Achieving outward success while inwardly feeling unfulfilled and stressed is a common paradox many entrepreneurs face. We strive to reach goals that promise happiness, only to end up drained, overwhelmed and wondering if there is a better way.
In this episode, Liam Naden shares a refreshing new paradigm for effortless success by understanding how to harness the full power of the brain. He draws from his diverse life experience that ran the gamut from self-made millionaire to homeless and back again to rebuild success more sustainably.
If you feel stuck in struggle mode or wonder “is this all there is?” – this episode will give you a whole new perspective on achieving success by understanding how to use your powerful brain tool in the way nature intended.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- The Four Part Brain Model (8:23)
- Accessing fulfilment when feeling stuck in life (15:32)
- Learning to thrive by tapping your inborn vehicle for living (22:27)
- Unleashing potential through allowing vs chasing success (32:31)
- Flipping the false signals that are stealing your power (44:23)
- Surrendering to your biological genius creates magic (48:34)
QUOTES
- “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Liam Naden
- “Coaches get into coaching because they want to be fulfilled and make a difference. There’s something that’s driving them to not just be the best that they can be, but to make massive change in the world. They’re coming from this huge heart space of making change. But that’s really difficult to do when you’re not fulfilled.” – Samantha Riley
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ABOUT LIAM NADEN
Speaker, teacher, writer and researcher Liam Naden went from millionaire to homeless before discovering the true reason we succeed or fail in life: how we use our brain. Creator of the Four Part Brain Model and Brain Rebalancing and the host of the Let Yourself Off the Hook podcast, he will show you how your brain is designed to ensure you are the best you can be – if you use it the right way.
WHERE TO FIND LIAM NADEN
- Website: https://www.liamnaden.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liamnadenfan
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liamnaden/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamnaden/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiamNaden
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/liamnaden/_created/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LiamNaden
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
- Facebook: Samantha Riley
- Instagram: @thesamriley
- LinkedIn: Samantha Riley
- Twitter: @thesamriley
TRANSCRIPTION
Liam Naden: You’re in a state of fear, stress, worry, anxiety about your life. You’re saying to yourself, I really need to solve my problems. How can I be happy? And you’re trying to work out your life from that state where you have no access to the resources that have the answers to any of that.
Samantha Riley: Welcome to the Influence by Design podcast. I’m Samantha Riley, authority positioning strategist for coaches and experts. If you’re ready to build a business that gives you more than just a caffeine addiction and you dream of making more money, having more time and having the freedom to be living your best life, then you’re in the right place. It’s time to level up. Welcome to today’s episode of Influence by Design. I’m your host, Samantha Riley, and today I’m joined by our guest, Liam Naden. He’s going to share about how we can use our brain in the right way to achieve success. He’s got some amazing background and some amazing stories to tell as to how he even came up with this. So, Liam, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you here.
Liam Naden: Hi, Sam. Thank you very much for having me. It’s a great honour and I’m excited to talk to you.
Samantha Riley: As I am with you now. You’ve got a bit of a backstory as to how you came up with this methodology. And normally we hear stories about, I was on my grandmother’s couch in the basement and then I worked really hard and I found success. But you’ve kind of got a reverse success story and I would love you to share that.
Liam Naden: Sure. Well, probably like you and most of your listeners, I’ve really always been consumed by wanting to have the best life possible. In other words, to be successful. Even from a child, I always wanted to not just settle for a mediocre life. And of course, that’s why many people get into coaching as they want to make a difference to other people’s lives, but also to their own life rather than just have a mediocre existence. So anyway, I was always consumed by this idea and I tried a whole lot of different things to achieve success. So I got into my own business, straight after university. And it was the first of 18 different businesses that I’ve had, actually. And a lot of them have been very successful and some not successful, but I managed to develop a really successful life. I became a millionaire and I had a wonderful lifestyle. Travelling, beautiful homes, multiple businesses, freedom to do things. But there were a couple of things that, in hindsight, were a part of that that weren’t so good. And one of them was a lot of problems. I was always dealing with problems. I had a lot of stress in my life and I’m sure people can relate to this as well. And you get to the point of thinking, and you certainly read books or hear stories of people who tell you this, that problems and stress, they’re just a natural part of success. You have to learn to deal with them, you have to learn to overcome problems. You’re always going to have problems. They make you a better person. All of these ideas that I was carrying around, actually, since I found that none of these things are true, and we’ll explain later, we’ll talk about later why none of them are true. But anyway, here I was being really successful on the outside, but with lots of stress and problems and also having that feeling, there’s got to be something more. I’m not really as successful as I could be. I’m not really as fulfilled or as happy. There’s this little voice in me going, you’ve got to get more. So I was always pushing for the next thing, setting bigger goals, trying hard to achieve things. And I was doing pretty well. And at the same time I was studying everything I could, learning everything I could about how to be more successful. So I went to lots of places, I even went to your fine country and did a Tony Robbins seminar in Sydney, did the firewalking and all those