10 Brain Hacks from the World’s Highest Achievers | Impact Theory
_DWIeD65Jq0 • 2017-08-08
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all right boys and girls we have a very
special episode for you today we've had
a lot of amazing guests join us here at
impact Theory and the team here has put
together their most amazing hacks into
one compilation that I know you guys are
going to enjoy but please go beyond the
enjoyment and actually put some of this
stuff to use because that my friends is
the key to success all right without
further do take a look at our first hack
hack number one how to never worry again
I want to start with something we can
all uh relate to and that is how do you
stop worrying and how do you stop
listening to self-doubt this is how
you're going to do it so all day long
you're going to have moments where your
thoughts drift and I use that word on
purpose because for me there is a
physical sensation when you start to use
the 5-sec rule and you start to wake up
not only on time in the morning but you
wake up to your life and the
opportunities in your life there's your
thoughts drift like you'll just be
hanging out with your friends and then
suddenly you're like I'm not sure that
that person likes me anymore you know I
haven't heard from my kids lately I
wonder if they're dead or you know oh
you know as a check like you just start
worrying about stuff why because it's a
habit because when you're not paying
attention your brain shifts from you
being a decision maker and paying
attention to you just kind of spinning
things on autopilot and one of your
habits is worrying the second you wake
up and you notice holy cow I'm talking
some negative garbage to myself right
now 54 3 2 1 you've just shifted the
part of the brain that you're using
you've shifted from the basil ganglia
which is where your habit Loops are
spinning and you've awakened your
prefrontal cortex you've also
interrupted that pattern now what you're
going to do because your mind is
actually ready to receive a different
thought because of the
counting now you can put in an anchor
thought like if you have a mantra if
you've got a vision about the way that
your business is going to turn out in 5
years if you just have a thought that
makes you really happy and proud insert
that now why does this work it works
because of the
counting and I'm not kidding we know
based on Research that positive thinking
alone not effective in some instances
trying to force yourself to think
positive can actually make the worries
worse why well the reason why is because
it's really hard to just change the
channel what we have to do first is
basically interrupt it and turn off the
TV and then turn it back on with the
prefrontal CeX awakened so the counting
is essential and so you can start using
this today you catch yourself Talking
garbage to yourself 543 21 switch it
back get back to that Vision that you
have about toasting your success or this
customer being really happy or you being
proud of yourself whatever that Vision
may be you can control your thoughts and
this is not just us talking about it
this is a tool that you can
use hack number two how to set better
goals the first question you ask
yourself to identify your end goals is
what experiences do I want to have in
life and this is where you start writing
down your
experiences and um you know when I do
this exercise I ask people to take out a
piece of paper draw three columns so if
you're watching do that right now take
out a piece of paper three columns top
of the First Column you're going to
write down experiences right and ask
yourself what experiences do I want to
have who do I want to wake up with what
type of house do I want to live in what
countries do I want to visit where do I
want to um travel to what Adventures do
I want to have whether it's climbing
Mount Kinabalu or hiking the
Andes what type of family life do I want
what dog do I want the beautiful thing
about experiences is often they don't
require that much money it's crazy we
associate money with happiness but often
the most beautiful experiences in life
require no money almost any human being
today can fall in love can make a baby
these are some of the most profound
experiences I've had so the first thing
is you make a list of your experiences
now the second thing is you ask yourself
this question for me to be the man or
woman who has all of these
experiences how do I have to grow and
here we come to the second list see I
believe we are souls having a human
experience here on planet Earth but
these souls are not just here to explore
all of these wonderful things about
being human I believe as as Souls as
human beings We crave growth human
beings are growth driven machines and so
you make that second list and that
second list is how do I want to grow how
can I learn to be a better father a
better spouse a better lover what
languages do you want to learn do you
want to learn a musical instrument do
you want to learn to write do you want
to learn um to play a particular sport
or learn a particular skill what many
people don't realize about the world is
that growth is a goal in itself it's one
of the key things that drive us forward
as human beings but very few people
write down growth as goals it's because
our education system which tries to
teach us to grow through forced learning
makes many people dread learning so
growth becomes that second list now you
have two lists your experiences and your
growth now you ask yourself the third
question and the third question is this
to be that man or woman who has all of
these experiences to be that man or
woman who has grown in such a way how
can I give back to the world and there's
a very important reason for that
