How to use fear as fuel

[Music]

have you reached your full potential

have all of your dreams come true

if you haven’t yet figured out how to

get everything out of life then this is

for you

i’ve got a methodology based on six

years of neuroscience research

that’s so simple even a caveman could do

just check in let me explain two million

years ago our caveman ancestors

reprogrammed the fear center of our

brain called the amygdala

to be an early warning system for

danger see the amygdala handles the

fight or flight response

it’s wired into our dna the amygdala

is why we want to be right the amygdala

causes us to judge other people

the amygdala is the root of all

intolerance

you see when someone’s different that

creates uncertainty are they friend or

are they faux

we don’t know that uncertainty drives a

need to feel

safe a need to be certain which holds us

back from our full potential

it’s fear that holds the key to our

potential

greatness requires using fear

as fuel you’re about to learn three ways

to use fear as a super high performance

fuel but before we do that

you’ve got to learn a little

neuroscience now i’m probably the only

one in the room who geeks out on this

type of stuff so before it gets all

big brain on you i’ll give you a nerd

alert

see the brain is a prediction engine we

try to forecast the outcome

of every moment if you walked into a

dark room and you flipped a switch

your brain’s going to estimate that

there’s a 95 chance the light will come

and a 5 chance it doesn’t come on if it

doesn’t come on

your brain further predicts there’s an

88 chance the bulbs burnt out

and a 12 chance that the circuit breaker

is blown

those predictions come from all your

past experiences

stored in this massive hard drive called

the subconscious mind

nerd alert neuroscientists call all your

past experiences

your prior beliefs now if you were to go

up to that same socket and unscrew it

and 50 baby snakes came slithering out

on top you

you’d freak out because that is

unlikely to be in one of your prior

beliefs

that creates uncertainty

and uncertainty to our caveman ancestors

that often resulted in

death so what would they do

they get that early warning signal and

then fly back to their cave

where they knew they felt safe

well we don’t have caves anymore but we

do have couches

and we do have offices oh sure you might

have a really cool

man cave or she shed but that’s not what

i’m talking about

the couch is the new cave

it’s where we go to feel safe

it’s where we go to miss out on life’s

greatest opportunities

you see we default to that defense

at the first sign of uncertainty we feel

disempowered and that causes us to shut

out beliefs

and ideas that we don’t understand

because they’re scary

and instinctively that’s what we want to

do but we need to do just the opposite

we need to open up and welcome those

things in

why do we need to find more fear

because every one of your dreams

is on the other side of fear

the garden of eden is a long way from

this dark dank cave

and you’ve got to cross this vast wild

jungle to get there

you can’t possibly know what’ll happen

on that long scary trek

so as soon as you take that step out

from the cave

into the jungle that fear center

explodes

in cautionary sounds warning warning

and you feel disempowered

you’ve felt the signs before probably

today certainly this week

you feel butterflies your jaw tightens

your heart rate quickens

nerd alert that’s called an amygdala

hijacking

your physiology is changing for better

fight or flight

the amygdala is literally making you

stronger

making you smarter and then

it’s warning you you’re in danger so you

better run back to the cave

reacting to the amygdala is the worst

possible thing we can do

okay well unless a sabertooth tiger did

actually make it to the backyard prius

but for the most part

listening to our primal programming robs

of the life that we’re meant to have

sadly most people won’t find this out

until it’s too late

it’s not until they’re lying on their

death bed

that most people will have this gnawing

feeling

of regret

they’ll feel robbed cheated

how do i know i i felt it

16 years ago i was running one of the

hottest technology companies in the usa

and i was so full of fear and anxiety

that i had to drink six or eight beers

every day just to keep the anxiety

wolves at bay

i had a constant fire hose of cortisol

the stress hormone coursing through my

body

and i couldn’t shut it off not

surprisingly

this combination of cortisol anxiety and

drinking

nearly ended in the lifestyle that

created disaster

i got very sick i went to my

local doc and he said he didn’t know

what it was after the tests he did but

i had no immune system and he couldn’t

figure out why

he wanted me to go up to johns hopkins

so i sent my one-year-old daughter to

her grandparents house

and my wife and i went up to hopkins

where i endured a battery of

tests and evaluations that culminated

in this nightmare scenario of dr mchale

coming in

and telling me the leukemia was very

rare

rare rare

i should get my affairs in order and say

my goodbyes

my wife was six months pregnant and she

went into shock

i know right how do you think i felt

that’s when regret hit me like a

baseball bat to the stomach

i looked back on my life and i saw made

up excuses

running from fear trying to avoid shame

embarrassment most of all to avoid

flying

for 35 years i lived alone in my cave

with my shame i ran from fear

and now i’d never find my garden of eden

the treatment was dangerous and the

surgery was risky

but even amidst all that drama my

thoughts shifted from myself

to my daughter shannon

would the memories she have of her

father

be a guy who was too afraid to get on a

plane and take her to disney

she deserved better

can you remember doing something that

was really scary

riding a roller coaster saying a toast

at a wedding

how’d you feel right before that right

before the moment when fear is at its

strongest

now can you remember being so scared

you didn’t do something you backed away

you defaulted to your defense and ran to

the cave

did you feel shame

or regret see when you did that brave

thing like the roller coaster

you activated a part of your brain that

