Rory: [00:00:00] I am so honored today to bring you someone who is truly one of the most credible and qualified thought leaders in the world. Um, she’s become a good friend of mine. Her name is Dr. Caroline Leaf. She’s a bestselling author. She has a huge social media following of millions of followers, millions and tens of millions of downloads on her podcast. I actually have to read some of her bio because some of these words are so big I can’t memorize them and pronounce them properly, but, so Dr. Caroline Leaf. Is a communication pathologist, audiologist, clinical and research neuroscientist with a master’s and PhD in communication pathology. Um, and uh, she’s got a specialist in psycho neurobiology and metacognitive. Neuropsychology. Um, so since the early 1980s, she has researched the, the mind brain connection, uh, the nature of mental health and just the formation of memory. So she was one of the first people in her field of study to really. [00:01:00] Look at and analyze how the brain can change, which is a term known as neuroplasticity. And she is really one of the, the, the deepest thinkers, the most recognized experts in her space. And she is the author of a fabulous new book called Help in a Hurry. And we’re gonna talk about the book today, but we’re gonna talk more specifically about. The status of mental health and how your mental health affects you as a personal brand or you as an entrepreneur and understanding how stress and overwhelm and imposter syndrome are all things that are connected. Into, to what’s going on inside your brain and what you need to know to move past that, to perform at your highest so that you can reach more people and make a bigger impact in the world. So with that, Dr. Leaf, uh, a true honor to have you on the show. Welcome. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Thank you Rory. It’s so good. Always so good talking to you. And thank you for just all the great advice you always give us. I mean, not only are we [00:02:00] good friends, but you always give us such good advice and helped have helped us so much. So thank you. Rory: Yeah, thank you Dr. Caroline Leaf.: for that nice intro. That was very kind. You. Rory: You are. Um. Uh, in, in addition to being, you know, brilliant and being an expert in your field, you also have one of the biggest personal brands in the world. And I wanted to see, you know, for this conversation, I was going, okay, how can we have a conversation on this show that nobody will hear on any other show? And it’s this connection between what you do with your field of study, but also connecting that to what you do as a business and building your personal brand. And I wanna start with. Stress. Um, I wanna start with anxiety. I wanna start with burnout and understanding how does, if we don’t manage our mental health, because I think help in a hurry is really, you know, dials in on some of this. But if you’re an entrepreneur or an expert or a mission-driven messenger, if you don’t [00:03:00] manage your stress well, um. That’s gonna affect how we perform, uh, with our personal brand. So what do we need to know about dealing with stress, anxiety, uh, and burnout? What’s going on in our brain and how can we have better mental health so we can perform more in our business? Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Such a good question. And it’s applicable as you said to everyone, no matter who you are, what you’re doing, the, those words are just used all the time. I’m just tired, I’m stressed, I’m burnt out. What we need to do is look at the language that people are using, first of all to answer your question, and that is in our, um, the biomedical model, which is the model. It has been used for about 50 years now to describe mental health has kind of messed with us a little as, as a, as messed with humanity and made us think that there’s something wrong with us if we feel emotions, if we don’t feel okay all the time, or if we have a lot of up and down emotions and if we have anxiety and if we have depression, there’s so much scary. Um. Thoughts [00:04:00] attached to that because of the messaging that’s come through. And unfortunately, it’s not the correct messaging because you, anxiety, depression, stress, burnout, these are not mental illnesses. These are normal reactions to life experiences. So if we take away the word mental I out of the equation and push that to the side. Rather it’s look at us as humans and our mental space and we’ve gotta, we go through life and we have challenges. How we react to those challenges and the types of challenges and all, all of that creates our how we are functioning in our mental space. And sometimes we have some really bad things happen and that can really knock us. And if we don’t manage our reactions and understand how to read the signals, we can. Get worse and worse, and then we can get told we have diseases. And soon as you start labeling someone and putting that that thought into a person’s mind, it gets wired into the brain and then a self perpetuating loop starts getting set up and whatever. So wrong messaging number one, can make us [00:05:00] look at our mental state in a, in a way that’s a little bit scary. So people, instead of dealing with it, maybe push it aside and think, okay, well that’s, I mean, that’s Rory: fascinating. Like to go. People are using terms like mental illness. They’re saying, oh, anxiety, do you feel anxious? Do you feel depressed? It’s like, yes, I’m human. And what I hear you saying is like. Those are normal emotions. There’s nothing wrong with you when you feel those. That’s the, that’s the way your brain sends you signals to help guide you and give you information to, to, for how you respond. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, is what you’re saying. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Exactly. So emo anxiety is an emotion. It’s an emotional warning signal or an emotional signal, as is depression, as is frustration, as is jealousy. Any emotion. They are data, it’s there are signals giving you information. So sometimes they’re, they. Maybe at a 10. Anxiety could be at a 10 or a three. So it changes depending on what’s going on in your life and how you are responding the way that you respond. We think, feel, and [00:06:00] choose in response to what’s happening to us and the way that we manage that process of thinking, feeling and choosing can take that anxiety signal and say, and, and we can do one of two things. We can say. Oh my gosh, I’m so anxious. There’s something wrong with me. I keep feeling anxious. I’m anxious all the time. I’ve been anxious for weeks now. I must have a disease. I need to go to the doctor. There’s something wrong with my brain. And that in itself is putting, putting you into a very negative state. It’s creating all kinds of incorrect information from the mind into the brain, which we can discuss. Break that mind brain connection in a moment. And creating and making things worse for you and guaranteed you’re gonna feel some depression, some this, some of that, your body’s gonna start playing up because everything’s linked. The mind, brain, body connection now, rather, you could stand back and say, okay. I’m not anxiety. Anxiety is not an illness. Anxiety is information. It is one of four categories of signals. Well, it’s, it’s an emotion. It’s, it’s, it’s a, it falls under one four categories of signals of which one of them is emotional warning. Signals [00:07:00] and anxiety is an emotional warning signal. What does the signal do? It gives us information. So I’m not gonna be scared of this anxiety. I’m gonna stand back and look at it. I can stand back into, into my conscious mind and I can tap into my non-conscious mind, which is that deep, spiritual, intuitive level that guides me where all the solutions are. And I can observe myself and I can say, okay, I’m not anxiety, but I’m experiencing anxiety. Because of, I’m not depression. I’m experiencing depression because of, I’m not burnout. I don’t have a burnt out brain and a damaged brain. I’m experiencing burnout because of, and you start doing the work to search for the, because of, because you’ve landed up in that state, because of something going on in your life. So it needs to be acknowledged to get control, and then it needs to be processed, embraced, processed, and reconceptualized. And so when you do that. Process. You shift, you shift everything. Your research shows mind, plus many others that the moment I say, okay, I’m not scared of anxiety, I’m not anxiety, I’m anxious because of [00:08:00] all your neuropsycho, neurobiology, all your mind, brain, body connection has shifted. You’re in control Now, you still may not feel okay, you still feel lousy. You still, the issue’s still there, but you shifted the, the leadership from you being led by the anxiety and with all the wrong information. And getting worse to, oh, okay, this is information. How can I make it work for me? No information is bad, no signaling is bad. I can take that and I can make it turn, turn it around and blow the energy levels and make it actually work for me. ’cause a little bit of anxiety is actually very good for me. That kind of thinking is the shift that we, that I try and help people understand. Rory: Yeah. And you know, to me it’s the difference between when someone says, I’m de when when somebody says I am depressed. They’re, they’re embracing that as their identity versus Exactly, and that’s an issue. You’re, what you’re saying is going, I feel depressed, which is a signal that’s giving you information for [00:09:00] how you should adapt your life. It’s accordingly. And to hear that from somebody with your pedigree is really powerful. So. Okay, so I wanna talk about adapting to this. Um, so neuroplasticity is one of the things that you are like known worldwide for and neuroplasticity, I think. Okay. So correct me if I’m wrong here, but as, as I’ve. Understood. What I’ve learned from you is basically the brain’s ability to change. Um, and so a lot of times in personal development, like even in my first book, take The Stares, I, there’s a whole chapter on, uh, self-talk and, you know, just something that I had learned more intuitively about, you know, what you tell yourself. But I think a lot of people think, oh, positive affirmations is sort of like fluffy, and it’s like hooey, fooey. But then when I hear you talk about neuroplasticity, I’m like. Wait a minute. This is like the, this is like grounded scientific [00:10:00] connection. So can you just help us understand like what is the role that neuroplasticity plays in helping us break past limiting beliefs that we have about our ourself and like reestablishing new beliefs? Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Okay. Good question. Excellent question. Okay. Neuroplasticity is actually the mind’s ability to change the brain. So the brain, let’s think of the brain. The brain. Take the brain for a moment. The brain. I’ve got a model of a brain here. So those of you that are listening, I’m holding up brain. Yeah. Rory: Say that again real quick. You said neuroplasticity is the mind’s ability. To change the brain. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: The brain, yes. So the mind’s doing the work, not the brain. So we need to change our narrative. It’s not my brain made me do it. It’s not my brain. My amygdala is a fear detection, um, threat. It, it identifies threats. It’s not, your brain doesn’t do anything. Your brain can’t think. Your brain can’t. Anything. It can uh, it’s a conduit. It is a responder. It’s something that your mind uses so that you can actually show up in the world [00:11:00] and your brain is designed biologically to be changed. It’s malleable, but it can’t change itself. It’s changed by something and that’s something is your mind. So what we need is mind management. ’cause when we manage our minds, we then manage the brain. The body, the brain, and the body are around about 1% of who you are as a human. The mind is 99% of who you are. So if we paid total attention and keep thinking, well, my brain made me do it, what’s happening is that we are getting trapped inside our sensations. How we feel, um, that that physical, the physical sensations or, and our five senses, which are actually only 1%, but because they’re so in your face, that when you feel that anxiety, when you feel that gut wrenching pain in your body, when you, when you. Feel this, the, the physiological responses in your body. If you don’t know that that is a 1% part of you and that you can get that under control, you’ll get consumed by that. And then that can take you down that spiral of negative thinking, and then those belief systems just grow [00:12:00] stronger and stronger and that negative self-talk, et cetera, et cetera. So what we need to first understand is the power of the mind. The mind is fundamental and you’s distinction. Rory: The mind is. Not the brain. Those are two different things, is what you’re saying. Two Dr. Caroline Leaf.: different things. Yes. And this goes right back to Thomas Akin, back to St. Augustine, back to um, in Decart also had a hand in this talking about mind being separate from brain, but the difference between what Decart, for example, and someone like St. Augustine or Thomas Akin said, and what I say and what modern science actually says, is that your mind. Is all around and inside your brain and your body. So here you see me, I see you. Our mind is around us and through us, and it has different levels. Um, it has got your conscious level, your subconscious, and your non-conscious level. That’s kind of like your spirit, soul and body, a spirit and soul kind of thing. And then you’ve got your body, but the fundamental nature is your mind. And your mind is. Making the changes in your brain, your brain is a host or a conduit, and basically it, it, it’s, it’s a derivative. It’s basically your mind [00:13:00] makes a change. So if I have a limit, if, if I, um, hear someone says something to me that you are not good enough, and that comes in from outside by someone who’s a, that a child gets or someone in your life. Is a caregiver or someone that has a big impression on, makes a big impression in your life, they say that to you. It’s very sensely strong. It’s got high energy. It comes in through this field of the mind first. Everything’s first in this field of the mind. It gets. Processed throughout the mind, and then a copy of it gets made and put into the brain as energy. So literally first that experience is in the mind, like a little cloud of energy. Imagine little clouds all around you. Of all these experiences, every little cloud of energy gets copied and placed into the brain and into the body. And that connection between the mind, brain, and body is how you are then able to show up in life. Now, if someone said to you, you’re not good enough, and that planted as a baseline little cloud that. Wired in your brain and in your body. That’s like a [00:14:00] baseline related to identity. And that from that, you then receive other information. So other people say, oh, well done, but you don’t really believe it because you’re not good enough. Because that other core belief was so, so deeply, um, wired into the, that’s what neuroplasticity is. You receive it in your mind and you build it into the brain and the body. The good news is that neuroplasticity is also the ability to reverse that. Nothing ever stays the same. So even if that happened to you as a child, but you Rory: don’t, if you don’t learn how to consciously reverse it. It’s like you’re trying to, it Dr. Caroline Leaf.: stays there. Rory: It stays there, and any new input comes, it’s stronger. Then it goes, no, this is a conflict with the underwriting programming. So it just bounces off until you rewrite the, like the, under the, the foundational program. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: You have to, you have to rewrite from the cloud to the brain, to the body. You have to, that little cloud of energy, you have to rewrite that whole process. So you have to rewrite what your mind put in, which means your mind’s got different levels. So we’ve got a, A level. That is, uh, is basically processing data, the incoming [00:15:00] data. Then we have a, that’s a conscious mind consciousness that we hear all this. Everyone’s always talking about consciousness, and that’s got a part of it that is like a toddler. You’ve got young kids and they’re all over the place, hungry, up and down, learning hungry to learn, but you as the parent guide them. So think of your conscious mind, the part that is helping you to process this data as having a toddler part that. It’s great ’cause it gathers the data excitedly and thinks and feels, but then there’s the parent guiding it. So what happens is that when we get stuck in a negative belief system, the toddler mind is activated, but it ignores the parent mind. So now the parent mind doesn’t give, is there to give advice. But now you don’t take the advice. So now you build this little cloud of energy, build it into the brain, and now this and, and the body. Now a network is set up and now every time something comes in that is, that activates that, it just gets more added to it. Because these, these networks are organic and dynamic and they learn, but they could be learning the wrong stuff and that long stuff could be, I’m not good enough. But now, as soon as you stand back, [00:16:00] how do you stand back? You with your conscious mind, you are able, as the parent, part of the conscious mind stand back and say, okay, hang on. Let’s have a look at this. What is the truth? Let’s stand back and observe. So then now the parent mind balances the toddler mind. So then you bring that thought into your conscious awareness and you, your parent. Mind helps you to start being curious, why am I thinking this? Is this really true? Where does this come from? And so you begin a process of exploration. As you do this curious exploration, you open up, um, you open up the depth to the depths of your non-conscious, NON, not unconscious. Unconscious, a brain state. When you sleep or under anesthesia, non-conscious is your spiritual level that operates 24 7. It’s where all your wisdom, intuition, intellect, reasoning, it’s kind of got levels. It’s your first levels, your sort of intellect and reasoning, and then the deeper level is your intuition and insight and wisdom, and you’ve got creativity in between. So all that good stuff is down there now, what we needed as humans to function to be good [00:17:00] entrepreneurs. Deal with these critical belief systems. The self-critical talk, there’s people pleasing, imposter syndrome, all these networks that have been wired in via neuroplasticity by our mind processing things in, in, in the wrong way is we need to take those belief systems and stand back into the parent mind and as soon as the parent mind says, Hey, hang on, let’s just question this a bit. It opens the door to the unconscious and now we start doing a little bit of logic and reasoning, and now we go deeper into, into intuition because inside each and every one of us is every solution to every problem and what, but we have to dig to find it. But what so