Our freedom does not come from controlling all of those things that can happen. It comes from developing the awareness, the flexibility, and the courage to choose who we will be in its presence. That is The Human Advantage.Our freedom does not come from controlling all of those things that can happen. It comes from developing the awareness, the flexibility, and the courage to choose who we will be in its presence. That is The Human Advantage.
Video Transcript:
Dr. A: Welcome everybody to our forum. We’re very excited today. Today marks a new day, a new look, a new branding, and actually more intensity, focusing on what’s most important to you and to us as fellow humans. So, this is the launch today of The Human Advantage. That’s the new title. And as I go through this talk and then open it up for questions, we’re going to amplify what truly I mean by the human advantage because we have a unique place in this planet. At least, I can’t say in the rest of the universe yet, but in this planet we have the opportunity to do something that no other species does. And so, pretty excited about this.
This work is so important. And I’m going to show you in a moment here something that just happened to me last night that really amplifies how critical it is for us, as humans, to be able to take control and become the dominant force in your life, build those energetics, and actually be able to organize your life around what matters most. So basically, we’re going to talk about the space between how to stop reacting and start choosing. You know, I left critical care 25 years ago and I was reacting to disease and I spent most of my time doing that and I wanted to move upstream and figure out how can I help an individual actually create health in their life, and wellbeing, and that’s led to this 25 year journey, and it’s kind of neat because tomorrow, with our parent company, you know, I’m the founder of the mission, and with our parent company, we are going to ring the closing bell, which will be my fourth time and so it’s been over 20 years, four bells later.
And it’s amazing how much I thought I knew and how much I actually did know. And now I’m kind of set on this journey to learn myself and then reach out and help others because we have such an incredible agency. And I talked about that this summer, but agency is the power — the agency to help change our health and our life. And in this day and age, when everything is so chaotic and crazy, there’s never been a more important time. And actually, when I left critical care to go help people create health and wellbeing, I started with the physical part because I was a physician and I understood the human body. What I really didn’t understand well was the human and mind, and how we think, how we feel, and how that affects every aspect, including, majorly, basically, our physical health.
And so now, 25 years later, I’m sitting here, and what I know now is the number one leading cause of death in the world is emotional mismanagement. Affects everything. Creates all the secondary metabolic dysfunction and all the other things that can happen to us. And the second part is taking control, understanding how to be fully present and learning how, you know, your brain is your most important muscle, and yet we spend so little time exercising it, and we’re kind of a slave to it. So this is it. I’m excited.
The Human Advantage launches today. The human capacity to pause, adapt, and choose whoever we want to become. So let’s get started. All right. Maybe… there we go. So, freedom is the space between what happens to us and what we choose to do next. This is the philosophy. This is the central idea behind everything we’re going to talk about today. And as we move forward, hopefully you’ll have yourself and people that you care about, because if we’re going to change this planet and get ourselves from the scarcity mentality, from the fear-based world we’re in, it’s going to come from each and every one of us doing the decision to go not look outside for the answers, but to move inside and truly learn how to become a highly flexible, centered, creative person versus the survival mode that the world is in now. And that’s going to be an individual effort, but we can do that collectively. And that’s the idea of this forum is to basically put us in position to work on ourselves and then help others.
Remember, when we have internal stability, we create external equilibrium. We allow others to calm down. And I can tell you that it’s such an important skill. Do you light up the room when you come in, and people basically… your vibrations reach out and calm people, or do they upset people? And so these are questions we’re going to be asking, and it’s important for you to do some self-reflection on this. So last night I got in late. I’m here, as I mentioned, to ring the bell, and I got in really late last night, and my hotel is down in the financial district. Everything’s closed. And the gentleman at the desk said, I said, “Is there any place I can at least grab something to eat?” because I hadn’t eaten, because my afternoon was chaotic, and he said, “Yeah, there’s a little place the firemen go to, which is right around the corner, and I think they’ll still serve you some food.” So, I walked into this little place called O’Hara’s, and it’s literally like right around the block here, and the first thing I noticed is that the whole place was full of patches of firemen from all over the country. And you could just sense it.
There’s a sense of feeling of it as I sat down there. And so I ordered a little bit of food and I started to acclimate to my surroundings and all of a sudden I realized, and the guy that would took my order brought over a book, and he brought this book, and had, on his shirt, “We should never forget.” Never forget what happened. And now that’s been… that was 2001, so that’s 25 years ago. And many of us may have forgotten. But, basically, I sat down, and these are some of the pictures. If you look at the picture on the right, that’s actually the front of this place, with a car— what looked like it was a car. So, you can see they were in Ground Zero, and there’s a fireman walking down and on the right side that it kind of looks like fire escapes – the balconies on the right. That’s actually the place I was at. So they were right in the middle of it, and as I sat there, and you know, he started telling me stories, and he opened up, and we really got along, and he’s the owner, by the way, and had to move out for a year when it happened.
So he was there and he told just one story and it was a story about a gentleman, a big huge, really strong guy that came into the place and he was talking to— he could tell the guy, he said, ‘You were there weren’t you?’ The guy said, ‘Yes.’ And he could tell just by the look on his face. And the guy, basically, you know, they started talking and he said, ‘Yeah, I was at the stair stairway reading the Wall Street Journal at the elevator shafts and I was standing next to one waiting for my elevator and the shaft next to me exploded and flames shot out like 30 feet.’ And if he’d been, like, five feet to the right, he would have been toast. He said he gathered himself, dropped his Wall Street Journal and ran as fast as he could. And that was the last time he was ever there. He hadn’t been there at that time; I guess it was 15 years. And he came back and then they started talking. You could see he had tightened up, never fully processed it, and it affected everything in his life. And they came back and he started becoming aware, thinking about it and talking about it. So that was 15 years before. And so obviously that’s a catastrophic thing. The thing that affected all of us. I can tell you it affected me so emotionally as I sat there. And that’s just one of those things.
