Shadowing Practice: Rewire Your Brain By Doing Hard Things | Andrew Huberman Motivation - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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So much of life, the ability to learn and lean into just enough stress that you trigger learning, the ability to listen when you want to react,
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the ability to force yourself to get up and work on the book or the thing that you don't want to do, so much of that is top -down influences.
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focus is obviously in a tunnel
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but then how much alertness i don't think anyone's ever described it before
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but when you look at levels of arousal in a game like hot hands
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and believe it or not there's some equivalent data on this
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or data on the equivalent sort of thing
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when you're waiting for a timed trial
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and you're waiting for something to happen you have to react
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quickly that's the state of mind you want to be in to learn something that's hard for you, but beneficial for you, period, end of story.
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So hopefully that'll help people kind of find that mental groove.
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And then as you learn, if you find you're getting too stressed, that doesn't, that brings down reaction time.
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It actually, you start making false positive.
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You start moving your hands away before the person even does anything.
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Okay.
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Hopefully that will help people understand the level of attention and why it's so tiring after about 90 minutes.
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And you're like, okay, I need to take a break step back
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and acknowledge there's a lot out there about how to get through trauma
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but what are the unifying themes and can i put a structure on those themes
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that helps people navigate all of that what's the business of having a great life
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so we talk about
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that we hear be present there's this massive study out of harvard a few years ago
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that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind i'm sure you're
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familiar with the data you ping people throughout the day you ask them what they're doing
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and how present they are to it.
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Turns out happiness is really about being present.
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Having your attention, what's called present tethered awareness.
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You're focused on what's happening now, even if it's unpleasant.
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People report that as being much happier on average than if their mind is someplace else.
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Daydreaming has its place, but daydreaming is usually mind wandering to bad things, things of past, things of future.
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We're just not present the converse is also true
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that focusing on what you're doing is a great way to build up your mental health.
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So then I started asking, cause I'm a biologist, not a psychologist.
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What is presence?
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Does it mean anchoring my visual attention?
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How do I be present?
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Cause otherwise it's just a bumper sticker.
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And otherwise I look, I love psychologists say these beautiful studies that discover phenomena, but then it's like, if you're going to say like fall asleep, what is falling asleep.
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And we can talk about that.
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What is being present?
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Okay.
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So be here now.
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I think Ram Dass said that.
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Great.
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Be here now.
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How?
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How do we move our brain from thinking about the future and the past to what's happening now?
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Okay.
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So that means perceptions about what's only in our immediate physical environment.
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It means not thinking, not doing, not planning, but asking questions about the immediate physical environment.
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So we can do this just right now.
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And you can do this anytime you want to be more present.
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And I want to just preface this by saying what I'm about to describe is not the end point.
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It's the way to get into the present.
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But what you do next is critically important too.
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So first you ask trivial questions about your immediate environment that can only be answered accurately by focusing on the present.
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So for instance, bring our mind toward obviously perception of the present duh there's nothing you know profound about that
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but it's what they take our mind away from that's critically
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important the brain there's a whole section on thinking what is
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thinking the brain works in what are called dynamic attractor states
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which is nerd speak for if i take a ball bearing
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and i put it on a on a plate it essentially
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can move in any direction there's some details related to the smoothness of the bearing
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and the plate etc but if i put a little groove on that plate
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and i tilt the plate slightly it obviously will go toward the groove it'll get into the groove
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and then if i turn that groove into a make it more concave
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and eventually a trench the ball bearing stays there that's how your brain works the more
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that you see the thought the more that you see the perception the more
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that brain circuits are devoted to things related to that thought
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or perception so when you want to be present something
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that we know from excellent data of this large study at harvard
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but subsequent studies as well is so critical for happiness the way to practice
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that is to learn from taking your mind from thinking
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and doing and remembering about things of past
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and future to just anchoring your perception to the present it doesn't require meditating meditation is one form of
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that what what are we doing
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when we meditate we close our eyes we focus on our breathing that's here now
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and we focus on the quote -unquote third eye center
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or whatever but that's actually interoception it's focusing on our internal bodily state
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which is not that great frankly
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if you look at the data for being present in a
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happy way most people who are overly focused on their internal state in the present are like my heart rate is increasing.
