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Well, welcome back inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen and the host of Inside Personal Growth. And on the other side of the screen joining us from Irvine, California is Eugene Choi. Did I say the last name? Correct. Is Choi like toi? Sure. Choi. I would want to make sure I get that right. And I met Eugene on the internet, and I think it was basically through LinkedIn.

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And it's always interesting to not only have people that aren't quite authors yet, but Eugene and I went and had a lunch together, and he's working on his book, soon to be released. But he had such a compelling story, that I wanted to get it out there prior to the release of the book. And, Eugene, I'm going to let the listeners know just a little bit about you.

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He's a transformational mindset coach, board certified clinical pharmacies, and the founder of Destiny hacks. He's on a mission to help talented, heart driven leaders operate at their highest levels of performance, intelligence and communications through strategic activation of their executive brain. And I think that's where the neuroplasticity comes in and the neuroscience comes in. That little bit about him, he made a pivotal career transition, obviously, from health care to entrepreneurship, after discovering that 80% of the people worldwide reported hating their work and then surveyed anonymously.

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And this, revealed in inspired him to take it gave his life to helping entrepreneurs unlock their full potential using evidence based neuroscience principles and cutting edge technologies. You know, he is he says that approximately 90 to 95% of the brain function becomes subconscious and operates on autopilot, often triggering survival states that activate fight, flight or freeze responses.

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His neuro hacking techniques help individuals intentionally shift into the executive state to maximize their cognitive performance and business results. You know, Eugene believes that by activating the powerful executive brain, results can be maximized, not just in business leaders, but in humanity as a whole. And you can find him at Destiny hacks.com. And he's got a neuro hacking school there.

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And we're going to be talking all about that today. So, you know, look, this is a pretty fascinating story. You also were a filmmaker. You had a fascinating journey from pharmacy to filmmaking to transformative coaching, which is really quite unusual. Can you take us back to the pivotal moment when you decided to leave this six figure pharmacy career to kind of chase your dreams in filmmaking?

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Because I did see part of the film on the video that was there. And is that is that film up at YouTube for our listeners? Can they actually access it? Some of my short films that I've worked on. Yeah. Some of the short films, it's, on Jubilee Media. Okay. Is the YouTube channel. So a lot of my content is on there.

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Yes. Like that. I've, Whether it's something I wrote or directed or edited. Yes. It's from many years ago, but you can find it. Well, it's it tells the listeners a little bit about, you know, who we're speaking to, because filmmaking certainly made an indelible imprint on you. Oh, definitely. Yeah. I just remember, I grew up rather pretty poor, probably like lower middle class area.

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And, you know, I watched my parents split up because of a lot of one of the big contributing factors was just because of financial strain. You know, my father wasn't the most financially responsible or educated. From a financial perspective. So we went through a lot of struggle. And I just grew up thinking, money's the thing that's going to solve the problems.

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Money's the thing that's going to help. So that's why I chose to become a pharmacist. You know, at the time, it was being advertised as a six figure salary right out of college. I did it. Barely got through college. Became a pharmacist. And I just remember sitting there, you're getting the paycheck, and it just felt so anticlimactic.

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I got the things that I thought I wanted. I was living in the brand new apartment. That the nice little sports car I've always wanted. And, yeah, like, it's. It's just such a weird feeling, right? When you get what you thought you wanted. And it's not as satisfying as you thought it would be. So that's what led down that path of transition.

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I worked for about three years before, this opportunity came up because I was dabbling in filmmaking. That group Jubilee, which is at their pretty large audience now, they're about at about 10 million followers, subscribers online. Very significant. Yeah. And they, invited me to join the team because they saw some of my films and they liked it.

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And, well, you ended up in Rio de Janeiro and that story. Cause, you know, you talk about impoverished and drugs and kids going into, you know, dealing drugs and all this stuff. How that terrifying experience shaped your understanding of not only fear and the brain's survival mechanism, because so many of those people are in survival mode.

