#1 Neurosurgeon: How to Manifest Anything You Want & Unlock the Unlimited Power of Your Mind (In Memory of Dr. Jim Doty)

Mel Robbins (00:00:49):

When you start there, anything is possible.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:00:54):

What you just said fundamentally addresses the issue of how people create a prison for themselves by this negative self-talk. Every time they make a negative statement, it's as if they're laying down a brick and the walls get higher and it gets darker. Yet all of us have the key in our pocket to let yourself out of the prison that you create. So many people make judgements about people and they don't recognize the path or the problems or the adversities they faced in those situations. You think there's no hope?

 

Mel Robbins (00:01:38):

Hey, it's your friend, Mel. I am so excited that you're here. It's always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together if you're brand new. Welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast family. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast and for hitting play on this particular episode because it tells me that you are the type of person that sees bigger possibilities for yourself, and you're interested in learning how you can use neuroscience and the science of manifestation to help you achieve it. I love that. I want to know all about that too, which is why I am beyond thrilled to introduce you to someone who is truly extraordinary. Dr. Jim Doty is here from California. He's in our Boston Studios. He's a Stanford neurosurgeon. He's a world renowned neuroscientist, a New York Times bestselling author, a philanthropist. He's the founder and director of the Stanford Center for Compassion Altruism Research and Education.

 

(00:02:30):

He has done so much more than just that, but to name a few. He's a military veteran. He has founded massive medical device companies. He's one of the world's leading experts in minimally invasive spinal surgery, and he was the former chairman of the Dali Llama Foundation, and he's here to teach you the science of manifesting and visualization, why it works and how to do it properly. According to the science, you and I are going to leave this conversation knowing exactly how to leverage Dr. Doty's extraordinary research and wisdom. So please help me welcome Dr. Jim Doty to the Mel Robbins podcast.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:03:13):

It is a pleasure and a joy to be with you.

 

Mel Robbins (00:03:15):

I am so thrilled that you are here and I cannot wait for this conversation. So where I want to start is, can you speak directly to the person that's listening to us and tell them how their life might be different if they take to heart absolutely everything that you are about to teach and share with us today?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:03:38):

Of course, and I think the challenge for so many of us is that we believe the negative self-talk we have, and as a result, we create limited beliefs that then limit our possibilities. And we believe this ongoing narrative, and the reality is we have more power within ourselves, and it's understanding that you control this. There is no outside force, and as you know in my book it says, the universe doesn't give a fuck about you because there is nothing out there. And I don't mean this in a negative way, but I mean you can't wait for somebody to magically take care of everything. The reality is you have the power within yourself to change your circumstance, and it's just believing it. And listen, I will tell you as you know, I grew up in a challenging background. My father was an alcoholic. My mother had had a stroke when I was a child. She was partially paralyzed, chronically depressed, attempted suicide. We were evicted, we're on public assistance. And in those situations you think there's no hope.

 

(00:04:51):

But as I found and from my first book into the Magic Shop, I walked into a magic shop and met a woman who looked at me as a human being. And what I mean by that is so many people make judgements about people and they don't recognize the path or the problems or the adversities they faced and everybody deserves to be listened to. So this woman in this magic shop, she was a radiant bean. She had a smile, a presence that made you feel safe, and this is a key psychological safety to downregulate your stress response. And she made me feel okay. She didn't look down on me and I was 12 as a 12-year-old. She looked at me as an equal eye to eye, and that interaction her changed the trajectory of my life because it changed how I saw the world.

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:02):

You've written about your past, you've written about this interaction with this woman in the magic shop, and still it brings so much emotion up in you. How come

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:06:27):

One, I'm appreciative. Two. I mean, having somebody take the time to look at you, see you appreciate what you are and taking that interest, it's very meaningful. And I try never to take that for granted even. And I hope every interaction, you understand that a lot of people are suffering, they're carrying baggage from their past and that baggage is limiting them. Oftentimes, just listening to somebody can profoundly change their lives, what people want to be heard. And sometimes it's just, hello. Sometimes it's just a hug. So I always tell people, never forget your own ability to change somebody's life and also to recognize that oftentimes how somebody is interacting with you has nothing to do with what's going on. It has to do with the baggage they're carrying. And so give people a benefit of a doubt. And so if you grow up in a background like mine, typically there are two paths. One is the path. You become an alcoholic drug abuser, have mental health issues. The other issue over Excel overachieve, then the path of the overachiever gets bifurcated. There's one group who say, nobody helped me. I did this all myself. I'm not going to help anybody else. Then you have the other group, which I probably typify maybe excessively where I understand the pain people go through and very deeply, I'm very attuned to that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:08:31):

