it goes deep into this topic of identifying these limiting beliefs that are holding us back you know you mentioned just before we got into this part of the conversation disappointments we've all had disappointments in our life we've all had things that have gone not according to plan and sometimes severely feel like we might have been um you know disenfranchised by something or wronged by a situation and then there are times where those things can permanently hold people back back because they've contributed to added-on built upon a limiting belief you talk

about some techniques that people can use which is Step One is even identifying that you have a limiting belief in the first place what are some of those techniques that you talk about well I think the most important thing is actually uh identifying them uh because uh again many of us go through life as we were talking about earlier where uh uh we talk about uh um we have a vision we're always trying to manifest but we don't have any understanding of how manifestation works one of the uh impairments of manifesting is limiting beliefs and

a narrative that you tell yourself which many people do which is I'm not good enough I'm not worthy I don't deserve love it's not possible and as soon as you say something like that that becomes your reality so having self-affirmation being kind to yourself and again it's like some of these other aspects of manifestation you have a list and you repeat them you have actually a list of affirmations you tell yourself and unlimited possibilities that you tell yourself over and over again so that that becomes the dominant narrative not I hate myself I'm never going

to be anything I think that's probably uh the most powerful one one of the techniques that I use uh which is actually from my first book but I still use to if you will balance me and not get me lost in sort of uh my own limiting beliefs if you will as I go through a mental exercise every morning and it sets my intention for the day and it gives me the tools not to get lost one in aspects of uh our modern world that distracts me but also um empowers me and so what I

do is I wake up every day and I sit by the side of the bed and I actually do a breathing exercise which I know you know and many listeners the very nature of doing a a breathing exercise actually engages your parasympathetic nervous system right and that's where you're more open you're more thoughtful you're more creative you're more productive your physiology Works its best and I do that for a little bit and then I go through an exercise of thinking of the awe that uh inspires me in this world and then also uh the joy

of living in this world and then I go through this alphabet of the heart and uh it's 10 letters of the alphabet C for compassion for self and others D recognizing the Dignity of every person e practicing equinity F uh practicing forgiveness G having gratitude H is humility I is having integrity and values that bind you J is for justice or or responsibility for uh caring for the vulnerable K is kindness all of this is contained by love and you know when I Turk talked about earlier this is this distinction between fear and love uh

uh when you walk with the world with fear you create a a perception in your head of scarcity you grab on to things you want things and you're insecure about yourself so you grab onto things that you think will make you look better to others because you're always looking for outside affirmation versus when you're able to let that go and look through the other lens uh it opens things up for you there is no scarcity uh everything is possible uh the world is a generous and kind place it's not something to be scared of and

when you look at through that lens you make many more connection with people and actually people want to help you and one of the most important aspects of manifesting is to create this energy about you where people want to connect with you and help you and I'm sure you have met people who you meet them and there's this incredible energy about them this Joy about them and you're going wow I want to be around these this person I mean it's incredible and then there are other people who you meet and you want to get away

from as quickly as possible I and the reality is what people don't appreciate is when we reatune our psyche if you will it changes your vibrational energy now I know in uh some spheres of woess and pseudoscience people use this and make up all sorts of of aspects of this but many of what they say is true based on Neuroscience as an example your heart puts out an energy that goes five or six feet Beyond you and it has an impact on others and when you carry that energy with you it sort of changes the

environment and in fact I'm sure you probably know as an example if you have a group of women who live together over time their periods were synchronized will synchronize and when you're around people and you carry that energy and there are other people like that that creates an immense amount of power and connection between those other people in fact you even look at a metronome which is an inanimate object theoretically a metronome uh or a non-living object if you put five of them together on a table at some point their oscillations will match and so

there is this energy about you that you do have some control over it's just you have to learn how to um embrace it and use it to your advantage so you're basically telling people that if they get bad vibes from somebody pay attention to that because there might be something there I would would say that can be very very true I think the kids these days is called a Vibe check you know it's it's funny you say that because there are all these abbreviations people use which you know you get text messages from I guess

are they adolescence we call them or is it jenz now and I have no clue what they're uh you know like IRL what is that in real life right is y yeah well so um I heard you on another podcast you did recently where you were alluding to one way one practice that you can use to identify limiting beliefs is to catch yourself being critical of yourself what are the common areas where you quietly people don't even realize that they just it's a thought in their head they don't realize it that their mind is thinking

that thought often it's from default Network it's not them trying to think this thought on purpose so it's old beliefs and there'll be a critical thought about themsel so if you catch these thoughts when they happen when you say oh my gosh that was so stupid sometimes people say it out loud but often it's quietly they're telling thems you're an idiot why did you say that you'll never be loved Etc that could be one way of seeing you know some clues of what your limiting beliefs are well the thing is that again as soon as