sorts of things. But I did lots of things all over the world and did lots of courses, read everything I could about personal development, self help, motivation, changing your mindset. I used to listen to recordings of subliminal messages and trying to change my beliefs and doing all of these different things, studying spirituality, studying religion, anything I could get my hands on. Because whenever somebody came along or I saw a book or a seminar and it said, I can show you how to be more successful, just do what I tell you to do. I literally would do that. I wouldn’t hesitate and I’d really work at a lot of these things. So I had this enormous amount of knowledge and I could see that my life was pretty successful. But I did have the stress and problems. But something happened in my mid 40s, which should never have happened, because here I was, the master of success. I could quote all the books and, give you lots of speeches and talks about how you be successful. I had my goals lists, I had my descriptive boards of my life as I saw it. I did visualisation. But what happened was virtually overnight I went from having all this success to losing everything and becoming homeless. And I ended up not sleeping in my grandmother’s basement like you mentioned earlier, but I was sleeping on my elderly mother’s sofa in the living room, in her small apartment. I literally lost everything. And at that point, I had to reevaluate my life. And two questions kept coming back to me as I tried to get to sleep at night. And one question was, why has this happened to me? Because here I was, I knew about success. I knew how to think positive thoughts and be motivated and, seize opportunity and all of those things. And I thought, how can. This is completely unexpected. This is out of the blue. This is something that somehow is out of my control. Why has this happened? What have I done to deserve this? And the second question I asked myself was, well, what do I do now? How do I get out of this? And that answer really bought a blank. In fact, both answers bought a blank. I didn’t know why it had happened to me and I certainly didn’t know how to get out of it. So there I was, stuck. Anyway, what happened was I eventually did get out of that situation and I rebuilt my life and I started to set up businesses again. Doing coaching, actually, and doing other things. I created this new life for myself and things were going a lot better and I was starting to make money again in my own business, online businesses. I attracted a new partner, a romantic relationship. Something was far better than I’d ever had before. Things were going really well and I started to do some really exciting things that I never dreamt I’d be doing. For instance, I bought a new yacht and sailed around Europe for eight years and travelled around New Zealand in a motorhome. travelled around Europe in a motorhome. I was doing lots of travel while I was managing my businesses. So things were going really well. But one day it struck me where I started to ask myself, what’s happening here? How come I’ve come from nothing to this? And the other question I asked myself is, there’s something very different. I don’t have the stress, I don’t have the problems that I used to have. I actually look forward to the day, and the day works really well. Things are going really well, I’m not struggling. And I thought, why is this happening? What’s the difference? In a really strange sort of way, it was like my previous life. I was chasing after success. I was always pushing, how can I be more? How can I do more? I was always really trying hard to make things happen, and it brought with it success, but a lot of problems and stress, as I mentioned. But this time I wasn’t struggling, I wasn’t pushing hard. And in a weird sense, instead of me chasing after success, what it felt like was success was coming after me. Because all of these things were happening in my life that were like coincidences or synchronicities, we might call them. People would show up. I’d meet somebody who I hadn’t seen in years, and he would help me to grow a particular aspect of my business or help me in my life. This was happening all the time. I’d be in situations, I’d get ideas that I’d never thought of before, but it was like everything was falling into place and I started to think, I need to figure out what’s going on because there’s something I’ve missed. And then I asked myself the question, all of these good things that are happening to me, and I could give you a huge long list of all these weird, unexpected, bizarre, but amazingly good things happening to me. I thought, is this really just luck? Is this really coincidence or beyond my control? Or is this something at work here? Is this something that actually is making luck and good fortune show up in my life and helping me avoid or keeping me away from problems and stress? And I started to really research this and I brought together all of the things I’d previously learned, but I also realised there was something missing. So I went on different explorations to try and understand and try and figure out if there was something about this good luck thing or this way of achieving success without me having to force it. And I think this is one of the things, if we really think about it, we realise that very often success comes to you without the struggle. And while you’re struggling, different things happen. And often when you struggle, you actually push success away. But what I discovered there is actually a scientific basis for why good things happen in your life and why bad things happen in your life. And when I started to really understand this, I thought, this is amazing. It explains what I’m doing differently, how my life is unfolding in a different, in a much better way. And I was able to package it together as a process, an idea, and really an understanding that now I share with other people. And when they get it, they get great results as well.
Samantha Riley: Well, we can’t wait to hear about it, because that’s a fabulous story. I mean, not the part where you were sleeping on your mother’s sofa. That’s not the fabulous part, don’t get me wrong, but what a journey to go on and to be able to discover this. And I’m really looking forward into diving into this, because, yeah, I am one that says business isn’t easy. I talk about business being simple, but it’s not easy. So looking forward to you sharing a little bit more about that. Now you’ve got a four part brain model. Is this where it all begins?
