Justin Trosclair 0:05
Episode 1018 self destructive processes and emotional intelligence. I’m your host, Dr. Justin Foursquare and today, we’re Dr. Diane partner, PhD perspective, joint 2017 and 2018 podcast Awards Nominated host as we get behind the curtain look at all types of doctors and guests specialties. Let’s hear a doctor’s perspective.

So happy to be back. This was actually the first interview I did after having a baby because, you know, I pre did a bunch of interviews and I’m happy to say the baby didn’t cry to his real calm my wife took her on a walk and they came back and it was still fine. So really happy about that. And I think this week is going to be a good episode for you is are we talking about emotional intelligence and different ways to hire people one thing she said was the put them in a stressful situation and see how they respond and she’ll go into more of that was really a fun part of the interview about how her neuroscience has bridged into a counseling for mid and high level executives. We discuss stuff about like type A personalities how to safeguard from burnout, procrastination, there’s pluses and minus to that let’s figure that out. intrinsic versus intrinsic motivations for yourself for staff, whips millennials a little bit not too negative. Actually. She did a good job answering that question and it near the end of the interview, I think you’ll enjoy the answer. I will also go over a little bit about brain nutrition. If we’re trying to build new pathways for trying to maximize our learning. What can we do about that fall asleep, source food etc. And then lastly, she has a criteria that she looks at when trying to counsel somebody or coach someone, everything from perfectionism, self doubt multitasking, etc. Okay, I think I gave you enough preview of what’s going on. Let me know what you think about the new podcast logo. It’s finally up the new song, give me your feedback, always wanted, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, you can find me again, top of the website on the right. And as all the little buttons, you just click that, like me, friend, me, follow me and definitely reach out to talk to you as well. Okay, all the show notes can be found at a doctor’s perspective, net slash 101. Let’s go hashtag behind the curtain.

Live from China, and Brisbane, Australia. Today, we have got a neuroscientist plus a businesswoman. And she draws from of course neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, behavioral science, because look, she wants you to understand your own behavior plus the behavior of others so that you can get better performance and engagement out of everything. Now her expertise is through speaking mentoring workshops to build courage, resilience, agility, engagement, self awareness. She has a website is called clever minds consulting. com that a you will say it again later. But Welcome to the show. Dr. Diane Horner, PhD.

Unknown 2:54
Thank you so much for having me, Justin.

Justin Trosclair 2:56
Absolutely. Well, look, we have a responsibility as doctors were supposed to be empathetic. We’re supposed to know what’s going on. We got to manage staff, we have to there’s just a lot going on. And we want to know about emotional intelligence today, how not to get burned out, what’s the ways we can hire the best people and get the most out of them? as well. I mean, that’s just that makes sense to me. But before we go into all of that, use a little bit behind your background, where you are now and what’s your day to day like. So,

Unknown 3:28
I’ve always been curious about people and why they do the things they do and also the human body and how it works. So from a very early age, I really understood that our brain was responsible for orchestrating everything we think feel saying do. And so I really wanted to understand how the brain worked. This was on the backdrop of spending a lot of time in home for mentally and physically handicapped children. And seeing how, when the brain doesn’t function, well, how that is expressed in in thinking and behavior as well. I’ve also been very focused on serving people and helping people. So it’s the backdrop of those two things that have really carried through my Korea, in research and also in the corporate world. But now what I do is, as you say, I do a lot of mentoring and speaking and workshops, and my aim is to help people become more self aware, and deliberate in their thinking and behavior, so they can orchestrate their own success.

Justin Trosclair 4:32
Talk to us for a second, a PhD in neuroscience, that blows my mind. I mean, you know, doctors or doctors but like real science, I mean, I’m we’re taking a few classes and being like, wow, this can get intense. So how is it that you, I’m guessing there’s lots of different things in ways that you can go in that field? For those who have no idea how you would even narrow that down and might be considered maybe a career like what you’re talking about? What is something that could like the two or three minute explanation of like, how do you figure this out?

Unknown 4:59
Yeah, so as you say, there are lots of different branches of neuroscience and ranges from looking at the very tiny microscopic parts of the nervous system like how sign up says function, which are the gaps that allow neurons to communicate right up to the cognitive and behavioral sciences that look at our our thinking and our behavior and and what drives that. So when I first became interested in pursuing neuroscience is it Korea was actually in my honest he just after I’d finished my undergraduate degree, and I was looking at the brains of boxes, so people had who had been involved in boxing, I was looking at the injuries to the brain as a result of Butch boxing and what causes what’s called dementia pugilistic which is known as pumps, drunkenness. Now, the interesting thing was that this punch, drunkenness had also been seen dwarfs that had been involved in dwarf throwing, and they had received the same or similar condos injury. So what I was doing is comparing the brains of boxes to the brains of the dual set also had this punch, drunkenness and seeing what the similarities and the differences are. So that was my first real foray into neuroscience. And from then I went on to look at how neurons find a way in the brain when they developing. And then I went on to look at the front part of the brain that controls all of our cognition and personality, and looking to see the chemicals that are present in the front Pastor Brian, but ultimately, my PhD, was looking at multiple sclerosis, which I think is a disease that most people have heard of. So that’s where the nervous system and the immune system interact. And, and that’s what I did my PhD on. Since then, I’ve just moved away from the more sort of molecular Kayla level of neuroscience and more into the cognitive and behavioral disciplines.