question the Dalai Lama said if you want
to be happy make other people happy and
I believe that when you do these three
most important questions that third
category is what truly leads to
fulfillment it's when you can take your
growth you can take your experiences and
contrib contribute to fellow Souls
contribute to the human race you've
learned entrepreneurship great mentor
someone Mentor a kid who wants to get
there you um you have the ability to um
sing figure out how to use it to deliver
you know beautiful music to inspire
people so your list of contributions
becomes
your steps for you to give back to the
world because that takes you beyond pure
happiness into fulfillment now when you
have this list experiences growth and
contribution this becomes your goal list
everything else is just a mean SC now
when I started creating this I found
that it allowed me to rewire my brain to
shortcut and bypass so many [ __ ]
rules to go straight to these final
items to go straight to ways I could
contribute ways I could grow ways I
could have these beautiful experiences
and often these were unconventional
Parts like when I started my company I
didn't work with any investors or VCS um
I decided to start my own University
which is happening in Barcelona but it
all came because when you have done the
three most important questions you get
to Short Circuit the rules of the
culture scape and figure out shorter
Parts towards true human
fulfillment hack number three how to
master
self-awareness I after that wrote this
thing called a discourse on truth right
and I had I had it bound up wow at Kinko
and it looked really nice and I had the
perfect font and I got A4 paper and I I
I made like a 100 copies of it and it
was this like very high futin kind of
very pretentious Le worded thing that
went through truth and ways to know it
and things like that and I gave it to
all my family and my friends who were
like you know what is this thing you
know this looks like he just you know so
but it was so important for me and and
when you when you learn how to uh to
listen to your own story and write it
down I think self-awareness is like an
inevitable byproduct of that because you
get addicted to knowing what you think
about something yeah I think there's
this weird State we all have you know
we're operating on old memories and
we're operating on things that we read
but we haven't really like retained as
soon as you start transferring that
whole messy cloudy
Misty uh area of knowledge into explicit
knowledge you're going to start seeing a
lot more in yourself and what's out
there uh and
so my advice is to write just write and
the rest will
follow hack number four how to have a
balanced life and I've always been a
very reflective person I've always been
someone who will ask myself you know
every 6 weeks or so am I happy just and
it's a really simple thing it's just
like it's it's either the answers are
either yes um or no and I mean that's
you know what I mean and if it's a no
it's like okay well am I doing things
that while right now maybe I'm not like
blissfully happy are working towards
something that I know will make me happy
you know what I mean like and am I
generally happy with the idea of the
tradeoffs that I'm making right now or
that I have to deal with you know does
that make me happy um and if that's a
yes it's a okay cool but if it's still a
no it's like stop everything no this
doesn't make sense um and so I've always
been the kind of person who would check
in again because I feel like do you have
a system for that like where you
literally just say every morning I'm
going to ask myself this or no I mean I
think there are two systems I really
have one was the check-in which I do
just it's more like you can sense if you
take some time to be quiet you can sense
when you're not in equilibrium and then
that's when you ask that's it like you
just running running running running
running without taking a time to just
figure your know where you are I mean
then there's probably going to be other
symptoms where you're just overe eting
or overdoing this or not sleeping like
you'll people will be able to tell you
yeah you don't look balast if you asked
if you ask them so like that's the time
to ask yourself and then the second
thing is a list and the key thing about
that list it's always more than what I
could ever reasonably accomplish in that
day because I like to push myself you
always end up accomplishing still more
than what you you think and I I like to
never feel satisfied with myself and
I've been doing those two things for 10
years and that's why I'm here pck number
five how to test the impossible now one
of the promises in the um the press kit
was that you could test The Impossible
and 17 questions yeah what are what are
some of the questions so the questions
are uh actual questions that coincided
with
Milestones or inflection points or just
a fork in my own life and some of them
would be for instance what if I did the
opposite for 48 hours it's a very
recoverable experiment right if it
doesn't work then I can always go back
to what I was doing doing the opposite
met making my calls
between let's just say
6:30 and 8:30 and then 5:30 to 7
7:30 and
uh it was just a hypothesis uh maybe I
can get a hold of the people I need to
get a hold of more effectively when The
Gatekeepers aren't there and that's
exactly what happened and I started
booking more meetings and closing more
deals than than the majority of the guys
in the company and it was just from
asking that question what if it did the
opposite for 48 hours and you can apply
that to many many things right some of
the others uh would
be well this this is one I asked in 2004
if if I had a gun against my head and