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My heart rate's too low.
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I'm sweating.
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I'm uncomfortable.
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You start thinking about the fact that your boxers are pulled up on one leg.
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That's not the way to get present and calm and aware.
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The way to get present, calm, and aware and be able to move forward from
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that in the best way is to ask questions about your immediate physical environment.
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Once you do that remember that's just the first step the second step is to use that heightened level of
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awareness to ask yourself what do i want to what do
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i actually want to do next what do i want to
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say next what do i want to think about next this is the way that you take control of your thoughts
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here are the steps to learning you need to focus obviously to learn to focus you need to be alert
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to get alert there are many things you can do and i talk about all of them in the book
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there are foundational things like sleep all right that's going to help you get alert
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and focused but there are also things like exercise we all hear
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that exercise makes our brain better it makes us better at
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learning exercise makes you better at learning for two reasons one it increases the catecholamines dopamine epinephrine
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and norepinephrine so in the four to six hours after exercise you are more alert
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and you can focus better unless you exercise to exhaustion
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if you have leg day for you know you know 10
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sets of 10 on the squats followed by a bunch of hamstring work
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and etc your brain's not going to be so good at focusing
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but you know 45 to 75 minutes of hard training not
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taken to extreme a bit like what we did this morning
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that was a little bit on the lighter side not just
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because we didn't have a whole lot of time
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but you're going to come out that more alert
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because you have more adrenaline in your body more norepinephrine being released in your brain
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and more dopamine being released in your brain
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and dopamine is a critical component for learning okay focus then it becomes easier to access
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and in your focus what are you focusing on you need
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to focus on making errors through genuine attempts to do something something physical maybe a tennis serve
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or you're learning billiards something cognitive you're trying to learn a language.
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The error between what you currently do and what you're trying to do, the error, is the signal that the neurons, the nerve cells need to change.
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It runs through a circuit involving the cerebellum and a bunch of other things, but that gap is what the brain tries to close.
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If you can do something, there's no reason for your brain to change.
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And the agitation you feel from those errors reflects elevated levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine in the body and brain respectively.
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and those tag literally chemically tag the synapses i mean there's some additional steps
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but they tag those synapses so that then at night
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when you sleep the synapses rearrange and you close the gap between your current ability
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and the ability you're striving to achieve that's how it works
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so a curiosity
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and willingness to learn gets you to the gate of learning
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the making of errors through genuine attempts puts the key in
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and turns the key The agitation is walking through that gate
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and then getting some sleep or maybe even a day or two later, even if you don't sleep quite as well as you would like, just some time for the synapses to rearrange.
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That's the last piece.
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There's an additional piece that can reinforce it all, which is self -testing.
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If you want to get good at something and stay good at it and continue to get better at it, you need to self -test.
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Mental self -testing is the best way to consolidate learning and learn faster.
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What do I mean by that?
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I don't mean visualization.
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I mean, asking yourself, like for me, if I want to make my memory better, generally speaking, I might think,
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okay, so that was September 11th, 2001.
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Where was I exactly?
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What were some of the details?
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Now that might be something I might not want to think about, but if I were to say, okay, I'm going to go back to my, you know, year one neuroscience graduate school training.
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Of course, I know what a synapse is.
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I know what neurons are.
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I know what asterisks are.