Justin Trosclair 7:06
Wow, that’s,

like respect for certain careers. And like, that just blows my mind because it’s beyond like something that I would really be able to comprehend very well, I think we think a lot of effort to figure all that out. And wow. So okay, when we’re looking at let’s just jump right into, say, ourselves, a lot of us are type A personalities, I would say, as, as doctors because they have to, you know, all the little tease gotta be cross, there’s lots of different things, you want to be in control of the patient and your and everything. Is there like drawbacks to that that you can find when it comes to managing patients or your own self, when you’re that really driven person?

Unknown 7:49
Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges for doctors is that there was so much to know, so much knowledge that you have to acquire, and so much of your thinking and behavior, the needs to come really automatically. So in a crisis situation, your training really needs to kicking, and you need, you know, ideas and solutions to come to you quickly. So that creates a kind of an automatic entity in the way that we approach things. And that’s actually what I Brian wants to do. Our brain is an energy consuming organ. So whatever, he can put it down as a habit or routine or an automated behavior, it will. So that is useful when we need to think quickly. But the balance is also making sure that we stop and we check. And we’re deliberate in the way that we are thinking and behaving as well. And I think the doctors that is the real balance that needs to be struck, because if we approach every situation in a similar kind of way we risk missing something.

Justin Trosclair 8:51
Hmm, that’s true. I think they always say, you see 100 horses a day, but you got to keep your eyes out for that zebra. Exactly. They look very similar.

Unknown 9:00
Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Justin Trosclair 9:02
Now, hiring is important. Some of us have physicians assistants, some of us have maybe nurse practitioners underneath us. And we all have front desk staff. We’re talking about that. We’re talking about like emotional intelligence, are there certain skills that were maybe looking for when we’re hiring these types of people in a way to like, find out those?

Unknown 9:21
Yeah, so my philosophy about hiring people is that skills and knowledge are incredibly important. But these can be taught when it comes to hiring people, I think we should really place a lot of importance on attitude, and also interpersonal skills, resilience, work ethic, the ability to get along with others, the ability to be flexible, and really test those, and not just rely on an interview situation, because we all know that we can prepare very, very well for an interview situation. So when we’re hiring people, we need to develop exercises and activities that really push people into the places that they’re uncomfortable. Because when people are uncomfortable, this is when they are less regulators in their behavior. And those true behaviors can come forward. Like what

Justin Trosclair 10:17
interview is there, like a style of question that you should ask like, just kind of real world scenario that you might experience, it just sailed that that should throw them off guard and see what they do?

Unknown 10:24
Yeah. So I have a really great example of a test that I used to run when I was recruiting stuff. And it was a time management tips. And so I had 10 items, it’s called the intro exercise. It’s it’s quite commonly used. And then the 10 items that needed to be prioritized in order of importance, and the next action item determined, and there was a specific time limit, you know, to to achieve this task. And this one particular fella, I can remember very carefully, he was very confident in interview, you know, had all the right answers to all the questions, and I put him into this time management exercise. And he started mumbling to himself and kind of rocking backwards and forwards in his chair saying, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble. So it’s, it’s really interesting to see how when you strip away that mask that people put on what what the true behind these are that come forward? Wow.

Justin Trosclair 11:26
So at that point, you really got to use your gut about what are you seeing? Obviously, that would be a bad candidate, it’s going to get stressful?

Unknown 11:32
Yeah, that’s right. Because the ability to handle stress, particularly in the medical field is absolutely critical. And if you have somebody who completely deconstructs in the face of stress, then that’s obviously somebody who may not be appropriate for that role that you know, is exposed to a lot of stressful situations.

Justin Trosclair 11:51
All right, good. So I’m hearing to start with, you’re gonna hire somebody brainstorm with some people figure out some kind of stressful situation that you guys in your own clinic, see every day. And at that point, make a scenario and might a couple scenarios, ask different questions to different potential job offers, and, and just see what they do and see what they say. And then that’s a really better way than just what your strengths your weaknesses, yeah. Okay. I like that. Now, for a new doctor, maybe even a new staff member, you kind of going in, you kind of know what you’re doing. But there’s usually like a little bit of a lack of confidence, you have to fake it till you make it, is there a way to program your brain to make it faster, you can actually have real true confidence. I don’t want to take two years if I can take three months, I don’t know.

Unknown 12:33
Yeah, so so. So those feelings of uncertainty and lack of confidence are absolutely normal, and every single person has them. And the main reason for that is our brain is a prediction machine, we’re always it’s always trying to figure out what the next step is, and to develop those if then statements, if I do this, then this will happen. But when we put into new situations that we haven’t seen before, we have to work with people that we don’t know, we have to do tasks that we might all have done before I Brian gets triggered by this because it can’t run those if then statements, he can’t predict what is going to happen next. So my advice is that there will be discomfort, and you kind of just have to lean into that, and know that that will be there. And know that it will also pass because the more we are exposed to these situations, the more memories and solutions that are memory out, Brian lives down, and then we become more comfortable, and it becomes more comfortable that it can predict what’s going to happen next.

