How Safe Are You in Today's World? & What Would You Change About Yourself?

This episode explores the dichotomy of feeling secure in a seemingly dangerous world and delves into personal growth and overcoming limiting habits.

1. Overconfidence in personal security can be dangerous; awareness and preparation are key.
2. Practical safety tips include being mindful of your surroundings and having a plan for unexpected events.
3. Changing negative habits is about small, consistent adjustments, not overhauls.
4. Engaging with our instincts and acknowledging personal fears can lead to more secure living.
5. Self-improvement involves enhancing existing qualities we value in ourselves while tweaking those we don’t.

1: Understanding Crime and Security

Discusses common misconceptions about personal security and how a false sense of safety can lead to vulnerability. Highlights from the chapter include Spencer Courson explaining the importance of self-awareness and preparedness in everyday situations.

• Spencer Courson: "Most people think, well, I have mace, so I'm protected."

2: Strategies for Personal Safety

Provides actionable advice on improving personal safety, from securing homes to handling encounters in public spaces effectively.

• Spencer Courson: "All most people need to do is lock their front door."

3: Overcoming Negative Habits

Focuses on personal development and the psychological aspects of changing entrenched behaviors.

• Nicole Vignola: "It's about reconnecting with the parts that we do like about ourselves... then just changing the odd little bits that are holding us back."

1. Lock Your Doors: Simple acts like locking doors can significantly enhance home security.
2. Trust Your Instincts: If something feels off, trust your gut and remove yourself from potentially harmful situations.
3. Plan for Safety: Have a clear plan for emergencies, whether at home or in public.
4. Embrace Small Changes: Focus on small, sustainable changes for personal growth.
5. Engage in Self-reflection: Regularly assess and adjust your habits and behaviors to better align with your personal goals.

Whenever you see the equal sign, you know what it means. So how did these two little parallel lines come to mean - Is equal to? This episode begins with a story that goes back almost 1,000 years to reveal the answer. Source: Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures (https://amzn.to/3RhUt8l)

Do you feel safe? Do know what you would do if someone attacked you or broke into your home? Are you doing all you can to keep you and your family out of harm’s way? Perhaps most importantly, are sure you or your home are not an easy target for criminals? These are important questions we should all be asking ourselves according to Spencer Coursen. Spencer is a nationally recognized threat management expert and author of the book The Safety Trap: A Security Expert’s Secrets for Staying Safe in a Dangerous World (https://amzn.to/3gtV5pp). Listen and you will feel better about staying safe in an uncertain world.

Probably everyone has something about themselves they would like to change. But as we all know, change is hard. But what if it could be easier than you think? And what if you didn’t really have to change as much as you might think? That’s what Nicole Vignola is here to discuss. Nicole is a neuroscientist and organizational consultant and author of the book Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change (https://amzn.to/3KAmZOO)

If you have a lawn, you have likely come to hate the dandelion. It is a prolific weed that drives people crazy. Actually, it didn’t start out that way. The dandelion was deliberately brought to North America and is used in some surprising ways. And insects love dandelions. Listen as I reveal why. http://www.gardenguides.com/76016-dandelion-flower.html

People

Spencer Courson, Nicole Vignola

Companies

None

Books

"The Safety Trap" by Spencer Courson, "Rewire" by Nicole Vignola

Guest Name(s):

Spencer Courson, Nicole Vignola

Content Warnings:

None

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That's code podluenile.com for $50 off your purchase, bluenile.com code podcast today on something you should know. Who came up with the equal sign and why? Also, keeping you and your family safe from crime. It's something we're not as prepared for as we might think. Most people are overconfident.

Spencer Courson
Most people think, well, I have mace, so I'm protected. Most of us would love to believe that in a scenario that we would be the hero, that we would fight back or we would run away. Most people freeze. Also, the dandelion. It's not just a pesky weed.

Unknown
Far from it. And changing those negative habits and behaviors that hold you back, it may not be as hard as you think. You know, I don't think that we should fully change ourselves. I think it's about reconnecting with the parts that we do like about ourselves, exhuming those and bringing them to light, and then just changing the odd little bits that are holding us back from reaching our full potential. All this today on something you should know.

Mike Carruthers
Hey, heres something you should know. Some experts estimate that up to 77% of the population has some level of speaking anxiety. I actually thought it was higher than that. Strong communication is a critical skill for success, which is why id like to recommend a podcast I know youre going to love called Think Fast Talk smart. Produced by the folks at Stanford Graduate School of Business, think Fast Talk Smart is the number one career podcast in over 95 countries.

Unknown
And here's why. Each week, Stanford lecturer Matt Abrahams, who, by the way, has been on this podcast a couple of times, Matt sits down with experts to discuss the best tips to help you improve all kinds of skills from making small talk. That leaves a big impression, keeping your nerves in check while speaking in front of crowds. I mean, there's a reason this show has over 42 million downloads and counting. You'll hear from people like neuroscientist Andrew Huberman on how to manage speaking anxiety, speech writer and bestselling author Daniel Pink on how to take risks in your communication, and psychologist Kelly McGonagall on how to harness that nervous energy to fuel powerful presentations.