Liam Naden: Absolutely. Because one thing that I realised, and I think it was Confucius who said, life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. And sometimes when we’re so busy trying to make things happen, we miss the obvious. And the really obvious thing to realise, or to start with, is nature is biology. Because nature rules everything, nature governs everything. Here’s a good example. You can stand on top of a ten story building and you can be motivated, you can change your beliefs, you can pray, you can be determined, you can visualise the goal of flying up in the air. But the second you sleep off that building, you’re going to go down. It doesn’t matter what you think or what you’re trying to do. Gravity overrules everything. And it’s like, try to stop your heart beating with your positive beliefs. Yeah, stop breathing. It just doesn’t happen. So what I’d forgotten is that there are a set of natural laws that govern everything in this world, and we are governed by those, whether we like it or not, they control our life. So we need to learn about what’s actually going on on a biological level. So when I started to think about this biological structure, to who we are and to what all of nature is, I thought, is there a purpose, then? Do we actually have a biological purpose? I mean, we all want to be happy, we all want to be successful. We can say that our purpose is to be to do the best or give back or contribute or whatever we think it is. But do we actually have a biological purpose? And the interesting thing is, if you ask that question of all scientists, all biological scientists, they’ve figured out that all of nature, including us, we have a biological purpose. And because it’s biological, it overrides every other purpose. And the primary purpose of all biological life, including us, it’s all wired for one thing, and that is survival. That is our primary purpose, is to survive. when you really think about what survival is, what gives us the greatest chance for survival, it’s being the best that we can be. So every living thing is wired, programmed automatically to strive to be the best that it can be, so that it has the greatest chance for survival. And nature has a word for this. It’s called homeostasis. Every living thing is seeking to achieve and live in a state of homeostasis, which means the perfect functioning of the organism, because when your organism is functioning perfectly, that gives you the greatest chance for survival. But here’s the really interesting thing that makes us different from any other living thing. Part of our survival, part of us being the best that we can be, is not just physical. It’s not just being strong and healthy. It’s also being mentally and emotionally the best that we can be. in other words, being happy, being fulfilled, being excited, being in control of your life, all of those things. And when you are that you are being the best that you can be, that gives you the greatest chance for your survival. So it makes sense that that’s your purpose, is to be happy, is to be fulfilled, is to feel great, because that gives you the greatest chance for survival. And nature is doing everything it can. It’s wired to make sure that you achieve that state. And, I thought, well, this is getting quite interesting here. So how does this work? Because if nature, everything in nature, is designed to make us be the best that we can be, including happy and fulfilled, so that we have the greatest chance for survival, what has nature set up? What is it provided to enable that to happen? And of course, the obvious answer is that every living thing has been given a machine whose sole task is to ensure that it survives to the best of its ability by being the best that it can be. And it’s a brain.
Liam Naden: And that’s the sole purpose of your brain, is not only just to keep you alive, it’s to make sure that you’re the best that you can be, so that you have the greatest chance for living the longest.
Samantha Riley: M. I have a belief that all coaches get into what they’re doing because they do want to be fulfilled. They’ve got a purpose. There’s something that’s driving them to not just be the best that they can be, but to make massive change in the world. They’re coming from this huge heart space of making change, but it’s really difficult when you’re not fulfilled. Right. Fulfilment is such a huge piece of this, as you’re saying, yet there’s so many people that don’t understand what that is. And you alluded to it at the beginning of our conversation. You were sitting there saying, is this all there is? And so many people are caught in this loop. of is this all there is? As coaches, we know, there’s more. What is the way that we can tap into what you’re talking about, tapping into the brain to be able to find that, so we’re not constantly asking the question and we’re able to move forward and live with this fulfilment and attracting success to us.
Liam Naden: Okay, well, the key thing to understand is your natural state of existence. The way you’re supposed to live is being fulfilled, is being happy, and not questioning whether or what should I do, or am I happy, or is there something more? And, I call it your natural creative state, because it’s often called being in the flow, being in the zone. This is a state that physically exists when you don’t question any of those things. So what you have to realise is, if your life’s not going the way you really want it, including if you don’t feel truly fulfilled, if you don’t feel truly happy, if you don’t feel in control of your life, and if things aren’t going well, both on the outside and both on the inside, there’s only one cause of that, and that is this machine, this brain. You’re not using it the right way because you think about any machine. There’s a couple of characteristics of any machine, and literally, your brain is just a machine. It’s automatically programmed to do one job, which is to make you the best that you can be so that you have the greatest chance for survival. As I said. But think of another machine. Think of, say, a motor car. Now, a motorcar has one purpose, and that’s to take you from where you are to where you want to go. And it’s going to do it predictably, reliably. You don’t have to think about it, you don’t have to worry about it. All you need to do is drive it the right way and enjoy the ride. But if you drive it the wrong way, what happens? You don’t get to where you want to go. But more importantly, it’s not enjoyable. It’s a stress. Imagine driving a car. You didn’t know how to drive a car, but you were told, well, that’s a machine that gets you. You knew what it was supposed to do, but you didn’t drive it the right way. And you looked at it and you thought, I don’t know how to drive this car.