Justin Trosclair 13:33
You know, I heard a, it was a veteran chiropractor, you know, it’s all about your hands and manipulating the spine and different things. And one of his complaints, I think with the new schools is that they don’t get quite enough repetition. Like when he’s like when I used to teach, we would do set up we would do you know, 12345, you do that. And you might do that for 20 minutes every day before you start doing something else is like because if you don’t have that automatic brain synapse, like you’re going to struggle fat and lot longer, and someone who has been doing that your skills aren’t quite as good. And that’s what makes you your money as a chiropractor is you’re adjusting skills. So it’s a very good to see that a similarities and everything that we’re talking about whether it’s a mental thing, hiring motivations, its consistency, yeah,

Unknown 14:16
been exposed to it, we are what we repeatedly do. So whenever we do something for the first time we make new connections, those connections will only become stronger if you reinforce those connections. And that’s why they say practice makes perfect. The more times we engage in a task or way of thinking or solve a certain problem in a certain way. The stronger these connections come and then our brain stops put those down as habits

Justin Trosclair 14:42
neuro plasticity, right, correct. Yeah. Okay, cool. Cool. Sometimes we we have an issue with staying motivated, once it becomes a habit all of a sudden kind of gets boring, like every now and then you get that weird case. Yeah, that was fun at the thing that really use my brain. Is there a way to kind of stay motivated, because I think that needs to burn out as well. When you just kind of like five to look at one more pair of eyeballs and fit their glasses. I’m going to just go crazy. Like, I don’t see anything. I don’t see glaucoma anymore. It’s just like I can’t. It’s so boring. Like, what did I it? You know what I’m saying? So yeah,

Unknown 15:14
what can we do? Yeah, well, I just read a great book about motivation recently. And it’s on my page, my resources page of my website. It’s called addiction, procrastination and lightness. And it’s finally called Roman Galperin. And it talks about the three parts of any task we do any job we do, and how they each provide a certain amount of motivation. So the first part of is called the activation energy. And that’s the amount of energy that we need to actually engage in the task. So if there’s a lot of activation energy required, then we may not be as motivated to do the task, adjective with a lower activation. The second part is the task itself. And this is what you were talking about. So what we do is we think about a task in terms of how much pleasure or displeasure that it creates for us. And of course, we’re going to be more interested and motivated towards the task that brings pleasure to us as opposed to displeasure. And the third part of it is the consequences of the task, whether they are positive or negative. So these three things really contribute to our motivation. When we do a task, and it becomes very routine and habitual, what happens is the pleasure that we derive from doing that task goes down. And that’s why there is a decrease in motivation. So in order to keep engaging in the task, there’s a certain amount of regulation that needs to go on, of course, we need to say, okay, we don’t have the option to opt out here, this is my job, I have to keep going. But some of the ways that you can increase the pleasure is associated with the task is just changing the environment around you perhaps, or maybe approaching it in a different way. Because at the end of the day, as much as our brain loves to retain and habit, a prefrontal cortex, which is the front part of the brain loves novelty, so it loves different things. And that’s why when we see something that’s unusual, our attention is automatically drawn to it. So if we increase the pleasure associated with the task by introducing different things, changing the environment, changing the people that we that we do the task with, even putting music on in the background can all work slightly increase the pleasure associated with the task in that for maintaining motivation towards it,

Justin Trosclair 17:38
I was gonna ask music putting in a new plant in the office or rearranging the room a little bit, just to kind of like, Okay, this is kind of knew, where does that put my scalpel? I forgot where that said or something.

Unknown 17:48
Yeah, exactly. Changing the dialogue that you use when you greet patients, asking them different questions in different wise, involving other staff members in your consultation, perhaps, and taking all the students to teach them all of these things can help just change up your routine a little bit to keep it interesting, as

Justin Trosclair 18:09
I was kind of going through a Pinterest recall. And if you’ve ever done anything on social media, sometimes if you go back to go through something, or like, I’m going to take my blog, and I’m going to revamp the last year of blog posts, oh my goodness, like you’re saying, exciting factor is very low.

But it can be very important if you didn’t do anything very good for SEO or something like that you like, okay, I’ve gotta figure this out. And so some my little tricks, put some good music on, or sometimes I’ll have, which is the bad way to do it. My little Netflix on the side. And but do they don’t get much done that point. So sometimes I’ll just like I just 30 minutes, and then you can reward yourself with a little TV. Yeah. And then we over time over a month, you’ll have a lot of progress made.

