317 · John Assaraf - The One That Shows Up — The Identity You Practice

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And here was the game changer. He says people who are interested come up with stories, reasons, and excuses all the time about why they can't or why it can't be done. And people who are committed upgrade their identity and their beliefs to match the destiny they want. And then they level up their skills and habits. to take the action required to achieve every one of their goals.

Welcome into episode 317 of the Chat with Traders podcast. This is Tessa, your co-host, and we've got a great episode for you today. As traders, we're familiar with backtesting strategies, aren't we? But the part of trading nobody can really backtest is your brain. And if you've ever said, I know what to do. And still didn't do it, this one's for you. Today my co-host Ian chats with our guest, John Asara.

one of the leading behavioral performance and mindset experts in the world. He's a serial entrepreneur who has built five multimillion dollar companies, including growing a real estate franchise to over four billion in annual real estate sales. and co-founded a tech company that went public on Nasdaq with a peak market capitalization in the billions.

He's the founder and CEO of NeuroGym, a neuroscience-based company dedicated to helping people retrain their brains for success, and the author of multiple books that have become New York Times bestsellers. Some listeners may also recognize John from his appearance in The Secret, where his work reached a much broader audience. Now today's episode is not really about markets, but it's more about performance.

Because whether you're trading, building a business, or trying to break a pattern that keeps showing up, the real bottleneck, it's the part of the brain designed to protect certainty, comfort, and identity, even when those very things are holding us back. John has a powerful origin story from growing up in scarcity and chaos to a defining moment at nineteen years old when a mentor asked him a question that completely changed the direction of his life.

And you'll hear that question soon enough in the interview. In this conversation, we also talk about why willpower alone fails, why people keep snapping back to familiar results. And what actually needs to change for new behaviors to stick? And there's so much more. If you've ever felt capable of more, but keep reverting to the same outcomes, this conversation will land.

To me, this is one of those episodes where you will want to listen to at least twice. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, we're so pleased to present John Astraf. Well, John, I'd like to uh welcome you to uh Chat with Traders. Thank you, and great to be with you. You've had quite a fascinating story uh from the streets to building multimillion dollar companies. Can you briefly take us back to where you grew up? and the beliefs about wealth that you absorbed in that environment.

Uh sure. I I uh I was born in Israel and then when I was five, my parents were tired of wars and so they decided to move my brother and sister and I and them to Montreal, Canada. And um in Montreal I I I fell uh two years behind because I didn't speak English going into grade one. And so I fell two years behind. Um felt like I wasn't good enough or smart enough.

I was a a rambunctious, energetic kid. And I thought I just wasn't, you know, w wasn't smart enough. So I got into a lot of trouble as a kid. And my father was a cab driver trying to make it in a new city. Unfortunately, he was an alcoholic and a gambler. So at the end of every day, he usually owed people money because he was at the horse races losing money or playing cards and losing money and then drinking and then coming home.

And so it created a very, very uh tumultuous relationship between my parents and a very, very challenging one for me because he would take on some of his anger with his fists and legs uh on me as a kid because I was getting to trouble. So money was scarce. Um, he did illegal things when he was younger. And um I was taught that in order to succeed in life, you've got to screw other people um, you know, to get ahead.

And uh when I was in my teens, I got involved in a small street gang and we did breaking and entries and I sold drugs and I did inhale, I did sell them, I did sniff them, I did do everything with them. So I was guilty as charged um on several occasions. And that was really my upbringing, you know, and uh I I spent a lot of time on the streets with people that were um mini hoodlums. We didn't have guns. Back then we had knives and numchucks.

Um, we were all into martial arts to protect ourselves from the fights we would get into. And we had to be protected when we were doing illegal things. And uh that was, you know, 12 to 19 years young. And I got in trouble with the law, detention centers, the whole works. But I remember specifically, you know, the the discussion around money. Was that wealthy people lie, steal, and cheat to make it? Money was scarce.

Um, and um, it wasn't reserved for my family or me. And that was kind of like the beginning of my belief system. And then my brother, who was concerned for my safety, had a a gentleman by the name of Alan Brown that he taught tennis to. My brother was a tennis coach.

And he asked Alan Brown if he had at least talked to me to try and knock some sense into me and maybe, maybe even offer me a job. And at the time, I was working for Phillips Electronics in their shipping department, making a dollar sixty-five an hour. um uh you know, uh opening boxes, closing boxes, and I hated it. And so I took the train from Montreal to Toronto to meet this man for lunch.

And at at lunch, he asked me a whole bunch of questions, but the the thing that transitioned and transformed my life, there was one man, one question, one answer transformed my life. I was sitting at lunch with him. It was like 12 30 in the afternoon. And um he he asked me what were my goals?