Mike Carruthers
All that and so much more is available on think fast, talk smart. So what are you waiting for? Listen every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube, and you can tell them I sent you something you should know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and. Practical advice you can use in your.

Unknown
Life today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, and welcome to something you should know. I know I typically just jump right into the first topic, but today, for the first time in like 1061 episodes, I'm gonna ask a favor of you. And I first have to tell you a quick story. About a year ago, at the gym I go to, I met a single mom, Helen, and her 15 year old son, Jose.

Jose has cerebral palsy and he is in a wheelchair. And it became clear that they don't have a lot of money or possessions, but these two are incredible. I mean, they love life. They love each other. Jose is a straight A student and I, frankly, I'm in awe of them.

Anyway, they have been living with relatives and they have to leave and really have no place to go. So my wife, who also loves these two, we've been helping them find an apartment and get some basic furnishings and been giving them some money. And we set up a GoFundMe page because, well, we need help. So I'm asking you to check out the GoFundMe page. There is a direct link to the page in the show notes, and there is a video of Helen and Jose and me.

And I hope you'll watch it and especially listen to what Jose says about living with his disability of cerebral palsy. It'll melt your heart. I dont know much about fundraising, but what I do know is that it helps to be honest and direct and ask people if you can help. And any amount, big or small, it will make such a difference to these two great people. You know, I remember my mother used to say to me, you cant save the world, but if everyone in some small way did something to relieve the despair of someone else, we could change the world.

And I know it's a lot to ask. Everybody has their own problems, causes and concerns, but if you can help, I assure you it will make a huge difference in the life of these two people who, frankly, have been dealt a pretty tough hand in life, but they handle it with such class. So the link is in the show notes, and if you can help, I would so appreciate it. First up today, the equal sign. Have you ever wondered how it is that these two little parallel lines came to mean is equal to.

Well, the equal sign was the creation of a welsh doctor and mathematician named Robert record. I'm not sure about the pronunciation. His last name is record with an. E on the end. So I'm saying Robert record.

Anyway, Robert got tired of writing the words is equal to. So in 1557, he wrote the. To avoid the tedious repetition of these words, is equal to I will settle, as I do often in work, to use a pair of parallel lines of one equal length, because no two things can be more equal. And it caught on. And that is something you should know.

Michael
How safe are you when you and the members of your family walk out of your house, or even when you're in your house? Are you safe from harm? We all like to think we're safe, and probably are most of the time. But all of us have been in situations that seemed unsafe or we felt might be unsafe. Little warning bells went off in our.

Head, and maybe we listened to those warnings and maybe we didn't. Maybe we didn't want to offend someone, so we ignored them. Personal safety is important and sometimes a little tricky. You don't want to think of everyone you meet and every situation you're in as a potential threat. That would be exhausting.

Still, it's important to plan and think about what you would do if things went wrong. Here with some insight and some very practical and sensible advice about personal safety is Spencer Corson. He's a nationally recognized threat management expert, founder of course, and security group in Austin, Texas, and author of the book, the safety a security Expert's secrets for staying safe in a dangerous world. Hi, Spencer. Thanks for joining me today.

Spencer Courson
Michael, thank you so much for having me. A true pleasure to be here. So what's your sense of how dangerous the world is? I think it's a twofold outlook. One is that if you could be born at any time in the history of mankind, right now is the absolute best time to be alive.

We have never been safer. Medical advancements have never been greater. Life expectancy has never been higher. Crime rate has never been lower. Food has never been more plentiful.

And the quality of life that one can expect to live right now is far superior to at any other time in our history. Now, when it comes to our physical safety, our actual, like, sense of safety, we sometimes feel that the world is a more dangerous place than it ever was before. And in certain instances, that may be true, the incidences of, let's say, mass violence are now higher than they have ever been in our history. But also, like, when it comes to, like, say, things like car crashes or child abduction or sexual assault, those things were always going on. It's just that there wasn't this pervasive promotion of those horrific acts in news stories or the media or what have you.

When we see these things on social media, they're happening to other people. So our anxiety about our risk of those things has a tendency to go. Up, despite how anxious people get about their security and their safety. It doesn't seem like, you know, except for maybe getting an alarm system for the house and making sure you lock your front door, it doesn't seem like people do a lot to prepare for that because you can't prepare for every possible threat that could occur. So you tend not to prepare for any threat that could occur.

Michael
So what do you suggest people do? Audit yourself with honesty. Just really, all, most of us, most people will never be in a plane crash or a terror concern, or an act of shooter situation, or a kidnapped for ransom exploitation. But all of us need to participate in our own protection. Everyday safety requires the participation of everyone and a healthy sense of skepticism and a moderate dose of vigilance.

Spencer Courson
Kind of having more of a framework of playing chess than of playing checkers is all most people need to live a happy, healthy, successful, and especially a safe existence. And so what does that mean to have a healthy skepticism? Because you do what? So let's say everyone, everywhere I go, every speech I give, one of the big topics of conversation, always comes down to home security, residential security. How do I keep my home safe?

Do I need a gun? Do I need a dog? Do I need a ring camera? Do I need ADT? What do I do to keep myself safe?

And for the most part, all most people need to do is lock their front door. Because 85% of home invasions are the result of someone just walking in through the front door. Bad guys are kind of like lions stalking the gazelles. They don't go after the strongest of the herd, they go after the weakest. I remember hearing some security expert talk about this, and I chuckled when I heard him say this and took his advice to heart, that if you were locked out of your house and you didn't have a key and you had to basically break into your own house, you probably would know how to do it.

Michael
You probably know where that weak spot is, right? Because now they're thinking, oh, well, you know, my wife hates it when I stink up the downstairs bathroom, so she always cracks the window or the kids come home from soccer practice and they don't lock the garage door or the doors on the first floor are locked. But I know that I can, if I can shimmy up to the second floor deck, I can go in through that door, no problem. Well, all of those ways that you would break into your house are the exact same way that a bad guy would break into your house. So now that you know what those risks are, put the safeguards in place to keep those bad things from happening.

When a criminal targets your home, what's their intention? What are they thinking? Most people who come during the day are coming for your things. Most people who come at night are coming for you. But where?

Spencer Courson
Most people may have a security plan to keep bad guys from coming in. Most people like the number one vulnerability of most residential security plans that I audit is that they don't have a plan for what to do once someone gets in. So should that actually turn into a home invasion where you are inside the house, what is your plan? Are you going to get out? Do you have a safe room or do you have a fallback plan?

Are the kids going to come to you? Are you going to go to the kids? What is your family reunification plan if everyone's just going to go out different exits? So having like the most, what is the most realistic risk you are most likely to face? And then put the safeguards in place to reduce the, the overall impact of that risk.

We can, bottom line is that we can no longer afford to live in a world where we simply hope that nothing will happen and then solely rely on the first responders to save us once something does. What is the most likely safety threat anybody faces? Is it overconfidence? Overconfidence. Most people are overconfident.

Most people think, well, I have mace, so I'm protected. Or I carry a gun, so I'm protected. Most of us would love to believe that in a scenario that we would be the hero, that we would rise up, that we would fight back or we would run away. Most people freeze. Most people panic.

Most people don't understand why they're feeling this way because they never expected to feel that way. And when they're in that situation, they make decisions which are more in line with being a victim than of being a survivor. But if you understand that that is something that might happen to you, you might be the kind of person that has to be more proactive in identifying the exits or the uncommon exits or having a mental projection for what you want your body to perform so that when it is called upon to engage in that act, it is able to do so in a more effective fashion. Most of us, when we put our seatbelts on, it's not that we're expecting to get into an accident. It's that we understand that there's a likelihood of us getting into an accident.

So we want to participate in our own protection. The same holds true for anywhere we go. If something was to break bad, where would I go? How would I get out of here? What?

Other than the door that I just walked into? What are the other exits? Or if I get that feeling that something isn't right, to not just argue against your survival instincts, but to actually participate in your own protection and put as much time and distance between you and that threat as possible. So talk about that feeling that something isn't right. Feeling the elevator door opens and there's that guy and you go, eh, I don't know.

Michael
And most of us just suck it up and say, well, I'm just being paranoid, and get in the elevator, right? And then the door is closed and you're stuck in a steel soundproof box with a bad guy. And then you're thinking, oh, why did I do that? And I think what often drives that decision is you don't want to offend someone. You don't.

That guy on the elevator may be giving you the creeps, but you don't. That's not who you are. You want to be, you don't want to be offensive. Being polite is a courtesy, but protecting ourselves is a priority. But we have, because we live in such a safe society, just sort of assumed that we're being irrational or that we're just being anxious or that we don't want to offend the feelings of someone else.

Spencer Courson
But staying safe is ultimately about trusting that survival instinct, because it is that survival instinct that has allowed for the human race to survive and thrive for a millennia. And if we keep negotiating against our own better interests, the more likely we are, the more our vigilance goes down, the more our risk goes up. And that ultimately means that we are going to be making more and more decisions that will put us into the pitfalls of danger. We're talking about safety, personal safety. And my guest is Spencer Courson.

Michael
Hes author of the book the Safety a Security expert, secrets for staying safe in a dangerous world. If I had to hire someone right now, theres no doubt I would use, indeed, I would never try to do it on my own because with indeed its just a different approach. You dont search for someone you match the right person to the job. If youre hiring, you need indeed indeed has a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. But it's not just about fast.

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Go to shopify.com westwoodone now to grow your business. What stage you're in. Shopify.com westwoodone so Spencer, what about the situation? And I think everybody's had this situation happen where you're somewhere and somebody comes up to you and they start a conversation. It doesn't feel right.

Michael
It's like this could lead to trouble. It sounds off. What do you do? Walk away? There's absolutely no law that states that just because someone strikes up a conversation with you that you have to have a conversation with that person or that because you feel a certain way, you have to give them the opportunity to prove you wrong.

Spencer Courson
Anytime you feel like, I have clients who will say, well, like, what do I do if I'm, you know, I'm like, blindfolded and handcuffed in the back of a trunk. I'm like, well, how did you get there in the first. It's not like you just, like, woke up one morning handcuffed and blindfolded in the back of a trunk. Like, you saw the guy three blocks ahead. That kind of made you feel weird.