Unknown 18:46
Yeah, that makes I find chocolate always helps to. But um, the other thing, remind yourself of the positive consequences that are associated with doing the task as well. And that can remind you why it’s important to engage in it

Justin Trosclair 19:01
was this go back to staff for a second, oh, my buddy, he has lots of staff. And there’s, there’s always something it’s,

Unknown 19:08
you know, there’s always something going on. And he invents a little bit with me, and I’m like, Wow, that’s a lot of employees and stuff to do with, is there something that we can do to intrinsically motivate them to be happy and work hard, versus just let’s go have dinner, here’s some Starbucks card or something. The number one thing is that we have to understand what makes each and every individual in our team, and you might have people in your team. And I bet you, they will all be different in the way that they like to be motivated that the way that they like to do a task. And what’s really important to understand is that just because we like things done a certain way, or we are motivated by certain things, doesn’t mean that everybody else who’s and also do a task in my workshops, where I asked people what their primary triggers off. So triggers like autonomy, certainty, connection, equality, and status. And these are, these are triggers that can put us into a threat state or into reward state. And I asked people to say what their primary trigger is out of those thoughts. And I go around the room and without file, people will put the hand up for every single one. So different people will have different motivators is the primary trigger. And this is really important to understand. Because imagine that, you know, autonomy wasn’t very important to me, but it was very important to you. And then I tried to tell you exactly what you needed to do when you needed to do it, how you needed to do it, who you would do, that would be in come out read of triggering, and your motivation would be completely gone. And I’m wondering, what’s the problem? Because I don’t care about autonomy. So this is the really, really important thing to understand is, is you know, what makes people tick? What What did I after what what do they see is a reward. Some people are motivated by money, some people are motivated by a public Thank you. And and that’s the secret. And that’s what I had to learn. And I learned that the hard way, actually,

Justin Trosclair 21:22
all right, I’m hearing Excel spreadsheet names on a piece of paper, and I’m hearing possibly a private meeting individually. Like if you can’t figure it out already, from just you just completely unaware, you might ask your office manager, or you might have you, your office manager and each staff individually and just have you actually have probably a blunt conversation like, Hey, we want to make sure everybody’s happy. What these five shirt you know, however you want to read about how do these five triggers, which do you prefer? Like, which would make you more happy at work like you want? Like what you just said, The want autonomy? Just do what you want be creative? Do you want to be a sticker on a board with their name on it pull employee of the month, and that way, like I said, you can do it, and you’ll know exactly what each person needs kinda like a spouse, I think a spouse is a good way to think if you’re doing that with your spouse, you probably have a better relationship than if you just I’m buying you flowers, and I don’t care.

Unknown 22:09
Yeah, what else you want? That’s what you get. Exactly. That’s not just touched on something really important. Actually, you know, they’re there is a lot of interest in everybody’s talking about coaching. And having coaching conversations is so critical to developing an understanding of each individual in your team and understanding how to motivate and engage them. The trouble that we have is that we confuse coaching conversations with what are called work in progress conversations, or whips for short. So work in progress conversations are about how are you going with that project? What resources do you need? What happened when you spoke to this person on the phone? How are you going with this deadline? So it’s all about task. It’s all about taking things off the list, kind of me and and finding out where somebody is with their work, whereas coaching conversations, and nothing to do with tasks, and you know where you are in terms of the deadline? It’s about how are you going? What can I do to help you what what do you want to do in, you know, the next six months or 12 months in order to be happy and satisfied in your role here. So we must make the distinction between these work in progress discussions and these coaching discussions. The coaching discussions are are important as other work in progress discussions, but with not having enough of the coaching discussion.

Justin Trosclair 23:35
Sounds like the coaching ones are almost like water cooler. You see him alone in the break room like Oh, hey, let’s have a quick conversation. Whereas the whips Monday morning, every morning? Yeah, 30 minutes,

Unknown 23:46
right. Everybody in our coaching is it doesn’t have to be a, okay, let’s go down for an hour and talk about you and what’s going on. It can be those very informal casual conversations where you just swing by someone’s desk and say, Hi, how are you going? How are things for you? At the moment? Can you know Can I do anything to help you? I think

Justin Trosclair 24:06
it was I was very lucky, one of my staff, they just want a little bit more time off at lunch. They had like this Bible study, they really want to do attend. And it was always at lunch. And I was like, wants Yeah, we’re not that busy right now. On this day, or whenever you want to do is like, yeah, just take an extra hour, or whatever. And she was super stoked. And it didn’t cost me anything extra. Like it wasn’t like a $5 raise. It was just a an hour at lunch. And I think that’s great. But so many bosses seem to be anti like, work starts at eight, I don’t care you have to be here. Even if you’re not busy until 830. You have to be here at eight. It’s like, be flexible a little bit if you want to keep this employee.

Unknown 24:40
Yeah. And in the new world of work, we have the capacity to be flexible, which is really great. And the next generation of employees will expect that. So as as leaders, we need to become very flexible in the way that we approach our work.

Justin Trosclair 24:57
This is a non prep question for you at all. Some of these probably were the millennials are getting a bad rap about a bunch of stuff. Is this kind of like stemming from the millennials needing to be quote coddled a little bit more than US older folks are? Is this just a good thing that these businesses like? It’s just the progression? That’s actually a benefit? And it’s not like we have to change to the employees?