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Exactly. Yeah. There was a month where I spent. I lived out there for a month doing volunteer work out in Rio. And the thing to know about Rio is, it's one of the most violent cities in the whole world. So there's a statistic that I once heard that between 70 to 80% of the kids there don't live past 21 years old because of the amount of gun violence, because they all get involved with drug trafficking and what often happens is the Brazilian Swat team, they're called favelas, the slums in Rio.

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It's these mountainside slums. And, the Swat team will come in and raid the favelas on occasion, and they get into an all out gunfight with the drug traffickers there. So while I was staying there, doing some volunteer work for a month, it happened three times while I was there. Or gunfights. And one of those times, what happened was as soon as the bullets and the gunshots die down, me and a staff member stepped out.

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And as soon as I stepped out, I just remember one of the, the drug traffickers popped out from the corner and pointed the gun right at my chest. And it's interesting because a moment like that, you remember it because your life is literally in danger. Yeah. Trigger. You're dead. And that intense amount of fear, like my heart jumping up into my throat and all that.

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The big realization looking back on that moment was, whoa, we actually are nervous system lives. Like we're in danger. Like, every single day of our lives. That's what the science shows. And that's kind of what led down this rabbit hole of exploring that like, how does our nervous system actually work? How does our brain actually work?

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Why is it that most of the time it's working against us and not for us? Why do we have this experience a lot of times of our life where it's not that we don't know what we should do in certain situations is we don't feel like doing it, so we don't do it. Whether that that moment is the fight, flight or freeze.

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Exactly right. And in that moment, I presume you froze. So in that moment, you certainly didn't fight. Correct. So when you freeze, it's a playing dead response. Possums are famous for doing that, right? Because they're predators. Like they're food alive or humans. You've seen them do it in the war movies like During War, where they kind of play dead in the pile of their bodies.

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So I froze right? It's a survival tactic. And then as soon as the trafficker realized I wasn't, the Swat team, they moved on. And then I went into flight. I ran back and just picking up speed. I had no weapon to fight, so definitely did not fight. Well, you know, one of the core concepts that you teach is that our brains operate on two states, survival, which is just explained and executive mode.

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Can you explain what's actually happening neurologically? Yes. I mean, we all know about a free kind of frontal cortex, the amygdala, these areas of the brain, because I think many of my listeners have have heard some of this. Yes, but what's happening and when we're in each of these states. Yes. So this was the big moment.

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I was like, is it really that simple? And it turns out it is. So your brain, your whole nervous system actually. Right. In addition to your brain, which is a part of your nervous system, operates in only one of two states. It's what I call a survival state or an executive state thing to know about a survival state is it's the part of your brain, which is your amygdala.

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It activates when your life is when your brain is perceiving a threat, a physical, life threatening situation. So imagine a tiger and hungry tiger in front of you about to eat you, or a gun pointed at your chest is another example. Your brain has to go into a state of survival because it's a mode where you are reacting without thinking.

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So you cannot think in these moments, because if you take time to think, it might mean the difference between life or death. So if I'm just sitting around there going home, what should I do? And the guy is viewing me as a threat and I'm not doing anything. I might already got shot right? So that's the thing to think about.

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Your key thing is you're not thinking. But the higher functions of your brain, these amazing parts of your brain, your critical thinking skills, your ability to have empathy and connect with someone which you are not doing in survival. Right. If a hungry tiger's in front of you about you, you're you're not sitting there going, I wonder how this tiger's parents are doing.

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Is it treating it okay? You don't think that's like that? So your empathy is not being access and survival either. So in executive state this is where your higher functions come from. This is your prefrontal cortex. If your audience is familiar with it, it's that your frontal lobe is the largest ratio compared to the rest of the brain compared to any other species.

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So 40% of your brain is your frontal lobe. So a lot of your higher functions come out from here. So that's the main thing to think about your survival state. You're not accessing these higher functions that most of the time we do need our critical thinking or creativity. Our intuition. The list goes on. Our executive function, which is just a fancy phrase for the ability to make good decisions.

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And that's the big moment I had, was it's you can only be in one or the other. You can't be in both at the same time. Well, you, you state that we're 70% of our adult lives in this survival mode, not in executive mode. Yeah. Why do you believe that percentage is so high? I think I have a theory about how we're conditioned.

