Evolving Business Minds

How to Train Your Brain For Success with Liam Naden | #122

• Andy Silvius • Episode 122

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Have you ever marveled at the sheer power of your brain and its untapped potential to redefine success? That's precisely where Liam Naden, our esteemed guest, lights the way with his revolutionary insights. From the dizzying heights of entrepreneurial wealth to the humbling journey of losing it all, Liam's story is a gripping tale of transformation. He challenges the notion that stress is an inescapable sidekick of success, instead offering a fresh perspective on how to leverage brain science for a life of ease and achievement.

This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom as Liam peels back the layers of the brain, revealing a four-part model that holds the key to harmony and efficiency. He shares his revelations on how misalignments within these regions can wreak havoc and how rebalancing can set the stage for optimal living. Liam's personal anecdotes serve as a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit, painting a vivid picture of how he turned calamity into a canvas for success by allowing natural progress to guide his rebirth.

Wrapping up this deep dive into the cerebral realm, we unearth the strategies behind activating creativity to trump fear, particularly within the business landscape. Liam's methods are not just theoretical musings but grounded in scientific principles, providing a roadmap for harnessing the brain's supercomputer-like abilities. So, join us on this enlightening journey as Liam Naden shares habits for success that eschew stress for a life brimming with learning and growth. For those itching to explore further, Liam's podcast series and webinar are just a click away, promising to enrich your understanding of the intricate dance between brain function and a fulfilling existence.

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Andy Silvius:

All right, everyone welcome to a new episode of the Evolving Business Minds podcast. Today's guest is a coach, author, speaker and researcher. He teaches others how to use their brain the right way to achieve success. I want to welcome Liam Natum to the show.

Liam Naden:

Hi Andy Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Andy Silvius:

Absolutely. So before we dig into the questions and the rest of the show, do you want to take a couple minutes and let everyone know the overview of all the things you currently do and then how they can connect with you?

Liam Naden:

Well, I guess what I do is really help people answer the question how do we really get the results we do in our life? Because here's the reality we're all busy out there trying to make stuff happen, reach goals, create a successful business, but while all that's going on, our life is actually going in the direction that it's supposed to be going and we have all these unexpected things that happen to us. You know, good and bad, and the reality is there's something that we've forgotten about or never really paid attention to that's really responsible for creating results in our life. And when we understand what this thing actually is and it's not woo-woo, this is science, by the way when we understand what this thing is, it makes life an awful lot easier and things fall into place a lot more easily.

Liam Naden:

And I've had two life experiences. One is the struggling but successful businessman where my life was full of stress and still being a multimillionaire. Then I went from that to losing everything, and then I tried it a different way and things turned out a lot better. So that's the key to my message, and what I do is show people how that all works from a scientific but interesting point of view.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, I'm definitely curious to see how you went through that Just the fact of losing everything but being able to pull yourself out of it and do it again in a different way and improving on it, Because I think a lot of people struggle in business myself included on businesses that have failed, and sometimes it's really tough to pull yourself out of those things and start back over again.

Liam Naden:

Yeah, we can talk about that because that's interesting. As to why it's tough and what I did differently, that made all the difference about that, because that's interesting as to why it's tough and what I did differently that made all the difference.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah Well, first let's get into just your background. How did you get started in learning about brain function? Was this due to losing money and losing your success that you had built up?

Liam Naden:

Yeah Well, pretty well, most of my life I was your typical and I suppose still am your typical entrepreneur or, you know, one of the small percentage of people probably the people listening to your show right now actually who want to have a great life. You know you don't want to just settle for mediocre. I mean, this is why we get into our own business, isn't it? Is we don't. We want to make a lot of money, we want to have the freedom, we want to have the excitement and adventure and fulfillment of being in controlling our own destiny, being in control of our own life. So that was pretty much me for a long time in my life and I did really. I pursued two avenues to do that. One was through my own business, and I've had 18 different businesses so far and counting in my life.

Liam Naden:

So I've always been an entrepreneur and had my own businesses and I worked really hard at all of that and I created some very successful businesses and I became a multimillionaire and I had the homes and the travel and all of the nice things in life. But I also had a lot of problems and stress as well. But alongside of that, alongside growing and being a business person, I've always been a person who wanted to study this whole thing about success. How do we become successful? How can we be you know? What tools and resources do we need to use to make us a successful person? So I studied lots of different things, from religion and spirituality and spiritual practices such as meditation and mindfulness and right eating and all those sorts of things, and also a lot of personal development, things like goal setting, positive thinking, reprogramming your subconscious mind, working on your beliefs, doing all these different techniques and methods if you like to be a better person.

Liam Naden:

And, as I said, I achieved a lot of success. You know and here I was barreling along I had, as I said, a multimillionaire, but, as I also said, I had a lot of problems and stress, and we all know what it's like as an entrepreneur, that we start to buy into this idea that many people teach, actually, that problems and stress are a natural part of life, they're a natural part of success and they're actually a sign that you are successful. In other words, if you want more success, if you want to achieve a lot in your life, you have to learn how to overcome problems and obstacles, and it's only by overcoming problems and obstacles, that you grow and you become better and you achieve your goals. Right.

Liam Naden:

Now, of course, all of those things, as I said, I'm sure we've all heard that what I've come to discover is none of that's actually true, and I can explain why. It's not natural to live life that way and it's not really the way you achieve success. Because the problem with all of that approach and what I learned was, yes, you get stuff on the outside, but you know, I'm sure we can all relate to this Do you ever really get to that point where you feel totally in control of your life or totally fulfilled? Because I never did, and I was constantly thinking, you know this, yes, I've achieved all the success, but what's next? There's got to be something more. I don't really feel like I've made it yet.

