Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach and it is my job here to share with you the most fascinating, effective, cutting-edge and sometimes old but still very applicable effective brain-body tools so you could take better control of your thoughts, of your emotions and, most importantly, actions, so you can create the life experience that you absolutely love living. Today's thought of the day, as I was walking, doing my regular morning walk a regular morning walk I thought to myself it's really true that if you can't lead yourself to the desired destination, if you can't steer your own ship, how can you expect to help others to steer their ships in the direction where they want to go? Or a better place which is more aligned with who they want to become, what they want to achieve? How can you expect to lead others when you can't lead yourself? How can you expect other people to listen to you when you don't listen to yourself? So the first step, if you want to produce positive change in the world, in other people, positive change in the world, in other people, in other people's lives, so the first step is learning how to create that change that positive impact in yourself, and not when you feel like it, but in those challenging moments when everything in you, outside of you, pushing you into one direction that doesn't feel right for you and you know that you gotta make a different choice, that you gotta take a different action, that you gotta somehow push yourself, put yourself on a different path, when you feel the least like doing that. And in those moments I call them snowball moments, and in those moments you shift your life's trajectory towards the one that your future self will thank you for.
Speaker 1The thought of the day. That's what I was thinking while doing my morning walks. That's one of the reasons I love my morning walks and I try to eliminate as much stuff as possible before I do this walk, meaning no social media, no reading, no podcast listening, nothing, just having a blank state of mind, like what is on my mind when I wake up, because during the night it's kind of like digestion for the mind. Your brain connects all the dots and puts you new experiences in the context of your life and your old experiences. There is this like emotional thought, experiential digestion and integration of things, and so when you wake up in the morning and you don't put stuff in social media again. Reading, listening, you can actually catch that moment of insight that comes from your brain doing this work during good night of sleep.
Speaker 1So try to keep your mind, your ears, your consumption of stuff I mean mental, cognitive stuff to as close to zero as possible. I'm not perfect in that, you know. Sometimes I do watch my social media and sometimes it does make me feel better, but then I feel like it's not really me at the moment. So first few moments at least of your morning, just try to keep your mind on the receiving side, not on the consuming side. That being said, folks, are you watching Olympics? I'm watching some pieces and beats, but more importantly, I'm interested in what's happening inside the Olympians' minds. How do they navigate this Quite an extraordinary life situation?
Speaker 1Can you imagine, just imagine, that an trained for years, sometimes often for decades of their lives to this, very often one moment, one chance to show up for Olympics for that day or a few days, and they have, like, several competitions and they move forward, you know, semifinals, finals, etc. But then can you imagine, for this period of short few weeks, everything is on the line, everything that they've been preparing for decades of their lives. How do you show up for that specific moment, for that specific day, on time, on schedule, as close to your best as possible? Can you imagine how much of self-knowledge, self-awareness, preparation goes into that to know how to push your own buttons and to know your body into that. To know how to push your own buttons and to know your body and to know your mind, to know your skills, to align as many of the factors that you know make you perform at your best as possible. So, no matter what happens on that day and a lot of things are going to happen if you listen to different news and athlete stories, like a lot of things just don't go as planned and how do you still show up and perform as close to your best as possible? That is one hack of a skill that I'm really interested in, and to learn more about that, I'm listening to a podcast series by high-performance psychologist, michael Gervais the Game Inside the Games. It's a podcast series on his original podcast, finding Mastery, and they either talk about athletes or interview athletes and look into different aspects of this high performance psychology inside the event, right from there, right. So they actually are in Paris. So quite an amazing learning experience and a lot of great insights. So check it out Today, folks.
Speaker 1A couple of things. First, it doesn't matter what you know, it doesn't matter how you feel, it matters what you do. It doesn't matter how you feel, it matters what you do. And do you know what defines what you do? The operating system of your life. And the operating system of your life is your mindset, no-transcript, how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel and behave in any given situation. It means that what you believe about yourself impacts your success or failure. Mindset can influence how people behave in a wide range of situations in life. For example, as people encounter different situations, their mind triggers a specific mindset that then directly impacts their behavior in that situation.
Speaker 1And, folks, what do you think elite athletes at the Olympics work the most on? What do you think separates the medalist from all the other people who go to Olympics, all the other athletes? You know what it's their mindset, because physical skills, the body, you kind of work on that for decades. All of the athletes who go there, they have their skills at the top of their game. Now, obviously, there are genetics and you, you can be a faster runner and a lot of other things.
