In the Arena with Leah Smart Transcript: Dr. Jim Doty on the Science of Compassion and Manifestation

Hi there! In the Arena is LinkedIn News’ weekly human potential podcast. In this community, we’re learning how to improve our world by transforming ourselves. You’ll learn how to show up daily to live an even more meaningful life, at work, at home, everywhere. Follow Leah Smart for more content like this.

Leah: Hey, everyone, from LinkedIn News, this is In the Arena, a podcast exploring human potential. I'm Leah Smart. And every week you'll find me right here in conversation with bright minds and brave hearts learning how we can improve our lives and our world by transforming ourselves. If you haven't heard of Dr. Jim Doty, let me formally introduce you to him today. He's my guest this week. Now, Dr. Doty wrote a book called Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart. It's a New York Times bestseller and has now been translated into over 40 languages. He's a neurosurgeon at Stanford where he's an adjunct professor. And what I loved is if you Google him, the first picture that comes up is this sweet kind of goofy photo of him sitting in a suit on a couch, resting his head on the shoulder of the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama is hugging Dr. Doty's head with his arm. They both have these really cute smiles on their faces. And you can tell they're engaged in a loving moment and probably laughing. And this actually explains a part of Dr. Doty's story. He founded the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford, with the Dalai Lama as the founding benefactor. He's a guy that studies the brain and the heart for a living, which when I really nerd out is my ultimate dream. Now, his story starts with some serious challenges that he had as a child, but he was fortunately intercepted by a woman who changed his life by giving him techniques to heal and manifest what he wanted. And he did. He got the degrees, the job, the house, the car, the money, all the things that people tell us we need to acquire in order to be happy. But here's what happened. He lost over $30 million in about six weeks. What he learns at his lowest point is why I brought him on the show and it's led a lot of the work that he's doing. Here's where his story starts.

Jim: I grew up in a challenging situation. My father was an alcoholic, a binge drinker, and my mother had a stroke when I was a child. She was partially paralyzed, had a seizure disorder, chronically depressed, and we were on public assistance essentially my entire childhood. We were evicted from different residences. And as you can imagine, I'm sure many of the listeners, obviously this is not a good environment, and it's not one which we would describe as allowing for one to thrive and succeed by the modern definitions in our society of success. When I was 12, I was very unhappy for obvious reasons and had a sense of despair, a sense of hopelessness, a sense of having no future, anger, and a hostility because of a sense of lack of control. As a result, I was becoming a delinquent. And oftentimes when situations at home became challenging or difficult, I would get on my bicycle, which was an orange stingray bike, and ride as far away as I could from home just to get away from it and be separated from it. And on one occasion, I ended up at a strip mall and within the strip mall was a magic shop, which I had some interest in. And I walked in. There was a woman there, middle aged, a very nice, she was reading a paperback book and she had this long flow in gray hair. And she had glasses on the tip of her nose with a chain. And she looked up from her paper back and she greeted me with an extraordinary smile. And it turned out she knew nothing about magic. It was her son's store. He was running an errand and she just happened to be there watching the store, if you will. But this led to her and I having a conversation. And after probably 20 or 30 minutes, she said to me, I really like you, and I'm here for another six weeks. And if you show up every day, I think I could teach you something that could really help you. Now, of course, as a 12 year old, I had no self-awareness or understanding what she was talking about. But the reality was I had absolutely nothing else to do and she was feeding me chocolate chip cookies. And so I said, sure. And this led to an experience that changed the trajectory of my life. And remember, this was in the late '60s before mindfulness, neuroplasticity, these terms were even used. And again, at that time, there was a feeling that the brain was immutable, if something happened, you couldn't change it. So anyway, she taught me an exercise, which was a breathing exercise combined with a method of relaxation. And of course, this is an integral part of mindfulness practice. And in this case, this was combined with actually looking at a candle. But anyway, over a few weeks, what I realized is that I could relax. And this feeling of relaxation was so different than what I had been living in. Now, I have to be honest with you, when I first started doing it, I thought it was complete bullshit. But I was 12 and I had never done anything like this before although I was reasonably well read. Anyway, it had an immediate effect. And then it allowed me to actually, in fact, be present. And from there, once I was able to relax, once I was able to be present, once I was able to really connect, she started asking me a series of questions. And I realized that I had a negative dialogue going on in my head. And it was, of course, the one that says I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not worthy, I'm an imposter, it's not possible. And what she made me realize was that through the evolution of our species, of course, we want to avoid pain. We want to survive. And oftentimes negative things are important to learn because that protects us. As an example, if you learn that if you see the grass moving away from you and you're on the savannah in Africa, that could represent a lion. And so it's important that these things stick to you so that you remember them. The sad part is though that oftentimes, these narratives, which are negative stick to you as well. And this happens essentially to everyone. And I always say, when I ask people this question, how many people have this negative dialog? If somebody doesn't raise their hand, I tell them either they have a complete lack of self-awareness, are a sociopath, or they're lying. But anyway-