Unknown 25:20
Yeah, so the biggest impact on the millennial and subsequent generations has been technology in the digital era, of course, but you know, what, I think, you know, our generation, the generation before us was probably talking about our generation and saying, Oh, you know, that they are so demanding, and I don’t want to do hard work. And so, you know, everybody’s got a college degree,

Justin Trosclair 25:43
think they know better than the guy that’s been on the job for 30 years.

Unknown 25:46
Yeah, that’s right. So I think it’s some, you know, it’s a similar dynamic, but we’re just talking about different things now. So now we’re talking about, you know, Millennials having very high expectations, and, and always being on their devices and communicating digitally. But, you know, when when we were going through that was probably a whole different set of circumstances that were, you know, different from the generation before us. So I mean,

Justin Trosclair 26:13
women wanted to work and stuff and that equal right.

Now, it’s trying to break the mold.

Unknown 26:19
And the millennials, and the agenda is will be having similar conversations about the generations that come up to them as well.

Justin Trosclair 26:26
That’s fun. I remember earlier you were you were talking about like we’re talking all these brain changes and motivation, and everything is might not be in your wheelhouse, but nutrition, is there anything on nutritionally that we could do any supplements or name that you can take that could help build connections faster, or manage stress a little bit better or anything like that, like that? It may not be your wheelhouse, so feel free, not the answer.

Unknown 26:46
So the three things that are absolutely critical to brain and mental health, a diet, sleep and exercise. Now we hear about them all the time.

Unknown 26:59
Sleep in particular, is incredibly critical, because when we sleep, we process a lot of information. But it’s also when I Brian claims house. So if we don’t give our brand new opportunity to get rid of any toxins that are left over from the guys processing, these can build up and this can result in poor mental health and also disease as well. So you know, sleep is absolutely critical. Exercise is important as well. So up regulation of those, you know, happy hormones and endorphins as well. And it’s been a really strong association between exercise and decreasing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, as well. When it comes to nutrition, we all know that we need to have a balanced diet. But one of the things that people may not know is that the vitamins and minerals that we eat are responsible for the creation of the neurotransmitters, the chemicals that are in our so the proteins that we eat the enzymes. And if we don’t have enough of the building blocks of the chemicals that might have brain function properly. This is when we can also experience supplemental health. So things like zinc and magnesium really important in our diet for the creation of neurotransmitters particularly transmitters like to return and and domain which other the neurotransmitters which make us feel good. So if we don’t have the building blocks to create those neurotransmitters, that’s my little experience pull mental health and an inability to regulate our emotions and will be more susceptible to depression and anxiety.

Justin Trosclair 28:42
So to follow ups, then when it would come in and intuition, a lot of us probably don’t have great diets, is it just better to supplement with something like take a multivitamin of some sort or an organic food multivitamin? That way, no matter what your your diet is, you still have the building blocks every day, is that shown to be very helpful.

Unknown 29:01
If your diet is an adequate, that’s when some kind of supplement will be useful. The first option is always to have that balanced diet and get everything naturally from meeting prudent that eating vegetables. Yeah. Because the thing about taking supplements is that if you don’t need them, or if you don’t have other minerals on board that helped to metabolize other minerals, they just go completely three system. And they don’t do you any good. So if you’re not eating the right foods to enable the metabolism and the use of those supplements, then there’s no point.

Justin Trosclair 29:41
Okay? It’s kind of having the proper ratio of calcium, magnesium, copper, zinc, how much Selena Do you need, they all got to play together, you don’t have enough of one of the other that says the system will actually complete the cycle. Okay. And as far as sleep goes, are we talking an awesome people I can sleep on for now feel good. Some people like Dude, I gotta have nine, should we aim for like 123 REM cycles, whatever that means that person or what’s the what’s the rule these days? Yeah.

Unknown 30:06
So with regards sleep, it’s different for everybody. Some people don’t need as much sleep as other people. So the general rules about sleep, the earlier in the evening you sleep, the better quality it is. So if you go to bed at nine versus midnight, you’ll have a better quality sleep. So what the research is showing.

Unknown 30:28
So the other thing that has been shine, is to be good in terms of the way that you manage your sleep is you’ve had enough sleep when you wake up naturally. So whenever we set an alarm to pull ourselves out of sleep, we may interrupt a REM cycle, or we may be waking ourselves out before our brain has had the adequate amount of time it needs to rest and replenish all the resources.

Justin Trosclair 30:55
Wow. So it sounds like I should probably just wake up more early.

I’m a late, I go to bed late. Because I just kids asleep. Let’s get some stuff done. Yeah. And the alarm always weeks me. So maybe I need to try to switch it and just see if my body actually could wake up after a few days at four or five o’clock in the morning.

Unknown 31:11
Yeah, I used to be a night owl myself. And then I started to get up very early in order to exercise. And so my whole sleep has shifted forward about three hours. So I still get the same amount of sleep, but I’m just shifting it early on. And you know what I really notice if I go to bed, like it’s so much harder to get up the next morning. And the times that I know I haven’t had enough sleep is I’ll wake up feeling tired. But be I will have relied on my alarm clock to wake me up. Whereas usually my body clock will wake up maybe even a couple of minutes before my alarm goes off.

