4 Moments On The Diary Of A CEO That Changed My Life | E175

Since starting the Diary of a CEO, one of the most popular questions I get asked is, "What are your favorite episodes? And what are your favorite guests?" Now, I don't think about it in terms of that. I think about moments and insights. So, in this episode, we're gonna do something a little bit different. I'm gonna show you four moments from the Diary of a CEO that genuinely changed my life and changed how I think about one of my core beliefs, that I then actioned that made my life better. (instrumental music) The other thing that you mention in your, in your book, That Little Voice in Your Head, is this concept of neuroplasticity.

Oh, yes.

And it says it on the back of the book, it says, um, "Retrain your brain for maximum happiness." This concept that we can retrain our brain physiologically seems like nonsense. You know, I can't change my arm. So, I, when someone, you know, asserts that you can f- f- f- actually-

You, you-

... change your brain.

You can change your arm.

I can change my arm?

Of course.

What, tattoo?

Y- y- no, you work out.

That's true.

When you work out, you're building muscles in your arms-

Mm-hmm.

... and that same exact process is exactly what happens inside our brains, and it's called neuroplasticity. The only difference is that you don't see it. You don't see it physi- visibly. You can see your muscles growing, because that's the function that they need, you know, they need to grow to perform. But in your brain, what actually happens, again like computers, it's almost as if you loaded a new, uh, piece of software, a new, a new piece of operating system, uh, uh, on, on your brain. Literally for every one of us listening, uh, everyone listening to us t- uh, right now, at the end of this conversation, their brain will be wired differently than when it started. Every single instance of anything that you do literally rewires the hardware itself, uh, the neurons that fire together wire together. Okay? So, im- imagine the old days of the switchboard, okay? And, um, you know, uh, Steve wants to call his mom, so you ra- you know, crank your phone and the operator says, uh, you know, "Hi, how can I help you?" And you say, "Can you please connect me to that number?" And she would literally pa- take a wire and patch you and your mom's f- phones together. Okay? After a while, the operator constantly every time you call, you want, you ask for your mom, so the operator goes like, "Why am I even wasting my time on this? Let me just patch that wire to his mom all the time." Okay? So, that's exactly what happens in our brains. If you, if you perform a single f- a certain function, your brain starts to build networks that make that function easier to perform in the future. If you do it one time, m- it becomes a little easier. If you do it 20 times, it becomes permanent. Okay? And there are, there are tons of studies. Uh, if you, if you take a simple task like tapping your finger on the table, okay, and you're requested to do that, say, 20 times every hour, after a few days you'll find that you're so much better at tapping your finger on the table, and you can do it much faster and you can do it consistently and you can do it in the background. Gamers know that for certain. Okay? The problem with neuroplasticity is if you tell your brain to wire for tapping your finger, it will. If you tell it to wire for solving complex mathematical equations, it may take a little longer, but it will. If you tell it to wire for hating people, it will become very good at hating. If you tell it to wire for fearing the end of the world because of what the media is telling you, it's gonna become very good at fearing the world.