Speaker 1But the result in Olympic Games it's never guaranteed and it depends on people's mindsets and their skills of regulating that mindset and their emotions and that changes their actions, their skills, how they perform. Right, there is this phenomenon of choking, doing almost your worst when the situation really high-stakes situation. So what separates the greatest athletes from other amazing athletes is actually what's inside of their head. The real game, that's what separates I'm reading you from my newsletter, by the way, that you can subscribe using the link in the show notes a newsletter that your future self, your best self, will thank you for. So the real game, the mindset game, that's what separates an elite athlete from a gold medalist. That's what top athletes hire coaches for. That's what keeps you winning, that's what keeps you losing the game inside the game.
Speaker 1You can figure everything out if your mindset supports your ambition. Any question to you guys does it Again back to the thought of if you can't lead yourself, you cannot lead others. If you cannot push yourself through the tough, difficult, challenging situations where transformation happens, if you cannot do that to yourself, you cannot hope to have that kind of impact and influence of others. What inspires others is that power inside of you that you train, that you exercise, of transforming yourself and doing the hard thing. And you know, when you keep showing up for work consistently, people start understanding that you are strong inside, because if you weren't, you know, consistency is the sign of how strong you are, because in absolutely everyone's life there are tough moments, and so if you are able to show up consistently, regardless, that means that you have something inside which is strong, which is solid, which is inspiring, something that most of us I don't actually know the person who is just born with that most of us have to work on. So that's what inspires people, that's what leads people, that's what makes people follow you and that's what you can work on.
Speaker 1Your mindset, remember, guys, your mindset. Think of it as an operating system of your computer or your phone. Think of it as an operating system of your computer or your phone. It's not much use your phone or your computer without the right apps to run all the different functions. And your apps, as a human being, are the mindsets that you adapt and develop. And here is a quote of mine which I love sharing with a lot of people these days, mind is like a muscle weak unless trained, and most people's mindset these days are of a person who was at bed rest or on an international space station, some geeky, alert, and they didn't exercise their muscle for a while. So train your mindset.
Speaker 1And how do you train your mindset? How do you get into the driver's seat of your emotions, of your actions, of your thoughts? How do you push your own buttons? How do you start learning the skill? And I had to learn it and I'm still in the process of mastering it.
Speaker 1Like even yesterday with my dad, we went to do some Thursday shopping and we went to store and there was a line, it was weekend and there obviously were delays and systems were not working. So there were a lot of moments to get frustrated and there was a part of me that wanted to get frustrated and I saw my dad getting out of his you know calm and peaceful state and started snapping at the people at the cash register and shop assistants and I didn't say anything. I just stayed calm and I made no comments and I tried to occupy my dad's mind with something else and it kind of worked. That taught me a lesson that, instead of judging, switch people's attention to something else, to a more positive direction, without any commands on their behavior, and then people will adjust, naturally, because part of us always knows what is kind of like a dumb behavior, like why would you want to get mad at a shop assistant? They're human beings just like you and they're dealing with the system and a lot of people all at the same time Like who is it serving to get upset? Nobody, definitely not your health.
Speaker 1But what I'm learning as a coach, as a human being, as a leader, as I'm advancing on the journey, is that judging someone and telling them what is the right thing to do is very ineffective. What actually is much better is doing a different thing leading, showing by example and leading them, taking them on a journey with you without any judgment whatsoever. And that worked yesterday. But the point is, life will give you plenty of situations to keep working on your emotional mastery, on your thought mastery, on your self-mastery. So how do you start actually advancing on the journey? What's the step number one? Well, there is probably no sequence, but what I found to be one of the most effective ways to get started, which is really easy and well, maybe not easy but simple to wrap your head around, is understand that your moods and emotions follow your action, not the other way around.
Speaker 1So if you look at people and psychology research confirms that who are depressed or in low moods or states of mind more often than they'd like to, and sometimes even going into depression. So what psychology research shows is that that mood pattern follows action pattern and when you change action even though at first especially, it's hard like it's hard to take action when you are action, when you're depressed or when you're anxious or when you're worried but when you take that action, a different action that consistently leads you towards feeling better. If you take that action when you're feeling low, you're feeling low changes. They call it behavioral activation. Activation follows feeling low changes. They call it behavioral activation. Activation follows motivation, follows action or good mood follows the thing that you do. So deciding to take a different action is the first step to start mastering, to start being in charge of your emotions versus being driven by your moods and your emotions and always feeling like that ship that is being thrown from side to side by the winds of life. Do you want to be the ship which is being thrown from side to side, or do you want to feel more like a captain of that ship that, no matter what winds are happening around you, you still maintain the course towards destination. So which one are you committed to becoming and committing meaning when you notice you can take a different path.