Justin Trosclair 31:50
Hmm, that’s impressive. Okay. All right. I don’t know if anybody else has a challenge, but it’s been issued feels like so many to try that. It’s a, it’s such a challenge when you get used to being a night owl to to change the habits and change your routine to just go to bed.

Unknown 32:07
Yeah, so the thing that we need to remember is that change is a process, it’s not an event. So you just have to stick with it. And you know, maybe the first couple of nights that you try to go to bed at 930 instead of 1230. You might lie there for a little while. Until you

Unknown 32:25
can either turn off your phone read a book. Yeah, reading puts me to sleep and about two pages I love to read and I’m an avid consumer of books. But as soon as I open a book in bed, I’m out. Gone. Yeah. So yeah, things like reading a book or putting on some kind of relaxation. Music can also help to sort of allow you into that state of relaxation to make it easier to go to sleep.

Justin Trosclair 32:48
We switch gears you obviously have a business people don’t do podcast just for fun, usually. So let’s transition into a little bit of like, what kind of your ideal clients are you looking for? What are they most struggling with with and kind of report top one or two tips you could give that it could instantly master like if they could just change this, they’re on their way to a better than Okay,

Unknown 33:11
so most of the clients I see mid to senior executives, and there’s usually something going on for them this this stuck. For some reason or another, I don’t usually get people sitting in front of me where everything is going well. Now, something that I haven’t shared is that I’m also just completing my Master’s in counseling as well. So I offering has a really holistic approach to it as well. So not only looking at the the career in the corporate performance, but also being able to look at those more personal aspects that influence us as well, because let’s be honest, they the line between work, and home and family life is getting increasingly blurred. So the three things that I find are really challenging my clients, perfectionism, procrastination, and self doubt.

Unknown 34:09
So the one thing that I wanted to say about self doubt, actually, and you know, this is all the imposter syndrome type of discussion is that men have these two, this is not just the domain of women. So I think, you know, in the in the larger media conversation, the imposter syndrome is usually centered around women. But I really wanted to make the point that a lot of male clients that I see, feel this as well. And I think perhaps it’s just that they’re not talking about it as openly as women do, that it’s not getting the attention that I think, you know, it needs. So the way that I address this with my clients actually is I’ve developed a diagnostic, which is based on the research of Dr. Theo CDs. And what about Look at his subconscious habits of thought that get in the way of golf shoes, and that has an impact on our thinking and behavior. So I look at some eight different subconscious had support. So there’s self doubt, protectionism in patients multitasking, rigidity, procrastination, negativity and conformity. And so this is the first thing that that my mentoring clients do is they complete this diagnostic and, and what this does is it provides the platform for the discussion about these different blockers that can get in our way. And usually what I find is that there are a, you know, maybe two or three, that sort of poke out above the rest of having an impact on the on our performance and how we’re thinking and behaving. And across the board, the three that are coming up the most of perfectionism, procrastination, and self doubt, but I see all of them in different people at different times, as well, with regards perfectionism, this two sides to perfectionism, actually, so this positive protection and which is the good stuff, it’s what you know, drives our ambition and, and drives us to do a really good job. But then on the flip side, there’s the negative perfectionism. And this is the one that gets in the way, this is our fear of making mistakes. So this is what gets in the way your change. This is what gets in the way of us taking risks and doing things that are scary.

Unknown 36:34
And this is also what impacts our productivity in that it makes us hold on to projects for too long. Because we’re checking and rechecking to make sure that there are no mistakes, because Above all, we we appreciate the positive evaluation by others, you know, and that then leads to procrastination. Of course, we leave things the last minute last minute we we put off doing tasks, because we are concerned about the evaluation that might come as a result

Justin Trosclair 37:03
that we’re that we do that

the fear that we have is still not motivating us to get the job done, we’ll have that bad review at the end. And when you procrastinate, that’s surely what ends up happening.

Unknown 37:14
So there is this famous curve called the Yerkes Dodson care. And it looks at our arousal and performance, what we see is that as our arousal increases, so does our performance. And until we get to our peak performance, and if arousal continues, or stress continues beyond that point, then we fall off the other edge, and our performance decreases. So most of us sit on the left hand side of that peak. And in order to get to peak performance, we create some arousal stress in order to get us date. And that’s what procrastinators can do. So in order to get to peak performance, they leave things to the last minute to create that arousal stress, to get them up into peak performance. I am a card carrying the crested I know,

Unknown 38:08
I know this good. This is what I do. I leave everything to the last minute. And you know what, I’ve tried to do things early, but I just can’t step up into that focus, you know that unless I have some some arousal stress.

Justin Trosclair 38:22
So artificial deadlines don’t really work. Because you know, they’re artificial.

Unknown 38:28
can work if you can sufficiently trick yourself into believing them. Okay,

Justin Trosclair 38:33
would be the hardest part. I think.