And then he got two blocks away, and he. And you felt even more weird. And then you noticed the van that was kind of creeping down the street from the other direction. And then the guy got within one block, and you're like, man, this just doesn't feel right. And then you see the van getting closer, and then the van is right next to you and the guy is pushing you into the back.

You're like, wow, I was right. This wasn't right. Three blocks away was when you should have made the decision, hey, this isn't right. I'm just going to make a turn here and circle the block. You know, sometimes when we're driving home, it's good to take different routes home.

And the reason I talk about that isn't because you need to employ some kind of, like, James Bond, ethan Hunt, Carrie Matheson, spy guy route selection to. To keep you from being a threat. It's because most accidents happen within 1 mile of our home. And most of those accidents hit another parked car. Because when we are so used to doing something, we allow our subconscious to take over and we are no longer adamant about or present in the moment about the actual decisions we're making.

A flip side of that is that if you just start taking different routes home, you're going to have to be engaged. And a byproduct of that is also that if someone just does happen to be doing surveillance on you or counter surveillance on you, or does want to target your home for a home invasion, just that variable could be the decision that basically gets them to transfer their likelihood of success to someone else. Because one of the things that my global experience has proven time and time and time again is that when we don't expect to see danger, we simply fail to see the warning signs that something bad is about to happen. But the warning signs are always there, and staying safe is about being willing to see them. It's kind of like sometimes feeling safe is the most dangerous thing we do, we don't stub our toes on the things we notice.

We stub our toes on the things we don't. But it's not like that lego on the floor in the kitchen was hiding in wait and then slid out just as we stepped our foot down to, like, to ambush us. It was always there. We just weren't expecting to see it. So we didn't feel the need to.

Michael
Look, because most of the time it isn't there. So why look if most of the time it isn't there? You feel pretty comfortable not looking. Which is another thing about safety. You know, there's that old.

Spencer Courson
That old tenet in good leadership, you anticipate the needs of others. Safety is sometimes about anticipating the idiocy of others. Like, when we're driving, we're always kind of, like, at this, like, higher state of readiness because we. The guy who's, like, bobbing and weaving out of traffic or who doesn't use the turn signal to jump in our lane, like, we're aware of the risks, and so we're willing to participate, and we're engaged, and we're present. We're ready with the countermeasures or to move or to break or to stop.

And like I said, it's not about living in fear. It's just a healthy sense of skepticism. Like, why is this guy asking me the time when everyone has a watch and an iPhone? Like, there's no need for this guy to ask me what time it is. So what's the ulterior motive?

Or. Yeah, that guy who's just, like, sitting by himself in the hotel lobby and staring at me is creeping me out. So I'm just gonna move, or I'm gonna not sit by myself, or I'm gonna, you know, get on the phone, or I'm gonna engage the bartender and ask who he is. I'm not just going to, you know, just put myself at more of a position of vulnerability because I don't want to engage. We have to engage.

But there are ways to engage in a very friendly, very interactive, very socially dynamic and positive way that if we're wrong, we're still safe, but if we're right, we're even safer. Like you said, though, if you don't engage, if you're not looking for danger, you'll fail to see the warning signs. But I also worry, too, that if you're always looking for danger, you're always going to see danger. And I don't know that I want to live my life that way where I'm always on alert. I'm always looking for trouble.

You should live your life like you drive your car. You're not constantly afraid of getting into an accident, but you're cognizant of the risks that surround you while you're driving, and then you're putting the safeguards into place. Your everyday life is exactly the same way. Like, you're not afraid to drive, are you? No.

Okay, so then you shouldn't be afraid to go to Starbucks, or you shouldn't be afraid to go to the grocery store. You shouldn't be afraid to go, you know, to the mall. But just like when you're on your car driving, if you see someone coming up behind you, you look to see which. Like, do I want to go to the shoulder or do I want to go to the middle lane? Like, which way am I going to go if this guy keeps coming up behind me?

When you go to the movie theater, just look. Okay, well, if someone comes in the front, I can go out the back. Or look, there's a side door here, there's an exit there. I think it's human nature, though, that if you live a life that is relatively safe, seldom does anything dangerous happen to you. Seldom do the people you know have anything dangerous happen to them.

Michael
It's very hard to stay vigilant against danger. You almost feel foolish being so vigilant when nothing ever really seems to happen. I completely agree. And then here's what happens. We have a tendency, not just as individuals, but as a collective society, to want to live our lives on the fringe of the pendulum, swinging between complacency, where we say that nothing's going to happen, or hyper vigilance, where we're patting down grandma at the ballpark, like after something bad, like, let's say, like a.

Spencer Courson
Like a school shooting, for example. Like there's all these cops out front of the school and like, everyone's locked down and they're following the policy and the procedure. Like steps one through ten for access control. The doors are locked and the windows are closed and everyone's on guard, and the politicians are out there saying that they're going to get, you know, gun reform, and the parents are demanding action and the students are marching for peace. And then like, a day or two goes by and the news cycle moves on and everything kind of goes back to normal and, well, it's been safe for a week.