Liam Naden: Oh, it’s got wheels. Perhaps the way is to get out from behind and push it along. So there it is. Imagine it, the handbrakes on, you’re pushing and you’re pushing and you’re thinking, this isn’t going very well. It’s a lot of hard work, and it’s really stressing me out. And what do you think? Then you say to yourself, I’m the problem. I’m not motivated enough. I’m not trying hard enough. I don’t have the strength I need to develop my strength and motivation to push even harder. And somebody comes along to you and says, and what happens then? You just get more exhausted and you probably hurt yourself. So you have problems, stress attached to that. But if someone came along to you and said, look, what are you doing that for? You’re just doing it all wrong. It’s not supposed to be difficult. It’s supposed to be fun and easy, but the only difference is you don’t know how to drive it. And then you go, why didn’t I see it all along? Why didn’t I use the machine for what it’s supposed to do rather than me struggle? Because life’s not meant. I know this all sounds controversial, but when you really think it through logically, it all makes total sense that life is not meant to be a struggle, because struggle doesn’t help you survive. You’re not supposed to have problems in your life. Do problems and stress make you live longer and make you more productive and creative and giving and excitement? They don’t, they weaken you. There’s so much research about stress causes disease. So problems and stress can’t be good for you. Now, we might say, well, problems are good because you learn from them. But there’s a better way to learn, and that is how to use your brain the right way so that you don’t have to go through the stress and strain of problems to learn the same lessons. So that’s the really important thing to understand. And what you see or what I used to be like, I was like the guy who was someone coming along and say, well, the reason your car is not going well is because you need to paint it. You need better leather seats inside, you need better wheels. You need to do all of these superficial things without getting to the basic reality is, do you know how to drive this machine? This machine is naturally designed to make you successful. If you look at all of nature, there was some really interesting thing I read recently, and someone came to the conclusion that nature is 98% successful. 98% of what you see in the living world is being the best that it can be. It has achieved this homeostasis. It doesn’t have problems and stress. When I was sailing around the world in my yacht, one thing I noticed was how wonderful the natural world was. When a bird needs food, it finds food. There’s no struggle attached to it. I mean, there’s a 2% failure rate, which is a tree is planted in the wrong place, or a storm takes away some things or whatever, but in general, everything is being the best that it can be by being itself. But we’re the exception. And as this article I read said, humans are 98% unsuccessful. I mean, how many people do you meet who say, yes, I’m being the best that I can be. I’m doing exactly what I should be. I’m really happy, I’m fulfilled, I’m excited, very probably less than 2% of people. So we’re doing something wrong, and all we’re doing is we’re fighting against nature. We’re trying to push the car, rather than using the natural way we are to make it all happen. And when I really got into this and I started to understand how the brain actually works as a machine, I, thought, this is all perfect. And I also found things like spirituality and religion, such as the Bible had been teaching us ever since it was written how to use this machine. But we just don’t know. We don’t know this stuff. And it’s so fundamental, don’t you think?
Samantha Riley: I do think. And all I want you to do is share with us how we can get in that car and drive it.
Liam Naden: Right. Well, the good thing is it’s pretty simple, but it’s not necessarily easy because you’ve spent your life trying to push your car along, once you understand it. So your dad comes along and says, let me teach you how to drive. And what happens is, because sometimes people say to me, give me the instant answer. But that’s a bit like saying, dad, I want to go to the party tomorrow night. It’s 100 miles away. Give me a quick tip on how to drive your car. It doesn’t work like that.
Samantha Riley: It’s not going to happen.
Liam Naden: The first thing, the 90%, is the understanding of how your machine works. Because when you do, you think, why did I ever do it any other way? It’s madness. So maybe I could share with you the four part brain model that I’ve created, which is like a layman’s description of a scientific process of how your brain works.
Samantha Riley: Sounds fabulous.
Liam Naden: And that will answer so many questions, I think. Anyway, there are four parts to your brain, and these are all physical things. We’re not talking about the subconscious mind and the conscious mind. And those sort of theoretical ideas. We’re talking about physical, separate, physical, biological locations inside your head that all have a different function. And the first part is what I call your rational thinking brain. And this is contained at the top of your head. And you might have heard of a word like, called the neocortex. This is the main part, what I call your rational thinking brain. And the purpose of your rational thinking brain. What it actually does is it takes every bit of information that you gather in your life, in every moment. What you receive through your five senses and through your thoughts and ideas. It takes all this information and it stores it. It’s like a big library or a database of every bit of information you’ve picked up in your life so that you can use this, you can retrieve it. And we can put labels on things, for instance, so we can identify things and we can communicate with other people because they have the same labels. So this is your rational thinking brain. The second part of your brain is just below the neocortex, just below your rational thinking brain. And it’s your emotional feeling brain. And this part of your brain is responsible, as it says, for how you feel. it creates emotion, so it can make you feel good or bad through chemical processes which we can talk a little bit about. It gets a bit scientific and technical, but this is the gist of it. The third part of your brain is at the back of you and the base of your head. And it’s your survival brain. And your survival brain manages everything on a moment by moment basis to help you and make sure you survive that you don’t have to think about. So it’s all of your physical functioning, your breathing, your heart rate, all of the organs, all of that. This is managed without you having to think about it, fortunately, to ensure you survive. And there’s one other really, important part of survival that is overlooked. People don’t understand how significant this is. That’s also activated and managed by your survival brain, and that is your reaction to an immediate threat or danger. So if something unexpected comes into your life. When the brain was formed millions of years ago, it was a dangerous world and there was a lion behind every rock and a snake in every bit of grass. So we develop this defence mechanism. That’s not through our thoughts, but it’s an automatic response, just like our heart beats and we breathe automatically. When our brain sees a threat or a danger, it automatically creates this response, which we sometimes call the fight or flight response. I’m sure we’re all familiar with that. So all that is, is your brain saying you are confronted right now with an immediate threat to your survival. There’s a lion right there, and it’s dangerous. So it sends a message and tells you a chemical message to alert you to the danger. And that chemical message makes you feel fear or stress or worry or anxiety. All of, these feelings, and