you say that uh uh it's putting sort of a seed down and you again we're talking about habits that becomes a habit in fact I have a good friend who's a super nice guy but it's like you know every five or ten sentences he says something critical about himself and uh uh and you know on in some ways I think it's self-deprecation to be accepted but it's a dangerous thing too because again when you make these statements that can become reality uh and again your brain doesn't know the difference between what you say or think

and what is real as an example Studies have been shown that if you think about exercising your muscles they actually get larger just from the thought of exercising your muscles and this has been shown in a number of studies and so when you sit there and say you know I'm worthless I that was stupid I'm stupid I'm stupid then that starts getting embedded and you start believing it so what I have done and try to do for myself because it happens to all of us is I as soon as I start to think that or

say it I say the opposite or a statement of affirmation every time and what's one of your most favorite affirmations that you use personally uh I am worthy uh you know so often uh uh you know we we have this thing in our head that says well I don't deserve this and uh uh versus yes I deserve it I in fact I deserve a lot more because I'm a thoughtful nice kind person and there's nothing wrong with telling yourself you're a thoughtful nice kind person if you are of course now I would suggest you that

uh uh uh nothing is 100% And there's a subset of people who probably think I'm a jerk and uh maybe in their world I am uh but that's okay uh you know I don't know of anyone who has a 100% success rate and you know people carry their own baggage or biases which uh you know make them feel uncomfortable around some people as an example even in my own training uh uh as a neurosurgeon you know the most competent and and probably most well-respected uh uh teacher of mine you know was a huge fan of

mine uh and you know when was worked with him things went really well I had a lot of respect for him he had a lot of respect for me but there was another fellow who was insecure about himself and so he would always have to beat me up and make comments negative comments because I was very good at what I was doing but it made him feel more uncomfortable so he had to be critical and and I felt actually sorry for the guy uh that he felt he had to do that but there're people like

that and you sort of have to understand that oftentimes the manner in which somebody interacts with you oftentimes has nothing to do with you at all in fact I had a case uh several years ago of a colleague a physician much younger than me and his 30s and we were working on a research project and I would meet with him every couple weeks and uh super nice guy and we were meeting and it's like out of the blue he starts an argument about something it was completely irrelevant but he going no that's not true I

disagree with that and I don't think we should do that I'm like looking at the guy going like it's like a complete personality change and uh and you know what many of us do often times in those situations we you know uh react to them like what the hell are you saying that's you know and you get into this conflict but this was so unlike him and uh fortunately uh I had uh worked on my own emotion regulation which is to be non-reactive often times or to be more thoughtful and I looked at him I

said you know this is not like you at all what's going on with you and he looked at me for a couple seconds and he burst into tears I like and uh uh and what had happened was that he had quit his position and as you know in the United States you need to get um uh gap insurance COBRA insurance and he you know was married a young family two children and he thought that he didn't need to get it because it was expensive and he was getting this other job in a couple months so

why get it well in the interval his wife uh found a lump on her breast turned out to be cancer so now he had no insurance so the driver of his behavior it wasn't about our research project he was taried and scared that was the driver and that that happens uh often times to us where we don't know what's going on with somebody else and why they're reacting a certain way and this is also the idea of giving people the benefit of the doubt now the rest of his story fortunately was that uh I was

able to uh help him get retroactive Cobra Insurance he got it the breast MK was removed she didn't need any other treatment and they're fine but it just reminds you that you can never know what is going on in someone else's head and the other aspect is also uh I'm sure you probably been cut off in traffic by somebody yeah and you at least for men I'm sure women would never uh do this but we sometimes use a hand gesture or perhaps use a profanity uh but the reason I bring that up is you know

you think about that and you do get suddenly angry and you know uh tense up and you're wondering why this person did that but then if you reframe it and this again all about perception how it is in your control to see the world a different way if you reframe that and sit there and say well you know the passenger in the car was this uh guy's wife she was nine months pregnant her water broke she's bleeding he's tried to get her to the hospital then suddenly oh my God you know I understand what's going

on here and I'm much more I'm Not Angry Anymore I just hope they get there safely right but you know in a microc you can reframe how your mind sees the world and I think that's what we all should do and part of that is giving people the benefit of the doubt uh hoping that our actions help others all of that will maximize your ability to manifest because in some ways it's all about um focusing on the love aspect of Our Lives not being fearful of our lives so would it be fair to say that

the more we're holding on to a victim narrative that life is happening to us that other people are doing things to us that we don't have agency the harder genuinely it would be to manifest our goals and dreams absolutely I think that's a a great summation you're actually saying things much better than I am so I thank you for that so I appreciate that but I think that's right and now again as I said earlier uh there are situations that people can't control but I think people can control how they respond to events and if