It's been safe for ten days. It's been safe for a month. We go back to the pendulum, over to complaint, and then what happens? There's another school shooting and we do the same cycle all over again. That is the safety trap.

And that just coming to the middle, that no longer living on the fringe, but just that everyday safety requires the participation of everyone. Framework of understanding is really all of us need to succeed in staying safe. And those very simple components are critical, but also very simple and also just very small prices to pay for the liberties and the freedoms which flow so freely from peace. But to your point, you're exactly right. When you start just thinking that nothing's going to happen, your vigilance goes down, your risk goes up.

And that is the paradox of the safety trap. When you look at the practices and the procedures that are in place for businesses or schools or whatever, what are the things where you see the weak spots? Where are the problems? Run, hide, fight. Run, hide, fight has done more disservice to the survivability of those who are in schools or workplaces that are, that are targeted for violence.

So here's the problem, is that schools care more about accountability than they do about survivability. And what do I mean by that? The whole premise of run, hide, fight was a military application. It came from Seer school, where pilots and special operators would be trained in what to do if you were ever taken prisoner of war. And basically what that meant was if you got shot down behind enemy lines and you were captured and you were considered a prisoner of war, if you had the opportunity to escape, you ran as far as you can, trying to get to friendly forces.

Now, if you got to the point where you were so tired you couldn't move anymore, you would hide. You would camouflage yourself until you got your energy back and then you would keep running. And if you were to be confronted by the enemy, you would fight like your life depended on it, because it absolutely did. Now, Sandy Hook happens, columbine happens, all of these tragedy things and this cottage industry stops popping up about active shooter drills and what are you going to do? And this that the other thing.

And run hide fight basically got reduced to run to your hiding spot. But heres the problem. A fire in a building is just as dangerous and as unpredictable as an active shooter. But we wouldnt hide from a fire and hope it wouldnt find us. We would run, because running puts as much time and distance between you and the threat as possible.

And which is harder to hit? The kid crying in the corner in a classroom, or the kid whos running and putting time and distance away from the bad guy with each step they take. So what we should really be doing is telling these students, these teachers, these families, these friends that if you are ever in a situation where violence is being enacted, do not hide, run. Put as much time and distance between you and the threat as possible. Well, I think the thinking is, though, that you could run out of the classroom or run out of your workplace and run right into the guy with a gun that you're better off hiding.

Michael
He can't see you, so he's less likely to shoot you. You don't have to see someone to shoot someone. Schools are not fortified hard rooms. They're plywood doors with glass. Bullets travel through doors and windows with ease.

Spencer Courson
Watch any John Wick movie. So just, you know, being behind a red line in a classroom because that's the line where the student can't see through the glass. You don't think that student knows the layer out of the classroom? They absolutely do. And guess what?

They can just shoot through the door. So which would you want your student to be putting as much time and distance between them and the threat as possible or hiding in the corner and hoping they don't get hurt? I know that I'm teaching my kids to run. I hope you do the same. But there are situations, I think, where there's conflicting advice of if somebody asks for your wallet, just give it to them because then you're going to avoid.

Michael
But there are other times where you don't comply because if you're getting put. And here's the thing. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. If someone is going to give you, if someone asks for your wallet, give them your wallet, but don't give them your wallet. Throw it behind them because they care about your wallet.

Spencer Courson
They don't care about you. So give them your wallet, but throw it behind them. As soon as they turn around, run because they're not going to chase you because they got what they want, but there is no point in handing it to them. So now you're giving them an opportunity to get more from you. Well, it makes sense.

Michael
And that's advice I hope I never have to use. Spencer Courson has been my guest. He is a nationally recognized threat management expert and the name of his book is the safety trap. A security expert secrets for staying safe in a dangerous world. And you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes.

Thank you, Spencer. Thanks for being here. Thank you, sir. It's been a while since I've talked about the Jordan Harbinger show, but I've been listening all along. The Jordan Harbinger show is a podcast that I'm going to predict you will really like.

Unknown
Since you like this podcast, something you should know. With each episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show, Jordan digs deep into fascinating topics with fascinating people. It's a little different than the topics. We cover, but still so, so interesting. Recently he had a great two part conversation with ex federal agent Robert Mazzur about how money laundering works.

Now, I've always wondered about that and, well, now I know. And there was another great conversation with Adam Gamal. He's an american Muslim who fought terrorism in one of the US's most secret special forces units. It is a riveting conversation. If you want to broaden your worldview and discover some truly thought provoking ideas and insights, you really should try the Jordan Harbinger show.

As you'll hear, Jordan is a great interviewer and really gets people to open up. Search for the Jordan Harbinger show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The majority of what your brain does every day is subconscious. It's on autopilot. You don't have to think about walking down the street in order to walk down the street. You don't have to think about getting that fork full of food in your mouth. It just happens.

And that's true for so much of what we do and what we think. But some of what we do and think isn't always in our best interests. So how do we change those things? That's what we're here to talk about with Nicole Vignola. She's a neuroscientist and organizational consultant, and she is author of a book called Rewire.

Break the cycle. Alter your thoughts and create lasting change. Hi, Nicole. Welcome. Glad to have you on something you should know.