could only work 2 hours per week what
would I do I know it's impossible what
would I do and that type of ludicrous
question was necessary to break my
thinking patterns and test stress test
my own assumptions of what was possible
and you find that that is a learnable
skill I'll give you another question
that I think you'll really like which is
one of the 17 what can I learn from the
people I hate the most wow now this does
two things it forces you to separate
your morality from your your search for
Effectiveness right it also helps you to
develop some degree of
empathy and uh those two are very
powerful so what can I learn from the
people I hate most wow uh is a very very
useful practice so I'll journal on that
very often in terms of patterns we were
talking about some of the things
spotted meditation or
journaling are performed by close to
100% of the people that I
interviewed hack number six how to learn
something new you said that once you
decided that you had found a real
problem that you began reading
veraciously on the topic how do you
approach like in fact give us the real
example of this like when you decide
that you're going to get into that how
how do you learn about it like you're
knowledge on the subject now is is huge
if you are an expert in that field my
best advice is not to go do something in
the space that you know a lot about if
you are an expert you only able to make
an incremental Improvement to the things
that are already being done so I always
tend to this is my seven because you've
limited your own way of thinking because
you take many of the things as granted
that means the foundational things that
you have you take them as granted you
don't even question them that is how how
it is done when you come from outside
the industry you're able to question
every single thing that people have
taken it for granted so if you think
about this is my seventh company and
I've never started is no two companies
have ever been in the same industry wow
right when I started space I had no idea
how is somebody's going to go to the
Moon my first question when somebody
asked me that was I have no idea it
keeps
moving every time I Target it moves then
I understood there is orbital Dynamics
around it right that became really easy
so I was known as the space junkie
because I started to learn about space
and then when I saw this technology at
Los Alamos National Lab that they able
to analyze the body every single thing
that's going inside it was fascinating
enough then I said you know what I'm
going to go start reading and when I go
my first approach is to go find 10 20
books that I can read I never like to
read one book because than you are more
or less that person's belief system
becomes your belief system so what I do
is I read 20 different authors because
then I want to see where the people
differ from so I can form the opinion
because now I know what everyone else is
saying then I start reading all the
science journals what do you do when you
encounter something though that you
don't understand like the microbiome is
so vast so the thing is you you need to
understand the basic vocabulary so as
you know I'm also on the board of
Singularity University and being on the
board of Singularity University it gives
me the basic background of what is
genetics what is epigenetics what is the
nanotchnology what is the neuroscience
and the basic vocabulary once you have
that you're able to make a lot more
sense when you read the articles when
you read the books and then what I do is
in each subject that when I'm learning I
set my Twitter feed only for the science
journal only in that field that means
I'm going to be looking at the Science
magazine the new scientists and every
single Science magazine that has the
articles about that subject and I wake
up in the morning I get up around 4:30
in the morning and I spend the first two
hours just going through every science
journal what has come out since I went
to bed I love that right and then once I
know that then I start to learn and
start to ask people I would call the
authors of the book I'll meet the people
how often did do they take your call
because you're naine Jane though or like
could anybody do it so that more often
than not you reach you know reach out to
them on social media and I would say 90
love how socially Savvy you are it's
awesome 90% the time you reach out to
people on LinkedIn you reach out to them
on Facebook or you reached out out to
them on Twitter and say I just finished
reading your book really loved the
following section I have the I have one
thought I want to run run it by you and
see what you think of it very rarely
going somebody's going to say no I don't
want to talk to you right so people say
send me your thought here's my email and
that's how you start the conversation
right number seven how to enjoy
rejection I love to say this especially
to entrepreneurs one of the great
secrets in life to becoming successful
whether it's in a business whether it's
working with someone or for someone or
in your personal life and I learned this
sell in encyclopedias door to door early
20s is be prepared in life for a lot of
rejection because if you're prepared for
a lot of Rejection it comes you don't
get turned off you don't get
disappointed like well I'm not going to
do this anymore no one thinks it's a
good idea it's like I I say selling
encyclopedias knocking 100 doors they
slam them in your face you must be just
as enthusiastic on door number 101 as
door number one and that's one of the
real secrets and growing up as kids in
Downtown LA we all knew that we didn't
have a lot we there's a lot of things
are going to turn you down at 7 trying
to sell a flower pot on the street most