And I said, Well, I'd like to get a better job. I'd like to buy a car. I'd like to move out of my parents' house. And he says, Well, that's all nice and dandy. He said, But um, don't you have any bigger goals? I said, Nope. So I remember he he uh Ian he he he reached into his briefcase, he took out this document, and it was a goal-setting guide.

And the first question, he asked me if I would answer, I said, of course I'll answer the questions. The first question was, you know, um, uh, at what age do you want to retire? And I was 19 at the time and I'm like, retire? I want a job. What do you mean retire? My father, you know, is in his 40s. He can't retire. So uh I said, what am I supposed to put here, Mr. Brown? He said, just pick a number. I said, is is 45 okay?

You know, sure, put it down. The second question, that's funny, I'm chuckling now, says, upon retirement, how much net worth do you want to have? And so I said to Mr. Brad, I said, excuse me, what does net worth mean? I didn't know. How much income do you want to make? And I said, what am I supposed to put here? And he says, well, just put the amount of money you want. I said is ten thousand dollars a month okay? Yeah sure put it down

Anyway, Andy said, you know, what kind of car do you want? I wrote it down, Mercedes. What kind of house do you want? Four bedroom house. And it just had me writing down this the this answers to questions I'd never considered. around my life and what I want to have, do, be, and achieve. And after about 10 minutes, I gave him back the paper and he looked at it. He goes, I mean, this is really good. He said, I'm gonna ask you one question.

And the answer to this question will determine whether you achieve every one of the things you wrote down as answers on this document. And as you can imagine, I was thinking in the back of my head, yeah, sure. Uh uh one answer to one question. And he leans in and um he he lowered his voice, he goes, son. Are you interested in achieving all of these things or are you committed to achieving them?

And I remember like, you know, I scratch my head, like interested or committed, like, what's the difference? I just asked him, feeling stupid again. I said, excuse me, Mr. Brown, what what's the difference? And here was the game changer. He says people who are interested come up with stories, reasons, and excuses all the time about why they can't or why it can't be done.

And people who are committed upgrade their identity and their beliefs to match the destiny they want. And then they level up their skills and habits. to take the action required to achieve every one of their goals. So he says, now that you know the answer, which are you? And he leaned over. I said, Well, well, in that case, uh sir, I'm committed.

And at 19 years young, this was May 1980 to put into perspective, he reaches out his hand, puts my hand in his is in that, in that case, son, I will be your mentor. And I said, wow, uh, thank you, sir. Uh uh uh uh what what's a mentor? And that Ian was the beginning of my mindset shift. to being committed and then he helped me get my real estate license, which I went to school for five weeks, passed the test on my own, which was a miracle in itself.

Um, I started selling real estate for him and he taught me the skills for marketing to cold call. Um, and then he taught me the skills for doing these things called for sale by owners. And six months later, working every day diligently with his tutelage, I made my first 10,000 in a month. Wow. That's a lot of money back then. At the it was a lot and my father at the time was making twenty five thousand a year. Mm-hmm. As a cab driver. So Mr. Brown gave me a shift in my perspective.

Had me answer the question, interested or committed, and then he put me in the environment with the right training to upgrade my skills and to upgrade my behaviors. And then he was able to help me through the management team track and measure what I was doing and tweak and adjust what I was doing until I was locked and loaded for what it took to make 10,000 a month.

And I've used the exact same principles with hundreds of thousands of my students, but also in my in my in my life over the last forty-five years, I built one company at a four and a half billion dollars a year. Another company was worth two and a half billion dollars on Nasdaq because I took it public.

Um, but I use that same thinking, interested or committed, and then reverse engineered the identity, the beliefs, and the strategies to achieve the success. So from there, we can get into anywhere you want. In this day where information uh is readily available uh to everybody uh on their phones. And uh most people would say, Hey, that sounds uh great, sounds logical. Um, why is it that people can r uh agree with this and yet

when it comes to actually putting it into practice, uh do people lack uh enough willpower or what what's kind of great question. Um the area that I've specialized in the last 45 years is behavioral neuroscience. And really understanding the neuroscience and the mechanism by which we not just set goals, but achieve goals. Let's give you an example.

When you and I or anybody else that might be listening to us say, that sounds great. You know, I'm gonna be committed and I'm gonna set a goal to make$10,000 a a month or an hour or a day, whatever the case is, and I'm committed. Um, what we know is that happens in the prefrontal cortex part of the brain, a part of the brain, right, that can make decisions and even imagine that I I'm gonna achieve it. So we can we can do that.

But there's another part of the brain called the basal ganglia, and that's where the habits reside of what we're used to thinking and doing is. Now, just because I make a decision to want to achieve a goal doesn't mean that that gets translated into the behaviors, the thinking, the emotions required to actually follow through with new actions.

So what happens is most people don't understand that whatever you're earning now, let's say we're talking about money, whether you're investing in the stock market or making X amount of money at work or in your business. Everybody has something that we know is a financial set point, a current financial set point. And it works like a thermostat does on, you know, in your home or your car, whatever the setting is.

Okay, that's the system that regulates, you know, that setting for homeostasis. Well, let's say you're making 10 grand a day or a month. It doesn't matter. And you want to make 20. Well, if you don't reset the subconscious settings. Then you might use willpower for today and tomorrow and the next day, but the setting will always go back to the default mode. Because that's what's easy and convenient. And there are automatic patterns in the brain that require almost zero energy.

to implement. That's called automaticity. And so 95% of our behaviors day-to-day are based on automaticity and automatic behaviors and thoughts and emotions that align With that for our comfort zone.

And that's why a lot of people, especially you know, New Year's resolution people. Okay, you know, they they have these New Year's resolutions, they're motivated, they're excited, they take the actions, but we know from behavioral neuroscience, it takes uh 14 days to develop a new pattern in the brain. But it takes between 66 days and 180 days for that pattern to be reinforced enough to override the old automatic patterns.

So most people don't have the right process, they have the right uh motivation, they have the right desire, they have the right um reasons why they want to, but most people have never been taught. How do I create and reinforce a habit that matches with the income that I want to make?

And we just launched, for example, our neurofitness platform. And all of my students have to agree to at least training their brain or retraining their brain for a hundred days. So that we have a real shot of the behavior sustaining itself. So we need to use willpower on the front end. But we also need to do some other things to reinforce the neural patterns. And most people just have the process wrong and they don't have the skill for it.

Mm-hmm. Uh so are you talking about uh a lot of people um know of the conscious and the unconscious mind. Are you referring to the unconscious mind? Uh and do our bad habits uh r reside there? Yeah, so let's go to conscious and either subconscious or non-conscious. We don't want to go too unconscious because that's when we're like knocked out. So the the term is really conscious or non conscious and we're not aware of it or subconscious.

So, yes, all of our implicit beliefs, all of our habits, our identity, all of our emotions are triggered in the subconscious based on the meaning we have in long-term memory. So yes, that is the part of your brain that you were not born with your subconscious wired, it's called. Right. So we have potential, but you weren't born with an identity. You weren't born with beliefs. You weren't born with fears. You weren't born with any skills.

And so anything that we repeat that's empowering or disempowering, positive or negative, constructive or destructive becomes wired or soft wired in the subconscious mind. So the art of wanting to earn more income is really no different than the art of wanting to lose 20 pounds and keep it off. Yes, we have to have the right diet. Yes, we have to have maybe some exercise or, you know, thermogenic uh activity. Um and yes, we have to um maintain that new pattern.

Of releasing the weight or making more money, but making the behavior that gets us the results we want more permanent. And so that just takes some uh creation and reinforcement of new. Patterns in the brain. You know, when I work with with my clients, uh and I've got clients who've gone from zero to a billion a year, okay, in revenue in their companies and hundreds of millions and tens of millions. And the first thing we do is say, okay.

What would be the identity of somebody who's already earning that amount of money? What's the identity? Right? Because you and I have an identity and it's supported by beliefs. Right. And it's supported by our uh facts and supported by a whole host of associations and a whole host of references. But if we said, okay, you want to make X amount of money, the type of person who makes that amount of money, what is she like? What are his character traits? What are his habits? What does he believe?

And we make a list, okay, almost like if you were making a list to create an identity for a Hollywood character. You want to create a list with as much detail as possible. So, first we say here is the objective, the income, here's the identity. Here are the beliefs, okay, that this person has about his or her ability to earn money, manage money, invest, protect, get out of debt, or use debt as leverage are the five pillars of financial success.

Here are the habits that this person has and the behaviors that this person consistently does. So we map out what that is. And then we ask ourselves this question: how do I embody these traits so that the income I want to generate?

is in resonance with my new identity and beliefs and habits. And most people leave that part out. And that's why most people are stuck at earning whatever they earn per month, per day, per year, et cetera. Most people don't go from making 100,000 to a million. Most people do not. Are you ready to get serious about trading? Then join Tasty Trade, Investopedia's best platform for options trading in 2026.

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Med keddar, picla drödlök och en legendarisk kursvangsås. Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok Well why is that? Do they believe that uh it's not possible like it's asking too much? Are there things in the subcons subconscious that they're unaware of that? sabotage uh their efforts? There's um there's four things that get into people's ways. So number one,

Is uh, and again, we're gonna get into a little bit of the neuromechanics of what happens in the brain. And if we're gonna talk about the brain, which is my my passion, uh let's first understand this fact. Every brain functionally works the same. Every brain functionally works the same. Like every gas car functionally works the same. Every electrical car functionally works the same. Every bicycle functionally works the same. Every brain functionally works the same. So that's fact number one. So

When we're talking about what would prevent me from achieving the goal that I have. And so the first thing I say is. Uh, is there more than enough money in the world? And most people would say, well, of course there is. So there's more than enough money, assets, gold, you know, crypto, whatever you want to call it, um, stocks, bonds, uh, uh silver, et cetera, that represent money.

