Hala Taha: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] What's up? Yap. Gang, I'm so excited about this episode because we're welcoming back a true legend in the world of mental wellness. Dr. Caroline Leaf for the second time on the show, Dr. Leaf is a cognitive, neuroscientist, bestselling author, and the creator of the transformative neuro cycle method. She spent over four decades studying the mind brain connection and her work has transformed how millions of people manage anxiety, stress, and toxic thinking.

This time, Karen. Is back with a powerful new book, help in a Hurry. [00:02:00] It's a practical guide filled with strategies to calm your mind in moments of stress, overwhelm, and lots of other emotions. In this episode, we'll dive deep into mind management and uncover the dangers of over labeling emotional struggles.

We'll explore how to rewire your brain for clarity and calm, even in life's most chaotic moments, and discuss how humans can thrive alongside ai. Get ready to unlock powerful tools for mental wellness and long-term success. 

Dr. Caroline, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast. 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: So good to see you again. Thank you, Harla. It's been a long time, four years. 

Hala Taha: I know last time you came on was in 2021. It was May, 2021, so right at the start of COVID, I think I interviewed you in my mom's basement or something because I happened to be home at that time because like everybody was working from home and everything like that.

So it's so cool to have you back on the show and things have changed so much since you last came on for both of us. So when we first talked, we were really focused [00:03:00] on cleaning up your mental mess, which was your latest book back then, and we focused the conversation on that. I'll probably replay that episode on the podcast so everybody will get a deep dive into the content of that book.

But today I wanna talk about your new book and that is Help In a Hurry. And that one's way more about practical tools. That you can use in your everyday life, which I really love. We love actionable advice on the podcast, and so I wanna dive right into it. My first question to you is, when we're feeling stressed, when we're feeling anxious, what is a quick hit in terms of something that we can do to feel better?

Dr. Caroline Leaf: In 63 seconds, you can catch that moment and create a pause. And 60, 63 seconds is very significant because it's, there's a lot of science behind it, but it's the amount of time you can take longer. But in that small moment of time, you can redirect neuroplasticity in your brain. In other words, what that means in simple language is that you can catch that moment of anger or [00:04:00] whatever.

Stress, toxic stress, you're under whatever it's coming from, and you can actually redirect it. So you're not ignoring it, you're not suppressing it, you're not pushing it away, you're not diminishing it, you're not ghosting yourself or what's happening, but you are facing it head on and dealing, and you work through it in like a little formula, and that then helps you to regain perspective and it actually directs the energy, which is nothing woo woo.

It's the experience. It literally becomes energy that's processed through your mind, and you can actually redirect that, how that goes into your brain and into your body, and therefore the output. So you're still gonna have the same experience, but it can either go in as a chaotic mess or it can come out, or it can go in with a bit more order.

So let's say for example, that someone has. Just yelled at you or you're in a business meeting and someone has said something that's really made you feel quite frustrated and you are, I shouldn't say natural, but your reaction is, oh my gosh, they've done this before. And you just maybe snap back or you get that tone or that look or, [00:05:00] and it just creates more bad feelings in the room or whatever.

Just as an example. So that doesn't help anyone because the minute that you create that kind of chaotic environment, it's going to take away from a lot of. Intuitive wisdom in that moment. And so logic, reasoning, all those things drop cognitive flexibility. So you know it's not gonna lead to a good outcome in either whoever's involved at that moment between the maybe two people, plus everyone else.

So what you do is in that short timeframe, is not to ignore, but to first of all, just calm down your psycho neurobiology, that your mind, brain, body connection, and that's through the traditional. Ideas of breathing or visualization. But I don't want us to just look at breathing as breathing. Breathing is oxygen, yes, but oxygen is a molecule and energy attaches to that molecule.

So in a moment of high stress, high anger, whatever, we breathe differently. We breathe short little breaths, and we don't take deep breaths in. That signals the body that I'm in flight and fight, or I'm angry or I've gotta protect. Now the brain and the body don't think. [00:06:00] They are just simply machines that are run by the mind.

They are very complex, very beautiful, but they don't think so. They're just going to follow the energy input. So here, what we are talking about in these 63 seconds is to. Redesign the tone of the energy that goes in. So by doing some breathing and as you breathe to be aware that, okay, I'm cello breathing, I'm gonna take a deep breath in.

And when you stimulate it, a very good breathing exercise that calms you down quickly, gets lots of oxygen to the front of your brain and blood flow and calms down the brainwaves and the immune system and all that stuff is sip breathing. So do a very quick, deep breath in. I mean, you can't take anymore.

Take another sip. And it's almost hard. Your whole body tenses. You might even shake your head because you feel like a whoosh of oxygen to your brain. And you can do that one or two times. And what that does is it signals that massive boost of oxygen, it pushes it into the brain, blood flow, whatever. And it actually changes the messaging that goes through your [00:07:00] physiology that you say, it's okay, I've got this.

Yes, it's you're irritated, but we've got this. If we don't get our physiology under control. What happens is that of physiology or brain and body, the reactions we feel and the anger, the body tensing, the heart, palpitations all whatever. Those become very consuming, and your brain and body are 1% of who you are.

Your mind is 99%, and I know that's one of the questions you want to ask me. We'll dive into it. Morbid, just hold onto this thought. If we get consumed by our sensations, which are actually only around 1% of who we are, we will get trapped in those sensations and our anger or frustration or regret or whatever it is.

