Hey guys! Welcome back to The Ed Mylett Show! I'm excited for you all to hear my guest today. His name is John Assaraf, and he is the master of helping people retrain their brains to accomplish their goals.

 

Have you ever felt hindered from growing by self-doubt and fear? Do you believe that you're not good enough to accomplish what you want? Maybe you just wish you could be smarter! John's teachings are all about overcoming our fears and changing our beliefs by adopting new habits to move forward with our goals!

 

If you want to #MAXOUT your brain's ability, then John is the guy for you. His teachings on exercising your mind and rewiring your thinking will inspire you to pursue your dreams.

 

Are you stuck in negative mental patterns that limit your potential? Now is the time for you to develop new patterns and take on the challenges you've been putting off to #MAXOUT your life. Get your pen and paper ready, because you’re going to want to take notes on this one!

 

Who Is John Assaraf? 

 

John has an immensely successful background in business. He built five multimillion-dollar companies — including NeuroGym, which teaches exercises developing your mental and emotional powers.

 

He's also an accomplished author with two books on The New York Times Best Sellers list. His most recent book Innercise: The New Science to Unlock Your Brain's Hidden Power is an essential read for anyone trying to tap into their full potential. I read the book in only two days, and I can tell you right now that it will change your life. He's immensely successful in several fields, and today I'm incredibly excited for you all to hear his advice obtaining success in your life.

 

I consider him one of the leading experts on the inner mechanics of the brain. He specializes in researching humans' mindsets and developing tools for peaking our brains' performances, and he’s got some wisdom for you today that’s going to blow your mind.

 

Using Your “Einstein” Brain to Overcome Fear 

 

The first subject we dove into was our function of processing fear and how that can hinder us from pursuing success in our lives. John described how our brain processes fear:

 

"Fear is a trigger in our subconscious mind that real or imagined danger has percolated in our brain … So imagine if you have … two parts of your body … we have the Einstein brain, and we have the Frankenstein brain." - John Assaraf

 

The "Frankenstein" brain that John described is associated with the sympathetic nervous system that releases chemicals during moments of fear.

 

"And when fear gets activated … [our Frankenstein brain asks] what if you get hurt? What if you lose money? … And so why does Frankenstein even get activated? Cause we're not born with those fears. And so if we're not born with those fears, that means that something in our brain is triggering this reaction automatically without our thought. And that is what we call is the fear response. And we also know that that fear response causes something called the sympathetic nervous system to activate, which causes us to want to fight, freeze, or run away. That's just the absolute reaction at a biological level of what is happening." - John Assaraf

 

The "Frankenstein" part of our brain causes us to second guess ourselves and engage in habits of anxiety and self-doubt. We're not born with the pattern of internal fear — we developed it, and the fear became ingrained in our psyche. Have you ever been too afraid to pursue your financial goals? Did you tell yourself, "I can't do it" and decide to stay in your comfort zone? That's the "Frankenstein" part of your brain talking.

 

In addition to this unhelpful "Frankenstein" brain, we also have the "Einstein" brain. The "Einstein" is the helpful thinking part of the brain that helps us overcome our problems and pursue our goals.

 

John and his team of experts developed mindset and emotional exercises — which he titled "innercises" — to calm the "Frankenstein" and bring blood flow back to the "Einstein" brain. He described an incredibly helpful and practical innercise:

 

"It's called 'take six, calm the circuits.' So as soon as you catch yourself in a state of doubt, fear, worry, anxiety, stress … If you just took six deep breaths in through your nose, as slowly as you could. And then you exhaled as if you're excelling through a straw in your mouth. If you just did that six times, that very simple innercise would deactivate the Frankenstein brain and allow you to reactivate your thinking imagination, Einstein part of your brain." - John Assaraf 

 

This innercise is extremely helpful for anyone feeling fearful and paralyzed about what next steps they need to take to pursue their goals and #MAXOUT their life. In addition to this calming exercise, John described an essential innercise for invigorating your "Einstein" and taking action:

 

"And that one I call 'AIA,' which is now a matter of awareness … Now I'm empowered again because now I can observe … I could say, 'Okay, what's my intention' … Well, my intention is to be happy … My intention is to … take action on this one thing that's gonna help me towards my goal and dream ... Then if I say what's one small action step I could take towards what I want instead of what I don't want … and now I'm taking action towards what I want versus being paralyzed by what I don't want and a fear that may or may not be real." - John Assaraf 

 

Guys, John's advice will change your life. If we can shift our mindset and take small steps towards progress rather than remain in an overwhelmed state, we can progress in every area of our lives. Whether it involves your business, family, or fitness goals, we can calm ourselves in these moments of self-doubt and anxiety and choose to take small steps towards progress. For example, don't just feel overwhelmed about advancing in your career; develop awareness and use your "Einstein" brain to determine the next step in your journey towards success.

 

Committing to Change and Developing Positive Beliefs 

 

If we decide to #MAXOUT our lives and strive towards greatness, then we need to commit to actual change rather than merely show interest in change. If we are only interested, then we will never take the necessary steps towards success.