what they actually do is these feelings activate this part of your brain. The part of your brain that is ready to get rid of the threat or survival that they’ve been told is right there. So of course, if you’re going to jump out of the way from a threat or you’re going to run away, you’re going to shout for help, all automatically, without thinking. Because if you had to think, if you had to rely on your thoughts to figure it out, you could well be dead. So that’s really important. But there’s a fourth part of your brain. In fact, the fourth part of your brain is the most important. And it’s been described throughout through religious texts, as I mentioned earlier. And science is increasingly coming to realise, and research this part of your brain and it’s right in the very centre of your skull, and it’s what I call your creative brain. And your creative brain, this is the master, this is the part that’s supposed to run your life. Because in this part of, if you use this part of your brain, which you’re supposed to naturally all of the time, then this is the part of your brain that contains all your imagination. It’s where all your resources of intuition, creativity, problem solving, it’s where you have that gut feeling that you know what to do or you know not what to do. And it’s where you get those new ideas. You could be working on a problem and suddenly, out of the blue, when you’re not even thinking about it, you get the solution or you see a new opportunity for something that you’ve never seen before and you go, where did all this come from? And this is not your thinking brain, not your rational thinking brain, this is a different thing entirely. And in fact, creative people, we’re all creative, but people we might call creative and high achievers, they describe this, they’ve described this in many ways as being in the flow. When you’re in your creative state, it’s almost like an effortless creativity. So for athletes, they describe the state where it’s like something takes over from them and they’re putting an effort, but it’s not a struggle. And they’re performing at their absolute peak or a composer, composers have said, I just heard this music and I wrote it down. I don’t know where it came from. I didn’t figure it out myself. It came from somewhere else. So the point is, this is all to do with your creative brain. And when you are using your creative brain all of the time, which was what you’re supposed to be doing, that’s when your life flows, that’s when you’re doing the right things, that’s when you’re getting the right ideas, that’s when the right people show up in your life. That’s when your awareness is expanded and you start to see the truth of who you are and what’s really going on in your world. All of these great things are happening. You’re in the state of homeostasis, and you are using the brain in a way to make sure that you are the best that you can be. In other words, it’s the tool that’s there m to do its job, to make you the best that you can be. However. So this is all great. This is the life without problems, where everything’s going well. But why don’t people experience this well? The problem is, there’s only one time when you’re not supposed to be in this state of trusting, allowing, and everything going really well, and you’re being super productive, super creative, great things happening. There’s only one time you’re not supposed to be in that creative brain state. So, as I said, there’s only one time you’re not supposed to be being your best in this great state, being happy, fulfilled, grateful, loving. And that’s when a threat or danger shows up in your environment. A lion comes out from behind a rock, someone comes to hit you, and what happens on a biological level is your brain, which is it actually happens in your emotional brain. There’s a part of that that is constantly scanning your environment for danger, and it’s constantly making the decision, is this safe or is this dangerous? And when it decides it’s safe, it gives you good feelings, which activate, ah, your creative brain. However, if it sees something in your world that it sees as a threat to your survival, it sends a different set of messages, and it activates this fight or flight or this survival brain, ready to deal with the threat, ready to deal with the danger. And the activator are those feelings of fear, worry, stress, and anxiety. So when you feel fear, stress, worry, or anxiety, or any of those emotions, what’s literally happening in your brain is your brain is saying there’s a threat to your survival, something that can harm you in your environment, it sends you those chemical feelings, and you activate your survival brain. But what you do when you do that, you shut down your creative brain. So all of the resources that you have to make your life the best that can be, they’re shut off from you when you feel fear, stress, worry and anxiety. Because when you think about it from a biological perspective, if you’re faced with an immediate threat to your survival, the last thing you need is to be creative, be imaginative, start to evaluate how wonderful the world is when a lion’s about to eat you. So it’s biological for your survival that this part of your brain be shut down. And also, when you’re faced with a, threat or a danger, your body draws all of the energy it can to fight off that danger, because it might be necessary. You might need to run faster than you’ve ever run before. You might need to fight and be stronger than you’ve ever been before. So all of the energy from anything unnecessary, anything that’s not essential to fighting that danger, it, ah, either shuts down that, process, or it draws, and it draws most, if not all of the energy away from that to be able to use to fight off the danger. And this is why when people get depressed or upset, they often don’t feel hungry because their digestion literally shuts down when you’re in this state, because digestion is not necessary when you’re about to be digested by a lion. But the problem is, you can see the basic problem, what people are doing and what I was doing. You’re in a state of fear, stress, worry, anxiety about your life. You’re saying to yourself, I really need to solve my problems. I really need to reach this goal for me to be happy. How can I be happy? How can I solve this problem? You’re feeling anxious, worried, stressed, and you’re trying to work out your life from that state where you have no access to the resources that have the answers to any of that. This is like a ten year old child who’s only good at throwing sticks and fighting. It doesn’t have any wisdom. All of your wisdom is shut down. And so you’re trying to figure out, what should I do with my life? What should my goals be? What do I need to do? How hard do I need to work? You’re not going to get any of the answers there. All of the answers are in the other part of your brain, your creative brain, which is saying to you, look, stop making it so hard. I your brain. I’m a 500 trillion microprocessor computer. I’m the most powerful computer in the world. People have written books about the brain and they always get to the end and say they can’t believe how incredibly powerful the brain is. So I’m this massive supercomputer and, I’m here to make your life the best you can be. That’s my job. Why don’t you just let me do my job instead of getting stuck in this other part, using me incorrectly, where I can’t help you. And so what people need to, do, and what I realised is fear is the enemy. Feeling bad. When you feel bad, you’ve switched on the wrong brain state. And it doesn’t matter what the justification is, that’s what happens on a biological level. And that’s why you stay stuck. And that’s why you’ll never, And occasionally you have those moments where you feel good and you suddenly get this new idea or this inspiration. But that’s why you’re supposed to be all the time. You’re not supposed to struggle. Struggle isn’t natural.
