PowerGoals / Chapter 9 / The Brain and the Body.

PowerGoals / Chapter 9 / The Brain and the Body.

How to Set and Achieve Goals / That Turn Your Dreams into Reality.

by Dr. Hannes Dreyer (Ph.D.) with Elzet Blaauw.

Chapter 9 / The Brain and the Body.

Now that you understand the scientific formula that underpins PowerGoals™, let us look a bit more at the science of how your brain and body works and how it impacts your transformational journey. In other words, how does the transformation to become the person that you should be to reach your goal work in your physical body?

Let me start by saying that I am not an expert on the brain or the body. I completed my MSc in economics and my Ph.D. in entrepreneurship. However, through my experience, in my own life and those of my students, I saw that the things which I write about in this book work. I can even express it in a formula. I know that these are not just my ideas. Science backs me up. Along the line, I became curious about how it all plays out in the brain and the body. I knew my thinking is important, and my feelings and emotions too. Those things happen in my brain, and they have effects on the rest of my body too. So I did some research.

What I found was fascinating. What I share in this chapter is how I have figured it out for myself. Most likely, you are not a brain expert or a physiologist, so I am sure that you are going to find this information very helpful. If anything seems odd to you or it does not line up with how you thought our brains and our bodies work, you can check the facts for yourself. There is fantastic research happening as I am writing this book that is opening whole new worlds to how we understand ourselves.

I am sure you will love how everything comes together in this chapter.

The brain as a computer.

Before I dive in, let me explain my analogy of the brain as a computer to you. For us who are not neuroscientists, it is a very helpful framework to think of things. When we talk about the physical organ in our bodies which we call the brain, we can think of it as the hardware. Like a computer that has a motherboard, a memory card, random-access memory, and many other components, your brain also has many physical parts which function together to make up the brain. It is easy for us to name the different parts of a computer because we as humans made it. We did not make our brains, so it is not so easy to name them and to know exactly what they do and how they work together. Scientists probe, research, and question to determine what parts do what things. They have agreed on names for the different parts, but they are still figuring out what exactly each part does and how it does it. They are still making discoveries about the brain every day.

Back to my computer analogy, we all know that a computer without any software on it is useless. It cannot accomplish anything. The same with the brain. The brain is the organ, but it is useless if no impulses are running through it. These impulses are thoughts, emotions, and feelings. They consist of chemicals, energy, and electromagnetic fields. I call these impulses the software, or the programs, that we run because it is what brings the brain to life. It is what makes it possible to function.

Most of the neuroscience is devoted to studying the hardware and the software of the brain. But what about the programmer? Who gets to decide which software you run and how you use that software?

The hardware does not decide. Many people believe that their genetics and their brain chemistry were determined at conception and that their lives are at the mercy of their biology. Well, as we will get into a bit later, science is beginning to prove that that is not true. It is showing that we can choose not only our software but also our hardware.

We do not need science to prove things to us if we can prove that it is true in our own lives. Scientists are discovering new things every day, and it is great that they do because it means that we get to understand ourselves better so that we can do things better. But we do not have to wait for science to uncover it all. We can start living it now.

In my analogy, I say that we are the programmers. We not only choose how to use our software, but we also write our own software. We are in control of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. We can take charge of our instincts and urges. But we have to take the responsibility to do it. If we are programmers, it means that we must program.

The three parts of the brain.

Let us start with the hardware of the brain then, this organ in our heads that we talk about so often but understand so little. The brain is a very complex organ, and scientists of all sorts are still doing research to understand it fully. As humans, we have only begun to scratch the surface of understanding our brains. As I mentioned already, new research continually appears that sheds a different light on older theories based on previous findings. When you read this book, new research might have resulted in further, more nuanced findings.

In the 1960s, the neuroscientist Paul MacLean formulated what he called the Triune Brain model. This model divides the brain into three sections, each responsible for specific functions. He theorized that each section of the brain evolved on top of each other to give us our human brain. Later research found that this three-part model is too simplistic. No one part of the brain is solely responsible for anyone's function. Different parts of the brain work together. Scientists also started distinguishing between more than three parts of the brain to include many smaller, nuanced sections.

Even if the nuances of MacLean’s model proved not to be 100% accurate, his model is still widely used today. It allows us to understand the functions of the parts of the brain and how brain activity works without having to become a neuroscientist who understands all the nuances.

Here is a picture of this three-part model of the brain.

No alt text provided for this image

The neocortex is on the outside, the limbic brain is below it, and the brain stem is right at the bottom.