Speaker 1Take it step is understanding, which is, again, was in my newsletter today. More details more research from, say, tools, from psychology. So subscribe to my newsletter. If you want this one that is already out, then please do get in touch, angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom, or go to my Instagram, angela Brain Body Coach. Angela Brain Body Coach. In my stories you'll find today's newsletter. You can read it without any subscription and then decide if you want to stay and learn more awesome tools or not. So check out my Instagram, angela Brain Body Coach, to read today's newsletter dedicated to behavioral activation, this act of understanding that your action drives your emotions, whether that's a positive or negative emotion, whether that's a low energy.
Speaker 1You take action first, and then the mood follows. And, to make it more precise, of a tool, what you do is, for a week or so, you write down action throughout the day, every single action, as many as possible, and then, by the side, you put a number on what your mood is, let's say from zero to 10, zero being. Absolutely disastrous, depressed, barely make it out of bed. 10 being. I'm absolutely ecstatic and can't wait to just seize the moment, every single one, and to just squeeze it, like squeeze all the life and juice out of it, like on that scale, where your mood is after that action. Like you wake up, where is your mood? You go for a walk, where is your mood? You talk to this person, where is your mood? You eat breakfast, where is your mood? And then, after a week, you do self-reflection and you look at your mood and you see, ah, when I moved, my mood went from three when I woke up, to six or seven after that walk. Then, when I talked to this person, my mood went from 7 or 8 to 2 or 3. And when I had this breakfast, my mood went from five, two, I don't know one.
Speaker 1And you notice those movements and then you have a list of your personal database of actions that lead you towards better mood or worse mood. And so the next week you start planning a week more intentionally. You're like, oh, this didn't work, let me try something else. Or when I'm in the low mood, I have a list of these behaviors that tend to put me in a better mood. So then this week when my mood goes down, let me choose one of those behaviors that last week led me to a better place and let me do it to lift my mood up, and then you again write down okay, I did that and my mood went up. And that's how you know that certain things, certain people, certain behaviors lead you towards better state, and better state emotional, mental state produces better thoughts and that produces better action planning and that produces better actions and outcomes.
Speaker 1And when done consistently, those even tiniest things change your life path exponentially, creating completely different life outcomes. It's like they say you know the plane never going to a certain destination, never really going in the straight path. It actually adjusting all the time, making micro movements almost all of the time, especially with this like autopilot system, etc. So it's never actually going directly to the destination, but it makes small adjustments and eventually it leads you toward a specific destination. It leads you toward a specific destination, but if you did those small, micro adjustments to a different direction, you will end up in a complete opposite side of the world. So micro changes, tiny changes, matters and your ability to shift your mood in any moment, done, consistently create exponential change, persistently create exponential change and you'll end up in a completely different place from where you could have ended up if you did nothing or took a different approach.
Speaker 1So this is a very powerful tool and that's where, to all of my clients, I recommend, to begin with, to start your journey towards becoming a master of your fate, a captain of your ship, and learning how to lead your emotions, how to lead other people, versus being thrown away from, thrown to different sides of the sea by the winds, life, and always feeling like you can't get momentum. And, believe me, I was there for such a long time. I'm 37 years old, it's been almost a week since my birthday and I can tell you that majority of my life I spent in that state, feeling like I'm just thrown away, thrown from side to side by life, that I cannot get momentum, and something always happens that brings me down. And so, now that I'm mastering my own emotional state, my own mental state, my own actions, I'm finally feeling that I'm gaining the momentum. And it's never been the life who was in charge or the universe. It's always been me who couldn't make different choices, which would accumulate and create a different path. But hey, better now, better late than never, right? The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The next best time now. So get into it, get into self-leadership game to create the life that you love living and to inspire and lead others. Again, you cannot hope to lead others if you cannot lead yourself, if you cannot lead yourself. So the journey to leadership, shaping, creating, changing the world starts with leading yourself and learning how to push your own buttons. And one of the simplest way to do that is that exercise of behavioral activation, which you can read more about.
Speaker 1You can find more tools in my newsletter, which you can absolutely free, no gateway access. On my Instagram, in my stories today, only today Angela Brain, body Coach. Angela Brain, body Coach. All one word. Read it, start using it. Share with at least one other person, one other superhero who might be getting in their way all the time because they cannot control their own ship. So share this newsletter, share this podcast. Let's together create a better world around us. World around us. What do you think? Let's team up on that. And that's it for today. Thank you for tuning in, thank you for listening. I appreciate your attention, your energy and till next time, that is on Wednesday. Do your best to be your absolute best to steer your ship, one tiny increment at a time towards the life you absolutely love living. Have an awesome week and we'll talk soon.