often happens in the busyness of life and the. Pressures of life and I’ve gotta get X done and I’ve gotta do this. And if I’m not nice to that person and don’t keep them happy, then this is gonna happen. Oh my gosh, if I’d only done this or it’s too much and burnt out, or I’ve got anxiety, there’s something we, we’ve got so much that’s the toddler going crazy and that chaos just adds more and more layers of chaos. Now in between. We have a [00:18:00] great moment. Insight and great moment in relationship or work. And so then in those great moments, if you recall those great moments where you have a great conversation or you have a breakthrough at work, or you get a bestselling book, or you have a beautiful time with your wife or your kids, that’s as soon as that you have those, that’s evidence that your toddler mind stop for a moment. Listen to the parent mind tapped into the intuitive part of you and you started just being yourself. And that truth started coming through. When I talk about mind management, I’m talking about learning and training yourself to recognize when you have got caught in the chaos, when you got caught in that mental mess, when you need that help in a hurry. When you finding yourself reacting and thinking going into these spirals, it’s to stop and say, that’s not me. I acknowledge it and it’s okay to not be okay. Acknowledge it, but let me open up these levels of wisdom inside of me to handle this differently. And that’s mind work when you die. Your brain [00:19:00] disintegrates, your body disintegrates, but your mind carries on, your spirit and your soul, carry on. They have an eternal value, and that’s been scientifically established. It’s more significantly scientifically established that we have more beyond just our physical than the physical is established. So there’s more science showing that we more than just the brain and the body. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Rory: Say that, say that again. You’re, you’re saying. Science has proven that after you die, you, Dr. Caroline Leaf.: you exist. Rory: There’s an existence that, that, that continues. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Yes. There’s research that reality exists beyond the physical and it’s, and the evidence is more significant than, for example, some of the. Top significance of top drugs that we use on the current market. So that means in terms of all the science language that a drug is put out to market, when it is supposedly significantly doing what it’s supposed to do, a medication, the research on mind and mind being separate from brain, but working through the brain and the body. There’s this relationship this, there’s this interactive [00:20:00] relationship, um, that, that they have. And that the fact is that these. Once our physical brain and body pass, there is, um, there is reality that exists beyond that. There’s more significant research evidence proving that than it is that we just, this is all there is and that’s great to know because that means that that intuitive deep part of me, that thing’s coming from a level of wisdom that’s stepping into a level of wisdom that is something we need to spend the time. Delving into, so the work that I do in my, I don’t practice anymore, but the, in the coaching and in the books and all that sort of thing in the podcast is to help people to manage their mind. And managing the mind means when I’m anxious, that’s a signal. It’s an emotional signal. Where do I feel that in my. Body where, what is, how is that affecting what I say and what I do? How is that affecting my perspectives looking at those signals? The minute I do that, I gather awareness of those signals. I can then name that thing. Oh, okay. Well, [00:21:00] I’m feeling anxious because, and I validate because we can’t run What you resist persists. You have to deal, you have to face, you have to look at it in the face. And so the, the. Once you’ve acknowledged those signals, then it’s to name, what is this attached to? I’m feeling this anxiety, but anxiety is not an it. This behavior is not an it. These are. Attached to something they’re attached to. What a thought. What is a thought? It’s an experience. What’s an experience made of? Lots of details, lots of data. This conversation is an experience. We’re saying lots of words. So this experience, this conversation is a thought made up of the words, which are the memories. So every. Lot of signals is attached to a thought that thought’s made of lots of memories, and sometimes the source of those memories, the roots, are not so great, in which case, and if we’ve never dealt with that, we just keep reinforcing that same thing. It just that same network just keeps being reinforced. Neuroplastic, Rory: would it be is, is it accurate to say that an emotion [00:22:00] is not a problem? An emotion is a symptom. That is the result of something else, like an experience like it. There’s an experience that we had that led to thoughts, and if we don’t deal with those or change the way we think about those, then the emotion persists until we go back and change the way that we’re thinking about that experience or that thought, and that’s what mind management is. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Almost 100% correct. So your thought is your experience, and we have all of our existing thoughts from everything that we’ve ever gone through. And then we have new experiences that become thoughts. So. The past is all our past experiences that have become thoughts with memories and the present are the new ones coming in, and then there’ll be ones in the future. And all of those work together. So every new, like this conversation is a new thought coming in, but it’s activating existing thoughts and those thoughts have got memories inside of them. So we look at. The current through the view of our existing networks, and it all gets coordinated now. Every thought is, um, imbued with [00:23:00] emotions and, and that then manifests our behaviors and our perspectives and so on. So, um, that the, the, the emotions are part of the thought networks. So a thought networks data. But the, the, the, the aliveness is the emotional and perspective component. And then the behavioral component is, is what we say and what we do. That’s why we talk about four categories of signals that each thought generates. So every thought generates emotions. Every thought generates those