Nicole Vignola
Hi, Michael. Thanks very much for having me. So these thoughts we have, these ways of thinking and these actions that we do that are counterproductive, like where do they come from? Why do we do them? Some people have thoughts, habits, behaviors that are kind of holding them back.

And on top of that, we have this kind of programming that was given to us in our formative years from our parents, our peers, the people around us, and for the most part, those things we should hold on to. But sometimes we do pick up kind of programming from our peers and our parents that may not be helpful to us and that maybe perpetuates a particular narrative or story about yourself that may not be yours. So the question is, is that programming really yours? And so can you give me a real life person example of that. Yes.

I have a cousin, for example, who grew up with her parents saying things like, are you chubby chops? And kind of light heartedly making fun of the fact that she was overweight. And I think it actually took a big impact on her life. And she started perpetuating these kind of ideas that she was not good enough. And it was a story that then led her down a path that I guess needed to be rewired because she was telling herself a narrative that kept her stuck then as well.

And I think a lot of people do have that. Sometimes it's a trajectory, such as, maybe your parents want you to become a doctor or a lawyer, and you don't necessarily want that, but you go down that route anyway because that's where you think you should go. And when that happens, when those kind of influences occur, are most of us pretty good at spotting them and going, yeah, my parents want me to be a doctor, and, yeah, my aunt calls me fat. And do we, do we know it? A lot of it becomes part of our subconscious.

And all that is, is that subconscious thoughts and habits, behaviors are things that have been ingrained, and they become part of the background. Your brain wants to maximize efficiency to save energy for more cognitively demanding tasks, such as problem solving, having these wonderful conversations. So it's not going to bring to your conscious attention all of these patterns that you have, have ingrained as an automatic behavior. And it's only until you bring it to the sort of conscious mind that you can start to make changes to it. We also have this negativity bias, and it's our susceptibility to focus on the negative aspects of ourselves, our lives, and jump to conclusions.

And again, just see the worst in our day, for example. And so this negativity bias that we've all heard about, but many people would say, well, I'm just. I'm being realistic. I'm looking at the potential trouble down the road so that I'm prepared for it. I'm not being negative, I'm just being real.

Mm hmm. Now, the difference is that when we are doing that as a goal directed outcome, so we want to maybe prepare for something or be realistic about a situation, that means that we have the frontal cortex that is more active. Now, the frontal cortex is responsible for logic and reasoning. The problem is that when our emotional brain takes over and then we have these thoughts that are not helpful to us, that that's the difference in that thinking. So are you repeating that sort of are you being realistic or are you actually being excessively negative?

And what that can kind of look like is maybe you have a bad morning, and then when you focus on that, you start to have this confirmation bias that your day is going really bad. So then you start to look for those things, you know, and then this happened, and then that happened. And then next thing you know, you're kind of high, highlighting all the negative aspects of that day. But if you're having these subconscious thoughts that are perhaps sabotaging your day or your life, how can you address them? If they're under the radar?

Unknown
You don't really notice them, so how can you fix them? Yes, I have that as an activity to kind of bring to front of mind. What are the things that you are repeating to yourself now, as a little anecdotal example, I had a flatmate that once told me he didn't want to hang out with me because I complained too much and I was a bit shocked and a bit embarrassed and a bit sort of flabbergasted after he said that, I actually couldnt stop paying attention to how often I would complain. And it was only until I brought that to my conscious mind that I could then redirect that automatic behavior that id obviously picked up from my formative years. Well, yeah, I think that happens to a lot of people when people tell them they complain too much or whatever.

But see, youre different in the sense that you took it in the right way. In other words, you took it and did something with it. My guess is most people, if I were to say to them, you know, you complain a lot, they would deny it or resent it or explain why it's not true. But they wouldn't take it to heart the way you did. Well, I must say, in the beginning, I don't think I had that reaction.

Nicole Vignola
I was a little bit sort of shocked and maybe a bit blameful. But I do believe that it plants a seed. So sometimes that tough love can, can actually be sort of nurturing to us. What is that cool, to be kind? Well, there's an underlying assumption in this discussion and in all of these discussions like this that people need to change, that there's something wrong, that you complain too much, that you do this or you do that.

Unknown
And is that the issue here? I mean, do we all need to change something that is perceived to be wrong, or is that maybe just who we are? By no means do I believe that anyone should change. I actually have one of the fully change. I have an activity in the book that's called it's always been you.

Nicole Vignola
And what's really interesting, I work with a lot of corporate companies. I will go in and I have this activity where I ask people to describe their dictionary version of their sort of ideal person, who this ideal person is. What does this ideal person do? What are their morals? What are their values?

What are their sort of habits? What I always find is that there's a kind of penny drop moment where people realize that actually the person that they've just described, this ideal person that they've described, is them. And if it's not them right now, it's definitely a version of them that might just need a little bit of tweaking. And I think that that's really important because, you know, I don't think that we should fully change ourselves. I think it's about reconnecting with the parts that we do like about ourselves, sort of exhuming those and bringing them to light, and then just changing the odd little bits that holding us back from reaching our full potential.