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Yes. What are the real world consequences for entrepreneurs, and business leaders alike when they spend 70% not even knowing that they're sending 70%? Because we know how powerful the subconscious mind is. Yes. So we're in, for a majority of our adult lives. A lot of people also have said to me, it's just like, oh, it's definitely like 100% I'm in survival mode, right?

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Yeah. But that means for a majority of our adult life, we're not accessing these higher functions over our brain. Why? Why are we not able to access our highest levels of critical thinking, creativity, our empathy? So it's not because of physical danger that we're in. Not running away from saber to tigers every day anymore. It's because of emotional survival.

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So what does that mean? Any sort of emotional discomfort we experience on a daily basis tends to trigger our survival state without us even realizing that's what's happening. So why is that the case? Research shows that emotional pain can be just as painful as physical pain, based on the way the brain processes that information. So that means even if you're a little stressed, anxious, frustrated, angry, all these emotions that don't feel comfortable, it will tend to trigger a survival state in the brain, because your brain actually views that feeling as a life threatening situation.

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So boom, you're not accessing those higher functions of your brain the moment you get triggered. And how does that affect us as business owners. You can't think. Well you're not thinking you're not making good decisions. Exactly. You're not being very creative. You're not being very innovative. You're doing the same old, same old. And your perspective is not very deep.

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It's very superficial, in other words. You know, if I held a picture of you in front of you and it was all blurry, I think many people run so fast from the fear that everything's a blur. They don't take the time to shift the perspective. And you mentioned that by the age of 35, 90, 95% of our brain operates on autopilot.

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Yes. That sounds like a lot freight and pretty terrifying. Fascinating statistic. How does this autopilot programing actually get created and why is it so often times working against us? Yeah. Great question. So it's for efficiency purposes. So I don't know if you ever heard this one right. Like we make about 30,000 decisions a day. Majority of those decisions are the same decisions and they're done without thinking about it.

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So when you go down the stairs every step you take is a decision. So but you don't sit there going, let me put my right foot out first. Let me put my leg. We don't do it. We just able to go down the stairs without thinking. It's for efficiency purposes. Otherwise every single little thing for us to consciously have to notice it.

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It would take up a lot of time. Right? So our brains are very efficient. However, when it's working against us is when some of the autopilot is because of survival state. A lot of our autopilot is just in survival, right? We're in a flight mode, we're in a freeze mode, we're in a fight mode. And we're not accessing the higher functions of our brain because of it.

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And we're not able to access the solutions and the ideas and the opportunities that might be around us. Our brain just actually can't be aware of it. Because what also happens when you're in survival, you're in tunnel vision. If a tiger walks into a room that's about to attack you, are you going to look anywhere else except where that tiger?

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No. It's the same thing with our stress. We're just so focused on what we feel threatened by our stress or anxiety or frustration. And your brain develops tunnel vision and your brain literally cannot see this other information. It might be an idea, a better way to do things, a faster way to do things, creative idea or creative solution.

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So that's the big problem of how it works against us is if a lot of our autopilot is a survival state, autopilot. Yeah. And one of the things that you mentioned, then people can go to your website and we'll have the links to the website below. And, like I said, his book isn't out yet, but it's coming forthcoming.

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Your clients said that working with you as a coach is really like rebooting a computer. And I think everybody knows that when you get the the Ram cleared on a computer, the computer can act, quicker. Right? It goes faster. It's like me, I'm always looking for more storage space. Where am I going to put these documents? Right.

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So he said this person, that it saved him 10,000 a month. What does this brain reboot process actually look like? And how do you teach people to reboot so that they can access those parts of their brain that they're not accessing now to make better decisions, to be more informed and to actually, in this case, probably earn more money.

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He said he saved $10,000. Wow. That's right. Yeah. No. Yeah. So in terms of the autopilot, that's the that's the big biggest thing is if we all can develop the skill to rewire the autopilot, especially if it's working against us. So now the question is how. It's a three phase process. So phase one is just awareness. There's a lot.