emotions inside the body. So we are gonna have a sensorial. Variance of those emotions. So the thought comes alive through the emotions, through the body, through how we look at life and through what we say and do. So what we can do, my management is our ability to look at what am I feeling? Where am I feeling it? How’s this making me at? What’s it, how’s it affecting my perspective? Oh, okay. Where does that come from? What’s the detail? What, where’s the source? How can I deconstruct? I can’t change what’s happened to me. You can’t ever change the past, but you can change what it [00:24:00] looks like inside of you. That’s the key with neuroplasticity. Mm-hmm. So with your mind, you do say that again. Signals Rory: you. So you gotta say that again. You can’t change the past, but you can. Change what Dr. Caroline Leaf.: it looks like inside of your networks. So that’s directed neuroplasticity. That’s what mind management is doing. Mind management is catching via the signals. The thought. You don’t, can’t just catch the thought. You have to get the The signals. The signals then pulls up the thought and helps us to unpack it and deconstruct it and rebuild it. But you still remember the past, but you’re not now sitting with a toxic tree. Look at this. Thought type this to represent for fun, a thought network, a wiry looking tree, whereas I’ve got a healthy green tree. So I often use this to represent a thought because the thought’s got all these branches and connections and sources like a root. So if I, um, this will generate negative signals, this will generate. Healthy signals. This is going to make me depressed and anxious and withdrawal, and life sucks and my body feels sick, et cetera, et cetera. This is gonna have [00:25:00] the opposite, but I can change them. Neuroplasticity in a is my ability as a human to step into that wise, intuitive parent, part of my conscious mind and tap into the, the endless wisdom of the, of the intuitive, non-conscious, and do something about this and rewire it. I can’t eliminate it, but I can rewire it, reorganize it. Pick it up and throw it away and dig it out and throw it away, but I can shrink this. So eventually it’s mainly this with just a tiny little reminder of, once I was like that, now I’m like this. So I take that learning, I learn from this. I wire that into the new learning. Now that is mind management and that’s directed neuroplasticity and that’s what we can do as humans. Rory: It’s, it’s interesting to me because, because I had an epiphany at some point in my life where every single memory I have. When I realized that every single memory I have is not exactly what happened, every single memory I have is an [00:26:00] interpretation of what happened. It’s something that I chose to remember about what happened, and you go, if that’s true, then. I can take anything that has ever happened to me and I can adapt my own interpretation of what that thing was in a way that is more empowering or clarifying or insightful or inspiring than it is exactly like, you know, judgmental or vindictive or, uh, you know, some somehow hurtful to, to me and others. And it’s to go, wow, that is actually. Foundationally rooted in neuroscience and neuro biology and neuro and, and that is neuroplasticity. So, uh, so I wanna talk about imposter syndrome. I can you explain from a scientific perspective what is happening to someone’s brain when a mission-driven messenger feels. The sense of imposter syndrome and what do we need to [00:27:00] know about what that is and how to move past that. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: So I’m very glad you asked that question. So basically, imposter syndrome is coming from, let’s talk about the sort of psychological and then go into the psycho neurobiology of it. Psycho neurobiology being the psycho mind by neuro brain biology body. So. Everything, everything every thought you have affects your brain and your body. And in fact, just a sidebar here, 35 to 95% of illnesses, lifestyle ill diseases come from our thought life. So basically our, we are, we wear and tear our brain and our body. So if we, if we don’t manage our mind, we put chaos in the brain and the body. Eventually we wear our wear. Out our systems, but fortunately we can, depending on how far down the health, um, road one has gone, you can reverse and arrest and things to a certain extent. Okay. So, um, imposter syndrome has come from comparison, but it’s first come from an, an identity issue because, um, my. If I’ve been labeled in some way or if I [00:28:00] don’t, if I haven’t tapped into my, what I like to call the perfect you, because each there’s something you can do that I can’t do. There’s something that every person on this planet can do that no one else can do, so that the normal neurobiology, the normal psycho neurobiology of humanity, the spiritual, normal, spiritual psycho neurobiology of humanity is that. There’s no competition. There’s only enhancements because Rory can do something that Caroline can’t and vice versa. So therefore, we better together than we are apart. We better in community and connection and enhancement and in co incoherence, but we live in a world that says the opposite thing. It’s all about competition. That you’re competing with someone else as opposed to, um, be enhancing someone else. And so when, when we go into that competitive state, it will distort realities. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t get to the top. And it doesn’t mean that you, you know, you’re not, when someone is, is in our field and in our lane and they seem to be doing better than us. The fact that you even think that. [00:29:00] Means that you’ve moved into competitive lane. So we need to stand back and say, why am that’s, and there’s never a judgment. It’s okay to think it’s okay to not be okay. That’s what this book really is about. It’s okay to have those, those moments where you grab hold of, okay, this is what I’m thinking now. I’m, I’m, I feel like I’m not good enough. I, I Why? Because you’ve just compared yourself to someone else. You’ve just tried to compete with someone else. Mm. You’ve. Focused away from what you can do. So it, it involves a lot of rebuilding a person’s identity. So when I work clinically with people with imposter syndrome, and I mean, well I’ve even experienced it under, but I you, it’s something that’s in your field, it’s in life. It’s so easy in this day and age as well. ’cause it’s so easy to compare yourself to other people. Sure. Rory: But the key Dr. Caroline Leaf.: thing amplified by Rory: social media and instant communication and Absolutely. Like, I mean, absolutely amplified. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Absolutely. So the key thing with imposter syndrome is to realize that there’s not something wrong with you. It’s that you got sucked into competition and it’s affected [00:30:00] your identity. So it be healing begins by you going back to who are you, what is your voice, and spending time just getting to know yourself. I mean, it’s really like what. Read books, read fiction, read the things that you’ll learn about yourself when you move away. It’s very important to spend and, and honestly, reading fiction is a really quick way of learning about yourself because you’ll be drawn to stories that seem to tell you something. And as your creativity and imagination or activated, you go into that deeper, deeper level of non of the unconscious mind, which is your intuitive level. Once you hit the intuitive level, you start finding yourself. So it’s like logic and reasoning, creativity and imagination. Intuition me. And what we wanna do is take ourselves down to that level. When I, when I know who I am and I know my voice and I work on raising my voice, I’ll suddenly start seeing, I want to support others. I want to celebrate others that I can catch myself. If I see someone who’s doing better or who’s doing something that I think I should be doing and want to doing it or whatever, or I’m not good enough, or they know more than me, I, [00:31:00] instead of running from it, I can just say, oh, that’s interesting. Let me stand back into what I call the multiple perspective advantage. Stand back into that. Parent conscious part of your mind, open the door to the wise, non-conscious and say to yourself, okay, that’s a valid statement. You are feeling this in your body, this emotion, this affecting your perspective. You know, go through those signals and name the statement, validate it, and then do some kind of breathing or whatever to calm down your neurophysiology and then shift over to, okay, well now let’s really reflect on this. What is the, is this the truth? Who, the what, the when, the where, the why, the how, then what memories does it bring up? ’cause as you start. Doing this, you’re going deeper and deeper. You’re going down, you’re starting to reason, you’re moving down towards intuition as you get to that who, what, when, where, why, how it starts generating. Thoughts and opening thoughts up like a flower opens up in bloom or pollen comes out of a flower, memory start emerging and other thoughts and connected thoughts and, and suddenly you get data, more and more data. Now you can take data and you can go to intuition, and intuition [00:32:00] will take you into you and you can start looking at all of this objectively and say. Oh, okay. You having in a moment where specifically that person quoted that scientific paper and you feel potentially it made your you ing your own research immediately you can say, well, that’s what’s happening, but what’s the truth? The truth is that that’s it. That’s really interesting what they found. This is what I found. I’m sure there’s some whatever, whatever, and you have it, you can have a normal discussion. So instead of imposter, I now get excited about my voice and I now learn from that situation and grow as a person versus being. Wiped out by the imposter syndrome. Does that make sense? Rory: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I, I think, you know, understanding that imposter syndrome is fundamentally connected to competition. Totally huge neurological insight to me because you know, like one of the things that we’ve realized is like when you’re competing, there are wins and losses. And if we are in our brain, if, if, if we’re reverting [00:33:00] back to a competitive time in our life, most of us in our competitive careers, we ended up not being the champion. Right. Like unless you were the state champion or the world champion, like. At some point in every form of competition in our life, we ended up not being number one. And so there’s, I could see how that would root biologically. Yeah, a lot of negative emotions for all of us. And so when you’re competing, there’s wins and losses, but when you’re serving, there’s only wins and win. Exactly. When you just lean into going, like, it’s not about me winning, it’s not about me being smarter, it’s about how can I process this new information exactly to be more helpful and more useful. Um. And you get out of, there’s like this magic that you snap out of that com competition and just go, I’m not competing against other colleagues. I’m, I’m competing against, you know, being more helpful to other people and serving, uh, you know, my, my end user, my, my [00:34:00] end customer. But to, to realize that that goes directly to. Our neuroscience and being, and being drawn into competition without even realizing it. That’s, that’s really powerful insight. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: And it goes right down to rewiring that because you, you’ll probably find something happen at some point in your life. It could be recent, it could be old, could be from child, whatever, and that that needs to be when you found the source and the root, you can then rewire. But it takes standing back and observing and recognizing specifically that that. When people battle with imposter syndrome, one of the big things that I say to them, and I’ll say to myself if it hardly pops up anymore, because I know how to manage it now, but it did a lot, especially when I first started out in the world of science as a woman in a very patriarchal, dominant world. Um, you know, they’d go up to my husband and say. Hey Dr. Leaf. You know, they would overlook, you know, that’s the, just the whole, and just, I’ve had signed male scientists say to me, you’re not a scientist. Meanwhile, I’m doing more research than what they, yeah. It’s just having come through that kind of environment, I always say to myself, and I’d [00:35:00] say to my patients, and I’ll say to everyone listening today, there’s something you can do that no one else can do. And that is so important to find because that what you can do. That no one else can do is the piece of the puzzle. That