At these days, there’s probably some website where like, you could wager some money on it? Or if you don’t submit it, you lose the money. I mean, there might be something like that for all those procrastinators out there. I mean, I’m kind of with you, I don’t know if I’m a card holder, but it’s definitely, I see it in myself at times. So

Unknown 38:55
yeah, and this is where accountability can be really useful and setting milestones that you have to meet. So breaking up the task into smaller chunks, and having small parts of the task jus at at certain times along the way. And this is what they do in schools these days. So I have a teenage son, and there are always milestones for submitting drops. So it’s forcing them to do the work early, rather than leave it to the last minute and have a poor performance that they’re about.

Justin Trosclair 39:26
So I guess there’s certain things in life where that deadlines could still be 60 days out. But you know, I can’t just do this in a weekend. It literally is a long process. So the stress period doesn’t have to be like study for the test the night before, it could be a 60 day stressor that motivates you

Unknown 39:41
out definitely Yeah. And the other thing that’s really important about that stress response curve is making sure you understand when you have pushed the stress. And you are beyond that, that peak performance and you’ve slipped off the other side of the curve. And that’s when we need to put into place the stress management mint approaches, you know, making sure we take brain breaks, making sure that we spend some time with friends that were getting thought sleep and exercise in order to reduce that stress back down to an acceptable level again, so we can get to peak performance when you said that you ate some people say, hey, these are my strengths. Let’s focus on these Some people say these are my, my weaknesses, let’s make these stronger. Is there a way that you kind of determine if you should focus more on some of these pauses vs. negatives? or? Yeah,

Justin Trosclair 40:29
yeah, it’s kind of depend on what the person is actually struggling with?

Unknown 40:32
Yeah, that’s right. It’s very situational. So any kind of self report diagnostic is largely about what is going on for people at that very moment. So this is why a personal one on one day break is really, because you’ve got to contextualize the results. So if somebody showing that, you know, rigidity is is coming acquisitive, have a really potent influence at that time, because it could be because they are immense amount of change. And that they’re being triggered by that and they’re anxious by that wants to try and hang on to their a to hang on to have gone for the day rigid, know what, by their buildings to people. So having the question is incredibly important in terms of contextualize what’s going on to people.

Justin Trosclair 41:24
That’s because you said mid level to high level executives, so they very well could have a divorce going through or they find out their kid has some kind of special needs that’s required a lot more time at home than they thought and that’s affecting their business is all of those things play? And then once they figure that out, everything just kind of mellows out.

Unknown 41:40
Yeah, exactly. But it’s not often that somebody in front of me and having childhood that will, where there isn’t something else going on in the ground that needs to be interested in practice as well. And this is where the counseling aspect was really works. Oh,

Justin Trosclair 41:57
I like that. Very good.

Well,

well, Doc, Dr. Horner, we’re getting close to the end here. What are you finding? Or what do you see happening in the next five years that we should pay attention to and the trends out there?

Unknown 42:10
Yeah, particularly with regards neuroscience and people becoming aware of their own tribe around behind and wanting to understand themselves a little more, there’s a lot of technologies that are becoming quite common place in the market now for the first is the first time machine interfaces. So what these machines do it I translate neuronal information into commands that are capable of driving software or halfway. So when moving to this AI, kind of respect, and to something that some new Ilan Musk is developing products called neural link, which is all about basically driving software and hardware with with our brain waves within your own information. So that’s one area that I think we will see a lot of developments in the next five to 10 years. But the other is the area of New York feedback. So this has been around for a couple of years now. And it’s most of the denying of clinics right now. But as the technology gets better and better, and it’s good to research, what I think will happen is that these will become consumed devices, and they’re awesome consumer devices out there. And what neurofeedback does is it allows people to see the brain lights as they happening, and then control. So do exercises that regulate the brainwaves. So they can see that in real time. And so what I think will happen is that we will have these in Anaheim, we will be able to put them on and be able to, to watch what our brain is doing in real time. And then control the brainwaves in order to regulate the hygienists regulate emotions.

Justin Trosclair 44:02
So you can even if someone’s finding that they’re watching a lot of I don’t know, old gangster movies are like really violent stuff. And they just find themselves being more angry at work and then noticing themselves be more short tempered, potentially they could hook themselves up, watch the show and be like, oh, wow, this is really firing off all those areas. And then you put on something else more calm. And you’re like, oh, OK, so maybe this has had an impact on my life that I didn’t want to admit.

Unknown 44:27
Yeah. So when, in the example that you use when you’re feeling angry or anxious, what you can then do is practice relaxation techniques. And you can see the working in real time to change the structure of your brain lives. So it kind of gives that little bit of evidence behind, you know, a lot of approaches that we already know about in terms of stress reduction and relaxation. It gives us something to believe in, I guess,

Justin Trosclair 44:56
yeah. Are you a fan of meditation, then

Unknown 44:58
I purchase mind wellness, every morning, actually. And I think when people hear the word mindfulness, images come to mind of, you know, people sitting around doing cross legged positions with their hands on their name, saying that too.