The neocortex, also called the prefrontal cortex, is the new brain or the higher brain. It is the part of the brain that is responsible for rational thinking. It does what most of us think the brain should do – think and process input logically. It is sometimes called the human brain because these functions are what separate us from other life forms.

Next is the limbic brain, which is also called the emotional or mammal brain. As the name implies, it is your emotional centre. It secretes chemicals so that you can get feelings and emotions. The chemicals from the emotional brain are sent as signals to the rest of the body. That is why you feel your emotions in your body. If you are fearful, you feel it in your body. If you are hungry, you feel it in your body.

Have you ever paid attention to the sensations in your body when you feel a certain way? We all know what it feels like to be hungry, but do you know what fear, anger, joy, and peace feel like in your body? Does it feel light or heavy, tight or open, warm or cold? Where do you feel it – in your legs, your stomach, your chest, or your throat?

These sensations in our body are registered back to the brain, this time to the brain stem. The brain stem is also known as the reptilian, primitive, or survival brain. It is seen as the oldest part of the brain, the part responsible for our instincts and urges that work to ensure that we stay alive.

It is not important that you remember the names of the three parts of the brain. Scientists use many more nuanced terms to refer to the different areas of the brain and their functions. What is important is that you become aware of these different functions of the brain and how they relate to your PowerGoal™, as I explain in the rest of this chapter.

Cybernetic loop.

The basic input on which the brain operates are our five senses: what we can see, hear, feel, taste and smell. They are the sensory inputs. These sensory inputs enter the brain as energy. If you see an apple, the actual apple does not go into your brain. Your senses convey the energy to the brain as energy waves. In itself, the brain can do nothing. Remember, it is the hardware. These energetic vibrations cause the brain to function like your computer software causes your brain to use its different components.

The brain processes these sensory inputs in what I call internal dialogue. Internal dialogue has nothing to do with what has happened on the outside. It is on the inside of you, relative to you. This internal dialogue converts into a virtual experience or a virtual reality. Two people may see, smell or hear the same thing, but their brains process these inputs very differently. They, therefore, have different virtual experiences of these inputs.

I might smell one kind of food, for example, tinned tuna when you open it up, and think that it is a delicious smell and that I cannot wait to eat it. Another person might smell it and feel nauseous because they do not like tuna. It is the same smell, but the internal dialogue and the virtual experiences are very different. One person stands on the edge of a cliff and feels excitement; another person stands on the cliff and feels dread. The second person’s head is spinning, and they feel faint, while the first person’s senses are at their peak. One person sees a cup of coffee, smells its aroma, and thinks it is delicious, but another feels sick on their stomach. It all depends on how the brain interprets the sensory input.

You, as the programmer, choose your internal dialogue. You choose how to interpret the sensory input. The moment that the programming happens, the sensory input is sent to the emotional brain. The emotional brain defines it as a good or a bad feeling. Based on that feeling, good or bad, positive or negative, it secretes a whole concoction of chemicals. This cocktail of chemicals we experience as an emotion with all the feelings in the body that go along with that emotion. When the body feels those things, it sends signals back to the brain. The sensory input that the brain receives reinforces its interpretation of the input that it first received. The neural pathway is strengthened. Yes, my interpretation was right, the brain thinks.

If you stand on the edge of a cliff, you see that you are high above the ground. You feel the breeze coming up that edge. You smell and hear things. These sensory inputs go to your brain. You get to decide – are you afraid, or are you excited? What do those inputs that you experience mean?

If you decide that you are afraid, that is your internal dialogue. The emotional brain interprets that it is a bad feeling. It secretes the cocktail of chemicals that you know as fear. Your hands and feet start to sweat, your stomach feels hollow, your mouth goes dry, your head spins, and your legs feel numb. All of these bodily sensations are more sensory input for the brain. Yes, my interpretation was right, the brain thinks.

But what if you had decided that you were excited? Your emotional brain would have decided it is a good feeling and secreted a different set of chemicals. Your heart would have raced, and your body would feel energized. You would not feel numb and light-headed. You might look around to see whether you can see a foothold to climb down further. You might move a bit closer to the edge to get a better view. These sensations return to the brain as sensory input. And what does the brain think? Yes, I was right! It is exciting!

Our emotions result in our bodily experiences which result in behaviors. You step away from the cliff’s edge, or you step closer to it. Over time, these behaviors become habits. You liked the smell of the coffee, so you drank the coffee. You keep on drinking the coffee because you like it.