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That's the first thing I do with every single client is if we're not aware of what's actually causing our autopilot, how do you change it? How do you have the power to change something unless you become aware of it? Just like if you have a piece of broccoli stuck between your teeth. However, the power to remove that unless it comes into your awareness, someone has to point it out to you, or you have to see it in the mirror.

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So phase one is awareness. There's a lot of things. And this rabbit hole goes deep, right? There's still things every day. There are things I'm not aware of, right, that come to my awareness when we become aware of what survival state actually looks like. That's the big moment. Once you have that awareness, first of what your operating system actually looks like, that's running on autopilot, that's not serving you.

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Now you have the power to change it. So phase two is actual training. This is where a little bit of the science comes in. I teach that, I coach them, I bring them through the process. I bring them to an experience where people who privately work with me and they actually literally change their neural networks. If you had a brain scan to their head, you would probably see it making changes.

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So once the training comes in, that's where, you know, it's getting trained in certain things in terms of information or practicing. And then the last is implementation. If you don't execute on the things you learn, your brain doesn't change. It tends to want to keep things going the same. So that's a three phase process that I bring people through in order to achieve that result.

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I think the one you mentioned that's most important and I think it's always there is awareness. You know, when you're doing things blindly, and you're on autopilot, as you said, autopilot programing. It's like, well, this is the way I've always done it. I've never looked at it a different way or I'd never thought about doing differently. I think some of the the techniques that you teach are fascinating.

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But one thing that I learned when I was going back and getting my degree in spiritual psychology is like, look at the camera, followed you all day long, and it video and then you played back the video. You're a filmmaker, so you get this. Would you like what you saw? Okay. So what behavioral changes are you going to make to actually adjust to get the things implemented in your life that you'd like to?

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Then this takes me to this story. You know, shared a powerful story about changing how you spoke to your daughter from You're Making Me mad to I'm feeling mad. And this is the self-talk. Can you walk us through why that simple word change was so transformational? Because I get it. The question is, I want to make sure our listeners get it.

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Yeah. So I used to say this phrase to my daughter, which was, you're making me so mad right now. This would happen when she's not listening to me, as little children do. Right? And I just had a moment because I'm studying all this stuff about the brain and neurology and all that, and I'm sitting there with a thought in my mind going, wait, what might how might this impact my daughter a little three four year old child when daddy is saying she's the reason for daddy's anger and she's just accepts it as truth, and she might develop this fear and survival of making daddy mad, so to speak, quote unquote.

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And what happens if she has a unethical boss one day when she's an adult and that boss over works, and because she's quote unquote afraid of making the boss mad, she complies. And the one that really got me off my butt is like, what happens if she enters into a relationship one day and her partner is trying to pressure her to do something she doesn't want to because she's so afraid of making that partner mad, so to speak, she gives in.

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So that was the first moment that it really hit me. I gave her a big hug and apologize. And because the truth is, there might be another there's probably other fathers out there in the same situation. Doesn't get mad. So then who's the who's the common denominator here? It's me. I'm the one that's experiencing this. When you're giving the feedback, which is then being taken in by the child, which is then being assimilated, which then is creating a thought pattern in behavior which is said, hey, I don't want to make daddy mad anymore.

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So I'm going to succumb to whatever it is, right? So if we went through the process, that might be the process that would be happening, right? Yeah, yeah. I like the fact that you changed it. I'm feeling mad, which is the way you do that is like, okay, there's no connection between you and her that she made you mad.

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You just said you're feeling mad. Exactly. And that was a huge lesson on what ownership actually is. Are you willing to take full ownership over all of your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions? Because if you don't, then we're going to be slave to survival state, right? Because what my brain does when she's not I mean, yeah, I mean, to break this all down, it's just like I'm attaching a meaning to the experience.

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Okay. Yes. Except in this case, just so everybody understands, you removed the I out of it, right? You removed that? This is coming from Eugene. Directed toward my child versus the. I became you. I'm mad. This is my problem, not your problem. You didn't create it. You didn't do that to me, okay? That's the most important part. Correct?