every time they respond respond to event an event is I'm a victim this shouldn't have happened to me people are taking advantage of me I have no control then uh they actually unfortunately manifest that and so most people do have the ability to take control of different aspects or see the world in a different way the very nature of seeing the world in a different way actually uh increases your ability to manifest and that's by not being a victim but understanding within you is an immense amount of power to change your circumstances and by using

the techniques that I talk about this can actually change your life and change your life for the better but not only your life it changes everyone's life around you I was on uh x.com formerly known as Twitter a few weeks ago and I came across this uh really cool clip from the CEO of Nvidia I'm blanking on his name but this is now one of the most successful companies the world chip manufacturers the chip behind all these AI devices that people are using in different things well it's funny you say that because a friend of

mine uh worked there and about a year ago he said you know Jim you really need to buy stock in Nvidia I didn't so you weren't able to manifest that yeah well well I yeah apparently I chose not to uh well one of the things the CEO was saying in uh Town Hall that he was doing SL fireside chat was he said that uh he's seen since the earliest part of his career that when individuals come in with very high expectations whether these are people that he's mentoring whether these people are senior leadership that joins

his team he said the higher your expectations are the less successful you'll often be with many of these outcomes you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier but this idea that we have to release expectations and be open to the magic that wants to unfold how do we do that and how do we straddle both releasing expectations but uh really having the drive to actually pursue some of these goals that we want to achieve in our life not just for the betterment of ourselves but for the people around us well again there's nothing

wrong with setting goals and working very hard to accomplish them I think that the challenge comes in and there are two parts of this one is to always have beginners mind and what I mean by that is as somebody gets expertise in something they start closing their mind off to different possibilities and also when someone is uh firmly attached to a very very specific outcome then uh they're only focused on that and not the other possibilities that can allow them to have success uccess with a slightly different outcome and what I mean by that it

may not be exactly what they want or invisioned it's slightly different but because they're so fixated on it being exactly they the way they want in many ways it disempowers them because one they're not open to other options and you have to always be open to other options and this is the nature of beginner's mind so the goal is wonderful it's though believing that there's only one way to do it and it's your way that I think uh uh causes people problems and I think that's what he's talking about you know they're so fixated on

their vision of the goal they're not open to any other possibilities and being open to possibilities that's the magic where does magic come from my book um well it's available to all of us at any time it's just we have to recognize it's with us and again this gets back to to uh when we talked about uh the law of attraction in some ways this idea that uh it is all in our mind and it's though our gift to be able to control our minds uh as you know I mean uh these different mind training

techniques uh are extraordinarily powerful as I use an example in the book these uh um Tibetan meditation Masters or another example is whm Hof you you know they control their body temperature their heart rate and uh but again it it's not effortless you have to put in the work to do that and the thing is that having access to the power of your mind and then utilizing the techniques to increase the strength of that are really uh the key here and you know we did mention and uh uh individuals who go to extremes well it's

not uh because it's easy it's because these people have used the techniques to master the power they have within themselves to control their minds you know I had a uh interview with a guy named um Charlie Engel and he's an ultra ultra marathon runner and he's been doing it for many years now the stimulus for that probably was he was also a crack addict at one point uh but uh uh he has such control over his mind that he doesn't feel pain and and so for him these long uh ultramarathon distances uh he does them

and it's not because they're easy but he's mastered how to control the signals from his mind that tell him to stop or not to do it or it's not possible and I think many of the people we were talking about these extreme individuals they have mastered the same techniques and it is possible uh if that is what you feel you need uh to reach um sort of or to reach your goal or if you will uh to promote thriving for yourself but again thriving can be defined in many different ways by different people so we

went through a bunch of these steps that are part of this six-step process that you were taught by Ruth when you first encountered her and met her and you went in to the magic shop looking for uh something to do a trick was it with a thumb it was a thumb a plastic thumb plastic thumb yes yes I still have that thumb although it doesn't fit my thumb anymore but uh yes uh that's exactly right yeah and you took those things and in your first book you talk about this account and the lessons that ultimately

led to you building and creating this life where both externally you were able to create a lot of what people would say is Success you having lost that again those external items but reconnecting to this deeper sense of who you are and going on to found many incredible projects become neuroscientists neurosurgeon uh helped ad Dal Lama with the foundation co-found it with him and in this new book here it's going deeper in the process of actually what is the step-by-step process of manifestation and the last chapter I believe is chapter eight uh you walk people

through exactly a protocol for it either it's chapter eight or chapter 9 it's like a whole protocol if they want want to go through that process that's there yes it's a six we program six week program and they can walk through that um for those that didn't hear our first episode where I asked you about this question um what ever happened to Ruth it's interesting uh you bring that up because I've been asked that question uh numer numerous times the interesting thing is when I was 12 she was probably in her 50s and uh uh