Unknown 45:16
And I just want to say it doesn’t have to be like that. So mindfulness can be very easily accessible. So for me, what mindfulness is, is sitting out on my backpack with a cup of tea in the morning before my family gets up. And just listening to the birds watching the trees, feeling the won’t put the cup of tea, because what mindfulness is, really is being in direct experience with your senses. So seeing smelling, hearing, feeling, tasting, because that brings us to this very moment. And it’s about being present in the moment. that underpins mindfulness. Because when we think about it, the things that we get stressed about and things that we get anxious about a generally, what is going to happen in the future, or what has already happened in the past that that we’re reliving again. But it’s not often that way stressed about or anxious about what is going on brought in this very minute, because in this very minute, we have absolute control.

Justin Trosclair 46:15
That’s a really good. The last question, I think is a good way to end it is you have any books that you would recommend to people? Oh, yes, I do.

Unknown 46:24
The book that I recommend to my clients, more than any other book is a book called switch. And it’s by brothers called Chip and Dan Heath, and essentially at that change, and it’s about making changes when Change is hard. And change is absolutely constant. And it’s going to be a part of our lives for the rest of our lives. And the thing about changes that it’s becoming faster and faster and faster. So once we get used to something, the landscape shifts them and we have to change again. So in this book switch by Chip and Dan Heath, it talks about how to engage with change, what is behind resistance to change, and strategies about how to engage with change more easily.

Justin Trosclair 47:09
Very good. Thank you so

Unknown 47:10
much. That’s also on the resources page of my website. If Yeah, if that was

Justin Trosclair 47:15
definitely the next question is how can people get in touch with you and I almost forgot, y’all her website, a, it’s good, it looks good. And be she has a resource page with more books than I think you could possibly read in one year, potentially. But they run the gamut from like, one of the her brain, his brain, the switch to all kinds of different topics that I think you would at least find two or three books, at least, that you would want to go out and buy on Amazon, or wherever you buy books.

Unknown 47:42
Yes, right. The books of my, my resources page on my website, are all books that I have read and that are in the theme of neuroscience or performance or engagement or self awareness. And

Unknown 47:58
whenever you click on the book, it will take you directly to the Amazon page. So you don’t have to go searching just click on the booking it will take you right there.

Justin Trosclair 48:07
Perfect. Yes. Good way to do it. Oh, what was that website again?

Unknown 48:10
Clever minds consulting.com dot A you

Justin Trosclair 48:14
don’t forget that a you Yo, it won’t show up.

One thing I never realized other countries had their own little designation. I was like, I thought everything was just not until you move and you’re like, oh, get out of the United States. And then I was like, Oh, look at that. There’s like a whole web, web world or just the country.

Unknown 48:35
People can also contact me on LinkedIn, as well, Dr. Diane, Hannah, and I, I write and contribute content to LinkedIn quite regularly. So I’d like to stay up to date on what’s happening in the world neuroscience.

Justin Trosclair 48:48
So that’s where I found you will thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been very good. And I do hope that you’ll get some LinkedIn requests, and potentially some kind of gigs from this. So really appreciate your time today. Yeah,

Unknown 49:01
thank you so much for having me. That’s that’s been fun.

Justin Trosclair 49:09
Really want to take a second and say thank you so much for listening to the show. If you haven’t left a review on your favorite listening app, please go ahead and do that. One thing I’ve realized, and putting out a lot of links all over Instagram, Facebook, this podcast itself, and if you ever change the link, or shut the website down, all those links are now gone and did. So I just want you to know, if you’re listening to some of these episodes, and I mentioned the link and it’s going just head on over to a doctor’s perspective. net, you’re probably going to find that thing you’re looking for. On the top menu, search around and I’m sure you’ll find it all the books that you find there. Acupuncture, broken, no needles, the free chapters, you can download the 360 degree health from exercises, stretches financial health, what is Chiropractic and the free chapters for their t shirts, resources, and we even have a financial support site now is just a doctor’s perspective. NET slash support. There’s one time support, there’s monthly support, go head over there and check it out. Something that I’m offering right now, with the needless acupuncture, if you buy the book, you also get the electric acupuncture pin for free as a bonus. And that electric acupuncture pin helps you not only stimulate the points stronger, that helps you locate the points as well. So that’s a huge plus. And then with the today’s choices, tomorrow’s health book, I’m offering a bonus of a one hour one on one coaching session to go along with the purchase of that book. Actually, there’s three different bonus packages if you had to a doctor’s perspective net slash no needles as getting close to the end of the year. Are y’all ready for the 2018 Top 10 I mean it’s too early right now but it’s going to be here before you know it that will be available for download later on just like the 2017 is now. You just heard a great guests implement one thing make your practice and personal life as best as it can be.

We just went hashtag behind the curtain. I hope you will listen and integrate with some of these guests have said by all means please share across your social media. write a review and you go to the show notes page. You can find all the references for today’s guest. You’ve been listening to Dr. Justin shows Claire giving you a doctor’s perspective.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai