How Neuroscience, Mindset, and Action Work Together

Good intentions pave a road to nowhere good… right?  But why is it that even our best of intentions, our best plans, do not get us the results we want?  Why is it that we stall out (assuming we even get a good start)?

It turns out that success (and thriving) takes far more than just the desire to get there.  It takes far more than simply starting.

And yet, we humans seem to just get our own selves into trouble.  We trip ourselves up!

Fortunately, there are ways we can get out of our own way… and neuroscience can help us.

Which is why I am bringing you an interview with John Assaraf.  You may be familiar with him from his various media appearances, or from his books, or even from a few documentary movies he’s been in.  And if you haven’t seen him yet, you will love hearing from him.

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Have you failed?

Did that failure stop you from moving forward?  Did it get you stuck?

Failure is a part of life.  Ever watched a child learn to walk?  Success only comes after repeated failures.  Yet that same child keeps on trying, until the child gets it right.

What happens in adulthood?  Why does a fear of failing keep us from acting?

When we don’t take action for fear of failing, we have pre-emptively failed.

We have already decided we would fail, so we never even start, guaranteeing we don’t get to where you want to go.

A few decades ago, I started a business.  It failed miserably.  And it kept me stuck for awhile.  But one day, I realized there was something else to consider about that failure.  There were some lessons I learned.

Those are lessons I apply every single day.

Let me suggest 3 questions that will help you turn a failure around, and make the failure simply another opportunity.

Let’s just say it and get it out of the way.  You, I, and everyone else, is going to die.  An inescapable fact of life.  We will die.

A morbid thought?  I don’t think it has to be a morbid thought, as much as an organizing thought.

Reality.

It brings things into focus.

Years ago, I met a man who was dying from cancer.  He was focused, determined.  His prognosis was terminal, so that was not his determination.  He was determined to live out the rest of his life to the fullest.  He spent his time working on projects dear to him.  He made apologies and amends to those whom he felt he had hurt.  He was letting his loved ones know they were loved.

His imminent death gave him focus.

One day, he turned to me, after I told him how much I respected how he was facing death, and said, “What about YOUR death?”

“What?,” I asked.  I wasn’t the one dying, after all.

Then he said, “YOU are going to die, too.  Maybe after me, maybe before me.  But you will die, too.  Don’t wait.  There may be no waiting.”

Death has a way of rearranging your priorities.

Listen to this week’s podcast to ponder death and YOUR life.

My coaching client was wanting to thrive.  He told me he was constantly studying about self-growth.  But he wanted to really transform his life.  And, he told me, so much of what he was reading was, to quote him, “woo-woo stuff.”  He used that term as a reference to ideas he thought were “out there.”

So first, let me just say, what is “out there” to one person is commonplace and sensible to another.  But I knew what he was saying.  He wanted to change things in his life… but he wanted it based in research and reliability.  He wanted to get it down to the basics.

I told him we could easily look at the “low hanging fruit,” the easy things to accomplish — the ones that give the biggest bang for the effort… pretty much guaranteed.

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, I outline 4 areas to improve, all in very “non-woowoo” ways… and very simple ways… so that you can get the biggest bang for your efforts.

Listen in for the details!

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What’s your WHY?  Your BIG WHY?  Why you are here.  The WHY that is your life purpose?

I think we all have one… even if we haven’t found it yet.  It’s there.  Within us.  Your first task is to find it.  That’s important.  But finding it isn’t enough.  Second, you have to move toward it, work toward it… try to fulfill it.  If it is big enough, it may just take you the rest of your life!

But what could get in your way??

The little “why’s.”  Your questions about “why did this happen?”, “why are things this way?”, “why do I feel this way?”

Those little why’s can drown out the BIG WHY.  It draws our attention away from what is important.  And yet, those little why’s get our attention and energy.  They keep us in circles, chasing after nothing helpful or useful.  Just stuck.

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, I discuss our BIG WHY and the little why’s that keep us away from the BIG WHY.

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Blame is rampant in today’s world.  We all quickly point the finger at someone/something else, proclaiming, “It’s not my fault!”

Interestingly, I also notice how rampant it is for people to take the credit for successes.

They/we claim credit for what goes right but refuse blame for anything that goes wrong.

We live in a “culture of blame.”

Which is what often keeps us from growing.  From changing.  From learning from our mistakes.  If someone/something else is to blame, what could I (or you) do?  Not my fault… not my problem.

Change requires us to change the equation.  To take responsibility, when we are responsibible.  To share credit when others deserve credit.

Great leadership is about accepting ultimate responsibility for mistakes and problems, while giving credit for successes.

So, how do we turn the equation around?  I discuss it in this week’s Thriveology Podcast.

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Here we go!  The old year has passed, and the new year stretches before us… full of possibility and potential.  Let’s talk about how to Thrive in ’25!

In this episode, I’ll tell you where I have been, and where the podcast is headed.  I’ve got lots of great stuff coming your way, and am excited to share it with you.