You know by now that your continual actions and behaviors produce your results, which show in the ten areas of your life. My body expects its coffee first thing in the morning. I bring my wife a cup of coffee in bed. My friends love to drink coffee, and I spend time drinking coffee with them in all the physical spaces where people drink coffee. It all started when I smelled that first cup of coffee and decided that it is a positive sensory input. Coming full circle, it produces more and more sensory experiences which reinforce that pathway.

This whole process – from sensory input to internal dialogue to feeling to emotion to experience to behavior to habit to result which produces further sensory input – is called a cybernetic loop.

Metaprograms.

We all run cybernetic loops all the time. If that were all there is to it, it would have been simple. The brain gets sensory input, you decide how to program it, and the loop runs. However, it is not that simple. One person stands on the top of the cliff and decides that it is bad. Another person decides that it is good. Neither is right nor wrong. It is their perception. But why do they differ?

It is because of their metaprograms. A metaprogram refers to the programming that has already taken place in your life so far. Our brains default to metaprograms because it makes life easier for us. We receive thousands of sensory inputs every day. We cannot think about what we are going to do with it every single time. Instead, we decide once, and then our body uses that choice to run a metaprogram. When you receive a sensory input for the first time, you have a choice of how to react. You have a choice of how to program. You are the programmer, after all. You choose the internal dialogue.

But the thing is, the first time you stand next to a cliff is probably not the first time you experienced looking down from a height. You were probably a small child, a baby even when your brain received the first sensory inputs regarding height. Your brain received all the input, but before you could decide whether it is good or bad, someone probably intervened.

Your mom came and grabbed you away. Watch out! It is dangerous! Her reaction was part of the input you received about the situation. It is bad, you decided, and your metaprogram was written.

Most of our metaprograms and therefore most of our experience of life was formed before the age of seven. In those earliest years when we have our first experiences, our belief systems are formed, and they run as metaprograms for the rest of our lives unless we consciously decide to rewrite them.

Because we are so dependent on our caregivers during those first few years of our lives, our metaprograms are very strongly influenced by our parents and others who look after us or with whom we spend a lot of time when we are young. We do not know whether something is good or bad, but the reactions of our caregivers and all the other things in our environments at that point form part of our sensory input, shaping how we view the world.

Our programming even starts in the womb. Babies whose mothers ate spicy food were found to be able to eat spicier food than those whose mothers did not. One study had half of a group of pregnant women drink carrot juice daily, and the other half did not. The babies of the mothers who drank carrot juice showed a much higher preference for pureed carrots when they started eating solids than those who did not.

For this reason, a child born in China will grow up to be different from one born in Britain. Their languages, their perceptions of religion, and their cultures are going to be different. Everything is going to be different because their metaprograms were shaped by their parents, religions, languages, and peers – in other words, by their environments. When they were born, the two children had exactly the same hard drives. But between the age of seven and ten, 95% of their software was already programmed.

These metaprograms are your memetics. They are your beliefs and values. Because they were formed at such a young age, when you could not consciously decide or know what was happening, you are often not consciously aware of what these beliefs and values are. However, they are going to show up in your results. They will show up in what you see and perceive in the world, because, remember, they are the screen through which you view the world.

The dilemma.

A metaprogram is not bad in and of itself. We cannot possibly make sense of every single input we receive every moment. We need to start making sense of the world at a young age so that we can start functioning independently. Who else would we learn from if not our primary caregivers? Metaprograms are there to protect us and to make life easy for us.

The problem with metaprograms in terms of our goals is that they keep us in our comfort zone. If we are in our comfort zone, we cannot grow.

We are bombarded with thousands upon thousands of sensory inputs every day. The part of the brain that helps us navigate all these inputs is called the reticular activating system, RAS for short. The RAS filters through all this data and lets through the parts that are important to you. But how does it decide which parts are important to you? Through your metaprograms, of course. A baby with very few metaprograms gets bombarded with all this information all the time. It is why they need to sleep so much – to process and recover. But you have your metaprograms in place already. So your RAS selects only that information that is in line with your metaprograms to present to you. It deletes, distorts, adds, and generalizes information from the outer world so that it fits with your metaprograms.

That is why two people can be in the same situation and experience it completely differently. They did not consciously decide to experience it differently. Their conscious brains received different sets of information to work with based on how their RAS interpreted the raw inputs using their metaprograms. Because of the RAS, many things are happening around us of which we are not even aware. We ignore these things simply because we do not pick them up.

Most of these metaprograms which your RAS is using were programmed by someone else before you were seven years old. It keeps you living in the past the whole time, not only your own past but the past of your parents, their parents, and generations before them. Your metaprograms and your RAS are the reasons it is so difficult to transform.

Almost everything in your world and environments are tied to your metaprograms, that is, your memetics, or your beliefs about life. It is your reality because of your metaprograms. You have those things because you did certain things because you believed certain things. And you see your current reality and everything in life the way you do because of your metaprograms.

Our internal representation becomes our environment. And the cybernetic loop is extremely difficult to break. For example, I have thoughts and emotions tied to even the clothes that I wear. Every time I put on the shirt that I am wearing, those connotations are triggered in my brain. If I had a bad experience while wearing it, those emotions are transferred to me now. By the way, this is why many people dislike public speaking so much. Because of a previous bad experience, whenever they are in that situation, a metaprogram runs, and immediately they experience it the same way again.

Those habits of being are extremely hard to break because the moment there is a metaprogram, there is no choice anymore. We do what we do automatically. We don’t think about it. Because of our RAS, we are blind to that thing that we do that hinders us. We do not even recognize if we are doing it again, no matter how many times we said we would not do it again. It is why our willpower is so ineffective in transformation. Our willpower comes from our neocortex, our logical brain. But our metaprograms and our RAS bypass our neocortex and function straight out of the emotional and survival parts of the brain.

The solution.

There is light at the end of this dark tunnel. If we can change anything in the cybernetic loop, we know that the results will be different. And that is what we want – a different result. We do not want our current reality. We want a different reality, that of our goal. But to get there, we need to transform ourselves. We need to reprogram our brain’s software. We need to rewire that cybernetic loop. Now you understand why Einstein said that the consciousness that created the problem cannot find the solution. You have to change your consciousness.

The first thing that you need to do becomes aware. If you know what is happening, you know what to look for. That is why I believe in studying science. It helps us know what is happening so that we can be more aware. For example, reading this book is making you aware.

Next, you must take responsibility. You can know about all of this and still sit back and let it play out as it always has. You can blame your parents, your past, and the things people did to you. Yes, those things in your past did create your metaprograms, and those metaprograms are creating your current reality. But blaming is not going to get you different results.

A wealth creator is someone who takes responsibility. It is why the Formula for Success includes responsibility as one of its key ingredients. As wealth creators, we take back our power of choice. We step into our role as the programmer again. We create our own realities. Wealth creators take responsibility by finding out what programs they run.

As one of the final steps in my Powermorphing™ course, I teach my students how to use the power of their subconscious to identify and collapse their self-limiting metaprograms with a single exercise called the resistor removal technique. Resistors are those metaprograms that keep you from achieving your PowerGoal™. If you are following the Formula for Success but not seeing results, you probably have a resistor of which you are unaware. Do not give up if that is the case for you. Even without the resistor removal technique, you can uncover that resistor and remove it if you persist. You owe it to yourself and your PowerGoal™ to keep at it. Once you have removed it, you step out on the other side of a transformed person.

Take responsibility by putting yourself in the observer’s place. The observer’s place can also be called the witness’s place or the soul’s place. It is the place from where we can observe ourselves. We witness ourselves. In this position, we are not our brain, and we are not our body. It is the position of you, the real you, that lies in the center of the diagram of the ten environments. It is what I call the energetic you, the part that is more than your brain or your body, the part that continues after death. From this position, you can look at your current realities and at your past to observe yourself. You can ask yourself questions about yourself.

Why did I do that? What was the real reason I felt that way? Become curious. Questions are excellent ways to unearth those metaprograms that you are unaware of. Do not judge yourself. Allow things to come up, whatever they are.

Meditation is a great way to practice this kind of observation. Through meditation, you quiet the body and the mind to see those things that your metaprograms are hiding from your conscious thought.

Sometimes, simply noticing that something is there is enough to change it. Naming it for what it also helps. Sometimes you must dig a bit deeper. You must ask more questions and remain curious and non-judgemental to peel back the layers. As you remove those metaprograms that are not serving you, you can consciously replace them with new ones that do until you end up with the outcomes in your life that you want.

It is why negative or unwanted feedback is as good and sometimes better than positive feedback. If we do not get the results that we want, it means that it is an opportunity to find one of those metaprograms that are holding you back. And getting rid of them is one of the best ways to get to the results that you want. With those metaprograms out of the way, suddenly you see opportunities that you have never seen before. Situations that previously scared you, now make you excited. Whole new worlds of possibility open up.

The transformational journey is about so much more than getting that Ferrari. It is about becoming the best you, the highest mountain. If the Ferrari will get you climbing, use it. But know that there is also an endless range of possibilities beyond it that is waiting for you.

Workbook Q9.1: Reflect on and write down the insights you had during this chapter.

For more information on the Wealth Creators Method;

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