So the the problem is not that there's not enough. There's more than enough. So now let's find out, you know, what could be preventing me from having more than enough, the amount I want.

So number one, when somebody doesn't know how to achieve the income goal they want. They have a lot of self-doubt. I doubt my ability because I don't know how to. So I have self-doubt, which also puts me in a state of uncertainty. In a state of uncertainty, the motivational circuit in the brain shuts off. Why? Because our brain is naturally wired for safety and survival first. And for avoidance of being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, rejected, or failing.

So, in the absence of know-how, we revert back to safety and comfort, doing what we know. Number one. Number two, what if? Going after the income that I want, whether it's through investments or or any you know any other type of mean, what if there's a chance I will lose my money? What if there's a chance I will fail? What if there's a chance I make the wrong decisions? What will that do to my self-image, my self-worth, my self-esteem?

What will that do to my lifestyle? What would that do putting me behind the eight bar? What would it do to pay my mortgage, my car, my house payment to my wife, my kids? So our brain is consistently. Preventing, it's predicting first what potential outcomes are. If there is a potential negative outcome.

It puts the brake on behavior, and that's because we haven't learned how to regulate the emotion of fear or being embarrassed or ashamed or ridiculed or judged or rejected or failing. So the issue is not failing. The issue is the meaning we have around failing. The issue is the meaning that my brain is projecting of what might happen if I don't succeed or I succeed and fail. So it's projecting

into the future, what might happen, but it's feeling the emotion in the present moment that shuts down the motivational circuit or behavioral cortex. So now we're at two. Um so then um uh can't we just use our logical mind uh to um it sounds like it's almost like a battle between our logical mind and and our uh subconscious mind, uh which generates this fear.

Can't we just uh have a nice little discussion uh with the two sides of the brain and and use our logical mind to to persuade the subconscious to go along? Unfortunately, you use your conscious mind. to understand what is happening. So yes, we can use um behind me, I know most nobody can see, but I have uh above me over my left show, I have the Einstein image and a painting and to the right of me, I have Frankenstein's monster. These represent two different parts of the human brain.

Uh it's both part of the prefrontal cortex. So one part makes a decision what I want. It can imagine, you know, success. It can imagine the lifestyle, it can imagine the charities, it can imagine the cars, the houses, the dreams, and all that stuff. But right next to the left prefrontal cortex, there is the brain's protector. And that is Frankie's monster, I call it. And that part of the brain is overriding the goal-desiring mind.

With the limbic system, emotional mind that's there for safety and protection and survival. So Be aware that you keep sabotaging your success. Can you be aware you keep procrastinating? Yes. And then the next layer of that. is what is it that I am actually trying to protect? So you can use your logical, smart brain to understand the situation. And then with some techniques, I call them inner size techniques.

These subconscious patterns that are running autopilot for protection. So absolutely and you can do that. And this is where you want to create some daily inner sizes once you're aware of that situation. So so far we have fear, we have um lack of knowledge and skills, we have beliefs that may be limiting us. You know, and so you say, I want to earn X, but then, but I can't because. And so now we start using, you know, stories and reasons and excuses based on what we believe.

And so in the brain, there's two types of beliefs. And most people don't know this. The first one is called an explicit belief. It's a belief that said, well, I believe I can earn that. But there's an implicit belief in the subconscious mind. That might also say. But you don't know how to. Um, in the past, when you've tried, okay, you failed. Or when your dad did this or mother did this or friend did this or the other person who invests did this, they failed. So we can have opposing beliefs.

We can have beliefs that we say we believe, but if our subconscious believe the implicit belief, Is that I'm too young or too old. It's not the right time. I don't have enough skill. I don't have enough knowledge. Uh, whatever reason we have is stronger than the reason why we must our limiting beliefs will hold us back.

Hence that's the is that the importance of making the commitment like you talk about? Because does that help to uh help our conscious mind to override the limiting beliefs uh of the subconscious? Well, just because we're committed doesn't mean we override the subconscious minds, but because we're committed. Then we will shift into a state of awareness of what's happening. I'm not taking action. I have it on my calendar and scheduled to do this.

And I keep procrastinating, I keep self-sabotaging. Now, when we're committed, we go, okay, I understand something is blocking me. Now let me go deeper than, you know, something is blocking me. What could be blocking me? So yes, we can you start using commitment. And a reason why we must achieve the success has to be bigger than the reasons why we're not. Let me repeat that. The reason why we must.

Commitment must be bigger than the fear, must be bigger than the limiting belief, must be bigger than the fourth thing, which is my self-image. And my identity. So some people have a goal that what they want to achieve, but they have a hidden self-image that does not believe they deserve it. Or they don't believe, okay, that they're ready for it because of their self-image. So it's either worthiness, deserving, or timing.

So, any one of these subconscious reasons with knowledge and skills being both conscious and subconscious. can hold us back and deaden our tracks before we even take action. So yes, we want to set the vision. Yes, we want to set the goals. Yes, we want to create the timelines. And then we want to say what's the identity that I need to create at the subconscious level? And what beliefs must I have? What behaviors must I have? And what habits must I create?

that become my automatic way of being. So a perfect example is this. Let's say somebody has on their own earned a million dollars. Okay. And they've they they they they've they've done the work, they've they've done the trials and the tribulations. Let's say they lose a million dollars. They are 10 times actually a hundred times more likely to make that million back than somebody who's won a million dollars in the lottery and lost it. Why? Because identity.

Somebody who won the lottery doesn't have the beliefs that they can earn the amount of money. They might believe they can win it again. But whatever patterns have been reinforced are the patterns that become automatic. The patterns that become automatic either are aligned. with what we call a sympathetic resonance with your vision and goals. Or you're going to have an enormous amount of what we call our destructive interference patterns preventing you from achieving those goals.

So you'll create, you'll procrastinate, you'll self-sabotage, you'll start, you'll stop, you'll you'll you'll feel energized, you'll take action, you won't take action, and it'll be all over the place. And we all behave Almost entirely, congruently with our hidden self-image and identity every single day. Mm. So uh in the trading world it's it can be uh fairly common for new traders to say, Hey, um, you know, I don't have any fear of this. I'm

I'm ready to go. I got my account set up. I got ten thousand dollars in the account and I'm ready to turn it into a million this year. And uh uh I have no fear. Um uh I'm ready to take on big risk. Uh so What w what part of the brain does that kind of mentality come from? It comes from the imagination center and it comes from the ignorant part of the brain that doesn't know the reality. Like think about this. How long have you been in the field you're in? How many, how many decades?

Right. And how many people in those decades Um, if we take out the internet heyday, uh we we take out some of the, you know, the the uh boom markets in real estate or in the stock market, how many people have taken 10,000 turned into a million that you know of? Uh very, very, very rarely. Um however though these uh these newer traders will say, but I see them on um YouTube uh flashing their Lamborghinis and and uh I'm not gonna let uh

uh fear stop me. And I and I agree, right? And so um um uh they have an enormous amount of motive for action. Um, they are being controlled by a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens and insula, which actually releases dopamine in anticipation that they're going to be able to achieve that goal. It's almost the same type of drug mechanism when people fall in love. Right. And they don't see, you know, some of the stuff that they see later on.

And maybe friends will see like that guy. You you want to go out with that guy? Don't you see this, this, and that? Oh my God, no, he's so amazing. Or that girl. And then it's only after the oxytocin burn, okay, is gone that you go, oh my God, how come I didn't see that? Because we're actually literally dealing with a drugged brain. So a brain that has, you know, dopamine, uh serotonin, oxytocin, I'm gonna make this money, I'm gonna get that car, that Lamborghini and that.

Person that looks five times worse than I do, that has half the IQ that I do, you know, because they're on YouTube, right? Um, we get motivated, but it's a false sense of reality. And and so we're blind, right? And so we're blind. Now, what does decades of experience give you, hopefully? Yeah, wisdom, prudence. Wisdom. Wisdom, right? So wisdom. So you know the odds of that happening. You know how to set the vision and the goals. You know how to look at deals. You know how to

Analyze a stock. You know how to risk manage. You know how to do that stuff because of experience. And every once in a while. Okay, every once in a while, you know, uh I have I think 104 investments in tech stocks right now. And I got in with a VC fund and I got three unicorns in that hundred and four. And that's like if we had one in 104 investments, we would be like jumping for joy. But we've had three because of the timing of the AI era.

And so I love an enthusiastic person, but an enthusiastic person without skill and experience is dangerous. And a skilled person without enthusiasm is also dangerous. So um we we want to set the vision, we want to set the goals, um, but we want to create the the internal environment to allow us to be consistent. with the behaviors required for predictable, if we can get predictable results.

And investing, you know, um I I often when when I when I teach people about making money and we get into the investment modules. I I tell people, I said, don't confuse gambling or speculating with investing. Because those are the three uh the three areas, right? A lot of people gamble, but they say they're investing. If you're gonna gamble, gamble.

Uh, if you're gonna be a speculator, you better have a bunch of knowledge and you know you're speculating that things are gonna go, you know, in your way. And there's uh experience that'll teach you when you're gambling. And there's experience they'll teach you if you're speculating and experience in am I investing or not? And there's rules of the game. And most people don't learn the rules of the game and confuse those three investments.

And so they make the same decisions the same way for all three. And it's especially the young, immature investor that confuses investing with gambling and speculating. So uh what kind of advice would you give to people who feel fear? And they say, Well, I it logically what you're saying and all makes sense, but I feel it in my bones because of past experiences.

Oh, what can people do to uh hopefully diminish the fear? Great question. So what we know, right, is all fear, there's 50 different types of fears that could be triggered. So let me give you an example. And usually what you're afraid of is actually not what you're afraid of. Right. So uh let's say somebody has a fear of losing their money. Okay. So is it really a fear of losing your money?

Or is it a deeper meta reason we call it? All right. A meta reason. So if I lose my money, then, and let me take you down a couple of channels, what does that mean about me? So is it a fear of losing money that's tied to my identity? Maybe. Is it a fear of losing money that's tied to my livelihood? I gotta pay my rent or my car payment or I need groceries, right? So I can't afford to be in that amount of pain because I don't have an escape plan.

So, what is it that you're actually afraid of? So, if I'm feeling afraid, the first thing to do is understand this. When we have the fear circuit activated, it's called the amygdala. Right. It's because our brain in the subconscious mind is associating a negative or painful experience with the thing that we want to do.

So I want to invest in this stock. I want to invest in this real estate deal. I want to invest in in blank. Now our brain is operating not just in the decision-making part of it, but if I make this investment and I lose it. It already has come up with what does that mean about me and for my life or my kids or my wife or my husband? So it's already projecting, okay, the negative consequences of that decision.

And then it releases cortisol, the stressed neurochemical, into the bloodstream. And when people feel stress, right, it's when the demand is exceeding their current capacity. Let me repeat that. Stress circuit, fear circuit is only activated when the demand exceeds your current capacity or the capacity that you think you're going to need to deal with the problem. So, but let's deal with the moment by moment release of cortisol.

When somebody has doubt, fear, worry, stress, anxiety, or even panic. That means that this circuit is active in the brain. And we have two main circuits to be aware of. One is called the sympathetic nervous system, fight, flight, freeze.

The other is the calm to response circuit, which is our parasympathetic nervous system. Now In my uh Amazon number one bestselling book called Inner Size, let's say I feel fear. If I think about the fear and I fear and I and I feel what I think about. then I'm gonna keep re-triggering that circuit. Now, if I just stopped and I took six slow deep breaths in through my nose slowly. Fill up my lungs with air.

Hold it at the top for three, two, one, and I breathe out like I'm breathing out through a straw. So I'm focusing my attention on the airflow coming out of my mouth like it's coming out through a straw. If I just do that six times and stay the course. Keep the focus in, hold three, two, one, out, three, two, one, in, three, two, one, or five, four, three, two, one. And if I do that for six inhales and exhales, I deactivate deliberately.

My sympathetic nervous system. And now I return on my Einstein brain I talked about earlier. Because when we're in this fear state. Then the Frankie's monster part of the brain is active. I have to turn Frankie off. To give Einstein a chance to be able to do what I call as inner size number two. And that's, okay, what am I afraid of? That's called awareness, intention, and then action. So in a calm state.

I can now say, what what exactly am I afraid of? Well, I'm afraid of making a mistake. Okay. Uh what specifically am I afraid will happen if I make a mistake? Well, I'm gonna lose some or all of my money.

And if I lose some or all of that money, um, what does that mean or say about me? Does it mean or say I'm stupid? I'm not smart? Uh does it mean like what like what am I really trying to prote uh protect? It's called metacognition. And if I can get down to what I'm really trying to protect, okay, is my is is is making sure that I don't lose all the money and I get in trouble with my wife.

Okay. Because she doesn't want me investing, right? Or, you know, that I won't have money to pay the mortgage and that's going to create a whole bunch of stress. So once I know what is it that I'm really trying to protect or move away from, then I could say, okay. Is there a way to do this where I lower my risk? Or is there a way to do this? And if

I've made a mistake in judgment or timing, which we know happens in the in investing. How can I recover and or still manage everything so that I'm comfortable? And can I do that? Can I can I deal with the end consequence? If it happens. If yes, great. Now we've just reduced the fear. If no, then we go back to okay, so what can I do that won't cause me to have so much stress? that it shuts down, okay, my brain and my physiology of my body.

So now we do that in a calm state where we can actually do what you suggested earlier. Now we have a chance to use our thinking brain to analyze, synthesize, and then come up with real solutions. But we cannot do that, Ian. When we are in that stress state, because we our brain our brains um become extremely myopic on the problem, on the pain, on the fear, the frustration, on all that stuff. So this is called emotional regulation.