And that's what, for me, rewiring is about, is highlighting the good and tweaking the bad, if you will. One thing that I think stops people. From entertaining this whole idea of making. Changes like you're talking about is the mindset of thinking, I've done this before. It never seems to stick.

Mike Carruthers
I am who I am, and I'm not going to worry about changing, because. Because it doesn't work. There's one thing I want you to know, and that is that your mindset around anything is really important. Now, they did a study at Stanford, and they took two groups of people. One group were given a sensible shake and was sort of given us nutritional information that showed a picture of the shake, and it was sort of zero fat, low calories, etcetera.

Nicole Vignola
And the second group were told that they were drinking a super decadent sundae. And the picture was a milkshake with cream and a cherry on top, and it was all sort of yummy looking. And what they did is that they measured the ghrelin response 90 minutes after ingesting these milkshakes. Now, ghrelin is a hormone that tells you if you're hungry or not. So if you've eaten a lot, there'll be lower levels of it.

If you haven't eaten a lot, then there will be higher levels of it, because it will be signaling to your brain that you're hungry. And what they saw is that the individuals that drank the sensible shakes of the low calorie one had high levels of ghellin. But I guess you know what I'm going to tell you, and that is that both shakes had the same amount of calories. So individuals mindsets around what they were ingesting actually had a physiological response, a different physiological response, so your body was reacting differently. And they've done similar research in stress and how we perceive stress.

If we perceive stress to be adaptative and good for us in the sense that if we can recover from it, we can become more resilient and our blood pressure doesn't come up as high. And, you know, this isn't about calories and food, etc. It's more to show you that the way that we perceive the world and our mindset around it can be hugely influential. And if you believe that you can change, then it will help you embark on this journey where you may want to and you may thrive adopting healthier patterns and healthier habits versus if you don't believe that you can, which, you know, I know a lot of people around me that don't think they can, and I think it keeps them stuck. Well, I've always thought that you can't.

Unknown
Really accomplish much if you don't believe. You can accomplish it. If you start out believing this will never work, it's not going to work. There's really interesting research around weight loss interventions, and they've looked at all of them to see what is the most effective and actually the most effective in keeping the weight off. What they found is that the individuals that embodied being a new person that was worthy of, you know, exercising and taking care of themselves, they were the only group that managed to keep the weight off for longer than a year, which is really interesting because everyone could lose weight.

Nicole Vignola
But it's your perception of who you are in the world that that will take care of themselves. And I think that that's really important because a lot of people, I have family members as, you know, as an anecdote that I think. I think they don't see themselves as somebody who could go for a walk and, you know, drink a little bit less and eat healthy. So they kind of keep themselves stuck in that. When people hear advice about how to make changes in their life, I think one thing that happens is, okay, the advice is great, but, like, how do you pull it into your life?

Unknown
How do you implement it so it works? I've broken down into three phases, so phase one is kind of bringing those things to your front in mind, you know, acknowledging what needs to change, maybe starting to pay attention to it. Bringing the science and the understanding of what is going on in our brains and our minds. Now, we are a piece of machinery. We're a blob of organic matter that operates on repetition.

Nicole Vignola
So often the things that we, that we repeat are just a product of what's been ingrained. So that gives us a lot of autonomy, if you will, because it alleviates the pressure of the shame. It's not you, it's your brain. What has been repeated, understanding that can then help people to see that when you do repeat something that maybe is not serving you, it's just your brain trying to maximize energy efficiency again. So we've got these pathways that have been repeated, and they are lovely ingrained pathways that are easy to take, again, forming part of that subconscious.

But to carve out these new pathways, it takes repetition and it takes time. And, you know, little by little does the trick. So on the days when you're tired or when you're, you know, maybe a bit more stressed or you don't feel like you want to go down that new route, it can help you in understanding why we do sometimes revert back to old patterns. Now, the brain is plastic, not elastic, meaning that if you fall off the bandwagon for a day or two, not all is lost. We, you know, the foundations for these new pathways are still there.

So understanding that, I think, is really important because it can help people see that there's a way forward. I think people get caught up in the feeling that it's too hard to change. In phase two, we then have these steps. I've got a seven step process on how to shift into your new narrative. And one of the tools in there is actually visualization.

Now, there was an amazing study that was done in 1995, and they took two groups of individuals, sorry, two groups. They took individuals and separated them into two groups. Group number one had to play a five finger piece on the piano. Now, they'd never played the piano before. Neither group had played the piano.

And group number two had to simply imagine that they were playing their five finger piece. And what they saw was that both groups had the same or similar levels, very similar, very close levels of plasticity in the brain. So, basically, we can create new pathways through thought alone. Our thoughts are extremely powerful, and by visualizing something, we can actually start to create a blueprint for where we want to go. So I'll give you a tangible example.

If you are somebody that wants to start running, you can visualize yourself the night before waking up, pressing the alarm, maybe snoozing once. If you're somebody that snoozes a lot, maybe you visualize yourself not snoozing as much. Once is like your kind of cutoff point. Getting out of bed, putting on your shoes, putting on your clothes, probably clothes, then shoes first, whichever order works best for you. And then getting out of the door and going for that run, because that will then help to solidify this new habit that you're trying to embark on.