is what Ev, and I know it sounds so cheesy, but Rory, it’s so valid and it’s so key to overcoming that imposter syndrome. You’re not gonna get rid of it through an affirmation. You’re not. ’cause an affirmation is an attempt to take something that’s positive and place it on top of something that’s negative. It’s like putting a bandaid on a wound. It’s like taking an opioid. When your hand is on the stove, take your hand off the stove. That’s why your hand’s sore. The open’s not gonna stop the, you know, the, the pain. So we, the painkiller not an a painkiller. So essentially we, what we need to do is we need to, uh, we need to look deeper and see who am I, what is it that I can do that no one else can do, and how can I do that to enhance others? And the research, so much research neuroscientific, psycho neurobiological research, research that I’ve done with my team, where we’ve even seen [00:36:00] changes down to the level of the DNA. When you shift that. Perspective and you start recognizing who you are and your identity starts coming back and you stop saying, I’m depression, I’m anxiety, I’m an imposter. I’m, when you shift that, you start opening the doors to dealing with a lot of the other mental health issues. It’s very much a, you know, it’s not the only core issue, but it’s a very core issue, are authenticity and our identity. Rory: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, um, so help in a hurry. So this is the name of the book, which I lo I love this idea and I think. W if somebody is struggling with some type of like mental health situation. What should they do? Like what are the things they can do to get help in a hurry? Obviously get the book y’all like you could tell this is, this is amazing. It’s so fascinating to me. Um, but in addition to like, you know, you also mentioned like the four triggers and I think we’ve only talked about one of them, which is emotion. So I would love to hear that of just helping us process. Okay. When I have anxiety or I have imposter syndrome, or I have fear, or [00:37:00] I do feel overwhelmed. What should I practically do? Like how do I coach myself through those situations? Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Okay, so just quickly go a little bit of neurobiology and neuroscience. Is that let, let’s say that this toxic looking tree over here, this wire looking tree is the imposter syndrome and the roots of it are the wherever the source was, someone’s saying something to you or whatever, and it just never was dealt with. It was just shoved down and shoved aside and never really dealt with. If you don’t deal, lot of stuff, what you resist will persist and just get stronger. So this is not just a wiry looking tree in your brain. This is a. Misfolded network. It’s proteins that are misfolded, it’s inflammation, it’s chemicals going create, creating hac. It is everything that’s supposed to be running normally, not running normally. So as much as a virus can invade the body and make biological changes our thoughts of, for example, imposter syndrome, do the, create the same physical damage as something like a virus. Wow. Wow. That’s Rory: amazing that a thought can have the same [00:38:00] biological damage as a, as a virus. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: even more. And it’s, it’s, that’s why we have like the, the, the, when people, your thoughts create reality literally. So you, you are your thoughts, you are your mind, your brain and body just follows suit. It’s not the other way around. So when we, when we recognize that the research I do, which is psycho neurobiology, you will look at when someone in taking someone through a process of it takes around 63 days to break a habit. So a habit of imposter syndrome, which is a, is a wired in network that has become an automatized habit. Um, which means it’s intelligent and logical and driving you and learning. And the more you don’t deal with it, the stronger it actually is getting, ’cause it’s learning to be more and more of an imposter syndrome. That is an actual physical, structural, biological change in your brain and your body that’s increasing your vulnerability to disease. It’s affecting your gut, it’s affecting your heart. Various different ways that it can affect us. Right down to your telomeres, which are your part of your DNA. They’re basically the ends of chromosomes. So [00:39:00] we’ve shown that within nine weeks of mind management, just managing your mind, you can completely reverse that process. You can, we’ve had people gain up to 35 years of biological health. Um, and if so, people that were like 30 in these thirties were the 65-year-old. Biological health, going back to match, catching, getting. So they’re 35, but they, but their body says they’re 65. That’s what it means. But within nine weeks, getting their body and their biological, their mental health and their biological health at the same chronological and biological at the same age, that’s 35 years of. Gaining health, mental health. So what it means is that I’m not decrying the fact that people have extreme states, extreme depression, extreme anxiety, um, where the mind really can, can, can literally break apart because of extreme trauma, et cetera, et cetera. That’s, that they, they, it’s so harsh and so dramatic, and that’s generally, um, trauma. So trauma is when something happens. To you, and it can really break, but it doesn’t mean that that person can’t heal. It means it’s gonna take [00:40:00] longer, not just one cycle of 63 days to break a trauma cycle. It’s gonna take multiple cycles. But if it’s a habit that you’ve developed, um, and something like impostor syndrome is something that’s, um, basically a habit that you have. Have developed, you can basically rewire that network in around 63 days. Most people think you can change a habit in 21, but it takes three cycles of 21. It’s different phases you go through and it’s a daily micro habit that you do. So it’s a daily process that you follow. So to come back to the four signals and all that stuff. So 63 days is the research shows is what I need to rewire a network using directed neuroplasticity. So if I want to wire out the imposter syndrome to take the example we’ve used today, I’m not gonna wire it out. After one session of listening to me, you’re gonna have to go and actually do the, apply a formula over 63 days. But what you can do in the moment that it