[Music] he grew up poor in Lancaster California the son of an alcoholic father in and out of jail and a suicidal mom kicked out of school his life spiraling toward delinquency until he wandered into a magic shop where he would meet a woman who would change his life forever teaching him not only magic tricks but the magic of his own mind teachings Dr James doie today credits for helping him become an acclaimed neurosurgeon a multi-millionaire investor in medical Innovations Who Rose to riches driving fast cars owning penthouses Villas and Islands but when it all came
crashing down he says he learned more about how to truly manifest than ever before the author of two riveting books on the mind now heads the center for compassion and altruism research and education at Stanford Medical School School the name says it all it's where Dr doie teaches the science and soul behind realizing a most meaningful life neurosurgeon scientist inventor Dr James Dodie he is today's LA Story hello everyone and welcome to a really fun edition of La stories I'm jaelle Fernandez and I'm so excited to be with best-selling author of into the magic shop
and also mind magic who devotes his life to the study of the power we all have to manifest our wildest dreams it's great to meet you Dr James Dodie thank you so much for having me it's a really a pleasure I want to start with the way you started um your book into the magic shop you took us right into a surgical theater you were presiding over this brain surgery of a four-year-old boy his life in your hands you saved his life coming from the childhood that you came from to even be standing there to
do that it seemed that encapsulated everything about your life's journey it's interesting because whenever that is brought up uh I still get uh emotional about it so I'm thankful the child did well it can be highly stressful and that's why you know it's really critically important you keep it together to be honest with you well I was struck because of the way you shared your childhood with us which was just so uh gripping you said you weren't abused but it wasn't an easy childhood correct you know children who grow up in these environments I mean
there's a lot of uh often abuse but uh mine was more of neglect this is obviously very sad for a child it's very sad for the person going through it but fortunately I ended up walking into this magic shop yeah let's talk about that so you're a kid growing up in Lancaster um you're riding your bike you go in you meet the mother of the shop owner Ruth probably noticing that you were a kid that needed some guidance and she goes spend 6 weeks with me during the summer and I'm going to teach you a
whole different kind of magic absolutely uh this was a woman who uh embraced you immediately with kindness she treated me like an equal not like a child and all of that was very powerful because you know as a 12-year-old especially if you're poor uh often times people look down at you so yes uh when she uh offered me that gift if you will I did say yes she taught you how to meditate how to picture things in your mind didn't change your outside environment or your circumstances she changed how you perceived it that's a very
powerful statement because many people are profoundly affected uh by their external environment but what a lot of people don't appreciate is that the power they have within themselves now in my case ongoing trauma chaos unpredictability and I didn't realize that I was tense all the time you know and I was always looking around and when you're in that environment you can't focus and she did taught me a mindfulness practice we relax the body offer yourself positive affirmations when you're constantly talking to yourself in a negative fashion what happens is you create limited belief systems like
what is possible what is not once you say it is not possible I cannot or I am not worthy that becomes truth so many of us don't appreciate that we carry baggage from our childhoods and it actually has an impact on every action every interaction uh partners and if you have no Insight or awareness of that you can't change anything so what Ruth helped you do was really understand the patterns of negative thought that you were continually feeding and beding into your subconscious that would create then your conscious reality just by virtue of the way
you approach life absolutely these negative comments are like uh laying a brick down that builds Your Own Prison yet you don't realize when you're you're doing that that you actually always hold the key and when you went back to your chaotic home um you were able to then quiet your internal world to MA better navigate what was happening and what did that do to you it stopped you from immediately activating your sympathetic nervous system this flight fight or freeze response and then makes you look at the world through a slightly different lens which is engagement
of your parasympathetic nervous system what we call your rest or digest system and this is actually when you're relaxed you're open you're calm your brain is uh functioning its best when I changed how I looked at the world the world changed how it looked at me none of us can control often times our environments but we can control how we react to them you understand that you are in charge of your happiness I used to have a lot of anger towards my parents ultimately I realized that they had their own struggles and they didn't have
have the tools so the anger and hostility that I had I let go did you all of a sudden go from like a sense of hopelessness to feeling Invincible well it certainly changed my view because before I did not believe it was possible to go to college or to change my circumstance and once uh I had imbued what Ruth had taught me uh then I did believe that anything was possible and I still believe that and not just for me but for everyone and that is actually an extraordinary gift that when you realize you have