Liam Naden:

You know, I need to make twice as much money as I made this year. I need to set bigger goals and we get on this wheel, if you like, or this conveyor belt of just going up all the time and never really getting off to enjoy, where we are never being able to experience the fullness of our full potential, because we're sort of always on a destination to somewhere else. Certainly, that was my life and it was pretty good on the outside. As I said, I had multiple businesses and plenty of money and freedom, with the problems and stress. But then something happened to me in my mid-40s and that is I went from that life to, literally overnight, losing everything and becoming homeless. And I went from having a beautiful home and, you know, multiple homes actually to having to move in with my elderly mother and sleep on the sofa in the living room in her small apartment in a town where I knew nobody, I had nothing. So this was a really weird experience and when I was going through that and it was pretty stressful, as you can imagine- the sofa wasn't that comfortable to sleep for a

Liam Naden:

start, but the two things kept coming to my mind, two questions. The first question was why has this happened to me? Because here I am, I've done, I know how to be successful, I know how to make things happen, I know how to do deals, I know how to be successful, I know how to make things happen, I know how to do deals, I know how to create opportunities in business, I know how to make money. But here I am, I've lost everything. This was never on my goals list. I mean, I had all my goals written out, I had it very clear what my plan was and where I should go and all those sorts of things. So this wasn't on my goals list.

Liam Naden:

So I kept asking myself why has this happened to me? I just don't understand. It doesn't follow any of the anything that I've learned about how you manage your life that this should happen because obviously it wasn't on a goals list. Right, and the question I asked myself was well, what do I do now? Because of no clue? Here I was, in a town where I knew nobody apart from my mother. I had no friends, no business associates, and it just seemed I had no opportunities and I just couldn't have. I just had no idea what to do. And I'm sure, again, you mentioned about business failure. We get to that point, don't we? If something goes wrong in our business, we sometimes think, think I would do it if I knew what it was I would do the right thing if I just.

Liam Naden:

But I can't figure out what to do and sometimes we get into this position where we're we're searching for the answer and it's almost like the more we search for the answer, the more we don't find it.

Andy Silvius:

We still can't find it I will, I will say just to add to that too, I think there are a lot of people that know what to do and choose to do the wrong things because it feels, because there's some sort of fear or pain behind the thing to do that would actually make them succeed. Would you agree with that? Hey, everyone, I have a quick interruption from the show, but I'll make it brief. I've got something that I think is vital for every entrepreneur out there and it can be a game changer for your business.

Andy Silvius:

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Liam Naden:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, of course, but it is a different thing to being in a situation where you simply don't know what to do, right, and you're stuck.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, and don't know where to look, that was certainly my situation.

Liam Naden:

Yeah, I would have done it if I'd known, but I just thought I just don't have a clue on what to do here. But what I didn't realize is that those two questions that I didn't have answers for they actually held the key to creating my, to moving my life in a completely different direction. Because what happened after that? As I sort of worked my way through the whole process and came out the other side, I set up new businesses, a couple of new businesses, and they started to go really well and I was starting to make really good money again and I was starting to do things that were really exciting. For instance, I spent eight years sailing around Europe on a yacht, on my own yacht.

Liam Naden:

Now, a lot of these things that were starting to happen to me I could only explain them as they were happening to me, because, whereas before I was the guy chasing after success, I was prepared to do anything you tell me. If there's an opportunity, I'll go for it. I'll set bigger goals. I'll read the next book. I'll go to the next seminar. I used to go to the next seminar. I used to go to so many seminars and read so many books and learn so many things. I'll do that, but I was always pushing what's the next thing, and almost trying to force it to happen, if you like, and thinking if things weren't happening, it was my fault and I wasn't trying hard enough and I needed to keep pushing. It was my fault and I wasn't trying hard enough and I needed to keep pushing. But I went from that to this new life, if you like, where I had new businesses, good income as good income as I'd had ever before and an amazing lifestyle. I didn't have the stress and the problems, though, as I say, I went from this state of pushing and trying to achieve success in a really weird sort of way and I know this sounds a bit kooky, but it was felt like success was actually chasing me, because things were actually happening to me without me struggling and pushing and trying to make them happen. It was like I guess we might call them luck or coincidence, but people would show up in my life or things would happen, or I'd even get an idea and things would just fall into place.

Liam Naden:

And I remember thinking a couple of years after this was starting to happen. I thought this is amazing, because what's different here? Why are things so much better? Because one of the most amazing thing is I don't really have any stress or problems. I really do feel like I'm on the right track. I'm all about good. I'm working hard, I'm putting in effort, but I'm not struggling things. There's something helping me here to make it all flow, to make it work properly, and what I didn't realize was or what I sorry what I decided was I'm going to figure out what's the difference, what's the mechanism at play here that's creating these different results, because for a start, I wanted to make sure I keep doing whatever I was doing.

Liam Naden:

I didn't know what it was at the time and it took a few years to figure out what it was that I was doing differently, but that became my mission. I need to know what I'm doing differently because this is working. This is the way life should be. This is the way I want my life to be, and I don't want to mess this up, and that's what led me to the work that I do now and why I help other people as well to understand how we as I said at the beginning, how we really get the results we do in our life, what's really at play around, what we think is going on.

Andy Silvius:

So I want to unpack some of that your business. Do you mind sharing what you did and then what caused the failure for your business?

Liam Naden:

Well, it was a combination. I had several businesses at the same time but I think what really caused the collapse if you like, and maybe people can relate to this as well the collapse, if you like, and maybe people can relate to this as well it wasn't just one decision. It was a number of bad decisions that sort of cumulatively finally got to the point where it all just, you know, collapsed. And I think I was very much in the state of what many people are in and I'm sure people can relate to this when you're trying to make something happen and sometimes you make a decision that you don't really wrong but you justify it to yourself and you say I'll make it work.