Samantha Riley: Okay, so struggle isn’t natural. Fear is something that is a normal part of life. What has to happen? Do we need to rewire the way that we view things? Is it about being able to deal with them a different way? How is it that we can move into this creative state or this creative brain when we’re also wired to be in that fight, flight or freeze, when these things happen? I don’t know about you, but I can’t go and sit in a cave with a nice comfy pillow and sort of live there. So what needs to happen to be able to move into that state?
Liam Naden: Well, it’s really quite simple. The first thing to realise is there is only one place for fear in your life, and that’s when you’re faced with, an immediate threat to your survival. But when you really think about it, what we’ve done all our life is we’ve trained our brain to see imaginary fears or imaginary threats to our survival as real. In other words, we see things such as losing all your money, your husband or your wife wants a divorce. We’ve trained our brain to think that all those things are bad, that there are threats to our survival, a war going on on the other side of the world. We watch all the images on tv and our brain is saying, this is really dangerous. You could be harmed, you could be killed. But it’s all imaginary. So in other words, our fear response is only designed to be used for real dangers, real threats. And they might only happen. They used to happen multiple times a day in Caveman’s days, of course. But in our modern world, how many times are we faced with, an honest to goodness threat or a danger to our survival? Once or twice in our life, maybe. How many times do people come along and want to hit you? How many times does a car come your way and threaten to kill you? So everything else is merely the fact that your brain has interpreted something for what it isn’t. It’s saying, because what literally the emotional brain does is it searches through all the records of the rational, thinking brain to try and understand what’s going on. And so maybe in your childhood you overheard two people arguing about their marriage, or maybe your parents, and they were really fighting and it was all horrible and they said, oh, we’re getting a divorce. And somehow something went in which said to your brain, that’s a sign that that’s a threat to your survival, because you’re only a child and you could starve if your parents don’t look after you. M. You know, the sort, of thing I’m saying. And the thing is, you don’t need to go back and analyse all of these things. You just need to realise the only time you should feel bad, actually, is when there’s an immediate threat to your survival. And the fact you do feel bad is simply a misrepresentation by your brain, a misperception by your brain. And we know this is true because for any situation that you could be in, some people could think it’s really, really bad, the same situation, and other people could think it’s really, really good. I mean, your wife telling you you want a divorce, for instance. Some people and I do a lot of relationship coaching, as you might know. And some people say, oh, it’s the worst thing that could happen. I’ll be alone, no one will love me again. I’ll be a failure, everyone will call me a failure. My children will be really badly affected. I’ll never find anyone as good. I’ll live with regret. And other people say, oh, that’s good. Our relationship wasn’t going very well anyway, and that’ll give me the opportunity to go and find someone better and my children be fine. And it’s not a failure, it’s a sign of success, that I’m prepared to move on when I realise that something’s not right. What’s the difference? Your perception. That’s all it is. And that’s what’s going on in your brain. Your brain is creating a perception based on your experience for every moment in your life, and it’s determining how you feel. So, I know it’s controversial to say, but fear is not actually natural. In fact, we’re only born with two fears. I don’t know if you knew that. One is the fear of falling and the other is the fear of loud noises. Every other fear that we have is created by our brain due to our circumstances, due to our environment. We make up whether something we think is something to be afraid of or not. In other words, whether it’s going to harm us or as a threat to our survival or not. So if you realise, though, that this activator, this fear, when you’re in that wrong state, you can never be the best that you can be. It’s not designed for that. It’s readying you to protect you from a threat or a danger. You need to activate this creative state. So you need to train your brain. There’s a couple of things you need to do. The first, actually you need to do is you need to stop putting stuff into your brain that makes you feel bad. That’s going to activate this fear state. In other words, you need to turn off the news. You need to end that conversation with that person. That doesn’t make you feel good. You need to maybe end that relationship. If you’re coaching a client and it’s not going well, you need to say them, sorry, I’m just not going to do it anymore. Now, the only reason you wouldn’t do that, for instance, is if you’re afraid you wouldn’t find a better one. But if you knew you had this brain there, that’s probably saying