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I know all this stuff it's embedded
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so deeply in me i can almost do it in my sleep
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but then i think yeah that's right like what is the role of astrocytes
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and those okay because that's stuff that's relevant to me
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when you hit the point where you can't remember something you go
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and look it up boom you've now closed that gap again
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and it reinforces those synapses that were weakening so
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if you're trying to learn something new
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or you want to get maintain information from way back
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when you need to retest
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so that's how you learn you have to bring yourself to those points of agitation I wish I had learned
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that in the third grade I wish they had told me
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that now many people find
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that they are very disciplined about certain things they're getting their sets in reps
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and they're pushed past failure they love their video games they love perhaps mathematics
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but not literature the things that we are not facile in
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that don't come easy to us there are two reasons to do some of that learning at every stage of life.
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One is it enriches us.
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We often find that the things that are hardest to learn that we then learn are the most satisfying.
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This is the effort that precedes dopamine is far more reinforcing than when just dopamine comes in.
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You could say, well, you know, scrolling, there's no, you know, there's no effort involved.
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And that seems very reinforcing.
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That's more of a compulsive behavior after a certain point that's going to get passed into reflex
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but talk to anybody anyone and their life experience
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if they've had a life will say something like oh yeah
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everything was going great until this big thing then i overcame
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that big thing and that was really the thing that taught me
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that i'm capable of even bigger things right i mean no
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we don't really like success stories we like um we like underdog often to success story pitfall come out of that.
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The hero's journey is something that we resonate with in part because it's so true, but in part because for so many people, it's not true.
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We know it's there, but most people don't embark on those things.
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And I think it's because we set too lofty an idea of what the hero's journey is.
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I mean, for a lot of people, it's about learning to do less.
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I know a lot of hard driving people.
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It's about learning how to achieve more peace.
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It's about exploring ideas around spirituality or fiction, if they only read nonfiction.
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I mean, we all have to ask ourselves, how much should we push ourselves to do things that we're not just naturally inclined to do?
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I think a mixture of what we love to do
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and some of the things that we've just avoided because they just seem too hard.
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I think there's real value in doing those things.
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And all the data on maintaining cognitive abilities say, will exercise make you smarter?
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No, it's necessary, but not sufficient to make you smarter.
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You still have to go learn.
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And without completely joking, I mean, this is evidenced by many guys that spend hours upon hours in the gym and they're not brilliant people.
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So they're exercising plenty.
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Their brain is clearly not getting bigger.
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They're not necessarily getting stupider, but they're not doing anything to make themselves smarter.
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You need to learn information.
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So there's that, but then there's also, people say, is it crossword puzzles?
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If you love doing crossword puzzles, guess what, my friend?
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They're not gonna help keep your brain young.
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You had to do the hard puzzles.
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You know, if they're easy for you, then it's not going to help.
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You like chess, play Go.
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You like checkers, learn chess.
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So this is where I think people really lose out on the understanding that people who are striving, maintain brain and bodily function for a long period of time,
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their internal state is not necessarily one of like, oh yeah, I just love learning.
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And so I just keep learning.
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I bet you Andy Stumpf, as calm and cool and collected as he is, even though so many of his tier one operator peers tell me it's really frustrating
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because andy's really good at everything i bet you
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if we looked at his internal state his narrative is probably by now says you know you can do this
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but is i doubt it's one of complete calm all the
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time i'm sure there's he's just managing the external rep like he's not showing it just do a long exhale
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when you're stressed do a long deliberate exhale it slows your heart rate down through a phenomenon called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which sounds bad.
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People hear arrhythmia, it sounds bad.
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But we've all heard of the vagus nerve.
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The vagus nerve collects sensory information from our viscera, which is nerd speak for your internal organs.
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So your stomach, your spleen, your liver, sending that information up to your brain.
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Unconsciously, your brain is responding to that all the time.
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So what we need and what I try and highlight in the book are principles.
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High morning cortisol means low nighttime cortisol, means high nighttime melatonin, means great sleep, means better days, and so on and so forth.
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You're essentially got the gears of the system linking together with that.
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Understand that.
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And then, yes, it's true.
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Bright light is the best way to spike your morning cortisol, but exercise is pretty effective too.
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Sometimes you don't have access to either.
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Sometimes you have access to both.
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Sometimes you're on a plane.