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So creating this, whether I realize it or not, you create it because you made the choice based on the thought to get, man. Exactly. Yeah. It's your choice in every moment. We we do that. So now let's talk about we live in this world. It's going pretty fast a lot of ambiguity. There's a lot of uncertainty. So a lot of stress for people.

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Again the stress is a choice. But the reality is it's almost like the Buddhist theory. There's going to be pain. And suffering is a choice. You know, everybody's going to have some pain in their life. But how you deal with the suffering is how you choose to deal with it. Yeah. So I go to this and I say in your case, for the listeners who are dealing with uncertainty, which is causing angst, anxiety, stress in their life, what's one immediate technique that you could use today to shift from survival mode?

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Because what happens when people get so tunnel vision, they don't see anything else. They can't access that executive brain. Yeah. So actually help us, how how would you help somebody today who's feeling that access the executive part of their brain? Yeah. So a quick tip like so I categorize the work into two categories. One is a short term work, which is you can do this any time any day.

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And then there's a long term work which is the autopilot reprograming. So one short term quick tip is there's a phrase in the psychology world, it says name it to tame it. So what that means is if you name the feeling you're feeling, you're actually going to tame the feeling. You're going to regulate your nervous system and get out of survival state.

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It helps your brain get out of it. So UCLA did this study where they would bring people in. So what I call the survival state emotion is any feeling that basically feels pretty uncomfortable, right? Anger, anxiety, depression, frustration, etc.. So what they did was the researchers would show this photo of a person's face in a survival state emotion.

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And as soon as they showed that picture, the person's amygdala lit up. So their survival state brain turned on. What was interesting was a researcher said, hey, can you tell me what emotion you're seeing in this photo? And then they would name the emotion, hey, that's, that's anger. That's anxiety. As soon as they name the emotion, guess what happened?

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The amygdala turned off executive. They brain turned on the frontal lobe. Activity turned on. So why does this happen? To label something requires you to actually take a moment and think about it. When we're in survival, we are not really thinking. So whenever we name our feelings, I'm feeling frustrated. I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling depressed. What you're doing is you're calling on your frontal lobe, where your emotional regulation centers are actually located, and helping your body regulate its emotions, regulate the nervous system.

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So it's a great tool. You don't have to say it out loud all the time. You could just do it in your head. And what's also interesting is a clinical psychologist friend of mine said the words also matter here, which is there's a difference between I am sad and I feel sad. I am sad presumes that is an identity.

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I am sadness, but we know feelings are not permanent because we all have feelings that come and go. Sometimes we're happy, sometimes or sad. So when you say, I feel you're acknowledging it's impermanence, right? It's not permanent. So that helps you regulate better as well. So it's just it's just a quick tip that but it's important I mean that UCLA study in and how it labeled emotions.

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How you choose to label an emotion really also is how you react to that emotion. So in other words, the reaction is a result of how you label. And you know, this this comes down to you said the entrepreneurs. Most of them look, they're always on the running fast. They're in hustle mode. They're in grind mode. Based on your work, you know, you and many other people also recognize how counterproductive it is, correct?

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Because they're really, most of the time, not accessing the executive brain. They're just in, you know, they're in the monkey wheel running around in a circle, producing, generating a lot of money. But then, like you said, wasn't making you happy. Right? You got the paycheck. So what would you say to someone who's listening right now? Believe stress and pressure are kind of necessary for success.

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I think there are people that still believe that. But I don't know how many. But the reality is there's got to be plenty. Or if they don't, they've completely tuned out and don't even understand they're doing this to themselves. And that's the mode they live in. Correct. So this is the biggest thing that I harp on a lot, which is are we even aware of what Survival State looks like?

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Because a lot of entrepreneurs who consider themselves high performing are actually not high performing. Right? Right. So here's what I mean by this. So the first and foremost thing is what does survival state actually look like. So we talked about fight flight freeze in a life threatening situation it's very obvious you're going to pick up a weapon to fight.