to you, look, I want to give you this really awful client so that you get the message. When you get a bad client, get rid of them and then I’ll bring you the good ones. Because even, with coaching, people show up unexpectedly that often. It’s not just the result of your hard work that you get good clients or any clients. So that’s the first thing you need to do, is to say, what is it in my life that’s causing me to feel bad, causing me to feel stress, what can I do to get rid of it? And people say, oh, I can’t get rid of my relationship, or you can’t change what’s going on in the world or all these terrible things. And it’s all very well for you, Liam, to say, you don’t have any problems and you shouldn’t have problems, but you’re not like me. You don’t have my situation all ah, right. I did actually end up homeless after having spent, my life trying to create this great life and had it all taken away from me. And I’ve had my other challenges as well that people might say were problems. So I’ve been through it. But here’s the thing. You can say it’s all well for you, but this is a bit like another example. Someone comes along with a glass of something and says, please drink this. And you say, well, what is that? They say, oh, it’s hydrochloric acid. And you say, well, I’m not going to drink that. And they say, why not? Look, everybody’s talking about it, everybody’s thinking, this is the great new drink. But more importantly, if you don’t drink this, I’m going to make sure that you lose everything you have, all of your friends, all of your family, you’re never going to see them again, they’re never going to talk to you. Every single stitch of your possession you’re going to lose, and you’re going to end up on the street and you’re going to say, well, I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter what, the cost. I know if I drink that, it’s going to ruin my life. It doesn’t matter what the justification is, I’m just not going to drink it because I understand that’s how it works. I understand if I take in this hydrochloric acid, it’s going to ruin my life. And that’s the same with this fear, anxiety and worry. When you realise that that activates the wrong part of your brain, that means you’re never going to have the life you really want. You’re going to do everything to remove it, and it doesn’t matter the justification. And the only reason you wouldn’t remove it is because you’re afraid. So in other words, you wouldn’t get rid of that relationship or that client or that part of your business or that belief system. You wouldn’t get rid of it because you were afraid that something better wouldn’t come along. In other words, you didn’t understand that your creative brain is sitting there, look, saying, look, I’m, here to give you the best. Just let me work, get rid of anything that’s holding you back so I can really go to work and bring you this amazing stuff. So, that’s the first thing. And you really have to make that commitment and it’s not necessarily easy, but it’s a lot easier when you understand that this is how it works and that you’re going to be the loser unless you do. And the second thing you need to do is you need to get into your brain and say, what have you been teaching your brain all through your life and reinforced every day of your life through all of what everybody else is saying and everyone else is telling you that is the truth. That is making your brain afraid of something that it doesn’t need to be afraid of, that isn’t a threat to its survival or isn’t a threat to your survival. And you need to start. I have a process called brain rebalancing, which helps retrain your brain to identify the difference between real fears, things to be afraid of, and things that are only imaginary. And when you do both of those things, when you stop the hydrochloric acid coming in and then you get to work on the engine inside to reset it, then you start using your creative brain a lot more naturally. And what you find is things start to show up in your life in a much better way. You get these coincidences, these things that happen. You start to get these new insights. Things flow a lot better. And as they start to, you go, wow, how did that happen? And you go, oh, of course I know how that happened. That’s my creative brain at work. That’s the master of my life. I’m not the master of my life. Because when you think you’re the master of your life, I mean, you are the master of your life. But when you think you are, when you’re working on your goals and you’re doing all your plans and trying to work things out and struggle, you’re not in control of your life. You’re allowing this small part of you that’s only designed to fight off danger, you’re allowing that to control your life. You’re not in control through your creative brain. That’s the way you do it.
Samantha Riley: So what is one tip you can give for people that are listening now that say, okay, this all makes perfect sense? Liam, definitely am on board for this. What is one action step that they can take to flip that fear around? Because fear is a real emotion. We actually really do feel it. So how can people start to flip that? Like you’re saying, what is something that you did so that all of a sudden things didn’t feel so fearful and you were able to keep that creative state on?