Leah: I'd have to agree, it's only one of those three options.

Jim: Yes. But the great thing about it was she made me understand that it was not truth and that I was worthy and that I could change that dialogue. And this is the idea that you recognize the narrative as false and you change the narrative to one of self-affirmation, acceptance, and an understanding that the parts of you which you hate and wish you could change, everyone has those. Everyone has a shadow. Everyone has something like that. And that's what is part of being human. And recognize that we're frail, fragile human beings and accept that reality. Accept the reality that all of us are not going to have successes always. All of us are going to make mistakes. And in the face of all of that negativity that you think you have, you are worthy of love, you are a good person, and this is the nature of the human existence. I mean, people are more harsh on themselves than other people. For most people, one of the best things someone can do is simply sit with them and talk to them, connect with I'm in a nonjudgmental manner.

Leah: Well, and so what happens, back to your story? So you meet this woman. She shares her first kind of trick, as you call it in the book, right? So it's learning to connect with yourself. It's breathing. It's relaxing. I loved the candle. I hadn't done that. And so when I read it, I went and did it and it was pretty powerful. What happens after this? What becomes of you in your journey?

Jim: Well, a couple of things. One is once I recognized my own suffering, once I learned how to be kind to myself, it completely changed my perspective or interpretation of events because when you look through the lens of negativity or being hypercritical, then that taints everything you look at. It taints interactions with others, you're suspicious, you're non-trusting, you're looking for something behind the person, you're judging people immediately either by how they're dressed, how they talk, where they're from. And once you sort of connect with yourself, you're gentle with yourself, it actually changes how you look at the world because then you recognize everyone is suffering. Everyone is insecure. Everyone is in fear of being judged. And at least for me, it allowed me then to interact with people in a much more gentle, kind way. And then when you do that, people respond to you differently. And I'm sure you've had this experience, if you interact with an individual who's always angry, upset at the world, feels the world is unjust to them. Is completely focused on how much they're suffering, it's an interesting paradox, right? That's an internal conversation, but it's the wrong conversation and it only makes you more unhappy versus the internal conversation of self-affirmation, kindness, gentleness. Then that allows you to see people in that way and it changes everything. As an example, I used to have a lot of anger and hostility towards my parents because, of course, they weren't "there for me". But what I recognized is that was not their fault. They were suffering and in pain and did not have the tool set, if you will, to alleviate their own suffering. And so how could I hold that anger and hostility towards them when they were suffering themselves and were barely keeping it together? And so it changed that perception. And as a result, it made me love them in the face of their own challenges. So that was extraordinary. And what I tell people is when I changed how I saw the world and interacted with the world, the world changed how it interacted with me. And I did not appreciate that. Frankly, if you are authentic and you show yourself, people will reach out and try to help you. And the reality is any success I've had is due to people being of service and helping me. It's always interesting to me, especially in Silicon Valley, you see these people in their 20s or 30s who've been highly successful in the tech industry and probably have made tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. And they stand up and they go, I did this. It was me. I did everything here. And there's nothing a human being does in this world, a human being who's survived, who has not benefited from the help of other people. And even as a physician, I can always tell the physicians who are good doctors. They understand whether it's a person who changes the bed pan, sweeps the floors, make the beds, the nurses, the technicians in the operating room, those people are fundamental to their success. Period. I could not do anything that I've done, I could not be a neurosurgeon without the support and kindness of other people. And I think it's really important. People recognize that. When you sit there and say you've done something by yourself, you're lying to yourself and you're using it to hide a fragile ego. You don't have to do everything yourself anyway and you're still a success.