happens. So I’m gonna tell you two things now in the moment that something happens, this is what this book deals with. This book deals with, how do I deal with imposter syndrome [00:41:00] in this moment? I’m sitting in a meeting and someone says something and. Can’t answer because all that is flaring up. So this gives you the ability to manage the 63 seconds. So what we see from science is that if you can create a pause of 63 seconds, you can actually get yourself back under control. You can direct the energy of the mind, brain, body connection, and you can affect. Right down to the level of the DNA. You can get yourself in a place of, of calm, like the orange and the red before the green on the traffic light. And that’s what this book is. It’s filled with strategies of, if I hit that, people pleasing, imposter syndrome, regret cycle, um, anything where you need to get calm. So it’s strategies to do that. Now, once I’ve hit the mark of, okay, I’ve managed the 63 seconds, I haven’t fallen apart, I’ve managed to recognize that I’m reacting and I’m scared to say anything, but I’ve gone through the little. Technique and I’m now back on track, and even though I’m still feeling a little bit wobbly, I have managed to master the 63 seconds. I’m still gonna say that in that meeting, when you’ve mastered 63 seconds, you can [00:42:00] master. In the next 10 minutes, you can master the next seven days. So this book also teaches you how to manage the 63 seconds and teaches you how to manage the 10 minutes and how to then get yourself to look at seven days. Why seven days, seven days is how we can start seeing if it’s a pattern in our life. Once you find a pattern, you then can go into the 63 days, which is the, is. Time it takes to rewire or multiple cycles of its trauma. What do you do each day? The neuro cycle and the neuro cycle? I’ve got an app. I’ve got other books. I reference the short version of it in here, plus a whole ton of other techniques. It’s basically how you gather awareness of the four signals, emotions, behaviors. Bodily sensations and perspectives. Those then take you to the thought, you name the thought, and then you reflect on that. That’s the second step. It’s all very clearly outlined in, in the, in the books, in this book and in, um, my other books. And I’ve got an the app, neuro cycle app. Um, and then you go to the third step, which is basically. Digging up all the other memories. Um, it’s just [00:43:00] basically a mindstorm that you do. And then what you do is you’ve now got all this data, you’ve got all these emotions, you’ve got the name of the thought, you’ve reflected, you’ve got a bit of who, what, when, where, why. Now you’re at a point where you can start rechecking, where you can start saying, reconceptualizing, what does this mean? How could I mind shift this? And then you create a little action. So you do that in about five to 15 minutes a day, and that is the formula that you apply to. Direct neuroplasticity, you’re literally rewiring that mind, brain, body network in the direction you wanted to go and changing how it plays out into your future. And you do that daily for the different cycles. Rory: That is phenomenal. And so it’s so inspiring and encouraging to me to go these. Things that are happening, that we’re feeling are very real and there’s nothing wrong with us. When we feel them, we should feel them. We should allow ourselves to feel them. They’re rooted in science and biology, but at the same time, we have power over them when we realize it’s not my identity, it’s just a thought. It’s [00:44:00] just a story. It’s just an experience. And that knowing that what I tell myself about the thing that happened or what I tell myself about the emotion I’m experiencing is. Is like most of the battle. I mean, it can, it, it, it affects my physical, it is my, my, my status and then just my, my ability to actually get out there and perform physically is connected so directly to the ability to have. You know, controlling my mind. And, um, I just, I love this so much. So y’all go get the book, help in a Hurry. It’s called, um, where do you Want People to Go, Dr. Leaf to, to get this book and stay connected to all the things that you’ve got going on. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Oh, thanks Rory. They can get whatever books are sold and my Dr. Leaf do um com is the website. And my social media handles are Dr. Caroline Leaf on all nine, all the platforms. Um, so they can get lots of, and the podcast is the Dr. Lee Show. So, and you’ve been on that show? Rory: Yeah. You, you’ve been, you’ve been such a great supporter of us [00:45:00] too, which I, I appreciate so much. And. I’m such a nerd. I feel like if I would’ve had a different path in life, I could have ended up maybe going down like cognitive neuroscience because I I love what you do so much. It’s Dr. Caroline Leaf.: so interesting. Rory: It is interesting and it’s inspiring and it, it, it’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s like it’s rooted in science, but also I think it know some of the things that you’ve said here, like the idea that there’s more evidence. There’s more scientific evidence that points to life after death. And there is scientific evidence that points to some of the pharmaceutical drugs that are on the markets. Uh, their efficacy is like, it is mind blowing. It is so that you know if you’re a, a person of faith, uh, or if you’re just a person who believes in people. To go. There’s science that backs all of this and supports that, and you, you dig to those deepest levels and then you kind of bring it forward for all of us to understand and apply and make sense of. So, um, thank you [00:46:00] for the work that you do. Dr. Lee, thank you for being who you are and, uh, we wish you the best. This is the book. Help in a Hurry. Everybody go buy the book. Go check out Dr. Leaf. Her work is. Incredible. And, um, Dr. Leaf, we just, we just wish you all the, all the best. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Oh, thank you Ru You’re incredible too. And thank you for all the help and everything you’ve put into our lives. I mean, you’ve really sewn a lot into our lives and we really appreciate, you’re amazing yourself. So thank you. And thank you for the great questions. I enjoyed this. Rory: It was, it was magnificent. Magnificent. Alright buddy, we’ll talk soon. Dr. Caroline Leaf.: Thank you.