I personally cry all the time for the same reason. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody explain why I feel so driven to do what I do. So thank you for that. That was a real gift to me to hear somebody explain why tears come up all the time and why I end podcast every single time by telling the person who's listening that I love them because I know for most people, they actually don't hear it said by anybody else.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:09:08):

No. And which is a very sad statement because, and we can talk about this, but so many people live in a fear mode all the time. And of course it has all sorts of deleterious effects. And being in a love mode or a heart-centered mode is very difficult, especially if you have all sorts of challenges that distract you from who you really are. And I think the gift you give people, and hopefully I try to give people, is a sense of hope and possibilities.

 

Mel Robbins (00:09:42):

I want to go back to the moment in the magic shop that truly shaped you forever and change the trajectory of your life. And so the person who's listening can really perhaps see themselves or someone they love in the story. Could you explain, as a 12-year-old, you're walking into this magic shop first just kind of how you felt emotionally at that point in your life, going through all of the heartache and the hardship that you did that so many people do, and how this interaction with an adult woman who you had never met who just interacted with you, how that actually changed

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:10:29):

Changed. Well, what would happen in my situation at home was whenever there was fighting or challenging events, I would get on my bike and ride as far and as fast away as I could. And I rode a great distance far from my house and ended up at a strip mall. And I'd had an interest in magic for a while. I used to have a plastic thumb that I would do tricks with.

 

Mel Robbins (00:10:55):

My son has one of

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:10:56):

Those. Yeah. Yes, yes. And I lost it. And so I was looking for a plastic thumb. But anyway, I saw the magic shop and I went in and what was interesting was this woman was there and who was in her mid fifties probably, and I still remember her vividly because she was wearing a blue and white, oo, remember these outfits because she was a larger lady and she had this flowing gray hair and she had these glasses that were at the tip of her nose and she had a chain on them. And she was reading this back book,

 

Mel Robbins (00:11:23):

You sound like you're describing the potions professor and Harry Potter,

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:11:28):

And she may have been actually. But anyway, she looked up from her glasses and I started querying her about magic. And she said, I'm just here babysitting the shop because this is my son store and he's doing an errand. But this led to her and I having a conversation. And after about 20 minutes, she said to me, she said, I really like you. She said, I think I can help you. I'm here for another six weeks. If you show up every day, I think you could learn a lot. And I had no clue what she meant. And this was before mindfulness or neuroplasticity were in the sort of common lexicon. And I did show up every day. Now I have to tell you, it wasn't because I had any insight or self-awareness. I was a poor 12-year-old in despair with a feeling of hopelessness. But I did show up. And the reason I showed up was one, I had absolutely nothing else to do. Two, she was giving me chocolate chip cookies. So those were the two drivers of my interaction with her. But to sort of understand what happened is she apparently had some exposure to eastern meditation practices,

 

(00:12:39):

And she taught me, if you will, what is now called a mindfulness practice.

 

(00:12:44):

And what I never realized was that as a child, I was in a war zone all the time, a constant trauma because you never know what's going to happen. It's chaos. There's always unexpected things. You can't rely on anyone or any person. And as a result, your muscles are always tight. You're always looking around, you can't focus. And of course to learn, you have to be able to attend. If you can't be present, it's not possible to learn. So she recognized this and she initially taught me a relaxation technique, and then she taught me the ability to focus or attend. And then probably the most critical thing was she taught me that the negative dialogue that was going on in my head was not truth. And oftentimes when we tell ourselves, we're not good enough, we're not worthy, we don't deserve love. We think there's some truth in that. But we have as humans, a negativity bias. We're negative statements have a tendency to stick with us. And this leads oftentimes to rumination. And once you tell yourself it is not possible, I cannot, that becomes truth.