Also in this episode, I tell you the 3 A’s of what you can control, so you can start applying that RIGHT NOW.

Stay tuned for future episodes!

And listen to this episode below.

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Just a little rant here:  philosophy classes turn off many college students for a simple reason — they never get around to saying how philosophy can shake your living.  Some classes might teach more on “how to think philosophically,” or “here are the old philosophers.”  Some may speak to ethics or arguments, logic or some other esoteric area.  But how to live, day-to-day?  That is often lost to the student.

(By they way, I would offer this as an issue with much of theology, too.  Lots of talk about what not to do, what God (or gods) might be like, and how to judge how others live… but not so much clarity on living day-to-day.  But that is a rant for another day!)

Anyway, philosophy, as originally taught in ancient days, was exactly for deciding how to live.  How should you act, feel, and think?  As different schools of philosophy might point out, that all depends upon your basic ideas of what a meaningful life might be.

Sometimes, we are already acting in ways that point to our idea of meaning, even without a philosophical basis.  I think of this as our “natural philosophy” — how we have made sense of the world.

After my first book, many people asked if I was a Stoic.  At that time, I had only a passing concept of that philosophy.  Just one of those old schools of philosophy from a bygone age.  But after hearing it a number of times, I started investigating.  Sure enough, much of my approach to living day-to-day was Stoic.  Huh.

Then, I started finding others that had this same experience.  One of those is Vitaliy Katsenelson.  He is the CEO of an investment company.  But his story goes back to his family’s immigration to the United States, from Russia, when Vitaliy was a child.  He was old enough to still remember those memories of a dying USSR (and to hold onto a bit of an accent), but young enough to find his way through American culture.

After writing several books on investing (including the psychology of investing), Vitaliy took to talking about life.  Not just professional life.  But other areas of life.  Art, music, chess, and family life were grist for the mill of exploring meaning.

This led to Vitaliy’s latest book, Soul In The Game.  While in the process of writing, Vitaliy stumbled upon Stoic thought and found a new home there.  He incorporates that into this book, to further his exploration into the meaningful life (a slightly different question than the meaning of life).

I had a chance to sit down and chat with Vitaliy about a wide range of issues and topics, all related to how life becomes meaningful, and how to find that meaning.  Listen to this episode of the Thriveology Podcast to find out more.

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Do you micro-quit?  I sure do.  And I need to quit micro-quitting!  Maybe you do, too.

It undermines my goals (and likely, your goals too).  And it keeps you from thriving.

What is micro-quitting?  Well, if you quit something (an activity, a job, a sport, a hobby, etc.), you stop doing it.  You step away from it.

But when you micro-quit, you don’t follow through on the smaller building blocks of the bigger thing.  You don’t quit.  But you chip away at that bigger thing.

For example, you are exercising.  Maybe you like to.  Maybe you want to be in better shape.  But either way, you have decided to exercise.

You set your alarm for an early workout.  It goes off.  You decide to hit the snooze button and do a shorter session.  Or you give up on that next set of reps.  Even though it was in your plan… and it was your intention to do it.  You don’t.  You micro-quit on that plan, on that action.

And in the process, you may be undermining your goals.  A little at a time, a micro-quit at a time.

It might just be keeping you and me from thriving!

I discuss micro-quitting (and how to micro-commit) in this episode of the Thriveology Podcast.  Listen below.

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All around the news, we are hearing about algorithms built into our social media.  It directs what we see and hear. It is how all social media decides what to feed you next.  If you like this video, then you might like this one.  If you know this person, then you may know this person.  If you respond to this ad, then you might respond to this one.  The task?  To keep you on the app or the website.  Because that is the thing about social media:  they want your attention and your time.  

But guess what?  You have algorithms that are running inside of you.  They are your “Personal Algorithms.”  They are your habits that run your daily life.  And they don’t really function that differently than what the tech companies use.

In essence, algorithms are simply If/Then formulas.  “If” this happens, “then” you do this.  In life, they represent your own daily habits and reactions.  The “If” is a trigger.  Something happens.  And when it does, you “then” do something.  If your stomach growls, then you grab a bite to eat.  If you are walking by the cookie jar, then you grab one and eat it.  If the alarm goes off, then you hit the snooze several times.  If/Then.

Those algorithms can keep you stuck or free you up, depending on how you use them.

My guest this week is Michael Balchan.  He is the CEO of Heroic.us, an app based approach to thriving more in life.  Listen in as we discuss your habits, your life, your algorithms, and how to be on your own “heroic journey.”

Throughout his adulthood, Michael has been trying to not just “punch the clock,” but to thrive.  And over the years, he immersed himself in learning and executing.  He sought wisdom from others, then worked to apply it into his life.

Along the way, he moved from finance professional to professional coach.  And on that path, he realized his own mission was to help the world to thrive.

On this episode, we talk about ways to thrive, and a new resource to help you thrive.

Listen below.

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