And when we learn how to be aware of our emotions, the energy in motion, and now we are deliberate by upgrading our skills of what to do when this happens. Now who's in control? My emotions or me? Mm. So that uh breath work exercise, is that uh an example of what you call i in your book inner size sort of like exercise for our inner being.

Yeah, it's exercise your muscles, you know, with exercise, you innercise your brain, your neuromuscles to have more self-control, more confidence, more certainty. And and there's, you know, like 10 main innercises.

Um, you know, that I that I should learn, like, you know, when you when you learn how to drive your car, you learn park, you learn drive, you learn neutral, you learn going the highway, you learn going down the streets, you learn turning left, you learn turning right, you learn parking. Well, what about learning how to use your brain better since you own a$100 billion asset already, but you don't have the user manual for it?

In uh previous videos you've made, uh you mentioned that the uh the gorilla brain wants safety and harmony. Uh so uh for us Traders, we'd we'd be like to know why does it sometimes ch choose self destructive habits like revenge trading? Uh how would that be interpreted as harmony by the uh gorilla brain? Yeah, a lot of times revenge training um is our brain.

Uh, causing us to behave in ways that are aligned with our subconscious mind and what we believe we deserve. That's called self-sabotaging behavior. So Think about, think about this. You know, somebody wins the lottery, five million, ten million bucks.

Buy a new house. Uh get a new car, give their friends 20 grand, 50 grand, and all of a sudden their 10 million goes to 8 million to 6 million to 9 million to 3 million to 2 million. And then most people are not aware of this. 92% of lottery winners lose the money within five years. Part one, part two. Um, I think it was 80% of people who won money and lost it said that winning the money was one of the worst experiences of their life. Why? Our brain has to do a few things for us to feel normal.

One of those things that it does for us to feel normal is it makes certain that our outside world of results matches our internal expectation points. I'll give you a different example. Somebody um wants to lose weight. And they lose weight, they lose 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds. Why do over 90% of the people put all the weight back when they want to be healthier, skinnier, feel better, look why do they do why do they put all the weight back?

Is it because they want to put the weight back? No. It's because all the internal mechanisms Are wired, their set points are wired to shift all behavior back to baseline homeostasis. The best visual I've ever had, Ian, is just think thermostat. If you have a room set at 70 degrees and really hot air comes in, a signal is sent to the air conditioning unit to turn the air on, right? Until seven degrees is met. If let's say you have a room at seven degrees and really, really uh cold air comes in.

Right. And the temperature goes down to 62. Well, the signal gets sent to the to the heater, turn the heat on until 70 is met. It's called a cybernetic mechanism. You and I and every other human being, remember every brain works the same, has something called a psycho cybernetic mechanism. Maxwell Maltz was one of the first to write about it in his book called Psycho Cybernetics back in the seventies.

And so we all have these baselines. And so when people, you know, let's say make more money than they're used to, a lot of times they will self-sabotage and lose the money over the next week, month, two months, three months, four months. Excuse the last interruption here. This is Tessa. We hope you're enjoying this episode so far. If you love the podcast,

Please give Chatwith Traders the best review you can on whatever platform you're listening from. This will help us to keep the episodes coming. Also, if you haven't subscribed to our email list, please hop on to chatwithraders.com and click on subscribe. So we can keep you posted of information that may be of importance. Thank you. Now back to the chat with our guests.

In your um in your program, do you have um any kind of uh questions or tests that help people uncover these um of uh self-limiting beliefs uh that are is in their subconscious that they may be totally unaware of. Yeah, when uh when people go to um myneurogym.com, myneurogyym.com, one of the first things we offer everybody for free. Is a neurofitness assessment. And in that neurofitness assessment, it gives them two things. Number one is what brain type are you?

And it gives you a score in one of the five brain types. And then you're going to get your dominant brain type and subdominant brain type. But it'll also score your seven core neuromuscles. One of the seven core neuromuscles, for example, is your critical thinking skill. and your decision making process. And if your critical thinking skills are strong, great. If they're weak, you're in trouble. Right? If your decision making skills are strong, great. If they're weak, then great.

And then in our programs on our neurofitness platform, which we literally just launched with 40 AI coaches in there to coach people as well, is we're gonna be creating a slew of assessments, neurofitness assessments. on on beliefs, on habits, on emotions, on on on cognition, on cognition speed. So we literally just launched this to the world. Um in the last two weeks and we're putting the final touches on it for our massive PR campaign. So yes. Fantastic. Yeah.

Fantastic. Um, let's touch a little bit about uh goals. Uh people are so used to uh making New Year's resolutions. Uh it's in January. Uh And uh what are some of the key things that uh w we should know about um when creating goals and uh and the problems that arise? Eighty percent of people give up on their goals by February the eighth. But they said January first, eighty percent. Goals setting happens in the prefrontal cortex part of the brain, the imagination part of the brain.