But life happens, you know, I’ve had things happen to me in my life and many of you know that. But the bottom line, it’s not what life throws at you, it’s how you respond to it that matters, and it makes all the difference in the world. So I want to set that up because we all have things that happen that we don’t want to have happen, and they’re going to happen. It’s just… life is intrinsically unstable, but we want to learn, how do we become the master of that so we can handle these things, grow, and really exercise that muscle? You know, I talk about going to the mental gym. So what does The Human Advantage actually mean? Well, it’s; our advantage isn’t that we’ll never become afraid or angry. I’m sure he was absolutely terrified or defensive or overwhelmed, it’s our ability to become aware of what is happening inside us. Create space around that and consciously choose our response. So if you think about it, awareness, space, and then choice. And I know you’ve heard me talk about this for years, but I want to really, specifically, dial into it because it, in my opinion, is the most important thing that you can work on to truly go from surviving to thriving. To change your state of mind, and we’ll talk more about that as well.
So this is actually what’s termed in psychology, psychological flexibility. It really is the foundation of all true freedom. So, “Why we operate on autopilot.” Why are we like that? You know, we all have that, and people go, “Well, you know, I seem to be not very good at it.” Well, you know, you’re probably really good at what it was intended to do 100,000 years ago. It was to protect you. So, let’s look at that and why we operate that way. Well, first, this is what happens. A situation triggers us. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be the World Trade Center coming down. It could be your dog pooping on the floor or a child coming home or doing something wrong or it can be any one of a million— stuck in traffic. It doesn’t matter what it is. But, a situation happens — our mind assigns meaning to it. Your mind doesn’t like to work or work hard. So it creates a stereotype, a comparative reality to something that’s happened before. And that produces an emotion and that emotion we react to it.
Our emotions, the emotive part of our brain, the limbic part of our brain was designed to protect us against true danger, not perceived threats, but real threats. And as a result of that, we would react. Fear, control, defensiveness in our old identity. And we make mistakes — the situation for the cause. We start thinking that what’s happened around us is what’s causing us to think that way and feel that way. And that’s an important distinction because that’s not what’s making you think that way or feel that way. So we mistakenly believe the situation caused our reaction. The Human Advantage is learning to interrupt this process or cycle. So in today’s journey we’re going to take four movements. The first, the reactive mind. Why we react so automatically. Two, the power of pause. This is where the real power comes. It’s where we start learning how to observe without obeying.
See, our mind, we’re on autopilot and our mind, and our thoughts, and our feelings control us. That’s what happens to 95% of the world. We want to learn how to start observing those thoughts, those feelings, but not necessarily obeying them. See, the animal kingdom, they obey whatever happens around them because their primary system is about survival. Survival is certainly part of ours, but it’s not the part that separates. That is not the human advantage. The human advantage is being able to make that pause, observe what’s happening without responding. And then the third is from resistance to flexibility, accepting without surrendering. And then the fourth is — and this is where all the power comes — the freedom to choose, responding from purpose. Understanding that you can reset your programming so you’re not responding to old behaviors or old decisions you made about how the world was, but now you’re responding from the purpose that you want moving forward in your life.
So let’s go through all four movements. The first one, the reactive mind. It’s why our nervous system, conditioning, identity, and need for control causes us to react automatically. It is our programming. We are wired from little till, we’re five years old. Basically, our prefrontal cortex, the rational thought part isn’t developed. So that early programming was all reactive. They were about emotional. Someone would say, “Oh, you’re stupid.” And then you would start thinking you’re stupid. And you had no way to be able to actually observe and understand the situation. So that’s the reactive mind. That’s the part that starts all this. So the four drivers of the reactive mind. First, the nervous system. We’re wired for threat detection. Fight, flight, freeze, fire before conscious thought catches up. You know, if we waited 10,000 years ago and we were walking down a trail and there was a snake on the trail and we looked at it and investigated and used our rational curiosity to figure out, “Oh, look, it’s got those cool variegations on it and it’s got that little thing in the back going like this and rattling, I wonder what this is.” You’d be dead. So there is real meaning in design. It’s teleologically, it’s our most primordial level of being, is survival, and basically that’s where it responds like the animal kingdom.
The second is our conditioning. Years of repeated behavior teach the brain a fast familiar response long before we choose it. So we respond in a certain way to certain stereotypes to certain things that are happening in our life because the brain likes to make it easy. It doesn’t like to make it hard and it doesn’t like to use it and so it wants to respond through that conditioning. Third: identity. We defend the story of who we think we are even when it no longer serves us. And this is a really important— this is one that, in future Human Advantages, we’ll spend a lot of time talking about: how do we reconstruct? We need to deconstruct and reconstruct our identity so that it now serves us and optimizes us. And you know, I spent a lot of time traveling around the world looking at what are ideal environments. What are environments that help people? What are the things that people that live longer, in a healthier state, what people, that basically, you can tell that stress is not a priority in their life, what do they do and how have they changed their environment? And then the last need for control. This is a big one.
This is one of the four things that people really think they lack and they need it. Uncertainty feels dangerous. That’s why people— I have a great friend that’s a coach, a leader, and she does not like to fly. And even though she’s intelligent, has an incredible life, she’s still in that fear-based mentality. And because when you’re in the plane, you’re sitting there, you know, you don’t have control. So let’s talk about movement two. The power of the pause. Basically, this is the heart of this talk. It is the pause itself. It’s actually pausing here, and just for a moment thinking about, what do I mean by the pause? The pause is being able to take the stimulus. It goes in, starts churning in there. It needs to be able to “Stop.” When you feel that “icky sauce,” and just stop. And we’ll talk more specifically about Stop. Challenge. Choose., which I pioneered over a decade ago or almost two decades now I guess it is. But basically learning to observe thoughts and emotions without immediately obeying them.
And I like to think of it this way, and that’s why I’m using the word “obeying,” because basically, we have a tendency actually to be on autopilot. When we’re on autopilot, we’re obeying the way our mind thinks and the way it feels. And so we’re not even processing it. Just an automatic response. Just like that old caveman that was walking on the trail, and just— there, it was a real threat. Here, it’s a perceived threat, and we need to be able to negotiate through it if we’re going to be able to thrive in our life. Otherwise, we’re just going to be like a little chip on the tumultuous sea that’s basically powerless. And one of the things in psychology we talk about is the locus of control. When the locus— when you blame somebody else, when you think that outside of you is determining what you’re thinking and feeling. When that happens, you’ve lost the locus of control, you’ve lost the power, and then you become basically a victim to your environment, to your surroundings, to the people around you, to the things that happen to you. And that basically is not a great way to live. In fact, you will live in a state of suffering. And that’s the last thing. You know, as a physician that focused the rest of my life on helping people create health and wellbeing, it makes all the difference.
So, think of it — stimulus, awareness, and response. If you can see, the stimulus is a small piece. You want to expand the awareness, the space between that space. A thought is not a command. A feeling is not a fact. We want to be able to expand this awareness so it becomes the dominant— your awareness is your superpower. Psychological flexibility is the result and the trait you get if you’ve now learned to build your awareness. And unfortunately, with the digital world we live in, our awareness, and now with AI, we’re becoming so unaware of everything that’s happening to us that we’re in danger of literally losing, and becoming robotic, and becoming almost like a zombie. So this has never been more important than it is now.
So movement three. From resistance to flexibility. You know, accepting the reality of the moment without surrendering our power to influence what happens next. So it’s not about just accepting from the standpoint that acceptance is not the same as giving up. It’s actually the exact contrast to that. It’s actually giving you the power to truly now become the commander. And when I say become the Dominant Force in your life, this is the key to becoming the Dominant Force in your life. And part of that is accepting radical responsibility that nothing outside of you is responsible for how you’re going to respond, and determine the outcome. So resistance versus flexibility and resistance, you know, we’re fighting what already is. We’re spending energy — denying reality. We are literally trying to create an altered reality that’s not true. It’s not what’s actually happening. We get stuck. It’s rigid and it’s exhausting for people. Flexibility is accepting what already is. Something happened in your life. Your child misbehaved. You got in a minor fender bender. We have had another issue going on in the Harmouth Strait. All those things are real. They’re happening. But basically, how can you respond in a way that’s adaptive, resourceful, and allows you to be present? Again, acceptance is not pacificity. It is the ground you stand on so that you can act with power.
And then the fourth, this is what this talk’s all about. This is what the human advantage is all about. This is where your work comes in. The freedom to choose. Using Stop. Challenge. Choose., to move above the line and respond from purpose rather than from protection. Because most of the threats you have now in your life are perceived threats. They’re not real. They’re based on your ego responding, your personal mind, because of its program, because of its recurrent behaviors, responding to something, thinking, “Oh, this is hurting my ego.” And I can tell you it’s one of the things when I’m coaching and talking to people, the thing that gets in the way is that you don’t really— they think that their thoughts and their feelings are real. They are not.
The situation that actually happened is like my good friend Jim Deffner talks about. It’s like taking a video and looking at the video. The video is actually what happened. What you interpret, how you talk about is your story. And what you would love to do is have them match each other. And I guarantee that most of our stories don’t match. But yet we run our lives on a false story, on an altered, really, untrue reality. We are looking for the truth. Okay. So again, which line are you responding from? Are you above the line? Responding from purpose, from curiosity, from ownership and from connection, or from below the line? Fear, blame, control, defensiveness. Every moment is a choice about which side you want to respond from. By the way, we all go below the line — we’re humans. We are human beings. We have that programming. It’s neurologically in there. The whole idea of the human advantage is we have the neurological flexibility, the ability and adaptability to actually reprogram, actually rewire our pathways. So we no longer are stuck in these repetitive cognitive emotive patterns that are destructive and cause great suffering for us. We can actually make the difference. So ask yourself about that.
So the practical tool, you know, when I first built this, I understand this tool better today than I did when I first learned. I knew this. I knew that Viktor Frankl— I knew that, basically, stimulus and response— I know that most of us have always reacted that way because it’s just the way we’re programmed and that’s how we— and plus, by the way, the Drama Triangle, getting in there and responding and feeling that surge because, “I’m going to tell them what I think and I’m pissed off,” that it feels good. It feels good in the moment because, basically, all of a sudden, you got your fight, or flight’s going, your adrenaline’s popping. You’re feeling jazzed. You’re feeling alive. And so we think unfortunately that it’s good, but it’s not. It’s so harmful for you obviously in your relationships, in your community, and not saying anything about the effect it has on your metabolic health. You know, metabolic dysfunction, basically insulin resistance— every time you’re stressed and you have that type of response, your insulin levels go up. You’re slowly killing yourself because you’re releasing cortisol, epinephrine, and all these things that, in the moment, might feel good, but over time are what allow us to become dysfunctional leading down the path towards progressive disease.
So again, you know, when we talk about this basically, you know, the stop is the physical pause. It’s actually when we feel, I like to say the “icky sauce” because you know it. You may not pay attention to it, but you know it. You know, when something’s just happened, your life could— you could have be having the greatest day in the world. And you know, this happens with couples and it happens when we’re friends. All of a sudden, your friend or your spouse or your significant other becomes silent. You go… “What’s going on?” You know, “What happened here?” Something triggered them. It could be something you said. It could be that there was a yellow Mustang that just went by and then brings them back to when they were a teenager and their girlfriend dumped them and all of a sudden they don’t even know why. So that’s why awareness is the key part of this expanding, the ability to do that. Basically, the challenge is the question, the story that the mind has just told you, is the story actually correct? And most of the time the answer is no. But we respond to it and we’re a fool. We’re actually a fool to ourselves. And then choose. Act from what you want to have happen.
Act from purpose, from the things… you know, one of the things we talk about is organizing our life around what matters most. Knowing from that future. Knowing where you want to go in your life, it actually commands everything in your energetics. And when you basically choose things that move forward, the feedback loop is that you’re reinforcing a new identity. You’re reinforcing a higher standard. You’re reinforcing the things that help you move into the thriving state, the powerful state of the creative process. Okay. So, in this moment, am I reacting from my conditioning or choosing from who I want to become? I’d love you to write this down. I’d love you to actually take this with you this week. Put it on your phone, you know, put it wherever way it works or put it on your mirror in the morning when you get up. But I can tell you, you know, when I get up and I’m shaving in the morning, I’ll sometimes ask myself that, you know, “Today, what are the critical parts that will move me forward to what my mission is?” So, I had to actually come in last night because I needed to do this and we have a whole bunch of stuff going on, you know, here in New York, and I wanted to make sure that I was in a position. So, I changed my whole schedule yesterday, and everything changed, and it was chaotic, and I’m at a hotel that’s not much to look at but basically gave me a good bed to sleep in. But the point is, none of those things matter because I’m here for purpose.
I’m here to talk to you fine folks today and basically to be here with people that are building this mindset, that are learning how… that The Human Advantage is the part that’s going to allow us go internally, and change our own health, our own lives and the way we think about the world. And that’s how we’re going to change the world, by the way. So, so, so important. So, you know, ask yourself this question. And here’s the point. We’re always in one of these two states of mind. Where you operate from shapes everything you create. So, if you’re in the primal state, the survival mode, you know, you’re reactive— by the way, this is where the world is. Turn on any of the news stations. I don’t care which one you like. They’re all in the primal state. We are in a fearful based society where, I mean, my Uber driver last night coming in, he says New York has changed so much and we were talking about it. Everybody is in a fearful state and when you’re dialed into that we dial into that frequency and when you’re getting the feedback— I have to tell you that I’m not in that frequency. I stay in the creative state.
Now I have to tell you that when I was in that tavern last night having dinner and seeing those pictures, that intense emotional response it drug up all these, you know, we all know how we felt during— I’m sorry [Dr. A is crying], but it was overwhelming and it brought up all these things that we witnessed and we saw and it brought them back yesterday. But the power I left there and actually, this is actually emotion of power, the incredible stories, the incredible stories of heroism and humans being at their best. I mean, it was amazing. But yeah, here I am sitting here, being a thought leader in this space. And you can see I’m emotional right now. But this is not something I’m trying to resist or hide. It’s actually how I feel and how most of you feel too. But not to be in it chronically. You can basically be in the creative state. This is a powerful state. It’s a state of calm and you’re in charge of your life. You’re centered. You’re basically intentional. It’s an abundance and it’s a possibility. It creates and expands and leads to all the things you want to go.
And Stop. Challenge. Choose., is simply a tool that we use to start practicing it. You know, exercising to make sure we move to where we want to go. Okay. Because these things aren’t going to change. The world will continue to trigger us. We’re not going to fix the world. We fix the world by helping individuals move from the primal state to the powerful creative state to become the masters of their own lives to become, reach out and help others. Not just in times when two buildings fall down and kill a couple thousand people. People are going to disappoint us. It’s going to happen all the time. You’re not responsible for that. You’re responsible for your own internal dialogue and how you respond. Plans are going to change. Things aren’t— my plans totally changed yesterday. I mean, I went from, you know, being on the ocean to suddenly being in utter chaos, but actually, I had complete calm during it, and I actually really enjoyed— and I woke up this morning so blessed.
I sent my daughter some pictures and I actually got them t-shirts from the place that show the Twin Towers, about we’ll never forget, and just to have as a memory, but it was a blessing to have that drop. I had no idea that’s how my day was going to end. And yet already being here made the whole trip. It’s been incredible because I’m dialed to the frequency of abundancy. Does that make sense? I hope it does. And technology is going to accelerate if we don’t become the masters of our own selves, we are going to suffer and have a poor existence because technology will continue to accelerate. I have to tell you, I’m in love with AI. Why? Because I can use it to get stuff done so much quicker, but that’s it. It doesn’t control me. I use it to help do tools and things I don’t want to do. I don’t want anything to do with them. And then uncertainty will remain. We don’t know. But if you stay in the sense of lack of security, lack of control, lack of fullness or wholeness, basically you— and lack of belonging, you are not going to have a very happy life. So basically what we can choose— our freedom does not come from controlling all of those things that can happen. It comes from developing the awareness, the flexibility and the courage to choose who we will be in its presence. That is The Human Advantage.
So here’s the question as we kind of move into the interactive question part. Where in your life right now do you feel the space between what happens to you and what you choose to do next? I want you to think about that because are you reacting on the front end, or are you pausing and becoming the Dominant Force? Are you changing your frequency towards abundancy where whatever happens you basically focus on moving through? Because here’s the key to this. And you can say this is new age “woo-woo,” but I can tell you it is not. If you took a room full of grandfather clocks, you put them all in the room together, all different ones. You know the old grandfather clocks with the big pendulum that goes click click, tick- tock. You put 30 grandfather clocks, all different sizes, you put them in the room over the next couple days, they’ll all, and they’re all going differently, they’ll all go into sync based on the one that has the strongest vibration. The one that iterates the most power will synchronize all the others. That’s the way you help move forward and become the Dominant Force in your life. All right, thank you guys. All right, let’s open it up for questions.
Rachel: All right, first up we have Dr. Mike Mills.
Dr. A: Hey, Mike.
Rachel: Oh, you’re muted, Mike.
Dr. Mills: Hey, Dr. A. Great to see you. Thank you. That was… it was awesome. So needed that today. And, you know, as I’ve been working on this type of work, and how it’s transformed my own life to be able to create awareness and be able to do that, you know, I sit from the perspective of a dad and a father all the time, as I’m looking at this and I’m navigating three teenagers through, you know, this chaotic world and AI and all the things that are happening and, you know, staying in that space and feeling that acceptance, but still being able to guide and lead them, and sometimes seeing them be triggered and being able— So, I guess I’m not, I don’t know exactly how to frame my question, but is learning this work and having a desire to be able to share it with my kids, you know, what is a model to be able to do that? I mean, obviously role modeling it first, but is there a way to create opportunities to step into this space with them and help them to see the power of doing this and what it means for their life long term?
Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. That’s the sticky wicket, isn’t it? Because you know now, and you know how much you can help them. But you know, let’s just take a different example, just for a minute. You know, as we learn to help people get healthy and especially reach a healthy weight and create metabolic health, you know traditionally, as a brand new coach we’ll see someone that’s 100 pounds overweight, right? And we want to help them, and you know we know we could help them. And so we sometimes, that separation of knowing what is our position, you know, are we an up one down one? Are we parallel or where do we set in that dynamic of human interaction? And as parents we have such deep love for our kids. So… I don’t know why it’s doing that [Dr. A’s phone rings]. I thought I had this turned off. Sorry about that. So we want— we love them so much. You’ve learned so much. I mean that’s the beauty, you know, and as a great partner in this, Mike, and as a chiropractor that’s evolved and you look at the dogma of you know, me as a critical care, and you as a chiropractor, and you look now as we understand the importance of this of the exact question and this exact work, The Human Advantage, where the power of this is immense. It can change the world.
It gives us agency over our own life and it allows us to create a separation or almost like a protect— you know, I talk about a bio network, where people heal themselves from the inside and reach out together and help others and that’s kind of a protective bubble we like to put people in and we love to put our kids in that, you know, we like just like, you know, going back to the analogy of driving, right? God, I know I still remember when Savannah was driving her grandmother, was in the passenger side and I was in the back and she turned and almost wiped out, you know, t-boned her grandmother, and in that moment I was like, “Oh my god.” You know, part of me wanted to just rip right through her and I had to Stop. Challenge. Choose. I had this tense emotion. And so we have all these situations now where, you know, you can help them so much. And yet it’s actually sometimes the lack of saying anything, and being present, like you said, the modeling, is actually the more powerful way. I know I got to spend time with your daughter and I think just me giving a, you know, when you’re a teenager your parents, basically for about 10 years, they get really stupid, right? They talk about that all the time. About 14, 13. Fourteen on to about 22 or three. All of a sudden mom and dad got really stupid, right? But sometimes being around in a community where there’s more than just your parents, I think that helped you with your daughter, and you know, I get to spend time with her. She saw — well here, I have this on. What I thought was complete says do not disturb [A ring is audible]. So, I don’t know what why it’s doing it, but…
Chris: We may have lost Dr. A [Dr. A’s camera freezes]. So Mike, you’re gonna take over, right?
Dr. Mills: Whatever is necessary.
Chris: This is how Dr. A gets us to practice emotional agility, ladies and gentlemen.
Dr. A: Well, I think this is the power of the pause right now. Can we all just sit in this space for a second?
Chris: This is a very powerful pause.
Dr. Mills: It is. Well, there is magic in the silence, right? So, you know, I think in a world… I’m in New York City and my wife and I were walking last night and she said, “There’s never a moment of silence here, right?” There’s always a horn, a siren, a something, right? And so I think when we end up in a moment of silence, that’s maybe even a trigger, right? Like, well, there can’t be a moment of quiet and silence where we just sit in this space. There has to be noise, because there’s so much noise in our life from our phones and emails and texts and people can connect with us in a million different ways. But this part of this work has truly been life-changing for me, and I know probably, for many of the people here, is being able to harness that space between stimulus and response. And I think the first step is even us just being aware that there is a space between stimulus and response. That was the first step for me like, “Oh, you mean there actually is a space between the stimulus and this response I’m having?” And then learning that we can harness that, and Stop. Challenge. Choose., has been an amazing tool for me to be able to do that.
And once you have it, obviously, it’s like you want to give this tool to everybody and I think maybe that’s at the root of the question I was asking Dr. A is that, you know, I have three of those people in that space between 14 and 22 in my life and being the best role model I can be, about handing this gift off. I think we probably all sit here thinking, man, if 10 years earlier, I would have had this ability to harness this space, you know, what could be different? However, you know, life happens for us, not to us, just like this. And so, you know, it’s great that we get to be in an environment where we get to do this kind of work. I don’t know where else you have a space like this, where for free we get to come here and be mentored and guided through someone who is an incredible conscious leader and has the ability to give us advice in these areas that aren’t just related to our physical metabolic health, but related to our capacity to lead our families, and in our careers, and build our businesses.
Chris: I have this vision of Dr. A running down one of the main streets in New York to your hotel room right now, Mike, to join you guys. I could be wrong.
Dr. Mills: Well, we are about a block from ground zero right now and I really resonate with what Dr. A was sharing.
Dr. A: Yeah. Hi. Hi, Mike. Thanks.
Dr. Mills: No problem.
Dr. A: Yeah, the internet. There’s no internet in the hotel and, my, for whatever reason, even though I blocked it. So, anyway, yeah, it is. It is pretty emotional here, isn’t it?
Dr. Mills: Yeah. Yeah, it is [crosstalk 00:40:11]. Dr. A, the water is shut off in our hotel from 11:00 a.m. to noon. So, it just turned back on. So, I don’t know why we needed to do that, but…
Dr. A: I love it. Well, you know, the other thing that’s interesting is when we started the parent company, went on the the exchange, basically it was, I was actually, it was 9/11 when I first met the chairman of of the parent company and I actually went the week after 9/11 and I flew on a plane, the 777, I was the only passenger on the plane. My wife and my kids did not want me to go. So, I mean, there’s so much history and memories right here in the city. But, anyway, and now they, even though I have a 1:30 checkout, the maid is knocking at the door, but you can see how calm we are. So, and the bottom line is, you know, I had an analogy many many years ago where when these things happen, you know, you want to get to the point where it’s like water on a duck’s back. You just go like this and kind of just let it go off, you know, because so many things in life… there was a book written called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, right? And… but anyway, getting back just to finish up, you know, the main modeling is sometimes knowing when to just show by example, and then open up the moments, and I think one of the great things that’s good is about, in a community, especially for teenagers when they see it’s not just their parents, but they actually see this philosophy works well and one of the things growing up that was really great for me and for Lori was that they saw that thousands of adults, you know, would come to mentor with me and they kind of thought, well, maybe dad does know what he’s talking about, you know. So, I think part of that will just happen naturally for you. But it’s, yeah, it’s— and the most important thing is the part when you talked about it’s never been more important with AI, with all the things that happened with cyber bullying and all. There’s never been a more important time than having the availability to be there to mentor because, you know, teenagers take their mentorship from their peers.
And the problem with that is the peers are in the same situation and then pretty soon you have a story coming you know and that’s how you get all these weird, wild things that happen in high school, and sometimes even in college, is because you get peer pressure and being there and being available. So by making time and realizing— you know, the other thing I always talk about if, basically, you focus on the things you value most and our families are that basically, you need very little motivation, right? So you find the time, and just one last thing, and this is for people who may be listening today when my— I have always been pretty busy. I stay busy, but I know my priority. When my kids would come home from school, and obviously your kids are bigger than this now, but for those that maybe have smaller kids. You may have a really busy schedule, but if you’ll just get off the phone— so if I was on an important call even, I say, “Hey, can I call you back in five minutes? My child is here and I need to talk to them.” And they would see that you valued them and what they had to say and what they wanted to share. And I can tell you, they only want about two or three minutes of our time and then they’re bored with that, right?
So that’s just understanding how to prioritize. And that’s part of the awareness thing. I think so many times people, you know, awareness isn’t just important for controlling and getting your frequency dialed into abundancy, but awareness is important so you don’t miss stuff, right? So you see the valuable things, the inflection in someone’s— you know, you may have a colleague or someone you’re mentoring and there may be something, not what they said, but their expression or something. So being fully present, you know, is so important in all aspects, and it’s literally, it’s the enemy is distraction, because we are just distracted at so many different levels. I had six duplicates on my contacts, on each contact. I’ve had it for two years and no one seemed to be able to help me. And finally, like I said, AI is our friend. It took me three days, but over the last weekend, I finally said, you know, I’m going to attack this. And I think I have a partner in AI that can help me with this, and take me into the depths of how this stuff works. It took three days. And I have to tell you, on Monday morning when it finally repopulated and the cloud and everything went back to normal, I had this amazing sense of accomplishment. So, I just think by being aware, slowing down, and letting everything that happens be your lessons, including obviously, our interaction with the people that are most important to us, and especially our kids because they really need us more now than ever. So, thanks, Mike. That’s a great question. I can’t wait to see you later today, buddy.
Dr. Mills: Yeah, thank you, Dr. A.
Dr. A: Yeah. Awesome. All right, who else we got? I apologize for the interruption, but you know, that’s life.
Rachel: All right, next up we have Dominique.
Dr. A: Hi, Dominique.
Dominique: Hey, great to see you. Thank you so much for this wonderful presentation again. So, I’ve been with you, with Optavia for 16 years. So, I’ve learned a lot about equanimity and all that. So, and I’ve decided I’m actually joining you from Belgium here, right now.
Dr. A: Wow. You’re in Belgium right now?
Dominique: I’m in Belgium. It’s 6:46 right now, PM. So, yeah. Yeah.
Dr. A: Awesome.
Dominique: Yeah. So anyway, but the reason I’m here is because earlier this year, I decided — I’m an only child — and I decided to take care of my parents who are getting older, and you know, more needy, and my dad’s going to be 88 next week. And so I made that move. I rented an apartment next to them so I can be there for them. And I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hard because there is actually so much toxicity in their relationship. And even though I have set my boundaries, and I do, you know, have set up my routine immediately as soon as I got here, my question is, how can I be really a catalyst to improving that situation? And that’s really probably a tough question to answer, but because there’s so much negativity I get in the morning to their house and it’s right away negative. “How’s the weather? It’s great today.” “Oh, it’s going to rain later today,” and things like that. So, anyway, you’re disappearing, Dr. A on me. But [laughter]
Dr. A: Can you see me now?
Chris: Not yet.
Dr. A: Not yet… Can you see me now?
Chris: Yay!
Dr. A: Well, I actually tried to go back to my computer and I thought I could mute this and have it work and it’s beyond my technical ability. So, I actually want you to ask me that, Dominique, please ask me that question again because I was trying to get— so I could see you bigger and it didn’t work. So, we’re going to have to go with a little primordial here.
Dominique: It’s okay.
Dr. A: So, you’re with your parents. Okay. And you everything seems negative in essence. How do you help with that?
Dominique: Exactly. Their relationship. I mean, they’ve been married for 60 years, which is really nice, but it’s a very… it’s a toxic relationship, really. To be honest with you. I can’t name it anything else, you know. So, and over the years, they’ve grown very negative. Everything is negative. So, here I am coming with my coaching background and being a positive person and I walk in there and it’s really very difficult for me to tolerate it number one. So, I do have my boundaries. I exercise. I’ve set up my routine. I have my apartment so I can go back there. But how can I make a dent in that, you know?
Dr. A: All right. So, here’s the three questions. First question, how long are you going to be there?
Dominique: Well, I rented the apartment for a year.
Dr. A: For a year. Okay. So, you’re actually going to be in this environment for quite a while. Okay.
Dominique: Yes.
Dr. A: Second of all, have you ever— what is your level? Your parents… do your parents look at you as their child?
Dominique: Yes. I’m the only child.
Dr. A: Okay. So, you’re screwed.
Dominique: Yes. [laughter].
Dr. A: No, I’m just being pragmatic with you. You— well, let me back up for a minute, okay? Because I had a similar — my mom said — my grandparents were Italian and we used to always say, “Oh, they’ll settle down when they get older, right? They’ll settle.” They were 85, I think, and still, you know, going at each other. Now, I didn’t have… I was a medical student at the time. I didn’t have the, you know, the resources to really work with it. But I know this: you, it’s like the serenity prayer. You have to know what you can and what you can’t change. So, actually in this, the biggest lesson that you can work on is the ability for you not to get triggered by it. Okay? But it sounds like you’re doing exercise, meditation, things to help you with that. As far as giving any dent in their relationship, there has to be something that they either— I mean obviously, they’ve been together a long time and they have what we call a codependent relationship. Not co-committed — codependent, means they’re dependent on each other and they actually enjoy that. That dialogue is actually part of their life, and again, going back to the emotional part and its effect on how we feel. They get jazzed up when they do that, right? And they get— they have a strong interaction. They don’t realize that it’s pathologic. And how old are they now?
Dominique: My dad’s going to be 88 next year and my mom is gonna be… [unintelligible].
Dr. A: So what I would say is become a guide. Don’t try to be a coach. They don’t want you to coach them. They’re not open for coaching. They’re just like, you know, I was talking with Mike earlier about his kids. You know, you got to know what your role is and where you stand. But you can have an effect by changing the underlying structure. So if you can find situations — so they’re older, I don’t know how mobile they are, but there’s things that you can interject into their lives. In other words, change part of the underlying structure of their surroundings. You take them somewhere that they enjoy. Go to a park. Hang out. Maybe if they’re in, you know, they want a pet. I mean, I’m just throwing out ideas, but find something that they both enjoy and start infusing that into their life because in the commonality basically — there was a movie called The Wedding Crashers was a cute comedy and in it, in the beginning there was a painful divorce between Rebecca Moure and I forgot her husband’s name, but anyway, and then finally there was something where he helped her and all of a sudden, going from being very antagonistic to each other, they go, “Oh, that’s sweet.” So, just try find something that they both love, that they have in common, where they have a common interest and something they can respond in a positive way and share.
And that’s basically, if you can accomplish that in the year you’re there, but understand there’s only certain things you can change. And people have to be coachable and teachable. And if they’re not, and certainly they look at you as their little girl. And since you’re their only little girl, they like you being in that position and they aren’t really interested in you telling or teaching them. So you have to indirectly, through changing the underlying structure of the day. Maybe, you know, fixing dinner for them. Creating a show that you all like that brings back memories. And just do things to help, basically put yourself in position to have a meaningful effect, because you love them. You would like to see the relationship less toxic and a little more loving, but you can only do so much and it’s not going to be through teaching them. They’re not open for coaching. They’re basically set in their ways. So, what you’ve got to do is use unique ways and be curious. How can I change the underlying structure here? How can I break their patterns so that there can be more love and more joy? And with that, you can kind of — you’re not going to totally eliminate it, but you can tone it down.
I can tell you even in the relationship with my mom, my mom and I, you know, I always loved her. She always loves me, but we had very strong personalities. And until I started doing this work about 20 years ago, you know, we could take each other for about three days. And now, you know, which is great because she’s in her 90s now and she still drives and you know, we talk all the time and I’ve taught her how to use an iPhone and we FaceTime, we show her now she’s got a new grandbaby and the relationship has come very loving. She didn’t do any work on herself. I just basically stopped resisting her and basically started to enjoy how much I love and care about her and not allowing her to trigger me. So that awareness and everything. So your awareness in this is actually you becoming a guide to help. Does that make sense?
Dominique: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I can’t change them anymore. I gave up on that. And you’re right. Can’t be the coach because they don’t accept that. I have to be the daughter.
Dr. A: Yeah.
Dominique: But the daughter that can take space back and just kind of, you know, be… [crosstalk 00:54:17].
Dr. A: Yeah. The first thing is make sure, because you mentioned you did, and you’ve exercised and stuff, this is a good time for you, especially in an environment that goes all the way back to your beginning, right? Because as you were raised by them, when you were a little girl, this is an opportunity for you to work on yourself. Remember: we can only work on ourselves, and as a result of working on ourselves become a model to help others. And so, in this, you know, use this as a time to remove any lasting resentment or any of those other feelings and know that you love them very much. And now that you wield psychological flexibility and all this power, use it to figure out: how can I break those stimulus response loops?
All right, they start that and they go into the Drama Triangle because of the stimulus. How do I break the stimulus? How do I change the patterns and have them make decisions that actually move them closer together in a more loving way, than in a toxic way?
Dominique: Yeah. And I really have to protect myself too.
Dr. A: Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, because you got to remember, just like, you know, I mean, it happened 2001, but right away, just to put in perspective as a human, we’re all fellow humans, you know, I went into that tavern in 20 minutes, you know, I had tears going down because basically it brings up these deep-seated places when you remember, you know, the things that are the worst of what humans are, right? You know, and so in this, you know, you want to help them. You have lots of tools and stuff, but you’re dealing with people that they have to want to change. And so you can awaken them that, hey, when Dominique’s around, we seem to be smiling more. We seem to be happier. We seem to be enjoying our meals. We seem to be more present for each other. And that’s what you can do to help improve it.
Dominique: That’ll be my purpose.
Dr. A: All right. Good.
Dominique: Love you, Dr. A.
Dr. A: You’re welcome. Thanks. All right. Enjoy Belgium.
Dominique: Thank you.
Dr. A: All right, who else we got? We got just a little time. I apologize for all the technical snafoos today. But sometimes that’s a good example of… Oh, there’s my girl. How are you?
Rachel: Alison.
Alison: Hi! I’m good. And I have to tell you, Dr. A, that something was unlocked in a conversation earlier today. The legacy that I am leaving is how I’m able to show up for my 13 and 15 year-old daughters and not follow their ups and downs, but meet them where they are in steadiness and just The Human Advantage stuff that you’re talking about, everything we’ve worked through. That’s a legacy that I’m really excited and leaving for them. Yeah.
Dr. A: Yeah. No, I love that, Ali. And actually, I mentioned, but I’d like to reiterate again, think of it as a radio, right? And you’re tuning. Now, you can tune in the frequency into the negative or you can tune it into the positive, right? And the positive means the things that are creative, the beautiful things. You know, one of the things I always like to do when I’m in New York City, is I like to go to museums, you know, because you could there, was one they had maybe 10 years ago, where they had all of Monet’s work, and they had it set up from this very beginning in the MoMA, and you would sit there, and you got headphones. You do it on your own and you just go through the whole series of watching, you know, one of the most creative artists of all times, and you could watch his development and you just see the pure beauty when a person is allowed in their creative process. Well, that happens with our kids, right? The creative process, like Mike was asking, when we can basically be part of that. And just like with Dominique, we’re guides. You know, we have to — the coaching is, by the way, one way I always — before I coach anybody, I always ask, do I have permission to coach you? Because if they say no, then basically you shouldn’t be giving them advice. And the same thing with your kids. And it’s not a bad thing to say is, “Hey, if mom could talk to you about something that might help you in what you’re trying to do, in that school project or with your friend, would you want me to do that?” And by doing that, they’re then saying, “Yes, I want to have a valid communication. Yes, I’m open and I want to receive.” Because to give advice, we have one mouth and two ears, as everybody always says. And yet, we have a tendency to talk a lot more than we listen.
So, especially with our kids. Yeah. You’re leaving — you know, I’ll tell you an interesting story about the Habits of Health. When I was doing the next version and then we did the stuff with the rocks and everything, the pebbles. I had an Italian artist that did all the graphics for that, and he had a… I think it was an eight or nine year-old child and the Stop. Challenge. Choose. stuff, he took on, and he was doing the little graphics on it and everything and he told me — we worked for a couple months together, and he told me that, “Dr. A, I had to let you know that over the last three months my relationship with my son has dramatically changed because of that,” just creating that space. Not responding, the up one down one, because you have to remember our kids are fellow humans. They’re our kids. We have the ability, the authority, because we want to do the right thing for them. But while we’re working on our own journey we can pull them into the Drama Triangle. And so we want to use our relationships with them, to have them go, “Wow.” And you know that it’s the cool thing because like my daughter, one of my biggest blessings is both of my daughters, but my younger daughter just went back to vet school. We got to spend, it’s her last summer. We got to spend more time together before she got, next year she has to go on a rotation, so she won’t be coming home. And even though I was traveling a lot, we got to spend quite a bit of time together. And you know, she wrote me a really cool thing saying that, you know, you’re my best friend and your best friend from the standpoint, not because we do things together, but because she knows how much I care about her and you know, what better thing can you have in your life?