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Run for your life in flight, play dead or freeze. Most people don't realize what this looks like on a daily basis. When we're in emotional survival, a lot of high performing entrepreneurs are in a fight response, actually. So here's what I mean by this. What's an example of emotional fight response? If someone says something and your feelings are hurt now, you get defensive and you're fighting back.

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Your brain in that mode, even though it's a loved one, is viewing that person as a threat, so you are actually attacking that person. I like in most situations, it's verbally attacking them. Unfortunately, in some situations it's physically attacking people as well. So that's what a fight response look like. When we feel hurt, when our feelings get hurt.

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So it gets even more subtle though. What does a subtle fight response look like? People who work hard. Why do we work hard? We overwork as a fight response. Some people, people please. They try to constantly people please people hoping that they will feel better about themselves. Some people fight by judging other people. When we gossip, it's a fight response.

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Why do we gossip? It's because usually something we feel insecure about, about ourselves. We try to put someone else down, hoping to we put a feel better about ourselves as a result. So if a client of mine who had that kind of situation where everything he thought he wanted, he had it. He had a multimillion dollar business, the beautiful home, the beautiful family.

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He's been. Why am I in my 60s, still feeling anxious and stressed all the time. And you had this moment. Oh I've been fighting my whole life. And I said, for what he says to prove to people that I'm better than my older brother. His older brother was an NFL football player. And he was sharing with me how when he was in high school his high school football coach said some don't even bother trying.

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You're never going to be as good as him. So what happens is when we feel emotionally hurt in some way and this happens a lot for for men in particular in a certain way, because we're taught feelings aren't really the best. Like there's a culture in certain cultures about what masculinity is, right? So it makes us feel like emotions are not really a good thing to feel.

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So we tend to take it out with our intellect and actions. So they try to accomplish more. They try to work harder. So this is all of a fight response because of something that's going on internally where there's emotional survival going on. Right. Based on that pain. And it always, always leads to a lack of fulfillment and burnout.

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The fight mode at some point. And you're right, another client of mine debated this all week and he's like, no, you need survival sometimes because he gave me a very compelling argument. He said he hit rock bottom, he had a successful career and then hit rock bottom, lost all his money. Was court ordered to still pay over $2,000 a month in child support.

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And he was broke. And a second wife left him right. And he said, from that moment on, I had to keep my head down. It's a, metaphor he used as analogy. He said I had to keep my head down on my shoulders, up and at the Bastille concrete wall. After concrete, all to get to where I am, because he built a very successful business after that.

00;28;51;15 - 00;29;13;16

And I said, if it wasn't for that fight mode, I wouldn't have been where I'm at today in his business. And I said, that's fair. That's a compelling argument. And I said, that's totally fair. But what if, just as a thought exercise is not about what you should have, would have, could have done? This is not exercise. What if because you had an ability to get out of your survival state, out of that fight mode, even if it's for a moment, it's what gives you the ability to put your head up and your shoulders down.

00;29;13;19 - 00;29;38;28

And what you might have seen is those concrete walls that you felt forced into bashing through were only three feet wide. Because what happens in our survival brain is you develop tunnel vision and there's that saying, work smarter, not harder. Right? It's hard to work smarter when you're in the fight mode because you're just busy working harder. So when we get out of this survival state, you get out of the tunnel and then you might see better solutions, faster solutions, better ideas, creative solutions.

00;29;39;06 - 00;29;56;03

And we're missing out on all of that. If we continue to just stay in a fight mode. This is the mistake a lot of high performers make. They think just because they're really good at working hard. And even though the world rewards you for being a fighter, you get paid. Or you might get some accolades. It's very it doesn't have a lasting effect.

00;29;56;04 - 00;30;24;13

You eventually get burnt out if you just keep fighting, fighting all the time. Well, it's one of the things I've observed for entrepreneurs, business owners who's ever growing any kind of business with employees. You know, that constant always on, I call it, you know, for your well-being. There's a dis ease and the disease. Look, you were a pharmacist.

00;30;24;20 - 00;30;52;05

You saw thousands of people come in for, prescriptions. They're getting filled for anxiety and Zoloft and all this kind of stuff because they were having anxiety attacks or whatever it was. Doesn't matter. My point is, the long term systemic disease turns into cancer, turns into larger things, heart conditions. And then when they have that event in their life, oh, I got cancer.

00;30;52;08 - 00;31;12;10

Oh, maybe I had to relook at how I've been right. For some people, it's a big wake up call for other people. They go right back to this constant stress, just living in the same mode because they didn't wake up. But the body is a very, very. And that's why it's so cool that you're a pharmacist and a doctor.

00;31;12;12 - 00;31;34;13

The body is telling you it talks to you all the time. It's like, think it did. You did it right. But are you listening to those little subtle symbols that you're getting, those little subtle pains, those little things that are going on in you frequently? Most people aren't, and they live in a constant state of disease. Right. And that's on autopilot.

00;31;34;18 - 00;31;54;29

Yeah, yeah. And most people, it's it's a spot on point that you're bringing up because here's what's happening. When you're in survival, your body literally thinks is about to die. So when your body thinks is about to die, it's using up a lot of your body's energy to try to survive from the threat. Most people don't realize how much energy is being depleted when you're in a state of stress, right?

00;31;55;01 - 00;32;12;07

So if you're in a state of, executive state, your body is in what's called a rest and digest mode. Your body is naturally trying to conserve energy, promote healing in your body. But if your body's in survival most of the time, what's happening? Your body's overworking. Your heart's beating faster, your lungs are overworking, your digestive system. Quarter.

00;32;12;07 - 00;32;30;04

Now cortisol is going up. Your digestive system shuts down because this is not a time to be eating food if you're about to die. So this is why a lot of people are stressed out all the time. Have digestive issues right? And all of that dis ease eventually leads to disease because your body is tanking. Yeah, a long term exposure to cortisol.

00;32;30;04 - 00;32;54;29

Ask any medical professional what long term exposure to steroids does in your body, which cortisol is a steroid damages your immune system total for sick. So not just from a mental perspective. From a physical perspective, it's very important to be aware of how often your body's stressed out. Because if you don't listen to it and that's what we're doing, we keep reacting to it in a fight flight freeze response without realizing, and that's on autopilot.

00;32;55;02 - 00;33;12;10

We keep working harder. We keep fighting. We keep people pleasing. We keep, you know, being a perfectionist, fighting to be a perfectionist, all of that fighting is literally damaging your body as well, not just from a mental health perspective, but from a physical perspective too. Well, I love that you woke up. Look, you are a doctor. Look, you went to medical school.

00;33;12;10 - 00;33;49;27

You understand this and you're awakening to help people actually find the root cause of what's creating this fight flight. You know, freeze this, this constant, this ease without somebody just saying, well, here's a pill. Go take this pill. It's going to solve your anxiety. It's Zoloft or whatever it is. Yeah, right. And I think, look, as somebody who was behind the counter getting a check and, you know, dispensing this stuff, you could see, hey, this is this is not right.

00;33;49;29 - 00;34;18;11

I needed to dedicate my life to something where I could really heal. Yes. You don't find that the other is healing. So look what would you say as to somebody out there today who recognizes themself in these survival patterns but feels, you know, stuck and they're like sitting there going, I know I've heard you and Eugene talk now for the last 35 minutes, 40 minutes.

00;34;18;13 - 00;34;40;08

What advice would you take for taking like the first step for them to take charge of how they're thinking? You said awareness. You gave us three. Are there any is there anything else in your bag of tricks that you'd want to tell people today that they could use? Because sometimes they hear that and then they go again? I don't know, I don't even know how to be aware.

00;34;40;11 - 00;34;59;08

How do I be aware? Right. You're going to get people say that. Yeah. Oh, man. Where do we start? But I mean, the first thing. Yes. Just to reiterate, the number one thing I always recommend as a first step is just practicing the awareness. So what does that mean, actually spot it. What does emotional survival look like in your daily life?

00;34;59;08 - 00;35;24;03

Oh, there I go, bragging again to someone about what I did. There's my fight response to try to impress people. Oh there I am in my fight response, getting argumentative and defensive and getting angry. Just notice what fight flight freeze response looks like in your daily life, right? Flight response classic one is procrastination, right? You flee from the task at hand because usually it's uncomfortable.

00;35;24;03 - 00;35;43;12

What if I do this now I look stupid? What if I do this now? I get shamed, embarrassed? We numb ourselves in a flight response. There's no judgment around any of this, but that's a big one. When we numb ourselves. Oh, yeah. So we, all of us have our own poison. All of us do it. Some people like to overindulge in things like food, alcohol, sex, drugs, to even to the point of addiction.

00;35;43;12 - 00;36;04;04

For some people, that's a flight response, right? Not to judge yourself, it's just to be aware. Just notice that this exists in your autopilot to numb yourself when you're feeling stressed. Freeze responses. Those days we wake up not wanting to wake up, not wanting make decisions. We don't take action. We tend to just sit, you know, bystander effect is a perfect example of this.

00;36;04;04 - 00;36;25;29

People, a group of people see someone getting bullied or attacked. They don't do anything. That's a freeze response. This also why there's no such thing as laziness. What people might label someone as someone of being lazy is actually a chronic freeze response. So it's important to just notice this first, right? I wish there was like a quick silver bullet answer to just solve everything there is.

00;36;26;01 - 00;36;45;23

Yeah. The first most important thing is just practice, practice, practice every day. Just notice that, oh, there's a flight response. There's a flight response. There's a freeze respond. And at some point what you will realize is I do all of this stuff on autopilot. Well, I think one of the I think one of the things that you've probably advocated is like whether people want to meditate or not, that's fine.

00;36;45;24 - 00;37;11;19

I it's up to them. But if people contemplate, they sit in thought. I remember Stephen Covey seeing I used to say this to his top people in his company used to put put a sign on your door for two hours every day and just says, I'm thinking, right. So he would let his people just think, I just said, don't answer phones, don't go on the computer, don't answer emails.

00;37;11;19 - 00;37;37;24

Two hours every day. Right. And obviously, we know what Franklin Covey did. They built a great organization and lots of people. And I think for organizations that are wanting new leaders to emerge, that are wanting entrepreneurs to emerge, they've gotta give them time to think and look out the window and see what they see that they could do something about.

00;37;37;27 - 00;38;02;06

That literally could be a collaborative kind of partnership with the company. Right. So you are a master at what you do. I want to encourage people to, go to your website. So right now it's just destiny hacks.com and you have all not SEO dot SEO so sorry. And you and then you've also got your LinkedIn which is another place that will put.

00;38;02;12 - 00;38;22;22

So for you listening or viewing on YouTube the show notes below. Go there and look for his website. There will be a forthcoming book will have, Eugene back on when the book comes out, which he says it's pretty close, it's imminent. So I can't wait because I really want to learn more about what he's got to say.

00;38;22;24 - 00;38;41;12

And it's been a pleasure having you on the show, spending a little bit of time with us, telling us about flight, flight and freeze, telling us about how we can we can hack what I'm going to say is the executive brain that we need to do, and creating greater levels of awareness in our life and the ways we can do that.

00;38;41;19 - 00;39;03;20

And I think one of those ways is just, you know, they say this all the time before you say something, stop, breathe, think about it, and then make your action before you actually put your foot in your mouth. And I think that is true for a lot of things that we do as human beings. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, Namaste to you, my friend.

00;39;03;24 - 00;39;31;15

Thanks for being on inside personal growth and taking this time, to spend this time with our listeners and letting them know about you and whatever. He also at his website, if you go there, for those of you listening, in Orange County area, listening in the LA area, listening in the greater San Diego area, he has, meeting on August 26th, which is his, a networking group meeting.

00;39;31;17 - 00;39;45;13

And he says it's, totally free. Anybody can sign up and go to that networking meeting. So we'll put a link to that as well. Okay. All right. Take care, buddy. Thanks so much for having me. Take care. Bye bye.