people said no but it's only 50 cents no
no no soon a waitress in a little
restaurant said only 50 cents that's
really great she bought it from us was
and we went built another one that you
don't give up that really is like one of
the secrets of the universe in my
opinion that ability to stay as
enthusiastic on door 101 as you were on
door one when You' had it slammed in
your face over and over and over how can
is that something you can teach like in
fact have you parted that on to your
kids like is that something that they've
adopted and if so how did you pull that
off definitely it's just like your
viewers of your fabulous show here
they've just heard me say that now if
they write that on a piece of paper be
prepared for a lot of rejection whether
it's in their personal life that someone
says you're too old you're too fat
you're too young you're not going to do
anything other than yes you got holes in
your nose you got things coming out your
ears whatever is other than yes this is
wonderful realize that's going to happen
in life as soon as people know that when
something goes wrong they look at a
piece of paper oh yeah that reminds me
the other quote that I give people a lot
especially entrepreneurs uh is any
business you're in whether it's a
service or whether it's a product or
anybody you work with that has a product
or a service always make sure that your
product or your service is of the
highest quality you could ever make it
because you do not want to be you do not
want to be in the selling business you
want to be in the reorder business
granted you got to tell somebody what
your idea is and you know and house
going to cure something they may need
but the quality has to be so good that
after that they want to reorder it or if
it's a one-time item tell friends about
it and if people thinking whatever
they're doing in life being the reorder
business whether it's with a personal
relationship whatever you see right now
you're going to see again and again and
again it's going to enhance there'll be
ups and downs here's my product it's so
darn good you're going to use it uh we
started Paul Mitchell we had no money
but we knew our product was so darn good
that if we got in the hands of enough
people they're going to be reordering it
because it was that quality service the
same way
hack number eight how to create a
comeback what advice would you give to
somebody in your shoes a true world
class athlete they've had this
catastrophic injury what what's your
advice to them in in that moment of
uncertainty when they don't know if
they're going to be able to come back or
not I think really its acceptance is is
where you need to end up you talk about
it in stages of grief um you know
everyone talks about injury is kind of
like the stages of grief after death um
almost not to be that
dramatic
but to realize that it's okay how you're
feeling
and kick scream cry do whatever it is
you need to do let it out but give
yourself a time limit so I said after my
injury so I had and and I was miserable
and I was you know just a bear to be
around but I told myself okay I'm I'm
going to give myself 2 weeks to be an
awful person about this and then you
know what I'm going to pick up and move
on and say what can I do now in this
scenario and really what it was and what
I found is I cut myself off and then I
looked at how can I make the best of of
this situation and for me that ended up
in being able to do commentary work and
being able to be on the course be on the
sidelines support my fellow a athletes
and actually take joy in their in in
their accomplishments in their victories
instead of seeing them as competitors
right and so it's about reframing what
you can do in that moment for instance I
realized very early on when I was trying
to become an attorney that I always had
this notion that I wanted to be a
prosecutor and on and on stage and
things like that and I realized I don't
do public speaking very well and that it
would seize up and it was awful for me
so I had I've seen you do public
speaking very very well but it's one of
those things that I've had to cultivate
and it's one of those things that I've
had to practice and
so I think that that the hard things you
know give
you cultivate that mental toughness and
people say okay well how do I how do I
make it a habit or how do I how do I
cultivate mental toughness and I say
well that's what you do you make it a
habit is that you don't give yourself
the option and something you you pick
something put it into your routine
whether it's waking up 30 minutes
earlier every day so you can actually
get out the door to move your body and
you just don't think about it you don't
give yourself the option to not do it to
me it's celebrating the little victories
for sure um the first time that letting
those build like momentum and confidence
in you yes for sure because every single
little Victory is going to create that
bigger sense of of self so that first
run back where I did a
mile and it was like high five I felt
like I had just run 100 miles but it was
that little wave that just that if you
can keep building on those and
unfortunately it's never going to be a
smooth linear linear progression and so
those little setbacks are the times
where you need to realize okay it's just
a blip on the radar so he kind of going
to look like this but as long as you can
kind of see that goal towards the end
and embrace that process that's really
how I've been rebuilding
it hack number nine how to come up with
business ideas you've said that it takes
nothing more than insight and drive to
be successful and then the the question
that like screamed out of my mind was
can you train to be more insightful
absolutely all right how do you do that