Liam Naden:

You're told all this stuff, you can make it work, you can make anything work, you can make it happen. And that creates this expectation and this pressure on yourself to do the wrong thing and think that you can fix it. So so, for instance, in business, it would be I'd employ the wrong person and I'd say I remember thinking with salespeople. I had some salespeople who just didn't perform. But my mindset was deep down I know they're not the right person for the job, but I'll make them the right person for the job because I can't find anyone else. Anyway, they're the best that I can find and it'll work out. I'll make it work out.

Andy Silvius:

You're settling for things that weren't serving your business well right.

Liam Naden:

It wasn't even settling. It was just this belief that you could make anything happen and you could fix problems. So even a part of my business that wasn't going well, I would say right, I'm going to make it work. How can I make that part of my business work well, whereas parts of my business, the way for them to work well, was simply to say this is never going to work, close it down, not put all the effort into something to do that.

Liam Naden:

And we can all relate to this. It's not just in business but even in our personal lives. We make the wrong decisions over relationships. Sometimes we meet somebody and we're forming a relationship with them and maybe we decide we're going to get married or or, you know, make it a permanent relationship. We know deep down this relationship, you know there's, there's real problems here and it's not really what I want. But we justify it and we say well, everybody knows that all relationships are difficult and you have to work on them and you're always going to have problems and you're never going to find the perfect person. And this person's a 70. You know that I'll never find anyone better than a 70 and I'll make it work. We're going to work on our relationship. We're going to make it work.

Liam Naden:

And I do a lot of marriage and relationship coaching. Still, and that's one of the things I find is that people, you can't make something work like that, you know. So it's the same principle, personal and business, that making the wrong decisions. And that's what I did, and I kept justifying to myself because I was afraid of what I thought was the alternative. I'm going to make it happen. I'm not going to be a failure. I'm going to make this work, listening to all of the gurus in the back of my head saying to me you can make it work, you can do it, you can overachieve.

Liam Naden:

You can overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal, and really that was my undoing.

Andy Silvius:

In the end, you're right. I mean, there are so many influencers online that blanketly put out statements like that that everything is going to work and you just need to push harder. And you got to work harder and you got to just commit to it. And I think there, in some sense, that is a key trait for people who are successful is to push through the tough times, because I do think we're in a society where people there's a lot of people who give up too soon, they don't commit to what they're doing and they ultimately will just walk away from something before they hit that level of success. But I guess you figured out later what those key indicators were. That was pushing you in the wrong direction when you went back and figured out.

Liam Naden:

Now you're running successful businesses. What did you find was the difference for you as you started to turn that corner, after you lost everything? Well, I think it was what I was mentioning earlier about allowing not just trying to force things to happen, but allowing. I mean, what it comes down to is really the most fundamental principle of who we are, because when I started from scratch again and I thought none of what I've learnt has worked because if it had, I wouldn't be in this situation and I'd know what to do. But I am in this situation and I don't know what to do, so I give up none of that's work. If I was to start again, where would I look? And so I began to ask myself okay, well, let's start with the real basics. Why am I here? You know who am I and why am I here? What is the purpose of me being here now?

Liam Naden:

Of course, many people have many throughout history have tried to answer that question from a philosophical or a spiritual point of view. But I thought what about? What can we all agree on? We might all might have different perspectives on the reason why we're here for spiritual reasons, but what can? What's one thing we can all agree on. And one thing we can all agree on is that we all have a physical body and we live in a physical world, and we can all agree that, actually, we're governed overwhelmingly by physical laws. So for and it doesn't matter how, how we there are laws that we can't change. There are things that we cannot fight against. So, for instance, this one is gravity. You can tell yourself, I'm going to walk off this 10 story building and I'm going to go up in the air and you're going to apply every intellectual technique to change your beliefs Pray, meditate, visualize, you can do all of those things, but it's not going to make any difference in terms of the fact the gravity is going to take over. Gravity is going to take over. So there's actually a biological overwhelming principle to how we work as well, including the results that we get in our life and the way our life turns out.

Liam Naden:

And if you'd ask any biological scientists what's the purpose of our biological life and how is life designed, they would all tell you the overwhelming design of life is to ensure that everything survives. The primary purpose of all life is survival. Everything is designed and wired with that as the ultimate and first goal, if you like. Above all else is to make sure that everything can survive for as long as possible, and the way that happens, of course, is what gives something the best chance for survival is when it is at its best. And all of nature operates on this biological principle, again called homeostasis, which is the scientific word, which means the perfect and optimal functioning of the organism. So every living thing is designed to function at its optimum level, so that it has the greatest chance for survival, which is its biological purpose and every living thing.

Liam Naden:

I thought well, if all this makes sense, then what has every living thing got to enable it to do that? It must have some way of doing that. It can't just be. That's. The purpose is to be the best you can be, then fill, fill the environment with things that are going to kill it as quickly as possible. It's the opposite.

Liam Naden:

So every living thing has been given a machine, a mechanism, a structure whose sole purpose is to ensure that that organism survives for as long as it can by being the best that it can be. And that thing is a brain, and that's all the brain is. And, of course, we're biological. We live under exactly the same principles and laws as the rest of biology, and we've been given a machine that has exactly the same function and purpose, and not only the same function and purpose, but the same ability. That's what it's there to do. Our brain is a machine that is designed for one thing to make sure that you survive by being the best that you can be, and the best that you can be.