Alison: Yeah.
Dr. A: And it sounds like you’re developing that. I’m really proud of you.
Alison: Very much. Do we have time for my question?
Dr. A: Yeah. Go.
Alison: Okay. So I am in the place with Stop. Challenge. Choose. that I’ve been doing the mental work that many times I am making the choice that is in alignment with what I’m wanting. But then there are these times where I will… it’s like it comes out of nowhere, and I’ve strung like a good solid three days together, just gotten into fat burn or a good solid week and just posted about the fact that I wanted to go to Dollar General and was walking to my car… and then went for a walk on the road instead. And then the next day, the opportunity presents itself again. And then I go to Dollar General. And I’m in the place right now, and that’s like just down the road where all the things are that aren’t going to make me feel good. I’m in the place now where I’m no longer blaming, shaming, beating myself up for it. I’m a non-judgmental observer and trying to observe the behaviors, understand, you know, what’s happening so I can shift it next time. So, I’m celebrating that piece, but like what’s next? Because I am still not at— I’m still not in optimization. I’m not at an optimal space. And so, I want to stop— I want to stop sabotaging myself.
Dr. A: Right. So, let me ask you an important question. Are you better than you were last year?
Alison: Yes.
Dr. A: Okay. So, you know, there’s a book written by Benjamin that basically talks about the, “Gain in the gap,” and basically, focus on the gains, not the gap. Okay? Because you’re not you’re human and you’ve made such progress. You’re still judging yourself. You’re still beating yourself up.
Alison: Okay. Yeah, that’s true.
Dr. A: Yeah. And it has no value. It’s all cost, no benefit. There’s no— listen, you’re going to have days — I mean, because the bottom line is, it’s getting easier than it was, though, right?
Alison: It is.
Dr. A: Yeah. Because what you’re doing is you’re raising your standards. You are changing your identity. You are no longer someone that does those things because that’s not who you are. And you know, someone noted in the chat: decision fatigue. Bottom line is, it’s really more that you have a— let me back up for a minute. So, let me just take something totally unrelated, that’s just a habit. So, and I’m not good at it, but I play golf and start getting better. We’re on the practice range. I don’t do it anymore. I don’t have time for it. Actually, it’s not one of my favorite things and it caused me more angst than happiness. So I don’t do it. But I did notice this. I noticed on the practice range I would get so— I could hit the balls pretty good, but then I would get in a tournament and then basically I would be off. Okay. It would be off. Yeah. So that’s the same thing that’s here is that you have the days when you get good rest. You’re rested. You feel good. You have full control over it.
Alison: Okay.
Dr. A: Does that make sense?
Alison: It does.
Dr. A: Yeah. And so when you’re— we do have, you know, we talk about willpower being easily fatigued, but it’s only, you only require will when it’s something that’s left residual that we still want. And so you always have to ask the question, it’s not, “Oh, I’m not worthy,” but, “Why do I want that? Why do I want to go do that? What does that— does that actually give me the outcome I want?”
Alison: Right.
Dr. A: And the answer is almost always no. The old patterns are disruptive. They don’t create what I want. So I choose not to do them. So it should be to the point where it’s easy. So, you know, I have a long-term thing from— but remember, those old kinds of pathways are strong.
Alison: Yeah.
Dr. A: They’re like steel cables and they don’t just dissolve, you know, and so as you make your new pathways and your new way and your new patterns, you basically have to know that they’re going to be there. And then when your game is off, when you don’t have a strong prefrontal cortex because you’re tired. I can tell you that yesterday I was by the time I got to the end of the day, I had a really long day, you know, I was a little tired and that’s probably why I was more, even more, emotional when I was looking at those pictures because I was fatigued and you know, so, but it’s okay to have those feelings. Just don’t criticize yourself for them. Just know that, you know, I still have those tendencies. I know they don’t serve me and I’ve gotten much better and I’ll continue to grow on it. It’s just like going to the gym. You know, your muscles will continue to grow and develop and become stronger as you do more of it.
The more you do it, the better. And I have to tell you that you look, you know, we’ve you’ve been on these calls for years now, and you look the best you have. You’re smiling more. I see a radiance in your face. You are doing really good. But it’s not about how good you’re doing. It’s about, am I becoming what’s most important? Am I on purpose? And you said you feel the legacy with your children. You feel much better. You’re making the choices. Four days, you don’t go to dollar. One day you end up in dollar. Okay. So the other thing here is journaling. On the day I went to dollar, what happened during that day? Was there more conflict? Was there more decisions I had to make? Was I tired? Did I not eat? You know, did I have something disruptive going on and become, it’s like putting on your goggles and your lab coat and just being the great curiosity on why did I do something? Not, oh, I did it. I’m still not worthy. Don’t judge yourself. Why did I do it? And then how do I circumvent that happening again? I know, if the girls come home and make chocolate chip cookies, I better not be anywhere in the room with that smell because something I used to — look, I haven’t had a chocolate chip cookie in months and I don’t crave it, but if I’m in the underlying structure that has them right there, it’s going to be tough for me to avoid it.
Alison: Yeah.
Dr. A: So, just understand we are humans. But as you increase that, it requires less willpower and it just becomes who you are and it’s the choice you make because it empowers you, and again, going back, focus on the gains not on the gaps.
Alison: Okay. Thank you. Yep!
Dr. A: All right. Have a great one. All right, everybody. We end The Human Advantage, and it got to test me today with all the technical issues, but hopefully you sense that what we can do together is we can help ourselves really develop and become the Dominant Force in our own lives. If you enjoyed this, share it with others, and let’s go out and help the world become a better place to live. God bless you guys. Bye.