And then in phase three, we have a lot of tools on how to, you know, boost the positive. We're always talking about changing habits, but we didn't, we don't often talk about how to maintain these habits. So if your brain is a piece of hardware and your mental health habits and thoughts behaviors are the software, the hardware needs to be in good working order. And what that means is that things like sleep, exercise, stress management are all going to be contributing factors to how well you can sort of upgrade that software. For lack of a better term.

Mike Carruthers
When you do these things, though, I mean, people kind of want an instant result. But I imagine this all takes time, that you can't just visualize something once and boom, all better. Yes, yes, exactly. Well, you know, research does say that we can change our habits between 18 to 254 days. I know, sounds a little bit demoralizing hearing such a big number, but the basis is that, you know, do you have other habits that need to be undone?

Nicole Vignola
How deeply ingrained is a habit that you're trying to change or a thought pattern or a behavior, and then how often are you putting in the effort to change it? Now, the, the only rule to plasticity is repetition. If you repeat something enough times, it will become ingrained. So I would say that try and step away from the timeframe and thinking about it as like, you know, yeah, an overnight sort of change. It's more like a journey that you're embarking on.

Mike Carruthers
And I would imagine it's also not very practical to try to change a lot of things at once, maybe more one at a time. That is my conclusion, yes. Now, there is debate on this. There's scientists in the US that will say, pick six habits, and then out of the six, you'll probably do four. I disagree.

Nicole Vignola
So my research looks at, at attentional networks and how we allocate energy, so cognitive energy on a daily basis. So we have a finite amount of resources to cognitive attention every day. And the sort of, for lack of a better term, I've called it mental currency. Where are you spending this mental currency? Because you only have so much that you can give on a daily basis before you have to replenish again.

And if you are trying to embark on too many things, the brain, it's quite hard to create all these new pathways. I mean, you could do it if you didn't have a full time job and you didn't have other responsibilities. But most people do have a nine to five and then they've got kids and then they've got to, you know, got chores to do. So to try and ask someone to, you know, change their entire sort of routine in the space of a few weeks all in one go is quite a big challenge and it's quite taxing for the brain as well. It is good to hear because I think a lot of people think, well, there's nothing I can do, you know, I mean, I am who I am and that's the way I think and that's the way I do stuff and there's, that's who I am.

Mike Carruthers
So it's nice to hear that there are things you can do. If you don't like it, want to change it, do do something better, that there are things you can do. And that's the beauty in it. Because for a long time we didn't know that plasticity was a thing for, you know, adults. And now we know that we have a plastic brain well into our old age, so we can create new pathways, you know, in our forties, fifties, sixties, we don't, seventies, you know, we don't really know what the limit is, but we know that we can.

Unknown
But as you say, it really helps to believe you can, that you have that belief that you really can change and then you're more likely to change. I've been speaking with Nicole Vignola. She's a neuroscientist and organizational consultant. And the name of her book is, is rewire. Break the cycle, alter your thoughts and create lasting change.

And if you'd like to read that book, there is a link to it and Amazon in the show notes. Hey, thank you for coming on and talking about this, Nicole. Thank you very much, Michael. Take care, and it was so great to meet you.

For anyone with a lawn, dandelions are just a weed. But they didn't start out that way. They were brought here from Asia. And as far back as 1000 AD, dandelions have been used as medicine primarily to treat the liver. Dandelions first appeared in North America in the 17 hundreds.

Although you may consider it a weed. The plant is grown and harvested. In fact, each year tons of coffee substitutes made from roasted dandelion roots are sold in England, Australia, and Canada. The dandelion also provides an important food source for bees. The pollen from dandelions helps bees out in the spring because it flowers early and the flowers continue through to the fall, providing a constant source of food.

In fact, no less than 93 different kinds of insects use dandelion pollen as their food. By the way, the word dandelion is a french word meaning tooth of the lion, which refers to the jagged edges of the yellow petals. And that is something you should know. So the podcast industry has like newsletters and trade journals, and I get them. And one of the things you read about frequently in these things is how people in the podcast audience, people like recommendations.

Because there's so many podcasts to choose from, it's hard to just pick one and hope you like it. But recommendations really help. So it would help your friends, it would help us if you would recommend this podcast to them so they can listen, and they'll thank you. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.

Candy Valentino
Hey guys, welcome to the Candy Valentino show. I'm Candy Valentino. I was a founder before I could legally order a drink, and for more than two and a half decades, I've built, scaled, acquired, and exited multiple businesses in diverse industries. Now, my goal is to help you by sharing the knowledge that I've learned, the mistakes that I've made, and the wisdom that I've developed over my journey. Bi weekly episodes every Monday and Thursday.

Spencer Courson
The Candy Valentino show. Wherever you listen.

Unknown
Every story eventually comes to an end. This June, hear the final episode of season two of the hit podcast series in the Red Clay. Durham in the Red Clay tells the unbelievable true story of Billy Sunday Burt, the most dangerous man in Georgia history, in the podcast that people are calling riveting, incredibly moving, captivating, and addicting binge seasons one and two of in the red clay. Now, wherever you listen.