Liam Naden:

What does that mean? Doesn't just mean you're healthiest. It means you're best mentally and emotionally, which means being your happiest. It means being fulfilled, which means doing the right things, living the right life, having the right things in your life that make you feel and operate at your best, which means being happy and fulfilled. And it means not having problems and stress, because problems and stress don't help you survive. They don't, contrary to some popular belief, they actually shorten your life. Stress is a known cause of disease, and we have this idea. Well, no problems are good, because you know they. They make you stronger. There are actually much better ways to be stronger and to learn lessons than through problems, because if that, if we only really learned our best lessons through problems, well, we wouldn't learn very much, because there's so many things we learn not through problems, but through being our best.

Liam Naden:

So what it really comes down to is I started to really dig deep into this and say, well, if we're supposed to be the best that we can be, if we're not supposed to have problems. Because if you look at the rest of nature and people have done scientific research on this and found that most of nature, 98% of natural things, live in this perfect state of homeostasis, being the best they can be it's only humans. We've got it around the wrong way. 98% of humans are not living in their peak performance state. So nature's designed us to live to our best and to live to our highest potential. It's given us a machine whose job is to make that happen. So why aren't we? Why aren't we living at our best? Why do we feel stress? Why have we got problems?

Liam Naden:

Because you would ask most people, do you think you're living to your full potential? Is your life as good as it can be? Are you feeling really in control of your life, totally fulfilled in every moment, loving and doing everything you like? Most people would say no, but if you've got a machine that's designed to create that, what's the problem? What's gone wrong? Why isn't it? Why don't you? Why haven't you achieved that, and there's only one real reason. It's like any other machine If you don't use it the right way, you're not going to get the right result, and that's what it comes down to. So my work is to help people understand how this machine works and using it the right way, and when you do that, you see different results in your life. You see things happen in a completely different way and in a much better way, rather than dealing all the stress and the problems and trying to figure it out and hopefully, but possibly, ending up like I did, where it all collapses in a heap.

Andy Silvius:

Speaker 1. So how do you tactically train your brain to do this? Because I think it sounds great, but it seems very difficult to wrap my head around the fact that there's always going to be stress and problems, I think, in a business. So how do you work past those or eliminate them altogether?

Liam Naden:

Well, it's an interesting idea that there's always going to be stress and problems in the business because, without sounding so great, I've spent the last 12 years without any problems and stress in my businesses, being really honest about it and the people I've worked with….

Andy Silvius:

Let me ask this Is it that you don't have the problems and stress, or is your perception of them different?

Liam Naden:

Well, what's the difference between a problem and your perception of a problem? And what is a problem? It's an interesting question. A problem is something that makes you feel bad, isn't it? Because, for instance, say, your wife comes to you and says they want a divorce, is that a problem or not? If you don't want a divorce, it's a problem and it makes you feel really bad. But the same situation. Maybe you are not you, but a person. Maybe you don't want to be married to that person anymore, and you've been trying to figure out for the last five years how to tell them you want to end the marriage. And then they come along and they say they want a divorce. It's not a problem, is it? And the only difference is in how it makes you feel. So, if you feel relieved and you say, well, that's not a problem, that's a solution actually.

Liam Naden:

So we need to understand that there is no such thing as problems. There's only our perception. It's only how it makes us feel. The problem is how it makes us feel, and it's not as simple and people would say, well, all you're doing is just you're saying, well, that's positive thinking. You just think positive and change what you think about it and the problem will go away. Well, that is actually partly true, but on the other hand, your brain is designed to navigate you around problems. So we can look back and say, well, there's something I did or there's something I'm doing that is not fixing that problem. And, as you said before, you know, people sometimes know what they should do, but they don't do it, so they actually are contributing to the problem. So the reason, the question is, why aren't they doing it? And the reason they're not doing it is because of the way they're using their brain. So the you know, the brain is biologically designed to ensure that you firstly, minimize problems, secondly, you deal with them in the most effective way so that you can get rid of them as quickly as possible. And thirdly, to keep living in this state where you're being the best that you can be the most productive, the most resourceful.

Liam Naden:

But I like to use the analogy of a motor car, because that's another machine that we can all understand. We can all say well, it's not necessarily a simple machine, but it's simple. The way what it's designed to do. It only has one purpose and that's to get you from where you are to where you want to go. You don't question that it can do that. You know that it's what it's for. It has no other purpose. And you know that it will do it reliably, efficiently, predictably. If you want to go there, it'll take you there and it'll also be enjoyable the journey. You don't need to worry about whether it's going to keep going. You don't need to get out every second and check the engine is still running. You just know that's what it's going to do. However, it'll only do that if you drive it the right way, if you know what levers and buttons to push and if you're putting the right fuel in.

Liam Naden:

If you don't do any of that, what's going to happen? You're going to end up with all sorts of problems. I mean, imagine if you didn't know how a motor car worked and you saw this thing and someone said to you well, that's a car, it's a machine designed to take you anywhere you want to go. And you looked at it and you thought, well, I'll have to try and figure out how to use it. Oh, it's got wheels. Oh, I know what it looks like. I'll just get behind it and push this thing along to get to where I'm supposed to go.

Liam Naden:

And what's going to happen. You're going to struggle and stress. It's not going to move very far. You're going to wear yourself out.

Liam Naden:

And then you're going to turn around and you say what's wrong with me? I'm not strong enough, I'm not determined enough, I'm not clear enough about getting that car to where I want to go. So I need to put in more energy, more effort. Maybe I need to get some different shoes. I need to do some exercises on my legs and arms to get stronger, and someone else would come to you and say what are you doing? Why are you making it so difficult for yourself when the machine is designed to do it in an easy way for you, because it's not designed to cause you stress, not designed to cause you problems, and you just learn. Well, there's a different way to drive it and you get the result it's supposed to give you. It really is as simple as that with the brain. The fact that most people aren't doing it the right way does not negate the principle of it, because you only need to look at the rest of nature and you see that the rest of nature is doing it the right way. We're the odd ones out.