so here's the simple exercise for
everybody watching and I guarantee you
the 30 days from today from when you
watch this you will have more deal flow
than any Venture Capital firm in Silicon
Valley take a piece of paper and today
write three problems in your
life I traffic this morning you know I
forgot to take my medicine whatever it
might be but do this every day for a
month because what you're going to find
is the first day it's kind of easy maybe
the second day but after that you're
going to like okay I wrote down my
problems
so what else is a problem that you
aren't identifying because you've
accepted that's the way it is that's the
way it's always been that you know you
work at a big Corporation well this is
the way we do it well you're going to go
out of business doing that and then when
you have those 90
ideas what are you passionate about and
what affects the most people and the
intersection of those two in your life
you were passionate about nutrition that
it could change people's lives okay and
you saw a way that you could financially
impact
them with a healthy bar right and those
intersections led to success your
Insight got you there and you solved for
a whole bunch of people no one sells a
product no one buys something you know
you know no one went into a store and
bought a quarin drill bit because they
wanted a quarter-inch drill bit they
wanted a quarin hole right right very
well said somebody made the drill bit
because you wanted a hole okay so fill
those holes that's all that's as simple
as it can be hack number 10 how to find
happiness so most of what we've talked
about today is in your book just amazing
read this book um but there's one thing
that I've heard you mention which is a
two-year study you're doing on happiness
which you didn't talk about in the book
didn't yeah do you have any nuggets that
you're ready to talk about yeah so I
have one course on that already it's
called The Power of happiness and it's
like a it's 10 different steps that
we've just started learning about um but
I will give you one just to start off
with right now and it's this it's um
call I call it the skill the chart of
Happiness so we end up thinking that
happiness comes with the big vacation
once a year or the big blowout things
once every month we don't realize that
actually happiness comes in these very
very small moments every day and
actually that is those are the happiness
moments we have to savor so what I'd
highly recommend is for the next few
days sit down and make a chart of
everything that you do in your life down
to making a steaming hot cup of coffee
down to going for a run down to doing
laundry and then I want you to rank each
of those things on how happy they make
you and I I don't mean like happiness
like euphoric I mean like happiness like
content with your life like I am content
doing this I know this sounds crazy but
even like laundry or cooking something
that we often think of as a chore can
provide a certain amount of
contentedness if you look at that look
at it that way so I want you to rate all
of those skills and then I want you to
count up the number of hours you spend
on each of those skills every day what
you'll end up finding is you end up
doing what I call Happy math happy math
is basically looking at the fact that we
end up spending the majority of our week
you know 90% of our week doing tasks
that rank as a one or two or three not
very H Happy on the happy scale and we
end up having these really small once a
week moments where we're actually happy
but really there are these small little
moments it's it's having that amazing
cup of coffee or um taking in your view
from your window or whatever these
little small things those minutes add up
and I think it's about slowly hacking
how can you add in more and more of
those minutes um here's another kind of
tip on the happiness stuff that I just
realized would be a really easy one to
try so another I talked about these
little moments of Happiness there's also
these little moments of unhappiness that
as humans we cannot help but infect our
entire life so you know how when you're
sitting in a red light and you literally
question your entire existence is that
anyone does that ever happen anyway sure
yeah um so you know you're sitting in a
red light and you're like why do I sit
in traffic why do I drive to work why do
I do what I work why am I doing this
maybe I should quit my job maybe I
should move to Hawaii maybe I shouldn't
have a car like that's like what happens
you know so one of the hacks that I have
found works really well is taking those
small moments and turning them into what
I call gratitude totems so a totem is
like a symbol or something to remind you
of something so I have a red light by my
house that I get stopped at every single
day it doesn't even matter what time of
day and I used to yell at this red light
I would curse at it and then I realized
wait a minute like this light causes me
so much unhappiness I have such a hard
time being grateful like every open
magazine ever says be more grateful who
has time to be grateful right like no
one has time to do that but now I have
time so whenever I am stopped at that
red light for the entire red light I
think about every single thing I'm
grateful for and now I get upset if I do
not hit it because I know that every
time I pull up to that red light I have
a minute and a half just to think about
all the things I'm grateful for check I
got my gratitude off I feel nice and
good I flipped a very unhappy moment for
me that makes me question driving and
cars and my life and turned it into
something that actually makes me very
appreciative that is
brilliant I hope you guys enjoyed that
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