 

John described how his mentor Alan Brown's first lesson was this idea of committing:

 

"[He said,] 'First you set the goal. You make a commitment to achieve the goal. Then you figure out how you're going to do it.'" - John Assaraf

 

It is that simple, guys. You just need to set goals and commit to accomplishing those goals one step at a time. For example, if you want to lose weight, don't just show an interest in doing it — commit to it. Determine your fitness goal, and begin taking steps towards that goal. Use your "Einstein" brain to make conscious decisions towards your goal. Determine what different eating habits you need to adopt and what fitness habits you need to practice. Commit to improving your life, and you will do it!

 

An essential part of #MAXING OUT your life is developing helpful beliefs that uplift you rather than hinder you. John described how are beliefs are malleable, and we can change them to serve us better:

 

"A belief is nothing more than a reinforced pattern. That if you learn how to deactivate it and create a new one, it's like a software upgrade for your brain." - John Assaraf

 

This pattern that Assaraf describes can make or break your path to success. We need to develop helpful patterns to rewire our belief system positively.

 

"What happens if you take a belief system and you start to imprint it into your subconscious mind initially through conscious repetition … And so you take a vision of you achieving your goals and dreams. You take the beliefs you need ... and then you develop the habits, which again are nothing more than neural patterns in the brain that have been reinforced. When you learn how to deactivate the destructive ones and activate constructive ones through space repetition and reinforcement, now you are resetting your default way of being." - John Assaraf

 

We can shift our beliefs to accomplish anything we set out to do. If you believe that you aren't good enough to advance in your career, then you are building obstacles in the way of your success. You need to change your thought patterns and habits and shift your mind into believing that you can do it. Only then will you be able to commit and take action in your life. Defeatist beliefs are a dangerous hindrance to our happiness, guys, but we have the POWER to change those.

 

Visualizing Our Goals and Recognizing Our Accomplishments

 

When we start to visualize our future as something hopeful and empowering, then we began to see actual CHANGE in our present reality. John stressed the importance of visualizing what we want to take action:

 

"When we close our eyes or even if our eyes are open and we start to use our Einstein brain, the imagination, we now have just activated one of the biggest centers of our brain, the occipital lobe, that's connected to the motor cortex. That's connected to the motivational circuit, the nucleus Cummins, that releases that dopamine. That makes you feel good. That makes you want to take action." - John Assaraf

 

Don't just hope that someday you'll accomplish your goals — visualize those accomplishments to push yourself to what you want. Don't let taking action be a daunting hill to climb. We need to get excited about our goals by visualizing our future achievements, and then we will feel motivated to do it!

 

John also described how this process of visualizing what we want also plays an essential role in shifting our core beliefs:

 

"So if you visualize yourself achieving the goal, feeling the success that you want to feel, seeing the belief on the screen of your mind, you are actually creating a neural network through the science of neuroplasticity, and the networks that you reinforced become the most dominant networks. And since your brain wants to conserve energy, if you do this on a consistent basis, your brain says, 'Okay, you're doing this so often. Let me just make this automatic. Let me set aside the old beliefs, let me replace it with the new beliefs. And now you've deliberately and consciously evolved yourself." - John Assaraf

 

There's a science to this, guys. Visualizing what we want will play an essential role in your journey to #MAXOUT your life. Picture yourself getting that dream job or reaching your fitness goals. You are more than capable of achieving it.

 

Coping with Grief and Not Becoming a Victim 

 

During these trying times, it's difficult to find optimism and growth from the uncertainty and loss — whether it be from financial strain or business setbacks or losing a loved one. I am deeply saddened to report that John lost his mother to COVID-19 a few days before our interview. Even amidst his loss, he had helpful advice to focus on action in the grieving process:

 

"Whether it's mindfulness or meditation or awareness, you can be sad; you can grieve and be joyful and happy at the same time. See, it's when we are afraid that we're losing something that we've got that Frankenstein brain … When we are in that state, we can't be focused on what are we going to do about it. Now in a grieving state, like with my mother, the only thing I want to do about it is make sure that we respect and honor her life … So I need to focus on that." - John Assaraf

 

We shouldn't stifle the grieving process, but we can still take the necessary steps to grieve healthily and grow from the experience.

 

"And when we're talking about ... a business going under [or] a relationship … that's unraveling right now. If you're focusing on all of the disempowering emotions and circumstances, you cannot be focusing on the solution to that possible problem. So you have to learn how to manage the emotions … I want people to understand that you don't have to be disempowered in grief … But we have the ability to frame things in ways that empower us and gives us the best chance to move forward instead of being a victim of it." - John Assaraf

 

We can learn and grow in these difficult times. Don't let setbacks and loss keep you from your goals. Use your "Einstein" brain to continue figuring how to move forward.

 

Guys, I hope you all put John's incredible advice into practice. Empower yourself through shifting your patterns and unlock your full potential to #MAXOUT your life!

 

Pick up John Assaraf's most recent book Innercise: The New Science to Unlock Your Brain's Hidden Power. It will change your life. Also, keep up with John on Facebook and Twitter (@johnassaraf) for more helpful Innercises.

 

If you know someone who will especially benefit from John's advice, make sure to share this episode and tag them. And don't forget to use the #MAXOUT hashtag and tell me your biggest takeaways in the comments below! I read them weekly, and select winners get all sorts of prizes, gear, and even personal coaching calls!

 

Take the time to decide whether you're merely interested in or committed to changing your life. Visualize what you want and get into the habit of using your brain to move towards accomplishing it. Never stop striving to #MAXOUT!