Andy Silvius:

We're the ones who aren't living our biological purpose in this homeostasis.

Liam Naden:

So what is the right way and how do we train ourselves to do it that way? Well, it's a bit like a motor car. If someone came along to you and said you know, a kid came. Kid came and said, dad, could I borrow the car because I want to go 100 miles to a friend's place tomorrow, and he was only 10, he didn't know how to drive it. You, you would say, well, you can't take it tomorrow because you don't know how to drive it. You need to learn how to drive it.

Liam Naden:

I need to explain to you how it works in a simple way, and you need to understand how it works. And you need to start in a simple way. And you need to understand how it works and you need to start practicing a little bit and then it'll do its job to get you to do what you want to do. And your 10-year-old son what does he say? He says, oh, thanks, dad, that's great. Yeah, I definitely want to learn how to use it and all that. But can you just tell me what to do now? Just give me a quick tip on how I can drive it tomorrow to get to my friend's place 100 miles away.

Liam Naden:

It doesn't work like that, and it's the same with your brain. You need to put in a little bit more effort than say, well, what's the one thing? I'm not saying you, but we all need to think beyond just learning this one thing. That's instantly going to get us using our brain the right way. And what I teach is a four-part brain model, which explains that there are four distinct physical parts of your brain that all need to be used in the right way. And when you do that and when you develop the habit of learning how to do that and it's not complicated, but it does take a bit of effort, because we've had a lifetime of using it the wrong way and that's why we're getting all the wrong results but once you start to do that, firstly you need the most important thing is you need to understand how to drive it, how it works, and when you do that, start to practice, and then you'll start to get the results, and it won't be long before your life turns out to be quite different yeah so what are those steps?

Andy Silvius:

if we're going to look at the four-part brain model and I don't know if this is separate, but I read on your website about brain rebalancing Are they one and the same or is it the four-part brain model and then something separate with rebalancing?

Liam Naden:

Yeah, well, essentially, these four parts of your brain are out of balance because we've all been using them the wrong way. So brain rebalancing is a method I have created to enable those four parts of the brain to be used for what they're supposed to be used for, because we're all and I'm happy to explain, if you like, briefly what the four parts of the brain are and how they work and how they operate, because that's what we need to know is we need to use the right part of the brain for the right job, what it's designed to do, whereas, unfortunately, we've all been taught to use a part of the brain for the wrong job, and that's what causes all the problems and keeps us stuck.

Andy Silvius:

Right, yeah, if you don't mind, let's go through what the four-part brain model is, and then what does that process look like to rebalance it?

Liam Naden:

brain model is, and then what does that process look like to rebalance it? Okay, so remember, this is a biological, physical thing. We're talking about a biological machine whose sole purpose is to make you the best that you can be so that you have the greatest chance for survival, which is your biological purpose and the way it's designed. There are four regions in your brain that all have a different function and they've all got scientific terms and you know explanations, but I've created just simple labels and descriptions for each of them because it makes it easy to understand. Yeah, the first one's all your rational thinking brain and your rational thinking brain.

Liam Naden:

This is at the top of the head. It's in the place called the neocortex that's a scientific term and what this part of your brain does. The purpose of this part of your brain is to gather and store every piece of information that you pick up in every moment of your life. So everything that you get through your five senses, and every idea or thought. This all goes and gets stored in your rational thinking brain, and this is really useful because it enables you to identify things and make sense of the world around you. You can see an elephant or a horse and you know the difference because you've got labels for it. All this information that you've gathered in your rational thinking brain also enables you to communicate, because we can create words and meaning and understanding between us. So that's the rational thinking brain.

Liam Naden:

The second part is just below the rational thinking brain and inside your skull, and it's what I call your emotional feeling brain. Pretty obvious what this does. This is responsible for how you feel, what emotional state you're in, which, of course, is really how you experience the world, whether you're happy or frustrated, or angry or excited. This all comes from your emotional feeling brain. The third part of your brain is at the back of your head and it's what I call your survival brain. It's where the brain stem and a couple of other places that do this. But your survival brain really manages everything that, as the name suggests, to keep you surviving on a moment-by-moment basis, without you having to think. So this has everything to do with your physical, your breathing, your heart rate, all the physical organs and everything that's going on, all of the things necessary to keep you surviving in any moment.

Liam Naden:

Yeah in any moment. Yeah, there's one other really important function of your survival brain and that is how it deals with a threat to your survival. Because, if you think about when the brain was first formed, when we evolved, however, many million years ago, we lived in a dangerous world and there were lots of threats to our survival. You know, walking down the forest path, and there'd be a lion hidden behind every rock waiting to jump out and eat us. So we need to develop this tool or a mechanism or a weapon to fight against threats and dangers, things that could harm or kill us. Sometimes it's called the fight flight response, but it's part of our survival brain where, whenever something unexpected or dangerous comes into our life, it activates this response that reacts to the threat. So we might run away or shout for help or prepare to fight, or even fight or whatever it is, but it's just a reaction to a danger and this is part of our survival. This is what we've developed to help us, to protect us against any threats to our survival. So those are those three parts, and the fourth part of the brain is really the master part of your brain, because this is the part that's designed to run your life. This is the part that manages the other three.