 

(00:13:56):

And so we create our own limited belief system. And so she taught me a technique to respond with positive self-affirmation, but also to not respond to those negative feelings and just let them drift by. But also to constantly encourage positivity within yourself. And this led me to look at the world in a different way. And the reason I say that is if you're hypercritical with yourself, you're hypercritical in the lens through which you see the world and you're very judgmental. And what I tell people is once I understood what was going on in my own head, it made me look at the world through a different lens, one of kindness, compassion, and it also dissipated the anger that I had towards my parents. Because what happens is, of course, they're supposed to be the caregivers, but if they don't have the tools to take care of their own pain, they can't help you. So that realization was very important as the realization that people carry baggage and their reactions oftentimes have nothing to do with you. And so having a much more thoughtful, gentle, kinder way to interact with people I think is extraordinarily powerful.

Dr. Jim Doty (00:15:46):

Well, the other thing I didn't mention was that at the end of this, if you will, mindfulness type practice, we had a discussion and the discussion was about how to manifest or visualization.

 

Mel Robbins (00:15:59):

So she taught you how to manifest and visualize at the age of 12.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:16:03):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:16:04):

Wow.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:16:05):

So she asked me to make a list of 10 things that I wanted. Now I have to tell you, this is through the lens of a 12-year-old who's poor. So in typical fashion, I said I wanted to be a millionaire, which in 1968 was a lot of money. It seemed like I wanted to have a mansion, I wanted to be a doctor. And it wasn't so much, listen, I was always kind and thoughtful, but I wanted to be a doctor. So people looked at me

 

(00:16:34):

And said, you're okay. I wanted a Porsche. I wanted a Rolex watch. And all of these external material things that so many people in our society think they need somehow, if you get this stuff that's going to fill the void, all of us have. And of course it doesn't. But society is oriented unfortunately, towards seeking external affirmation with a belief that if you fulfill the societal narrative of success, which is money, power, position, that will then translate into happiness. And of course, this is a story that's been told over and over and over again, and it does not. And I'm sure you know many, many extraordinarily successful people who are absolutely miserable.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:25):

Well, one thing I want to highlight as you're listening to Dr. Doty, and I just am so blown away by your gift of explaining things and how connected you are to why this is important to you. And it's important to I think everybody to understand what you're trying to teach us is that I think a lot of us know that chasing the external stuff is what society has been prioritizing. But you are going a layer deeper, which is it's not just about the belief that you think those things will make you happy. It's that your lived experience when you feel invisible is that people that have those things are seen. And that is an explanation that cuts at a way deeper psychological driver than happiness. And that experience of feeling like you don't matter, you're not seen, you are not treated with a level of dignity and care that every human being deserves. I haven't heard anybody truly connect the dots between the obsession with chasing status and surface level items and actually not happiness, but the fundamental need that we human beings have for connection. And the sense that somebody actually cares about you and you think that that's going to happen because of the shiny stuff that you acquire. And you're here to say that actually it doesn't.

Dr. Jim Doty (00:19:18):

It doesn't at all. And I think that's the challenge for so many people because they've been sold this narrative. And it's a narrative of unhappiness and it's a narrative of fear. And I was saying earlier, when you chase lengths like that, that's because of your own insecurity. And as a result that activates your sympathetic nervous system, which of course is the flight, fight or freeze response. And when that happens, actually that has a very negative effect on how your brain functions, but also your peripheral physiology and can lead to a lot of very significant diseases and decrease your life expectancy versus if you shift that narrative, if you will, to the love mode. And what I mean by that is all of us have the ability to actually shift from engagement of our sympathetic nervous system, which is part of our autonomic nervous system, which arises in the brainstem and is distributed throughout all the organs in your body, but especially your heart to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is really how we evolved to live as a species.

 

(00:20:28):

It's not that we were stressed every second. We were stressed periodically, and that stress mode was meant to activate in the face of threat and respond. And either you survived or didn't survive, but then you immediately went back to engagement of your parasympathetic nervous system if you survived. That is the system we were designed to live in. That is the system in which you care, which you're rewarded for caring, where you have the release of oxytocin and these other neurotransmitters that activate your pleasure and reward centers when you care for another, especially your offspring, but also within the context of our common humanity. And that is the mode you want to be in, especially if you want to manifest, because that is when your cognitive brain networks, your peripheral physiology work at their best. And that is from the love mode, if you will.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:19:18):

It doesn't at all. And I think that's the challenge for so many people because they've been sold this narrative. And it's a narrative of unhappiness and it's a narrative of fear. And I was saying earlier, when you chase lengths like that, that's because of your own insecurity. And as a result that activates your sympathetic nervous system, which of course is the flight, fight or freeze response. And when that happens, actually that has a very negative effect on how your brain functions, but also your peripheral physiology and can lead to a lot of very significant diseases and decrease your life expectancy versus if you shift that narrative, if you will, to the love mode. And what I mean by that is all of us have the ability to actually shift from engagement of our sympathetic nervous system, which is part of our autonomic nervous system, which arises in the brainstem and is distributed throughout all the organs in your body, but especially your heart to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is really how we evolved to live as a species.