um so I didn't find out what happened to her actually until I wrote the first book um because what happened was after I'd had this interaction with her I actually several months later uh went back to the strip mall where this magic shop was and it was uh every store there was clothes and there was a fence surrounding the strip mall and I don't know what they were going to do remodel it or whatever but all the businesses were gone so I never had another interaction with her at all and it was sort of uh

what happened was sort of evocative because I as you recall used to have this orange Stingray bike with this banana seat that I used to ride around it and uh I rode my bike up there and uh it was Dusk and there the wind was sort of blowing and there was this uh blue sky with sort of streaks of clouds there and I was just wondering like did I imagine all of this I mean it was really strange now the sign on the store was was still there so obviously I didn't but it was just

the most strange experiences it was as if it was brought there for me right and uh then it was gone and as I was sitting there thinking about this the wind BW in this huge tumble weed hit me in my bike and uh uh it it was a actually very strange experience but what I found out later was that a few years after my interaction with her uh she was diagnosed with breast cancer and died uh from the breast cancer now what's strange though later after that book came out I got an email from a

fellow and he said my parents were best friends with Ruth and her last name was Workman and uh he said I want to share something with you so he and I met and he actually had a book that she had given to his parents that she had signed as a gift to them and also a necklace that she had given to his mother which he gave me so I sort of have this uh uh connection to yeah that's beautiful and of course her Legacy lives on through the books the interviews the work you've done and

that you continue to do in this world and she's become now a mentor to all of us well thank you that's kind of you but uh you know and again it's it's uh I didn't appreciate at the time but she said uh basically to pay it forward and so again you know I didn't understand the lessons initially and it was all about me right I was doing this stuff for my to be uh accepted to uh be told I was okay and I lost touch with what she really was uh uh sharing with me and

the power of it and so once I lost everything it put me back to this period of reflection to really understand the key lesson uh that she was teaching me and really that's what's uh in this new book is uh the lessons that she taught me the power of them and hopefully uh to allow you not to make the same mistakes I made but again uh when you're young uh it's sometimes you have to learn yourself but hopefully uh this will give some people the ability to avoid those and really manifest their dreams and uh

and change the world in a positive way you know with Ruth's uh influence on your life I am also thinking about this question that Einstein was known for sort of putting out there you know he's saying paraphrasing here but one of the most important things that a human being can ask himself is is the universe of place for for good right as a universe a driver of of goodness when you think about the world today and where it's headed are we headed for the better are we headed for the worse and what is all of

our part in the unfolding of it we love to hear your thoughts on that well I'm glad you you know really saved the easiest question for last probably um I think the universe and again I use the universe uh uh cautiously um because in the book and I will answer your question because in the book I said the universe doesn't give a about you but at the end of the book basically I said you are the universe uh but I do believe uh that the Universe uh is good uh I would like to believe that

do I have any empirical evidence of that no uh but it doesn't matter uh because all of us create a life hopefully that uh uh allows us to be our best best selves and uh while the universe may not care in fact I was talking to John Ham about this and he said at best it's indifferent uh but um uh it doesn't matter what the universe uh whether it's good or bad it only matters how I see myself in the world and how I choose to see goodness in the world and I think inherently 95%

of people are good otherwise the world wouldn't work 95% I believe it's only a very small percentage that take us on these uh extreme past that causes problems uh I think yes we will continue to have significant ups and downs and uh we will unfortunately not learn uh from the history that has been before us but at the end of the day I think that uh uh goodness will prevail um Dr Dodie thank you so much for being here it's such a pleasure to actually meet you in person after being so inspired by your work

and loving our first interview together uh the book comes out May 7th would you just share the title again we'll put the link in the show notes and of course you have your own podcast too so I'd love to give that a mention oh sure oh that's kind of you um uh so what's the first question oh the book the name of the book uh uh mind mag uh mind mind magic the Neuroscience of manifestation and uh how it changes everything my podcast uh is called into the magic shop um and that's pretty simple and

it's based on the first book and uh I strive to have people who are uh being kind being compassionate who are trying to improve the world on that podcast which I think uh hopefully inspires people uh the other thing uh for people uh I mentioned happy. a hai. aai and actually at this moment anybody can sign up and try the app there's no charge for it and uh if you do sign up uh please share your comments and also uh there's a center that I run at Stanford called um the center for compassion and altruism

research and education of which uh the Dal Lama is the founding benefactor and we teach courses on uh compassion self-compassion and how to deal with uh Stress and Anxiety uh so Drew thank you so much I appreciate you having me and it is a pleasure to meet in person uh so thank you again no thank you and on the topic of goodness thank you for bringing so much goodness today to our audience we'll have the links for everything you mentioned below especially the book which I enjoyed please pick up a copy Dr Dodie thank you

again for being here thank you hey YouTube If you enjoyed what you just saw keep watching for more great content on how to improve your brain and your life before I even have time to think the first thing that I do when I become aware that I'm awake and I'm still lying in bed is I say a