Liam Naden:

Well, it doesn't really manage the other three parts, but it's the dominant part when you're being the best that you can be, when you are in the state of homeostasis, when you are living your biological purpose, which is to give you the greatest chance for survival by being your best, and it's called your creative brain. And your creative brain is right in the very center of your skull. It's been described by religious and spiritual traditions going back thousands of years, and science more recently is starting to become aware and focus on this as a separate part of your brain. But the creative brain is where all of your best features lie, if you like. So it's where your creativity comes from your imagination, your intuition. You know, you get those gut feelings or you get this idea, what we talked about earlier. I should do that. I shouldn't do that. It's not something that you've figured out. That's come from your rational thinking brain that you've spent hours trying to work out.

Liam Naden:

It's just a new idea or a feeling or a knowingness that you've got about the right decision. This is where you're, and this is really important, because this is also where your problem solving ability actually comes from. You know, we can be struggling with a problem for weeks, months, whatever, and then all of a sudden, when we're focusing on something else, we suddenly get the answer. We go oh why didn't I ever think of that?

Andy Silvius:

Happens quite a bit.

Liam Naden:

Exactly so this is this. So this all comes from the creative brain. Again, it's not coming from our rational thinking brain and other things like your motivation. This is where this comes from. There's a state of peak performance that many people high achievers have described as being in the flow, being in the zone where things are going really well. Athletes talk about this, about that they suddenly feel something taking over and they're just performing at a level that it's not effortless, but it's almost effortless. There's something helping them.

Liam Naden:

Musicians, composers, artists, creative people they talk about coming up with this. For instance, composers say things like if they're asked, where did you get the idea to write that? How did you write that piece of music? And they say I don't know, it just came to me, you know, and I just heard it and I just wrote it down. So this is all the creative brain at work and the way we're designed to live.

Liam Naden:

We're all designed to live in this peak state all the time, because that's the state that makes us the best that we can be. It makes us to make the right decisions. We're not. We think the right thoughts. We, we have this intuition and awareness of what, of the right thing to do we take the right action, good things happen and come into our life as a result. You know circumstances. People work for us rather than against us. So we're supposed to live in this state, and that's when we're in this peak performance, super productive state, and I'm sure we've all experienced this from time to time. However, there's only one time we're not supposed to be being the best that we can be living to our full potential, because with this comes being really happy, excited, fulfilled, knowing things are going well, feeling in control of our life. Only one time that that's not appropriate or even useful, and that's when a lion comes out from behind a bush.

Liam Naden:

So when we're faced with a sudden, unexpected threat to our survival, and what literally happens on a biological level, then is that your brain sent. This actually comes from your emotional brain. It sends a signal down to say activate your survival response and shut down your creative brain, because your creative brain is of no use to you when a lion's about to eat you. You can't. You can't be resourceful and creative, you've just got to react and all of the energy that's being used in that part of your brain that gets diverted, because you might need that energy to fight the lion or run away from the lion. So what literally happens is that you operate in a very limited and it's designed to be for a very specific purpose, for a very limited amount of time, to react to that threefold danger and shut down all of the resources that you have at your disposal to make your life the best that you can be.

Liam Naden:

So what is the problem? Most people are living their life 99% of the time in this survival state and shutting down their creative brain, and that's why they're stuck and that's why we have problems and that's why we spend all our time trying to figure out what our goals should be, what we should do, what's the right decision, and we make the wrong decision and the wrong things sort of happen in our life and we wonder why that is. It's because we've activated the wrong part of our brain. So the question we really have is how can I stop activating that part of the brain and how can I ensure that I live in this creative state? And the answer to that is to understand what causes your brain to switch on or off those two parts of those two parts, what causes it to shut down a creative brain and switch on the survival brain.

Liam Naden:

When we understand that. All we need to do is make our focus to stop it switching on the bad part and switching on the good part, if you like and everything works out the way it's supposed to. We do the right things, we make the right decisions and the right things happen.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, it's interesting, and so I've got a couple of questions. The creative brain are you speaking about the pineal gland area of the brain?

Liam Naden:

Primarily, that's where it's located.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, have reference to the pineal gland, and I know there's a lot of people that have theories that it's how you tap into a collective consciousness. You know, I don't know how much of that you believe, but I am curious, though when you're running a business, I mean, it sounds great to learn how to do that, and I think it's probably a daily practice. Practice. I don't know if you can ever get there. You tell me, but how do you eliminate that switching back and forth when, when you're running a business and you're constantly hit with things that arise you're not planning for? Like, there's always going to be things that show up that aren't ideal, and I think sometimes we're naturally programmed to just go into the response mode, and not necessarily creative. So how do you help train your brain to go in that direction?

Liam Naden:

well, I think the first thing to realize is what switches on that part of the brain. What switches on the creative brain because this is a mechanical process and what it is is when your brain. It actually starts off in your emotional feeling brain, which is essentially in every moment making a decision for you about whether your environment is safe or whether it's a threat. When it's safe, your emotional brain sends a signal to indicate that your creative brain should be activated and it sends it in the signal in the form of feelings. So when you feel good, you're activating your creative brain. But if it says there's a threat to your survival, it says there's a threat to your survival. You need to activate your survival brain to deal with that danger, and the signal it gives is in the form of fear. So when you feel fear, stress, worry, anxiety, what's literally happening on a biological level is your brain is interpreting your environment, something. There is a threat to your survival. Now the problem is we've created all these imaginary threats to our survival because there aren't any lions out there, there's nothing you know. If your wife tells you they want a divorce and you get all stressed about it, your brain has associated this concept of having a divorce with a threat to your survival, because somewhere in your distant past you've learned, oh, you know all these beliefs and thoughts about what relationships should be, and all these people who got divorced and it was terrible for them, and all those sorts of things. So your brain has made a decision that that's a threat to your survival. But it isn't. But it doesn't get away from the fact that you've activated the wrong part of your brain.