gave you a little squirt the brain’s

reward center

gave you a little squirt of enzymatic

ecstasy and you felt great

high-fiving on top of the world you

literally flipped a switch on your brain

nerd alert the area you changed and

activated is called the sgacc the

subgenial anterior cingulate cortex

that’s your courage center

you turned it on you activated that

now the courage center the sjcc is much

weaker than the amygdala

but we can reprogram it you can make it

stronger

in this amazing research study israeli

researchers found people who are afraid

of snakes

and they put them in a functional mri

machine one of these

white-like coffins where you can monitor

brain activity

and at the other end of it on a track on

a little wagon was a snake

and inside the fmri machine they had a

button that could move it further

or closer to them and they were told

bring that serpent as close to your face

as possible

and a few brave souls actually did that

and something incredible happened

the amygdala shut off and the sgacc

lit up like a christmas tree they

activated their courage center

and they activated it by choice

now a lot of you have probably seen just

the opposite at work lately

ineffective leaders choose fear

they default to their defense

and they scurry back to their cave

because they don’t have the answers and

they don’t want to look bad

effective leaders do just the opposite

they get empathetic they get inquisitive

great leaders replace judgment

with curiosity

but fear not we can all change

here’s the spoiler alert i lived

my first stop out of hopkins was the

leesburg airport

i was going to take flying lessons the

first lesson

i peed four times before we even got out

to the plane i was so scared

but i was pretending that i was doing it

saving my daughter’s life and i kept

thinking to her

the second lesson was even worse because

we went out over the mountains and hit

some turbulence and i actually pooped

myself

just just a little bit but then

something incredible happened i started

to make those connections

to the courage center and as i did

learning got faster i got smarter

i was learning better than i had before

it was like everything was in super

saturation high definition i was using

that fear response

that prepped my body for fight or flight

to become a better pilot

and then an absolute miracle happened i

got to the other side of my fear

and i fell in love with flying

my greatest fear became my greatest

passion

i got my private license my instrument

license my commercial license i got a

seaplane rating

but that’s not all today i actually fly

a stunt plane in aerobatics competitions

doing exactly what would have petrified

me 16 years ago

courage had an amazing halo effect on

the rest of my life

my entire relationships and my business

all took off

because of courage so i bet you’re

wondering how i went from

diary of a wimpy kid to captain

courageous

so was i so i asked a neuroscientist

he taught me all about the amygdala and

he introduced me to a bunch of other

researchers

this started a six-year journey to

research with three dozen of the world’s

best neuroscientists

all the material for my new book i

wanted

everyone to have this information to

have your own handbook

but the first step in using this

information

is having the belief you can change your

mind

neuroplasticity proves that this is true

if you want to become creative

you can at any age if you want to become

more brave

you can at any age but bravery requires

first and foremost when you feel those

tales

when you feel those butterflies that

don’t default back to your cave

stop and recognize them and then breathe

that’s the first line of reprogramming

breathe into a count of four

hold it for a count of four

breathe out to a count of four

that’s called a four by four simply

doing that breathing for a few minutes

every morning when you wake up

will literally change the cellular

structure of your brain in the first

three or four days

so then when you get in a point of

stress or high anxiety

and you fall back to what you’ve been

practicing on do a few of those four by

fours

you send a very powerful signal to your

brain that you’re not under threat

nerd alert neuroscientists call this

bottoms up

information if you are under threat your

brain reasons

your heart rate would be beating fast

since you’re breathing steady

and slow it must be safe

there’s an even easier way to act with

courage smile

no matter how fake it is researchers at

emory university had people watch horror

movies

with a chopstick clamped in their teeth

so they could flex the 42 muscles in

their face used for smiling

and they found something absolutely

incredible

just by flexing the smile muscles they

reduced cortisol

by 80 percent that old adage grin and

barrett

that’s now a scientific maxim so

breathing and smiling are the first two

lines of code to reprogram that

two million year old piece of software

but to really change your life

you have to look for decisions that make

you

uncomfortable see there’s only two ways

to make choices in life

out of fear or out of opportunity

when you choose opportunity that’s where

happiness

growth fulfillment lies that’s your

garden of eden

lastly to act brave

do something for someone you love

researchers here at georgetown

university

found that when you have an altruistic

motivation like my flying lessons for my

daughter

then it’s easier to connect to that

courage center and the rewards your

brain produces those little squirts of

happy enzymes

get even stronger so breathing

smiling and acting for someone you love

those are the three critical lines of

programming

that anyone can use to change their life

when i broke free from that cold embrace

of death

i realized the essence of life is

uncertainty when i felt myself being

pulled back to the cave

come back i turned the other way when i

saw myself judging someone i said be

curious

act courageous you’ll feel courageous

get a little

shot of that happy enzyme don’t settle

anyone can reprogram their brain for an

amazing life

when you step out into that jungle i

guarantee you’ll find your eden

and the adventure the trek won’t feel

like fear

it’ll feel like excitement and love

thank you very much

[Applause]

[Music]