Lessons - Turning Fear Into Power | John Assaraf - Founder & CEO of NeuroGym

was that fear is a ghost signal for you. What does that mean exactly? So when you understand that fear is an automatic reaction that is triggered in your subconscious mind and you ask yourself, well, what is triggering that circuit? Like think of fear as a light switch on off, okay? So if you ask yourself, what does fear or why does the fear circuit activate? Well, it activates because there's something real or imagined from my database of experience, okay, that is causing the fear circuit to activate. So most people when the fear circuits activated, the release of cortisol, epinephrine or neuroepinephrine or adrenaline is rushing through their body. And what they don't realize is it's because of the fight flight or freeze signal that fear is. It's part of the sympathetic nervous system being activated. So whenever mind is activated, right, I can feel the surge of that energy, right? It's energy in my body, a neurochemical release, right? So I can feel that energy and that means, right, that A, I need to be aware of is the danger real or imagined. I get it. That's why and that's what that's what it prompt you to take action. To start to figure out why you're even feeling that in the first place. Correct. So am I afraid of taking action because there's real danger? There was danger sometime in my past, okay, or is it my imagining the danger because of something I've read or heard about, et cetera? So first, it's the awareness piece, right? So whenever I feel fear, the first thing I do is what I call inner size number one, which is take six calm the circuit of fear. I want to make decisions out of my Einstein brain, not my Frankenstein monster brain. Fear is because this part of the brain has been activated. It's called the right prefrontal cortex. So it's not that I don't want to listen to the signal. I want to understand what tripped that wire. So first thing I do is deactivate. Listen, if I'm like walking along the street about to, you know, go off the sidewalk to street. I hear a car coming and I jump off. Perfect. Perfect time for the fear signal to work, right? I'm just going to retreat fast. No worries. That's that's a great reaction. But if I want to raise money, if I want to hire employees, if I want to merge with another company, if I want to release weight, even though I've lost a released weight 25 times, if I want to go across the room to ask a young lady or a young man, you know, who they are because I'm attracted to them. If I feel that surge of fear, that's because something in my memory, okay, in my experience, um, um, um, library is activating that there might be something that can cause me to fail, to be embarrassed to shame ridiculed judge, to be disappointed, to be rejected. So I want to calm that circuit first. I want to thank the signal, calm the circuit, and then I want to be aware of like, what is causing that? So, inner-size number one takes six calm the circuit, inner-size number two is called AIA, AIA, which is standing for, I want to be aware of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, and behaviors. Now I'm operating from a state of awareness. I want to analyze those, and then I want to set my intention. What's my intention? Well, my intention is to follow through and do this because I want the reward. My intention is to protect myself. Great. How can I do that? So AIA is awareness, intention, and what's one action I could take that moves me towards what I want and not away from it. Now who's in control? Now who's gaining more self-confidence? Now who's gaining more self-trust? Now who's gaining more awareness? Now who is taking inspired action? And now who is deliberately and constantly evolving themselves, being versus being a victim of past conditioning? In many cases, my parents, you are. When you feel that fear, that's like you're like, that's like your flag that I need to follow these steps, take these actions, get the hell out of my comfort zone. So fear is indicator for that you're pushing outside your comfort zone, basically. And that's it. And also think about this. Why do firefighters get training on going into a burning building or building that's blowing up? And how do they manage the fear? Death. I mean, death is possible. Real death. That's like the highest level of fear. Navy seals. When they discovered that there was an issue many years ago, Scott, when Navy seals were going through the entire motions of becoming a Navy seal, many of them failed the last test. What was the last test? They were submerged underwater with all of their equipment on, and three instructors would go down there with them, you know, 20 feet below the water, they'd remove their mask, remove their BC, the regulator, they shut off their air supply, they pulled off their fins, they created chaos. And you know what the Navy seals that were untrained wanted to do? Both right up to because they were afraid they're going to die. And when they taught the Navy seals to stay calm so they could respond versus react out of fear, they graduated 50% more Navy seals. What was the difference? The difference was mental awareness, emotional control, and practicing the skill of staying calm. They teach it to Navy seals, they teach it to firefighters, they teach it to astronauts when life is on the line. Well, those are the Olympic athletes of emotional control. Well, that means that we can be better at mental focus and emotional control. And what if it's just a function of practicing? The reason I started my company, my neurogym, right, and the reason I wrote inner sizes to give people the understanding that that we have this $100 billion bio compute, the most advanced, sophisticated, okay, organism as I like to call it in the universe. We already own it, no mortgage, no payment plans, but we're maybe not very good operators of it. And so part of my war cry is to help people understand that you are capable of way more than your displaying right? I mean, me too. So I just want to constantly never end my improvements. I love that. All right, that's a good spot to pause here. I want to do a couple of rapid fire at the end. We went through everything that I wanted to go into. So I'm really happy and thank you.