How to use fear as fuel
[Music]
so
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
it
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
on
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
us
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]
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