 

(00:20:28):

It's not that we were stressed every second. We were stressed periodically, and that stress mode was meant to activate in the face of threat and respond. And either you survived or didn't survive, but then you immediately went back to engagement of your parasympathetic nervous system if you survived. That is the system we were designed to live in. That is the system in which you care, which you're rewarded for caring, where you have the release of oxytocin and these other neurotransmitters that activate your pleasure and reward centers when you care for another, especially your offspring, but also within the context of our common humanity. And that is the mode you want to be in, especially if you want to manifest, because that is when your cognitive brain networks, your peripheral physiology work at their best. And that is from the love mode, if you will.

Dr. Jim Doty (00:22:45):

No, no. That's the perfect way to think about it. And when you're in that mode, everything changes for the positive,

 

Mel Robbins (00:22:53):

The heart mode.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:22:53):

Yes. And the possibilities of having your intention manifest are greatest when you were in that mode.

 

Mel Robbins (00:23:01):

Okay, got it. So I want to be in heart mode. How did this amazing woman in the magic shop teach you to manifest when you were 12?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:23:12):

Well, I have to tell you, and I don't want to mislead people. I thought it was a lot of bullshit initially. And the reason is, is because of course I had never been exposed to anything like that.

 

(00:23:28):

I Mean, being able to sit and relax your muscles with intention, being able to breathe a certain way to calm your nervous system down were completely new to me. So it took a little while for me to understand that. But once I did understand, I realized how powerful it was because I didn't constantly have this negative self-talk going on and this fear constantly. And so as you know, these types of mindfulness practice, which are very commonly discussed today and have changed millions of lives are readily available to everyone. And fundamentally what she taught me was this type of a technique, a relaxation technique, a focus technique, and dealing with the negative self-talk, looking at the world through a lens of compassion. And we talked about visualization. For you to maximally visualize, that means you have to be relaxed, you have to have calm, you have to not look at what I want.

 

(00:24:33):

And this is the difference for a lot of people because they have a vision of what they want but not what they need. As an example, we're talking about possessions. I want a Porsche, I want a Rolex, which was what I did. And they think that if I just get that, I'll be okay. And the problem is that it won't make you okay. And when you're sitting there self focusing, if I just have that, I need this versus as an example saying, I want to be a doctor now it's not. I want to be a doctor. So everybody looks at me and says how great I am, which is what I did. I want to be a doctor because I want to help people. Those are completely two different narratives. One is I want to be of service. That is how we were designed as human beings, not I want for me.

 

(00:25:26):

And when you change how you look at the world, when you change what you want, you realize one, a lot of what you think you want is worthless versus what is powerful. What gives a person purpose and meaning, which of course activates every aspect of your physiology, both brain and peripheral physiology to work at their best, is being of service, being connected, caring for others. And we know through the work of Bob Butner and the Blue Zones or the work of Robert Waldinger and the 85-year-old Harvard study, when you care for others, when you look through that lens, everything in your life improves. And that is the place where you also have the ability to maximize the possibilities for your intention to manifest.

Dr. Jim Doty (00:26:28):

Of the Dalai Lama Foundation. Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:30):

So how are we wired for service as human beings?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:26:36):

Well, if you look at our evolution as a species, unlike other species, one, we have a small litter size

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:43):

That's a very clinical, I think if I were your wife and you said that I'd smack you, Dr. Doty, a small litter size.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:26:50):