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But you can start doing other things to nudge the system or keep the system online when you have 30 seconds, you also understand that if you miss a day or two, you're okay.
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Because you've set up the system through good behaviors going into it.
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So you don't have to dissolve into a puddle of your own tears
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because you're on a plane and they don't have any caffeinated coffee and you can't do your air squats.
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And like, I mean, come on.
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No one wants to be that guy.
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Exactly.
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Once you understand a bit of the principles that organize the mechanisms, you're in a great position to be truly strong of mind and body because you can organize information.
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And the same thing is true like in chapter seven, the book on personal development, I took a step back and I said, what are the unifying features of all the trauma therapies?
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What are the unifying features of how to have a great life?
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Let's just start with how to have a great life.
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James Hollis came on my podcast, 84 years old, surprised the out of me when he said, here's how you have a great life it involves four things
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the first three are shut up that's the first one i go shut up
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and he goes yeah someone's always got it worse than you
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nobody wants to hear you whine have gratitude for what you do have
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if you're alive you got something to be grateful for well i didn't really expect
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that from him you know he's like this 85 year old
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youngian analyst he talks about the unconscious mind he goes shut
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up your day should start with huberman shut up whatever's got you bothered Shut up.
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You got it better than somebody.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Rewire Your Brain By Doing Hard Things”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: present, brain, learn, learning. This video has 240 sentences and 2984 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:19. The speaker talks fast, about 195 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| alert adjective | /əˈlɝt/ | Attentive; awake; on guard. |
| perception noun | /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/ | The organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information. |
| groove noun | /ɡɹuv/ | A long, narrow channel or depression; e.g., such a slot cut into a hard material to provide a location for an engineering component, a tire groove, or a… |
| reinforce verb | /ˌɹiː.ɪnˈfɔːs/ | To strengthen, especially by addition or augmentation. |
| nerve noun | /nɝv/ | A bundle of neurons with their connective tissue sheaths, blood vessels and lymphatics. |
| puzzle noun | /ˈpʌzəl/ | The state of feeling confused or mystified because one cannot understand a complicated matter, a problem, etc.; bewilderment, confusion; (countable) often in… |
| necessarily adverb | /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/ | Inevitably; of necessity. |
| circuit noun | /ˈsɝ.kɪt/ | The act of moving or revolving around, or as in a circle or orbit; a revolution |
| gate noun | /ˈɡeɪ̯t/ | A doorlike structure outside a house. |
| awareness noun | /əˈwɛɹ.nəs/ | The state or level of consciousness where sense data can be confirmed by an observer. |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| essentially adverb | /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/ | In essence: by nature. |
| genuine adjective | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.juˌɪn/ | Belonging to, or proceeding from the original stock; native. |
| asleep adjective | /əˈsliːp/ | In a state of sleep; also, broadly, resting. |
| principle noun | /ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/ | A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| shut up | /ʃʌt ʌp/ | Stop talking (usually in the form of making annoying, irrelevant, or false comments, during a period of peace and quiet, or when one is not allowed to talk)… |
| step back verb | /stɛp ˈbæk/ | To stop what one is doing and evaluate the current situation. |
| bring down verb | To make (a ruler or government) lose their position of power. | |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| get up verb | To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Having your attention, what's called present tethered awareness.
- Does it mean anchoring my visual attention?
- How do I be present?
- My heart rate's too low.
- What do I mean by that?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if they've had a life will say |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be answered · are called · are devoted |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · all, which is · viscera, which is |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've now closed · we've just avoided · you've set |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 64 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, breathe /bɹiːð/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, arrhythmia /eɪˈɹɪð.mɪ.ə/, tether /ˈtɛðəɹ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, sufficient /səˈfɪʃənt/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
- Long words — get the stress right: necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, phenomenon /fəˈnɒm.ɪ.nən/, critically /ˈkɹɪt.ɪ.kə.li/, psychologist /ˌsaɪˈkɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like alert, perception, groove.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.