Liam Naden:

And what happens? When you feel stressed and afraid and anxious and worried, you do all the wrong things in a relationship, don't you? You start pleading with them please don't leave me, or you threaten them, or you act in all these sorts of ways that only push them away further. And I know this because I do a lot of marriage and relationship coaching in this very area. So we know this is what's actually happening, and it's happening on a biological level, happening on a biological level. So the reality is, when you feel fear, worry, stress, anxiety, your brain is saying there's something that's a threat to your survival and it's going to activate the wrong part of your brain. And if you try and solve your problems, set your goals, manage your business, do anything in that state, you're never going to have access to the answers, you're never going to be able to do exactly the right things. And people say, well, just as you've said. Well, you know, but everyone's got problems and stress to deal with in their life and in their business and things come along.

Liam Naden:

But here's the really interesting thing Once you start using your creative brain, you actually make much better decisions and you make much quicker decisions and you see things not in a way better than they are, but in the right way. Because how many times do we struggle along with something in business? And we should have, as I said earlier, we should have just made the decision not not to do it. Because one of the things I think we don't realize is that how powerful our brain is. I mean, there have been lots of books written about trying to describe the brain and virtually every book, on the last page, they all pretty well say the same thing and that's the conclusion. And the conclusion is they can't believe how incredibly powerful the brain is. I mean, the human brain has the computing power of 500 trillion microprocessors.

Liam Naden:

Now, if someone was to come to you and say, ok, you've got your business, you've got your life, you know, all set up.

Liam Naden:

There's a computer over here.

Liam Naden:

It's got 500 trillion microprocessor power microprocessor power and it's designed for one purpose, which is to design your life in the best way possible, so that you are the best that you can be, so that you have the greatest chance for survival. Would you be interested in using that? And would you say oh yeah, I really want to find out if that's what it's designed to do and it's that powerful. All I need to do is figure out how to use it. I'm going to go and learn how to do that and that's what I'm going to focus on. Or would you say well, thank you very much, that's quite a useful tool. I'll bear that in mind, but I'll just carry on trying to work it out myself, because the only reason you'd say that is if you didn't understand that that's what that computer was there for and that's how powerful it was. But if you realize that, you wouldn't keep saying to yourself you wouldn't justify, if you like, that it wasn't working right you would start to say well, the reason it's not working right is I'm not using it.

Andy Silvius:

You know, I'm not accessing the full resources of it because I guess my my question, though, that I'm trying to understand is that, if you are faced with fear, a have a fight or flight response. How do you train yourself to activate the creative part of your brain instead have a fight or flight response? How do you train yourself to activate the creative part of your brain instead of the fight or flight response? What are some tactical things that somebody could do?

Liam Naden:

Well, what you need to realize is it's a habit. Most of the time we activate fear, not because there's a threat to our survival, but because we think that something might hurt or harm us. We don't understand. There's a machine there, you know, when I lost everything I could have said and I did oh, why has this happened to me? This is absolutely terrible. But a little while later, when I started to understand what was going on, I thought you know, that's the best thing that ever happened to me, because it got me on a different track. It got me starting to understand how all this works.

Liam Naden:

It moved my life in a much different direction yeah and then helped me now to share this, not only to improve my life massively and get me to where I really want to go, but I'm now able to share this information and help other people make a massive difference to their life as well. So how could you say that was a really bad thing? So then you start to shift your awareness and realize that everything happens to you has a good purpose, but you need to trust and allow this 500 trillion microprocessor computer to do the job and say it knows how to do for you far better than what you do, and when you allow it to do its job and religions call it having faith if you like, but funnily enough, the religion also says in the Bible, for instance tells you exactly how to do this. It says it in three words, and it says these three words 365 times, which is be not afraid. It's telling you don't activate your survival brain. We've given you this and you're right.

Liam Naden:

The pineal gland and all of spiritual traditions and science is increasingly acknowledging this. This is tapped into and it's not just the sum of your knowledge that you've learned in your lifetime, which is in your, which is from your experience and your rational thinking brain, the library. This is tapping into the intelligence that runs everything and sometimes people say, well, you know, that's all bit e theory, but the more you start to use this part of the brain, your awareness shifts and you start to see things the way they are, that there's an intelligence that is running this entire show, including your physical body, that you can tap into it any time you want and that's the part that's designed for you to use to give you the best life possible.

Andy Silvius:

Well, fun fact about that too. I don't remember the names of the people, but there's a lot of studies that go far back in time, before we had phones and internet and we were connected with each other, that people on different sides of the world were creating the same inventions at the same time complete, uh, completely new inventions. This wasn't built on something that was. It's not. I'm not talking about like taking a wheel and just making it better. It was like complex in innovative, you know, inventions that were being made simultaneously and they, they think that, you know, there's some connection between the consciousness that they had between each other, even though they had no contact, you know there's a some connection between the consciousness that they had between each other even though they had no contact.

Liam Naden:

There's a very good book it is quite old called the Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. He talks about a lot of these things and the conclusion he comes to which is what every quantum physicist and scientist is coming to is what we see as reality. You know this is probably way beyond the scope of this conversation, but if you really want to dig deep, what you realize is what we perceive as reality isn't reality at all. This is like a holographic illusion, if you like. People have described this. What is reality, and in fact what we perceive through our five senses is? Science has measured as being 0.005 percent, less than a half of a half of a half of a percent of all the energy and matter that exists in the universe. So what we see isn't even a fraction of what actually exists yeah so we.