that power it can change everything let's talk about how you went to medical school they said don't even try you don't have the great idea of 2.5 GPA and you insisted and they let you in what did you say to them well first of all the secretary said to me I'm not going to give you an appointment because it's a waste of everyone's time but fortunately based on what I had learned from uh Ruth um I had the wherewithal to say I'm not leaving here until you give me an appointment and she did I walk
into this room and there's this long table and the individual who's in charge he stands up he has my file in his hand and he takes it he throws it on the table and says say what you have to say wow yeah so uh that still makes you emotional of course uh say what you have to say so we can get this over with and I looked at this fellow and I said who gave you the right to destroy people's dreams I said you know nothing about my life you're making a judgment about me based
on a grade point average yet you know nothing and I did tell them about my backr so uh at the end of it uh they were all crying it's easy to judge somebody if you objectify them but once you force them to look at you as a human being it's hard to look away they ended up actually giving me the highest level of recommendation and really that uh was the next step that uh changed the trajectory uh of my life yes you would do your residency at Walter Reed and you went to the top of
neurosurgery I mean that's a top of the totem pole of medicine that's true is Will alone is the idea and the visualization of what we desire enough to manifest it yes of course nothing's 100% but if you wish to have the greatest likelihood of manifesting these are the fundamental principles it has to not be about you when we care for others we release neurotransmitters like oxytocin and they make us feel good the love hormone yes and so this is the place you need to be mentally to manifest and my purpose was to be of service
service and that was uh through being a neurosurgeon and so the Stars aligned if you will yeah they certainly did you open up this neurosurgery practice in Swanky Newport Beach you invest in a company called Acura which is this laser knife which is this amazing Innovation uh for radiation therapy you made a fortune and I understand you had Villas in Tuscany Islands in New Zealand penthouses in San Francisco drove Ferraris and Porsches I mean for a kid who came from nothing did you feel like you'd made it well everyone said I had made it every
one of my friends said oh man you have the greatest life you get to do anything you want but then the dotom crash came you lost $80 million in 6 weeks you did have um $30 million in acur stock still but you had dedicated that to Charities but your attorneys didn't file the paperwork so they said you still have access to it you decided even though were 3 million in the hole to give that money away absolutely yeah because it wasn't about me anymore it was about being of service at first it was a rags
to richest story when I lost everything it made me realize none of those things matter let me ask you a question if you manifested all the wealth and um material and success did you also subconsciously or unconsciously manifest what happened to you as well to reach this point in many any ways my subconscious was redirecting me but it wasn't until I lost everything uh that I really reflected on the trajectory of my life and actually I understood what Ruth was trying to teach me all along that our purpose here is to be of service then
that changed how I looked at the world that's really good place to take a break but when we come back how Dr Jim Dodie came to Stanford University to create the center for compassion and altruism when La stories comes right back welcome back to LA stories everyone we're here with neurosurgeon neuroscientist inventor author Dr Jim Dodie from Stanford's compassion and altruism Center when you decided to create this Center studying the power of compassion you engaged the doll Lama eart tall Desmond Tutu tick Han and many others I mean very few people have that opportunity when
you're around these individuals they live above their Dogma the fundamental ideas that these individuals promote is uh Oneness interdependence acceptance compassion non-judgment when you're in their presence you feel this sense of incredible connection and and this feeling that that it is true we are all connected and uh it's it's very powerful so in your Center you study the science of compassion that you say allows us to manifest more efficiently why the best way to manifest is being in the right mental state this idea that being of service uh being connected to others and the lens
of Love fundamentally means generosity openness acceptance Gra attitude and this is when your parasympathetic nervous system is activated all of your brain networks function at their best when you're kind when you're compassionate when you're thoughtful and that's in some ways is a superpower that all of us possess and what happens is when you approach things from a fear narrative it limits uh the possibilities because a lot of areas in your brain shut down or don't work as efficiently you have to understand when I had these dreams of possibilities these were from the eyes of a
12-year-old who grew up in poverty so an idea of manifesting things like a Rolex watch a Porsche a mansion all of these other things you know including being a doctor now don't get me wrong it wasn't that I didn't care about people but it was more of I'm going to be a doctor to show people I'm worthy I'm worthy and uh I accomplished every one of those things but it was really at the end of the day for the wrong reasons yeah at the time you didn't know it then you were just grasping it with