Liam Naden: Okay, well, it’s to realise that when you feel fear, it’s not that you want to feel fear, it’s your brain is signalling there is something dangerous in your environment and it’s really just a habit. You’ve trained your brain with all these ideas like life is hard, life is a struggle. All relationships take work, everything takes work. You’ve trained your brain to believe all of these things which aren’t biologically natural, they’re not actually the truth. Even if everyone believes them. If everyone believes you have to push the car, it doesn’t make it true. So the first thing is to realise that fear is the enemy. But if you really want to know the most basic thing you can do, because we talked earlier about, or we’ve talked about with the survival brain, one of the things the survival brain needs is to know what to do. What do I do now? What’s the next I need to do it, how do I fix it? So we want quick fixes, we want an instant solution. And it’s because this is the way the survival brain is designed. It’s designed to find you a fast solution to a problem, it’s designed to get you to jump out of the way from the line, because these are real problems, you need to solve them instantly. So we need to get away from this idea, if we need to know a quick fix and go, what will solve my problem right now? But if you want to know what to do right now, what to do next, think about this for an idea. What’s the most biologically efficient way for you to achieve all of the goals you’re supposed to achieve and be the best that you can be from a biological perspective? Well, what it is, one of the principles of biology, is efficiency of energy. In other words, everything in nature is designed, including us, to get the maximum output, the maximum result for the minimum expenditure of energy. We have to do that. We might have to do that for survival. We might not be able to eat and find food for a week. So we have to be able to make sure that what we achieve on an outward point of view, requires the minimum amount of energy. So the way your creative brain works, because your creative brain is sitting there, it knows what you need and want to be happy and successful far more than you do. You’re busy there trying to figure it all out using your stress based brain, and meanwhile your creative brain is saying, look, I know what you want, I know far more what you know. Oftentimes I work with people and when they go through this process, what they end up doing is something completely different to what they ever thought they’d be doing with their know. There they are, a corporate executive somewhere and they end up running a diving school in Florida, which is one of my clients know and economy. Said I never would have thought this would happen, but I’m so happy and I can see now this is what’s really fulfilling in my life. So your creative brain knows, it knows exactly what you need and it knows exactly what you need to do in every moment to make sure that you become the best that you can be. But here’s the thing, the way it works is what’s the most biologically efficient way to have your life be the best that it can be? It’s to have your creative brain only show you the next step, one step at a time. Because if it showed you firstly, most, of the time, it doesn’t even show you the goal. Because if it showed you the goal, what would you say? Oh no, you’d start analysing, say, that’s ridiculous.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, right.
Liam Naden: You’re telling me I’m going to go off and eventually being doing tours of the pyramids in Egypt? Come on. I don’t know anything about what is a pyramid.
Samantha Riley: It creates its own stress there.
Liam Naden: Exactly. So you’d be analysing it and you’d be doubting it and you’d be trying to figure it out instead of doing anything about it. And if it showed you more than one step, say it showed you the 20 steps. So you sat down your creative brain, you mapped it all out, or you thought you did, what are you going to do? You’re going to look at all those steps and you’re going to say, I wonder if that one, that sounds a bit, maybe I need to change that one, or that one doesn’t seem quite right to me, or I don’t know how to do that one. Wasting all that time, all that energy, that’s not biologically efficient. So your creative brain says, look, when you’re in your creative state, just take the next step, don’t think about it, don’t doubt, don’t question, because all of those things are based on fear. But if you trust your creative brain and you allow me to do the work and show you what to do, just keep taking the next step. Is it ever going to turn out as you expected? Most of the time not. But if you just take that very next step, ask yourself, what do I need to do right now? And just do it. But, stop thinking about the goal, stop thinking about where you think it needs to lead, or even thinking about where you’re going, because I can guarantee you lack of fulfilment comes from you trying to get to a place that is different to where you should be, because you think having a million dollars is going to make you happy. You think having this great business empire, not you, but one m somebody thinks whatever it is, that it’s going to make you happy, but your purpose is to be happy right now. And your creative brain knows what you need to be happy in every moment. And you can’t figure it out. You probably don’t know. Occasionally we get a goal, which comes in the form of a knowing, and we just know that that’s what we’re going to be doing. But those are very rare. They’re different to sitting down and trying to figure it out and trying to convince yourself that that’s what you want. So you need to give up all that stuff and you need to start trust thing. And when I really thought about all this, I thought, I’ve heard all of this before, and in fact, the greatest user manual on how to use your brain the right way is actually in the bible. and I was brought up a Christian, I’m no longer a practising christian, but all the truths are in there, because what does it say in the bible? It says 365 times, which is one for every day of the year. Be not afraid. Now that’s an instruction. Be not afraid. Why is it saying that when you’re afraid, you’re using the wrong part of your brain, you’re not using the machine the right way? the machine that God or whatever has given you can’t be used properly. It can’t make you the best that you can be. It also says, give no thought for tomorrow. For tomorrow will take care of itself. Do not worry about what you shall eat, drink or wear. That’ll all be provided for you, just like it’s provided for with every other living thing in the world. We don’t trust this because we don’t understand how it works, but it’s the truth. Instead, we have our fears that say, well, I need to figure it out and I need to work it out, rather than use this 500 trillion microprocessor computer to do its job. So that’s the thing, take the next step, don’t think about it, just do it and see where it goes. Make your life a series of now adventure steps. Rather know, trying to analyse and worry about where you’re going to go and what you’re doing. Your brain knows far more than you do.
Samantha Riley: I love it so much. Liam, thanks so much for coming and sharing that amazing insight with us today and your story. And I know that it’ll motivate so many people. So thank you.
Liam Naden: Thanks very much, Sam. Been great talking with you.
Samantha Riley: Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence by Design podcast. If you want more, head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors. And if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business, too, join us in the coaches, thought leaders and changemakers community on Facebook. The links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com.
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