Well, my wife has smacked me multiple times, believe me. And our offspring do not run off into the jungle or the forest. They have to be cared for well over a decade. And why would you expend the time, the resources, the energy to care for your offspring unless you were rewarded? The way you're rewarded when you care for your offspring is the release of different neurotransmitters, such as oxytocin or the love hormone. And when those are released, your pleasure and reward centers are activated. Your physiology works at its best, and you look at the world through the lens of love and caring because you want your offspring to survive. As we evolve as a species, and you're probably aware of that, there's something Dunbar's number. So up to 150 people, which was typically the size of a tribe, again, it was important because you were in a hostile environment that you cared for the other or the group would not survive. So these are very deep sedated genetic imperatives that are with us that allow our species to survive. We are not meant to live chronically in the sympathetic nervous system. We are meant as a species to live in our parasympathetic nervous system where we have openness, generosity, caring, love. The problem is the nature of how capitalist society has been developed actually for many, many people activates their sympathetic nervous system chronically, and they get distracted from their purpose. Our purpose is to love one another.

 

Mel Robbins (00:28:32):

I love that. And I love that you've simplified it to you're either in fear mode and heart mode, and that you are hardwired for heart mode. Your purpose is to love yourself, to love other people, to be in that mode. Can you explain what manifesting is? How do you think about it or describe and teach it to people around the world?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:28:58):

So as you know with manifestation or that terminology, there's a lot of woowoo and pseudoscience and a lot of people take it advantage of that. And it turns, unfortunately into a moneymaking opportunity for some people. The reality is though, that actually the ability to manifest is fundamentally based in neuroscience. There is no woowoo, there's no magic, there's no law of attraction based on the history of it. Back in the first and second century there Hermetics came up with this idea and it's been propagated through different prosperity gospels and all sorts of other things, as if you have positive energy and you put that energy out in the world, you'll be able to manifest the Porsche, the Ferrari, the mansion. But if it doesn't happen, it's your fault because you didn't care enough or you didn't do it the right way or just buy another book. And I'll tell you the real way to do it.

 

(00:29:57):

But fundamentally, it's based on neuroscience. And what I mean by that is the way in which you manifest and I'll define manifestation, is the ability to take an intention and embed it into your subconscious in a manner such that it has the greatest likelihood to occur or to manifest. And what I mean by that is what people don't appreciate is every second we have about six to 10 million bits of information coming to us from our sensory organs. That's what makes us who we are. That creates our reality. But on a conscious level, we can only deal with 50 to a hundred because 99.9% go to maintain our bodily function. That 50 to a hundred, though you have control over

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:46):

50 to a hundred a

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:30:48):

Bits of information,

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:48):

Bits of information.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:30:50):

So how do you deal with that? Well, you take the tools and what I mean by that is the tools to embed something into your subconscious, the best way to do that. And I'm sure you've heard the term what fires together, wires together.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:06):

But can you explain that for the person listening, what does that

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:31:09):

Mean? So if you create habits,

 

(00:31:11):

This results in the creation of neuropathways. And if the mere repetition of those habits actually lays down the circuitry that then gets embedded and then actually makes things happen, and I'll explain it as follows, when you were able to use all of your sensory organs or abilities to embed that intention and do it repeatedly, that is when you're creating these neural pathways. As an example, if you have an intention, you take a pencil, you write it down, you're actually doing something physical, tactile, then you read it silently, then you read it aloud, then you visualize that and you do that over and over and over again. What that will do is then embed that into your subconscious and then these different cognitive brain networks get activated.

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:09):

Now can we unpack that just a minute? Sure. Because everyone that listens to this loves to make sure that they just got the instructions from you, Dr. Doty. I'm like hanging on every word. And so there were a couple steps to that because you had the physical pencil, you had the act of writing, you had this moment where if you're watching on YouTube, you saw it, but if you're listening, lemme describe it, he sat back in his chair, he put his hands kind of in prayer at his chest, closed his eyes, and he started talking about repeating the thought. Is that the chain of events that you do to encode it in your mind?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:32:49):

Yes, absolutely.

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:50):

So will you walk us through it one more time?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:32:53):

Yeah. So again, what you want to do is to use all of your sensory organs as much as possible to embed that intention. So by writing it down, by reading it aloud, by visualizing it, that creates the process where this gets embedded into your subconscious. And what happens is once you get this embedded, it activates different parts of your brain. And without getting too technical, one is something called the default mode network.

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:24):

Is that the same thing as the reticular activating system?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:33:27):

No.

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:27):

Okay.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:33:28):

But they're related.

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:29):

Okay, so the default mode network.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:33:31):

Yes. So this is what happens when your mind wonders or you're daydreaming and it's self-referential because it's internally focused, but it's where you create the narrative of who you are or what you want.

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:48):

So if you have negative self-talk, if you ruminate, if you are like, I'm never good enough, nothing works out for me, things like that don't happen to a person like me, I can never get it right. That is in the default load network.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:34:03):

Absolutely. And that gets really activated and results in rumination for some people.

 

Mel Robbins (00:34:07):

Can I ask you another question? Because one of the things that you said at the very, very beginning is you painted this gorgeous picture of the ability to leverage the remarkable power of your brain to help you get what you truly desire in life to help you live in heart mode. And you said it's just about believing it and part of the reason why we have trouble believing it is because of the default mode network and all of these stories you've repeated over and over and over again. Is that fair to say?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:34:51):

No? That's exactly correct.

 

Mel Robbins (00:34:53):

And can we can reprogram or we can lay down a new track?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:34:56):

Oh, absolutely. And it's available 24 7 and it doesn't matter what's happened to you before. So many people get fixated, well, I don't deserve this because of we all deserve it. So once this gets embedded and you create the narrative of who you want to be or how you see yourself, what you're doing is you're creating salience. Okay,

 

Mel Robbins (00:35:21):

What's that word mean?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:35:22):

It means making it important. Okay. Once something is important, this activates what we call our task positive network. And the task positive network has three parts. It has the salience network, it has the attention network, and then it has the executive control network. And once something is salient, what you're basically saying is, this deserves my attention. And by doing it in a very specific way, then that becomes important to you. That gets embedded into your subconscious as something to pay attention to. Once that is defined as something important to you, then that activates your attention network so that then you cognitively focus your attention on whatever that intention is.

 

(00:36:18):

Once those are activated, and I use the analogy in the book, it's as if you have a file cabinet and you put this file into the file cabinet that says important stuff, and once that is there, then the attention network is activated, which is as an example, a bloodhound that says, okay, now there's something there. I need to track this down and figure out what's going on here. Then you activate the bloodhound and then that gets released, and then once that attention is focused, then it starts looking around through all the possibilities in your environment. And as Susan identifies one, then your executive control network is activated, which in some ways is the thing that chases down what is in your subconscious, and this is how it works. There is no magic here. This is fundamentally basic neuroscience, and it's something that we all have the ability to master by just doing these techniques whereby you are able to embed your intention, you do it over and over, and it's not as if one and done.

 

(00:37:29):

What I mean by that is some people wake up and this is like a New Year's resolution. I'm going to do this January 1st, and then January 1st comes and you already fail the first day. You have to not have excessive expectations at first. What I mean by that is these are based on habit. What happens with habit, you start small. You don't sit there and say, I'm going to lose a hundred pounds in the next month. You say, I'm going to try to modify my diet where I'm not drinking sodas. That's the first little one. And each of these little wins strengthens you to actually then do the big thing ultimately. So you don't start by running a marathon on day one, you start by getting up out of bed and walking around the block.

 

Mel Robbins (00:38:10)

I really appreciate you, especially as a neuroscientist walking us through all those four parts of the brain and validating that based on the science, this is the mechanism through which you can activate the ability to reprogram your mind.

(00:39:36):

This is actually programming deep within. And so could you help me and the person listening understand, let's say that you have for your entire life had this narrative in your mind where you're like, I'm not good enough. How do I use these four parts of the brain and the technique you just described step by step to program a completely different way of talking to myself in my default mode network and pick whatever. Because you are the expert teaching people around the world, this technique. So pick whatever you believe is the most common default, negative self-talk or belief. And then if you could walk a step by step, what am I doing, Dr. Doty every day?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:40:31):

Well, I think the first thing people need to recognize is the burden we carry as a human being is negative. It is not going to go a hundred percent away. That's just the way it is. In fact, I speak about these things and I say to people, how many of you have negative self-talk? And usually 90% of people raise their hand, and I say, the other 10% are lying. And I don't care. In theory, I mean obviously you have examined these areas, I have examined these areas. I still have negative self-talk. The key is though, in the face of the negative, okay, and understand what it is and not let it overpower you, where you sit there and go, oh God, I'm horrible. And you just ruminate over this. Recognize for what it is and let it sit there. You don't have to do anything with it.

