The Exchanges

Q So every time you complain, do you catch yourself and then say, all right, um, but what are we gonna do about it?

A Yeah, I think one question that I like to ask myself is, am I reinforcing my current reality or creating a new one? Because we're always doing one or the other, and when you think of it from the neuroscience standpoint, right, like, with every thought, with every action, with every behavior, we are either, we are either activating the same old pathways we've always activated in our brain, or we're activating new pathways in our brains, and when we activate new pathways, now we're changing our brain, and our brain is what constructs our entire experience of reality, and yeah, I mean, there's been times when I'm standing in the kitchen, And I'm either stressed or being negative or complaining, and I, I have a vivid memory of the first time I ever used this on myself, and I was walking to the kitchen, and I was like, wait, Em, are you reinforcing, you're reinforcing your current reality right now, and I was like, damn it, ok, I need, ok, like, what do I want to do? And sometimes it is just kind of changing my train of thought, because there's nothing that I can really do, and a lot of times we're just thinking negatively, and not every feeling Has a deep meaning. Like not every feeling has a deep meaning. Sometimes we're just tired, stressed, or hungry.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I think one question that I like to ask myself is”

Q And loving kindness meditation is basically where you meditate and you sort of meditate with this vision of loving yourself and, um, loving other people, like as you walk past them and like you can do it live. I remember like, uh, Tim Ferriss, um, a friend of mine explaining to me that like that changed his life when he did it. Is that right?

A Yeah, so it's a practice of, you sit down and you imagine someone that you love, you start with someone that you love, that's the easiest, and you think, you know, may you be happy, may you be healthy, like, sending basically, yeah, like, good vibes to them, and love, and joy, and health to them, and then you bring up strangers, and then you, you send that to kind of, or acquaintances, right, acquaintances, and then you actually bring up somebody that you're not on good terms with, and you do it with that person as well, and that one, you know, that's why you gradually get tougher, Um, but it's, it's a wonderful practice, and it's really beautiful, and when I do it, it brings tears to my eyes because of the love it activates, but I actually have kind of a fun little practice that I do. I actually will imagine myself sending beams of love through my eyes at random strangers, so I'll just be standing in the gym and like, you know, if I'm like stretching or whatever, I'll just look around at random people and just like send beams of love at them, um, and It never fails to bring tears to my eyes. Like, it always makes me.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, so it's a practice of, you sit down and you imagine someone that you love”

Q And, um, and you're growing like crazy. You have incredible engagement. You take complex topics really simply. And I was wondering how much of your content do you use like neuroscience and how we think about things into even the way that you communicate?

A Not at all. Really? Not at all, surprisingly, and I have people, they've asked me like, oh, is there a reason that you do, you move this way, and you, I'm like, no. I'm, I am, um, you know, like I said throughout this episode, like, I, I was diagnosed with ADHD in high school, and so the way that I share content is very much how I would want to hear it, uh, and that's just, I make it for me, and I, I, like, my assistant, my full-time assistant is my best friend since high school, And she loves my content too, and so if I have an idea or something cool that I learn, I will literally call her up and tell her about it, and the way that I tell her is the way that I make the video, because if I can make her understand it and keep her engaged, then I know it will work for the audience, and so for me, it's, yeah, I don't, I've been, I've been kind of, people have asked, like, oh, are you using, like, psychological? None of it at all. It's, it's really just Whatever I'm excited and lit up about, and I found that the content that does best is the content that I'm the most excited about. It's whenever I'm energized behind an idea, those are the ideas that do great. Like, the extreme one, the one about the neuroscience, why it need to be extreme, like, I had just done a whole coaching call on that, and I got off the call and I was like, I didn't make a video about this, didn't even really…

AI assessment note: “Not at all. Really? Not at all, surprisingly”

Q Are there tricks that you use to try to determine, like, this is real information, this is fake information, this is a good study, this is a bad study?