Leah: It's so true. And I think there's the experience of having your own tenacity and going on your own journey, but also recognizing how many other people have to play a role. And then sort of in the way that you shared this, and we can call it a number of different things, but you said you change the way you look at the world, the world changes the way that it looks at you or interacts with you, or you can call it the universe or whatever. But I think there are so many synchronicities that happen in our lives that also support us getting to where we want to go as we get on a path. The way I frame it is my kind of soul's purpose. And I pause when I say soul because I think sometimes people get scared when you start talking about things like this.

Jim: Sure.

Leah: But I think it's a very real thing to have. In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho says, when you kind of connect to that purpose, everything conspires to work in your favor. And that's what I also loved about your story was even looking back at your parents and the frustration you had with them, had that not been your experience, perhaps you wouldn't have ended up where you are today.

Jim: Sure. It's funny because people have also said, well, whether you met the woman in the magic shop, the very nature of your personality was that you were going to be successful. Now, I don't know whether that's true or not. It certainly did not seem that way at the time. But this idea of sort of if your soul is aligned, the universe works with you to make that manifest. And I would say it slightly differently. And the reason I would say is I actually have a new book that I'm doing called Mind Magic: The Neuroscience Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. And the reason I make a comment is a lot of the people who push these manifestation narratives, they talk about if you connect with the universe, you'll live in the big mansion and you'll drive the new Bentley and you'll have your wildest dreams fulfilled. And I think this is a wrong and completely false narrative. Sadly, what it does is it take people who are naive and oftentimes not necessarily self-aware to put them on a path to get things. And look, can you use those techniques to do that? Yes. But I think the problem for many people is they have a narrative in their head of what success is and what happiness is. And in Western society, of course, we promote conspicuous consumption and, of course, the media promotes this where, wow, if I just drive this car, if I just live in this house, if I just had this job, if I had this income, I am going to be happy. And as you know, nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the most wealthy people I know, frankly, are miserable. What makes one happy and what allows one to manifest things is if you look at the world through the lens of being of service versus I want. And those are two different things. And in fact, the nature of this book, the first sentence, I hate to tell you this, says the universe doesn't give a <expletive> about you.

Leah: Perfect.

Jim: And the reason I say that is that, and this is thousands of years, this reality that happiness can only come from within. From my own perspective, having accomplished a fair amount, I used to think, well, if I just do this, people are going to accept me and I won't have the shame that I carry and my insecurities because they'll see I'm worthy. And I would get there and I go, well, no, that didn't happen.

Leah: Still with you.

Jim: Yeah. And, again, it just kept happening over and over again. And it was really when I lost everything, if you will, $30 million over six weeks that I actually sat back down and tried to understand the drivers of my behavior. And while I was never a bad person, the driver of my behavior, whether it was to go to college, medical school, become a neurosurgeon, become a professor, write a book, run a company, the driver was seeking affirmation outside of myself to quell the pain I was feeling from my own emptiness. And nothing ever worked. And so after I lost everything, I went through a period of deep self-reflection and I changed, again, my perspective, because you have to understand the lessons I learned at 12. Probably I did not interpret them necessarily with wisdom initially. And so after this period of self-reflection, I changed my perspective of not accomplishing tasks or goals, but to look at the world through the lens of being of service to others and recognizing that when you're true to those aspects of being of service, all the other stuff falls in line.

Leah: Yeah, that resonates. I had an experience where I changed roles in my 20s and my income dropped in a very significant way. And I tell people that, that point was actually the point that I became the happiest. And I actually shouldn't even like the word happy because I think we look at it as an endpoint. I use the word content. I've used joy. But I had a baseline of feeling this deep sense of I am full. It's enough. In the book by Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money, she says the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. The opposite of scarcity is enough. And that's so meaningful. You said something and I think this is important to bring up. And it's interesting because I don't think it gets talked about as much at work, but this whole idea of manifestation has kind of researched and everyone is talking about it and what is it? So I love that you bring up this, there is this balance of where is it coming from? Where's the drive for what you create? And, of course, I would argue that most people are, I'm sure you would agree, better off when the most fundamental areas of their life are stabilized because then they can use that brain space to actually create.