Uh and it's the part of the brain that chooses what we want and want. Goal achieving happens as a result of the hippocampus, long-term memory, and the basal ganglia. And these are just parts of the brain that do different things. Just like you have your hand does a different thing than your elbow does, and your knee does something different than your ass does. You have different parts of your brain. They do different things.

And most people don't think of their brain the way I want them to think about. I want you to think about your brain like you would uh an orchestra, right? You are the conductor. Right. And the conductor says we're going to play this song. That's the goal. Then the conductor's job, right, is to get the different musicians to play in concert, in harmony, in flow. And so the question becomes Do you know how to get your brain in concert, in harmony, in flow between your conscious mind-setting goals?

the limbic system, emotional mind having the reason why I want to achieve it and how phenomenal it's going to be. And the imagination center, this is going to be epic and phenomenal. Do you know how to translate the sheets of music to the other parts of the brain that are responsible for taking consistent action? And most people look at me like deer in headlights because they've never been taught this. So I'll give you an example.

Whenever I set a new goal, okay, which I do, first I start off with a vision of what is life gonna be like. when that goal is achieved. And I write it down. And I write it down, uh, starting with this language path. I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that I have now achieved the goal of blank.

And as a result of achieving my goal of blank, I feel this and I'm doing this and I'm helping this and I'm going here and I'm experiencing this. And I write out a whole story like a Hollywood script, part one. Now I have the story. And now How do I become the story? So I'll give you a visual I take all my clients through.

Let's say somebody um tapped you on the shoulder because you're at uh the gym, uh uh you're at uh um a friend's party, you're at a coffee shop, but they tap you on the shoulder and go, hey, um Uh I just read this Hollywood script. Uh and it stars uh Sylvester Stallone, Barbara Streisand, and uh, I don't know, Russell Crowe, I don't know, whatever. And you would be great for this five-minute piece. And they're looking for somebody just like you if we give you this script.

And we pay you a million dollars. Will you learn the script and meet us in Hollywood in six months to film? You might be scared and oh my God, I'm gonna get a chance to act with all these people. I got this five minute script. Like what can five minute script? What would you do to learn and be that script? Do whatever it takes of everyone's whole life around. Do Nebulaus. What would you give me specifics of what you would do?

Oh, um I would practice, I mean, um integrated into my life so that every day, uh, for minimum number of hours per day, I'm I'm doing that uh I'm practicing. Like it's my most important thing that I'm gonna do. So would you read it a few times a day? Oh yeah, read it over and over and over, you know.

40-30 times a day. Yeah. You might you might record it and listen to it. You might get your camera out and practice the role. You might do research on the role. Uh, but you probably do something every single day to prime your brain to train your brain. To be the role. First, it would take conscious effort, but then with spaced repetition, practice makes permanent. Right. And perfect practice makes perfect. So with with repetition every day.

For the first month, maybe two hours a day, maybe an hour a day, the second month, maybe half an hour a day, maybe the third month, half an hour a day, maybe a little bit every single day, you'd be firing and wiring this new script you never saw before. And you would embody the identity, the beliefs, the character traits of the script so that when the camera came on, it's three, two, one, go. You would need the script because you've become the script.

The way you develop the identity for the income you want to make, for the trader you wanna be, for the lifestyle that comes with it, for the confidence and the certainty and the personal power. Is you practice it and rehearse it in your mind and in your emotions every single day. And then you take a little bit of action every day to practice the role. So on my desk.

I've been doing this for 45 years. I not only have my exceptional life blueprint that's 50, let me see, 67 pages long with my entire life in here, with my with pictures of my family, the life that I'm that I'm living, you know, in our home, uh, the physique that I have today versus what I had, but I have it written out. uh all my top goals, my story of my life that's three pages long. And every day I practice it in private, so I get praised in public for what I do.

So I think of my life like an athlete would think of her life. You practice in private or with other people. So when it's game time, you're playing to win. Fantastic. This all sounds very inspirational. Uh, John, I'd like to thank you for coming on chat with traders. Thank you so much. It's been great coming on with traders and I'll give everybody a little um a free book called Inner Size Your Way to Success that you can give everybody as my gift.

Fantastic. And how can our listeners uh reach you? Uh first thing they should probably do is go take the neurofitness assessment at myneurogym.com. And by the time this airs, uh everything will be in place, myneurogym.com. And then I'm on uh social media on Instagram and YouTube and uh LinkedIn, et cetera.

Fantastic. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks, Ian. By the way, the free copy of the book that John mentioned can be found in the show notes of the podcast platform that you're listening from. Or if you have issues finding it, feel free to email us at hello at chatwithraders.com. Thanks for listening again. You've reached the end of this episode of Chat with Traders, but rest assured there are more episodes. if you'd leave a rating. with traders.