that little boy saw as success the baggage we carry affects many of our decisions you have to really look at that and understand the patterns or behaviors that have been set down through your childhood experience so if you feel unworthy if you feel unloved if you feel not good enough that will what somehow energetic project how you see the world and what you're worthy of yeah the problem in our society is there is a narrative um that success means money power position and it's a false narrative they want to be accepted they want to show
off things to others so that they get external affirmation but the reality is it will not make you happy at the end of the day versus looking through the lens of love your work um like began in manifestation to then finding this life of compassion and giving back and you kind of brought them together saying do it fueled by service to others and you will manifest more fulfillment you'll manifest everything you want you talk about Focus um and focus and repetition that visualization bu that Endor subconscious will you know manifest that into our reality but
that takes attention and focus and the majority of your studies show say spend 80% of Our Lives focused on technical devices how distracting is that from our capacity to truly manifest what we want it's distracting right and uh but again this goes back to The Narrative of manipulation uh for financial reward right I mean if you look at social media companies they hire a number of neuroscientists and psychologists to create a narrative that results in dopamine drips which are highly addictive and that is their purpose it is not about uh saving Humanity or serving Humanity
it's about profit for shareholders and unfortunately that is the world we live in but that being said we do have the ability to focus so in your books and in your Center you say repetition uh spend five minutes a day visualize feel the visualization this is the pathway to change your brain what are the techniques that can allow us to manifest most efficiently you think of it you write it down you read it silently you read it aloud you visualize yourself being in that position it's where you create a representation of who you are or
who you want to be and once that intention is placed there then it becomes Salient it becomes important to you and this activates our salience Network which then activates your attention Network and your subconscious is always looking for possibilities this is the nature of synchronicities or coincidences you suddenly now are opened up to all the things that are going around you which you weren't even aware of once we focus our attention then we're looking at everything that actually is related to Our intention to manifest so you say it's not woo woo it's this is not
you know God or spirit this is simply science of what you put your energy towards ATT TRS like energy that's a way to put it sure my goal is to use Neuroscience to explain the process of manifestation and give you the tools that allow you to maximally have the ability to manifest your dreams well we're going to go into some of those tools more extensively when we come right back on La stories stay with us [Music] welcome back to LA stories we're here with the founder the creator of the center for compassion and altruism Dr
James doy how we manifest is uh determinant on what we focus on and pay attention to but in your studies you point out 80% of the time people are either thinking of the past or anxiety of the future and not in the present so how much does that kind of derail us from you know willing our realities into being so many people are thinking about what might have been could have been or they're looking at a future which hasn't happened yet they're not really present so things like mindfulness types of training are hugely profound in
the sense of allowing you to be in the present moment and not being distracted by all these other things and once you have your agency and you recognize actually how powerful you really are it actually can have a profound profound change that gift is available to all of us one of the things I got from your book is be very very conscious and aware of the negative thoughts you're repeating to yourself almost on a habitual basis and then replace them with a Kinder more compassionate uh view of yourself well so many people are the most
critical of themselves than anyone they know and and it's unfortunate and unfortunately our society often times reinforces that uh but again uh loving yourself accepting yourself understanding that you're worthy of love and you know all of us are frail fragile human beings we've made mistakes there's certain things we're ashamed of about us there's certain patterns of behavior that we wish we didn't have but in the face of everything we still deserve love and acceptance people don't appreciate how powerful they really are to change their lives to change the lives around them every everybody has that
within them you have to change your beliefs you create your beliefs you can change your beliefs but you have to understand that is within you there's no magic in the universe that's going to come and save you you have the power to do it yourself you just have to believe it and once you understand that you'd be amazed at what's possible do you think um Ruth had any idea how she empowered you in the seed she planted in you so I never saw Ruth again she died of breast cancer so I don't think she did
know but maybe she does know in a metaphysical sense well I'm so moved by how you feel deeply for Humanity the work that you've done on the brain and on the heart Dr James Dodie for anyone who wants to manifest and truly feel fulfilled in life mind magic and into the magic shop thank you so much what a pleasure to sit and talk with you and thank you for watching another edition of La stories I'm jelle Fernandez we'll see you next time thank you for watching our YouTube channel for more stories in your communities click
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