A I will say, when I was in my PhD, we had a whole class where it was literally just Different person would present a different study every single week, and we would just tear it apart. So every study has flaws, and I was one of the, I've been the person doing them, so, and, and I know personally that they're done by humans, and humans are by definition imperfect, and so every study is going to have its flaws, which I think is why it's important. I think even more important than looking at one study versus another is looking at many, Over the same topic. And so for me, when I am wanting to dive into, you know, like a topic, I read many studies and many articles, and if possible, a meta-analysis, which is sort of like a summarization of a ton of different studies. And I think that's the way that you can actually, and then there are journals that are, you know, quote unquote, better than others. Like if it's published in Nature Neuroscience, then it's Probably pretty good. Um, it's probably a pretty cool study, but then also there have been studies, like, there was this one study that we looked at that was in Nature Neuroscience that was a rat hide and go seek game, and so there, it's not, it's not so clear cut. I think sample size is extremely important, and so when you're reading a study and you, you're looking, you want to know whether or not it's good, you can look at sample si…

AI assessment note: “when you're reading a study... you can look at sample size”

Q people in Austin would be like, well, that's because you're super empathetic, you've got crazy powers, and it's like, no, no, no. It's actually chemicals, probably stress, anxiety, a little sadness, a little fear. It bled out, and I could feel it in that office. Why is it so important that you choose the people that you spend the most amount of time with? Can you talk about brainwave synchronization?

A We have neurons in our brain, right? And they're kind of organized into these ensembles, and you can think of, like, I mean, I used to be in orchestra when I was in middle school, so, you know, there's different ensembles, and there's, like, groups of five that'll play at a time, right? And so as you're thinking and communicating, you have these ensembles of activity kind of going off in your brain, and what it looks like is waves. So as they're kind of, their neuron groups are firing, and there's different patterns firing, you kind of just start to record, and it looks like brain waves, right? It looks like waves. And so when you kind of Record two people in communication with each other, you start to see these brain waves sync up. This has so many implications for your life and when people that you surround yourself with, and you know, I, I, to me, it's one of the most important things is the people that we surround ourselves with. Like, I am a huge supporter of, like, cut them off, make them feel it. Like, I don't, like, I, I, I, I'm very swift with the scissors. I've always said that, and I've also say, like, You don't have to cut people off. Like, you can love them from afar. Cause I have a lot of people come to me and they're like, but I'm, I don't, I can't. And, you know, you can love people from afar. Um, and if they're not serving you, if the relationship isn't serving…

AI assessment note: “when you kind of Record two people in communication with each other, you start to see these brain waves sync up.”

Q If I say that to a person who's like at a level I want to be, they might be like, well, you could do this and this and this, right? Levels. So what do you do when you hate your body or when you hate a part of your body? Like how do you as a neuroscience, how do you as a neuroscientist reprogram that?

A I love this question because someone in my group actually just came to me with this and he was like, should I start going to the gym with a giant sweatshirt on? And when I look in the mirror, just I'm like imagining it changing. And I actually have, I, I think a bit of a different approach when it comes to fitness. And I, I think I kind of have been manifesting and priming my brain and placeboing myself on accident without even realizing it. But I think, you know, and you probably know about, I think I learned about this in a business course actually, which is that, that, you know, there's A minimum and a maximum to which we will allow ourselves to fluctuate between. And if you're trying to reach a level of fitness that you've never been at before, you kind of have to break through that top ceiling that you've ever been at before. Um, and, and I, I think a lot of that comes with identity work. And, and I know for me personally, I, I was doing P-X in middle school. Like I, I've always been fit. Always. I've had abs literally my whole life. And, and it's just, that's just who I am, right? And I'm, as I say that, I'm like, yeah, exactly. That's who you are. And your brain work works 100% of the time to keep you consistent with who you are. The first step is, you know, shifting your identity to, I'm the type of person that I'm, I'm like those girls. Like, you said you want to be li…

AI assessment note: “The first step is, you know, shifting your identity”