Liam Naden:

But it's only when we start using our creative brain that we become more aware of these things, and we become more aware of these things. And we become more aware of these things, we realize there's an intelligence and a mechanism that's designed to give us this really great life without problems, but we need to use it. We can't keep trying to force things to happen from a very limited perspective.

Andy Silvius:

Well, you mentioned something earlier about the things you went through in your past. After you through them, you reviewed them as something that needed to happen for you to move forward right, and I it was something. I actually posted this the other day on social media that one of the things I've struggled with the most is when you're going through problems. You know going through, let's just say, a situation that is a struggle, instead of viewing it as a failure or something bad, looking at it as a learning lesson. And it's easier when you're looking back on those things to view them as learning lessons than it is during the moment of going through whatever it is and viewing it as a positive. I think that's where.

Liam Naden:

Because that's again a mental habit. Are you in the habit of using your creative brain and saying you know, everything that happens in my life is absolutely perfect because my creative brain, it's in control, it's designed to make everything perfect. Brain, stop stressing and worrying about what things mean and stop trying to fix problems and trying to change anything, that is, you start to operate from what I call biological efficiency, because here's another biological principle of the way nature works is everything works to the utmost efficiency of energy. In other words, it expends the least amount of energy for the maximum amount of result. And your brain is designed of energy for the maximum amount of result and your brain is designed to give you the maximum amount of result in your life with the minimum amount of energy. But what does that actually mean in practice? What it means is is your brain, your creative brain, is only going to make sure that you see and do the very next step all the way along the line.

Liam Naden:

Because imagine if your creative brain knew and it does know, it knows far more than you think you know about what you want and need in your life for you to be happy and how to set your life up the right way. You know, you don't need to sit down and try and figure it out. Your creative brain already knows. How many times do we set goals, never achieve them, or we achieve them. We think well, I didn't really want that anyway, but I just worked for it because I couldn't think of anything else. But your creative brain, it knows exactly what you're supposed to be doing at every single time, but it's only ever going to show you the process one step at a time.

Liam Naden:

Because if your creative brain suddenly gave you this big picture, here are the next 20 steps to get to where you want to go, or where you're supposed to be, to be happy now, what would happen then? For a start, where you're supposed to be might be somewhere you've never considered. It might be something that's way out of you know, when some, if someone was to say to me you're going to spend eight years sailing around europe on your own brand new yacht, I would have said that's crazy, I couldn't do that to be. How do I start with that and how do I get to that place?

Liam Naden:

And the brain would say well, here are the 20 steps to get there. If my brain had showed, if your brain shows you that, what would you do? You'd start to doubt it, you'd start to question, you'd analyze, you'd say I don't know if that would work. Would that be really the thing it's supposed to do? You'd waste all of that energy. So what it does instead is it shows you the very next step and really this becomes a habit you can train yourself to do, and I've spoken to some very successful people who tell me this is exactly what they do. They don't set goals, they don't try and figure stuff out, they just take the next step and they don't worry about whether it's the right or the wrong thing. It's like the very next step because they know and trust that their creative brain is leading them, probably down an unexpected way, but down the right way, and that makes running a business and running your life so much easier. You don't need to stress and figure out and even question what's going on. You just say right, what's the next thing to do? This is interesting and it's not long before.

Liam Naden:

When you get into this habit, things do start turning out a lot better for you. They did for me, they've done so for people who I've helped understand how to do this. It's it's not the struggle that you think life is and problems are. You know how many times have we had a problem and it just solves itself. You know, I remember with star, a staff member, once a salesperson. I used to tear my hair out because he was so, he wasn't right for the job, things, and then a few months later he just came and said look, I'm resigning because, um, this isn't right for me, problem solved, you know. So it's not just our efforts that solve our problems. There's something else going on and we just need to accept and allow this, the process, to happen right?

Andy Silvius:

well, we are getting close to wrapping up, but I have one last question for you, and this is something I ask everyone. Is you know if you could leave listeners with one actionable item that would have a positive impact on them today? What would it be and why?

Liam Naden:

Stop looking for a quick fix and learn to understand how this machine of your brain works, so that you can use it more effectively to do its job, which is to make your life the best that it can be. So you're biologically successful.

Andy Silvius:

Do you have any resources on your website that people can go visit if they're interested?

Liam Naden:

Yeah, absolutely. I've got a whole podcast with many episodes where I explain all this in more detail my four-part brain model. I've got a diagram there and an explanation. I've also got a webinar which really goes into a lot more detail on how to do this, and the good thing is, this isn't difficult. Remember, this is natural. This is the way we're supposed to do this, and the good thing is, this isn't difficult. Remember, this is natural. This is the way we're supposed to naturally live. You look at a bird. It doesn't struggle to find food, it just finds food. We're naturally designed to live this way. What makes it difficult is we've learned all these bad habits. It's a bit like if you want to lose weight, you just need to change a habit of your diet. Now, once you understand what to do, you need to start practicing and then you start getting the results. So I have a webinar about all of this which explains some really key points on what you need to do and how to do it, and you start to see quite different results Really exciting.

Andy Silvius:

That's awesome. We'll make sure to put that in the show notes and, liam, I appreciate you being here today. We've covered quite a bit of ground and I'm sure there's a lot more to unpack, so I will definitely put all of your links in the show notes so everyone can check out your resources and your show as well.

Liam Naden:

Thank you very much and thanks so much for having me and allowing me to spout on about this.

Andy Silvius:

Absolutely, it was a fun conversation.

Liam Naden:

Thank you, yeah, for me too.

Andy Silvius:

So I want to thank all of you guys for listening. If you enjoyed the show and felt like it provided you value, I'd love to hear in the comments what stuck out to you the most. We'll see you on the next one.