Jim: I think there are two parts of that, to respond. One is you're absolutely correct in the sense that when you're not distracted by things that aren't important, you have much more energy to focus on things that are important. And in some ways, this is the sadness of income inequality. And I hate to sort of diverge off into that. But when people are struggling to feed themselves, when they're struggling to find shelter, they can't necessarily be their best selves because they're struggling simply to fulfill the needs to survive. And unfortunately, that's too common in America, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And, again, that could be a whole other topic. But my point is that when there is something that is distracting you, whether it's dealing with these types of financial challenges, not being able to take care of your children, struggling with an ex-spouse, all of these different things are completely distracting. And so it's hard to imagine that you could really give your all to something because you have all these things that you have to deal with and respond to. So I think that's absolutely correct. And it's not to say that you have to have a perfect life to move forward, but you have to calm things down enough where your situation is stable from all the other externalities around you. And once you're able to do that, I think then you can focus on what is important. One of the other challenges, I think, for people is understanding the difference between what they think they want and what will make them happy versus the much more profound understanding of what will make me happy. And those oftentimes are completely divergent. I'm not here to deny in any way, if you will, the power of the universe. What I am here to say, though, is you are the universe. And what I mean by that is it doesn't have to be something that you're looking to, to solve your problem. Within you is the power to do anything you want to do. And people give away their agency by looking at the world through magical eyes and giving things attributes which aren't real. Again, well, geez, if I just make my little journal and write this and say how much I want the big car, somebody is going to come in and magically make it happen. Versus understanding that if you want to do that, you have to have a plan for yourself. You have to look into yourself and understand that you can do it. And when you change that attitude, it actually makes synchronicity happen. As an example, as a neurosurgeon, I often deal with complex problems and I'll have a patient come in and I'll tell them what their problem is in sort of scientific terms, if you will. And they'll sit there and go, that's amazing. I've never heard of that before. And then what will happen is I'll see them a month later and they go, wow, this is incredible. I've run into five people who have the exact same thing. Well, why is that? Because they were never attuned to listening to those voices or situations. And in some ways, this is a fundamental part of manifestation. What happens is through our senses, we experience about six to 10 million data points every second. Well, on a conscious level, we can't process the small...I mean, it's something like 50 to 100 bits of information a second. So you have to be able to take that, that is important to you and be able to put that into your subconscious, which then creates a situation where you are attuned to things that are going on around you. I'm sure you've been at parties that are very loud. And if somebody mentions your name, you go, oh, yeah. Okay. And even though it's through the loud noise and everything, you're attuned to your name. And so if you want something, a job, or if you want something to manifest, if you put it into your subconscious and you hear somebody having as an example, a conversation at the next table and you go, oh, wow, hey, that sounds interesting. And then this leads to another conversation. But it's being open, being honest, conversing, accepting yourself, not being afraid, and then these things manifest. And if they don't manifest, it's not necessarily because you're bad. Sometimes things aren't meant to manifest.

Leah: You said something about keeping your heart open, which you talk about in the book too. What does that mean?

Jim: Well, in some ways it gets back to the fundamentals of our conversation. Most of us have a fear of being authentic. As an example, if you were to walk outside and it's pouring down rain, there's a subset of people who, let's say it's a male, he's got a suit on. He is well dressed. He has to go to a meeting. Walks out into the rain and he says, damn, I forgot my umbrella. This rain is horrible. It's going to ruin my suit. I'm going to be delayed. This is going to screw up everything. Jesus Christ. Why did this have to happen? Every time I try to do something, blah, blah, blah. You have another person walk out and go, God, the warmth in this rain, it feels so good. I mean, I know I forgot my umbrella, but it's just so good to feel the rain drops fall on my face and it reminds me of how rain brings so much to the world in terms of growing plants and allows for us to live. And it's such a joy being here because I get to reflect on how beautiful the world is. So these two people who went through the exact same experience yet their perceptions of the event are so different. And in some ways, that's our choice. This is our agency. We choose which one of these we want to be because the external circumstances are completely the same. And I will assure you, if you take the latter attitude, not only will your life be better, you will be amazed at how people respond to you. And this isn't to try to paint the world as completely rosy and everybody is going to be nice if you just enlighten them. Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works. And that's okay. I always tell people, I'm interested in dealing with my own karma, not other people's karma, right? And so if I do the work within myself and try to set the circumstances where I have the most likelihood of thriving, that's all I'm interested in. And that thriving though, is a manifestation of looking at the world to the lens of compassion and being of service and being kind to people versus sitting there going well, they did this bad thing to me and they're bad and they're going to be punished. And this person did this bad thing to me, and they're going to be punished. And first of all, as I got back to my early quote, the universe doesn't give a <expletive> about you, the universe doesn't give a shit that somebody treated you badly. I mean, it just doesn't.

Leah: And you can't dole out punishments.

Jim: Sometimes I can. No, that's exactly right. And in fact, this gets back to this idea of forgiveness, right? Look, all of us are going to have events occur that make us unhappy and that we feel have been hurtful to us, but constantly carrying a grudge doesn't do anything to the other person. It only makes you unhappy. And this is the other thing that people have a hard time with, is it's wonderful to have goals, but what is not wonderful is attachment to an outcome. If you're locked into the outcome, if it doesn't happen, you're going to be very unhappy. And again, you'll carry this with you and create further unhappiness. If you set a goal, you do the best you can to accomplish the goal. It doesn't matter whether you actually reach the goal. And this is where a lot of people create, again, an environment for unhappiness. And in some ways, this also involves equanimity, which is this idea of understanding that in our lives, there're going to be these wonderful ups where you get acknowledged and people tell you how great you are, and nothing is better than that feeling, but it's not sustainable. We're not great all the time. Life has its ups and downs. And, again, getting attached to that feeling that I always want to be acknowledged. And in fact, this is a problem for a lot of people. Again, whether it's climbing the hill and saying, I climbed to the top of the hill. Acknowledge me. It's an empty path. It's not to say you didn't climb the hill, but you have to put in the context of you enjoy it. You're thankful for it. You worked really hard for it. And that's it. Versus thinking it somehow defines you. And the other aspect of this is all of us are going to have downtimes in our lives, right? I mean, there is no human being that doesn't end up down, depressed, having failed, something didn't work out for them and getting attached to that is just as bad as the other direction because almost in every instance, those things are transitory. And with time, you realize a couple things, one that pain or feeling goes away, but two, in those situations, you've learned some of the greatest lessons in your whole life from having difficult circumstances befall you and you accepting them and also figuring out a way to get out them. And if you ask people oftentimes where they learn the most about who they are in life, it's during the downtimes. When these bad events occur, it gives you an opportunity to learn about yourself, your resilience, how you respond, how you look at the world. And again, like I said, they're transitory. So not to not enjoy the up times, but to have a perception of an evenness of temperament being self-aware both regarding the advantages of being up as well as being down.

Leah: Let's take a quick break. But first I want to share a piece of advice about working through difficulties. It actually came from my acupuncturist who basically doubled as a therapist when I needed her. When I came to her and said I was having a hard time, she'd always respond with, just remember you will feel different in 30 days. At first, I did not believe her. It sounded like total crap, but then I started setting 30 day reminders in my phone. And by the point that that 30-day reminder came up, I could not be even conjure up that same emotion from 30 days before. Now, here's the deal. It wasn't always great or rosy by that 30-day reminder, but it was different. That reminder was a simple way for me to keep myself grounded in tough times. When we get back, Jim shares more about his work at Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. 

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Leah: We're back. So one of the things I love about Jim's work is that he takes his scientific approach to things that have not historically been studied through science, things like compassion, heart science, and altruism. It's a beautiful blend of two different worlds that I believe belong together. So I had to ask him, what should people know about how these outward practices affect our physical bodies? Here's Jim.

Jim: One is the more you're connected to yourself, the more authentic you are, the more you are looking through the lens of being of service. This has a dramatic effect on your physiology. Cardiac functions improved, peripheral vascular functions improved, your immune systems boosted, the expression of inflammatory proteins, which are associated with, of course, a number of disease states is diminished, stress hormone levels are decreased. And we know mindfulness does some of this. But when you really combine this idea of mindfulness with, I call it mindfulness plus, which is this idea of self-compassion and compassion for others, this has a huge, huge, profound positive effect on people. And in fact, to the point where it lengthens your telomeres which, of course, is associated with increasing your longevity. And to show you how powerful this is as an example, a study was done with volunteers. And without going into too many of the details, long story short is if they volunteered a certain number of hours a week, they found that if people are of service, it actually increased their age compared lifespan almost twice as much as for those who did not volunteer to be of service. And this is the power of, again, carrying yourself where you are a vessel, if you will, for others to manifest and thrive. So that's very, very I think, powerful and people need to recognize this. I always tell people and I steal a quote from the Dalai Lama, my religion is kindness, right? If you look at the world through that lens, everything changes. So I think that's an important aspect of this.

Leah: Yeah. And what is compassion?

Jim: It's interesting you ask that because oftentimes people confuse the term compassion with empathy. Empathy is the ability to take on the emotional state of another person. I mean, you can have empathic joy and you can have empathic sadness, right? So it's really being in someone else's shoes, but it's not active. It requires nothing else other than putting yourself in that situation. Compassion relates to suffering. It's the recognition of another suffering with a motivational desire to alleviate that suffering. And these are different, of course, than sympathy and pity. Sympathy is seen as someone's situation and say, boy, that feels bad. I'm sorry you have to go through that. And pity is putting yourself in sort of a superior position where you're looking down at somebody and saying, oh, that's too bad that happened to you. It's horrible. But it doesn't mean you do anything about it or you're really emotionally engaged with it, per se. But if you can expand your feelings of compassion to go from family, to friends, to neighbors, to work colleagues, and then actually at some point, understanding that even people who've caused you suffering or have caused you to be uncomfortable deserve compassion. As an example, I had a work colleague who was a young guy and we were working on a project and he had decided to go to a different company and he quit his job. And he was in his 30s, a doctor, wife, two kids. Long story short is we would have meetings every couple of weeks. When he came to this meeting, he was very antagonistic and angry, and it was like he wanted to argue. And this is so different from the normal sort of personality of this person. Now normally, our response is to engage them in an aggressive way backward like you push me, I'm going to push you back. In this case though, I chose not to do that but to say to him, I'm not sure what's going on with you, but this isn't how you normally behave. What's happening? And he burst into tears. And what had happened was that when he quit his job, because his family was healthy, he decided not to spend the money on the COBRA insurance thinking he could save money and it was only going to be a month or two before he had this new job. And it turned out in that interval, his wife found a lump on her breast. It was cancer. And he had no insurance and he had these kids. So, of course, it's not only lack of insurance, it's also being terrified about his wife and potentially their future. And that was the underlying driver here. It had nothing to do with me. But the point of the story is that here this person, it was so different from them and they're acting out this, but had nothing to do with he and I. It had to do with something going on in the background. And this is the case with so many people. And I will assure you, in most cases, people are not trying to be bad, right? And so this gets to this quote, which I'm sure you know, called between stimulus and response, there's a pause. And within that pause lies your freedom. And this is attributed to Victor Frankel. It is actually not from Victor Frankel. But the point is that when events occur, our knee-jerk reaction is to connect with those pathways that have been associated with our evolution, right? Immediately respond to aggression. The thing is that, that is our sort of baseline. But if you can teach yourself, which you can do, instead of having that knee-jerk response, you just pause for five or six seconds, then that aggressive idea goes away. And then now you can reflect more thoughtfully. Look, no one is going to love us 100% of the time and that's okay. But if our goal is to sort of walk the walk of kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness, and we keep that sort of as the thing that guides us, then you'll lead a much more happy and full life and it'll decrease the conflict you have in your life.

Leah: There's a quote that I love that talks to the idea of not taking things personally, which is how is this person a hero in their story versus a villain in yours. And so we so often make people a villain, the person that cuts us off or responds in a specific way or reacts, I should say. And so in that moment, being able to pause and create that space allows you to say, wait a minute, this person is doing something that is not about me. It truly has to do with them. And may even in the moment that I feel frustrated, offended, upset with what they're doing, be about them being a hero in some way, right? Most people don't wake up going, how do I go ruin everybody's life today that I interact with?

Jim: I think you're exactly right. I think this is, again, a choice about perception because if we look at our memories, what is a memory? Well, nominally, most of us believe it is a factual perception of an event. And when it's embedded in us, it is truth, right?

Leah: Don't they say we only remember our memories at 50%? 50% of it is true and 50 isn't?

Jim: Well, yeah, exactly. A memory in and of itself has no valence. There's no positive, there's no negative, there's no good, there's no bad. It is strictly an event that has occurred. And I use the analogy like it's in black and white. But when it turns into a memory, we paint it with our emotions. And so every time we think of it, instead of simply looking at the event in a non-judgmental fashion, we look at it through the lens that we've created for that event for good and for bad. So if there's an event that occurred and there was a person involved and you felt you weren't treated fairly, every time you think of that, you're going to think that you weren't treated fairly. Your perspective is one that is tainted by your own insecurities, your feelings, your interpretations of the other person versus what actually happened. And again, it gets back to this idea of being a little bit more gentle and thoughtful in how you see the world versus how you respond to the world based on your own insecurities or the damage that's been done, if you will, by childhood trauma. As an example, I mean, if you grew up with parents who you did not attach to or they chose not to attach to you, then you're always insecure about every interaction. And so then when you have an interaction with somebody which had no meaning whatsoever particularly, you sit there and go, they were trying to hurt me and they abandoned me when I needed them the most. Well, and that's your issue. It's not necessarily their issue. And this is why trying to understand yourself, trying to understand the drivers that impact you or affect your behavior or your own insecurities, I think that's really important. And it's not to beat yourself up with them, it's just to understand how you react to things both for good or bad and how it is in fact, within your power to choose how you react to things.

Leah: That's beautifully put. When you look at the next frontier and how people develop themselves and become more conscious, what do you think or what would you hope happens in the next 100 years for humans?

Jim: I don't ascribe to a need to live to eternity. I think it is okay to die. We are on this earth for a limited period of time. We don't know what's going to happen afterwards. And I think the best perspective to take is while I'm here, what I know will make me feel my best is kindness and compassion. And that will give you a sense of satisfaction and gratitude for your existence. I think that if people are more able to recognize one, the power within themselves, not only to allow them to be happy, but allow them to escape from their own self-doubt, allow them to recognize truly how incredibly powerful they have and how they are able to manifest change. So often I hear people say, well, I'm only one person. I can't do X, Y, or Z. Well, the reality is, if you look at the history of our species, it's always one person who starts with a vision and whether he enlists zillions of others or whatever the case, it is one person. And you don't have to be necessarily the person that changes the world, you have to be able to change one person's life. Sometimes it's giving people a smile. Sometimes it's simply saying hello. Sometimes it's giving a hug. Sometimes it's pulling over and helping somebody change a tire. Every one of these acts that we do, if we put it in the window of improving or helping another person, the physiologic effects that have on us in terms of a sense of fullness and wholeness is amazingly powerful. There's a narrative about the hungry ghost. It's this idea that within all of us, we're hungry. We just don't know what we're hungry for. The best thing each of us can do to make us happy is to care for other people. Period. And all of us have within us every day, the ability, and it doesn't matter your financial circumstance, your position, each of us every day has the ability to improve one person's life. Period. And if you do that religiously and you look through the world to that lens, you have led a full, meaningful, and happy life.

Leah: That's beautiful. I think you may have answered our three big questions already in this conversation, but I'm still going to ask them. So better humans are...

Jim: Ones who care for others.

Leah: Better work is...

Jim: One that gives you meaning and satisfaction and not just a paycheck.

Leah: Agreed. And a better world has...

Jim: People who care for each other.

Leah: Thank you so much for joining. It was amazing to talk to you and to hear your perspectives and all of your wisdom. And I cannot wait for people to listen to this episode, but also to take in your work and learn more about what you're doing in the world. 

That was Jim Doty, neuroscientist and author of Into the Magic Shop. And he has got an upcoming book called Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. I cannot wait to get my hands on that one. And let me leave you with one big thing before we go. Ultimately, what I think Jim is asking us to do is get curious about the connection between our brain and our heart. And perhaps even to do the work on our hearts that many of us spent years in school doing on our brains. How? By starting to unfold some of the heart science like compassion, starting with ourselves and letting that compassion radiate out to others. 

If today's show helped you on your journey, hop onto Apple Podcasts and give us a rating. And if the spirit moves you, write a quick review, it helps other listeners like you find this show and grow with our community. And, of course, you can find me on LinkedIn writing about human potential. Send me a message and let me know how this is resonating with you. I'd love to chat. 

In the Arena is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Michele O'Brien with help from the LinkedIn Media Production team. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Florencia Iriondo is head of original audio and video. Dave Pond is our technical director. Dan Roth is the editor-in-chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Leah Smart. Thanks so much for coming on the journey with me and I'll see you next week.