 

(00:41:26):

And this is the fundamental practice of mindfulness meditation. But the aspect which I think is different, and actually what we teach at Stanford is to have compassion for self. And this is when you give yourself these positive affirmations and you say, you're worthy, you're good enough, you deserve. And a lot of the negative self-talk comes from where it comes from the baggage that we carry from our childhoods. And this is what a lot of people don't appreciate. You're manifesting all the time. What people don't realize though is that many of the decisions they make in their lives, the relationships, the jobs they have, the decisions they make are actually based on the baggage that they carry. And that is the narrative of their story. And so one of the first things I think you have to do is to sit back and whether it's with a therapist or self-reflection where you're writing things down and trying to understand how you become you to have some awareness of what created this.

 

(00:42:29):

And once you have that insight, then that allows you to not be as affected or to believe it, but understand that it's the nature of how humans are wired and it's okay. That's not going to change. And in some ways it's like also accepting your shadow self. All of us have a part of us that we're ashamed of, we're embarrassed about. We've done actions that are horrible sometimes, and you can't push your shadow away. You have to accept it and integrate it into who you are. And the same is true of this. So once you're able to do that, that lessens the power of that inner critic.

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:10):

Let me see if I can just again translate this because you've got a really big brain. You operate on brains

 

(00:43:18):

And you are friends with the biggest spiritual leaders of our time, and you teach compassion, manifestation, visualization, all of this. And I just want to make sure that I do my job and that as you are listening, that you truly are able to take all of this extraordinary wisdom and the gift of Dr. Doty and apply it. And so I heard you say that if you were to take out a piece of paper and you were to just start journaling around what did my childhood make me believe about myself, that that first step of seeing that in writing helps you separate from it and see it for what it is, which is it is a story, just like a story in a book that is something you've been telling yourself over and over and just separating yourself from it is the first step. The thing I'm curious about though is how I start to learn a new story. Because for example, if we were to bring in a flute, right? And would you be able to play a flute if I handed it to you?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:44:37):

Of course not.

 

Mel Robbins (00:44:38):

Yeah, me either. But if I practiced it for a year, I could probably learn it. And so I'm assuming that there's a technique even once I separate and go, oh, my childhood taught me to think X about myself. What is the technique for how you use the science of manifestation and visualization to start to write a new story about yourself?

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:45:05):

No, I think that's an excellent question. And in fact, the first step is understanding what you've already been manifesting,

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:11):

Which is the negative. Yes, yes. And you've been manifesting it because you've repeated it in your subconscious and you've interacted with those thoughts all day long since your childhood. And that is a form of manifestation. It proves that it works because you've just repeated it over and over and over.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:45:29):

Well, I'm sure you've met people who go, gosh, I'm going through my third divorce, and it's like I married the same person every time.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:34):

And you're like, yes, you did, because you manifested it because you think the same way over and over and over again.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:45:40):

So we do have the power to change that narrative. And then the next thing is, which we discussed a little bit, is understanding the difference between what you want or think you want and what you need.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:52):

But Dr. Doty, I don't want to think about what I need. I want to think about what I want. You know what I mean? But I want that thing, but I want this, but I want that, but I want the other thing.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:46:01):

Well, it's funny you say that because people say, geez, Jim, you sort of lambast this idea about materialism. Listen, I don't at all. I like material things. I drive a Porsche. I live in a very nice house.

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:14):

See, you manifested all of this.

 

Dr. Jim Doty (00:46:15):

That is true. But the difference though is one, they're wonderful to have. They're not necessary. And what I mean by that is if all of these things were taken away from me, it has no impact on who I see myself as. I am not using them for external validation. I'm using them because I enjoy them. And those are different things. People who chase after stuff, the I part who need external affirmation, that is their identity, and that causes suffering because they never get what they want. Versus if you look through the love or the heart mode and you're focused on a image of you helping other people, you get all of these other things, they're available to you if you want them. But the greatest way to manifest is to have yourself centered, to be in a calm mode, to look through the lens of how can I be helpful? And then that gives you all the other stuff if you so desire. But focusing solely on that doesn't get that you're not living a life of purpose and meaning. You're chasing pleasure and avoiding pain. And while that can cause some people to say, I'm happy, if you actually look at, most of these people may be happy on one level, but that happiness is transitory and shallow versus if you chase purpose and meaning that is deep and long lasting.