Will get worse. So then the breathing and all those kinds of things are not going to help as much as they could. So the issue is that we want to get ourselves out of making the 1%, a hundred percent, and that's what the breathing will do. That initial physiology change, that psycho neurobiological change.

So you can do that in 10 seconds. You can also, another one that works well is you can breathe in for three [00:08:00] and out for seven, but it's a deep breath in. And then for seven, and as you breathe in, say, think, feel. In your mind. And then as you breathe out, say, choose. So you add the cognitive component onto the breathing.

Now both of those little breathing exercises shifts how the energy molecule, that is the message that's coming at you, the anger, et cetera, the argument, whatever, it shifts how it is attached to the oxygen, and it takes it into the body differently. So instead of it being like a hurricane, it becomes like a controlled storm, if that makes sense.

There's a lot of science there, but in 10, 20 seconds you're doing amazing stuff and it's being intentionally aware. I'm aware, I'm worked up. I'm gonna do this breathing, I'm gonna go from shallow breathing and I'm gonna do this sip breathing or whatever. Then you shift from there into validation of what it's made you feel of the situation.

So it's kind of labeled it out loud, name it, and in your head you just can do it in your head where you say it to yourself, they are making me mad because they said this and it's really unfair, or whatever. [00:09:00] Label it. So don't ghost yourself. We often think I'll push it down or whatever. That just makes you explode more so it's labeled.

Then the next thing is to then focus on, okay, this is bringing up a lot of stuff. So the third level down is it's that labeling. You feel more in control. Your physiology is under control, so a lot of other memories will come up, and those memories are very useful. We about 30 seconds in now to the little exercise.

Those memories are useful because it's not gonna be a lot. We limited time here, but those few that do come up will give you context, and then you immediately shift to the next level, which is the mind shift where you say, okay, this is all coming up. This person's done this before. They're forever freaking out about the situation.

They don't seem to be learning. It really frustrates me, but you know what? I'm not responsible for their reaction. I'm responsible for mine. So you do a mind shift. I can't fix them. I'm not gonna absorb their toxic energy in me. It's gonna make me lose my wisdom or wiseness, or whatever you wanna say. And as you go through a mind shift, and then at that point you then [00:10:00] decide, okay, I'm just going to listen, or I'm gonna go out the room, or I'm just gonna make notes till they keep quiet and let them just get it off their back and not let it or whatever.

So some sort of simple little action. It could even be something like, I'm gonna think of a white flower. Anything that grounds you back in in action. So quick summary. In 60 seconds, you do the sip breathing, you're going to then. Label validate, name it. You're then going to look at the memories that come up, and you're then going to do a mind shift, and you can do that in 63 seconds, 60, 63 seconds.

There's significance in that number, which we can talk about, but that is enough for you to get your psycho neurobiology. Your mind, brain, body connection back under control. And it doesn't mean that you're not going to get irritated by that person again or never. People please again or never go into a regret cycle or whatever it is that you are battling within that moment.

But it does give you the power to control the moment, the minute. As humans, we experience the power to control the moment. 60 seconds research shows that, oh well I can maybe control the next 60 seconds because the [00:11:00] success is so empowering. And when you can control two 62nd moments, maybe you can control 10 minutes and then maybe you can stand back and say, okay, over the next week I'm going to stand back and observe myself and see if this is a pattern.

Takes about seven days to find patterns that are actually, patterns are not just. Moments passing through. And then from there you go into a 63 day cycle to rewire. 'cause if that's a pattern, whatever's a pattern's a habit, you don't get rid of habits in 21 days. Habits, good, bad, ugly, building, new ones, getting rid of old ones.

That's a 63 day cycle. So there's a rhythm that's been created, and this help in a hurry talks about that 63 seconds. It talks about that moment, the 10 minutes, that seven, it talks about creating that. Pulls the gap, the red and the orange before the traffic light turns green. That's the concept. 

Hala Taha: So all of this is really separating our body from our mind, correct. Doing this exercise so that you can step out of the moment, get out of your monkey brain or whatever it is, stop reacting [00:12:00] emotionally and be able to like separate yourself from what's happening. So talk to us about the difference between mind and body and then also like what is the significance of 63.

Dr. Caroline Leaf: And just to reiterate, if you don't mind, just on the whole concept of getting out of your mind and brain and the difference and so on. I gave you a basic process, but there's lots of little tricks you can do in those techniques and those tricks. It's help in a hurry. They're not long term.

These are the moment I get the moment, but they're not going to be for the long term. It starts the healing, it starts the process. So in those steps. There's lots of different techniques, and that's what this book's full of. If it's self-critical talk, your mind shift could be basically imagining that the criticism is a little ant on the stage and you standing back and you're observing this ant shouting out.

You can hardly hear the ant, and so you've immediately got control. These little things. What we've seen is that you are. Tricking your brain because your brain only does what the mind tells it to do. You're basically tricking your brain into calming down and your physiology, and you're getting your conscious mind back [00:13:00] online to listen to the non-conscious.

So here we can come now to the definition. So I just wanted to expand that within those steps. You can put all these really cute techniques, find what you like, and all of them are scientifically researched and clinically applied and all the rest of it. Okay, so the mind is the big word or the. Collective word that we can use for a term that's used a lot in the current lingo, and that is the word consciousness.

So you'll hear these all over the place. People are so into it. It's very topical at the moment to talk about consciousness. Not that it hasn't been before, but it's currently very popular and it's coming up in all the news on news feeds, which I'm sure you have seen. So consciousness is this concept for this human thing that we have, which is.

Our aliveness. This ability to be able to observe ourselves and how we turn up and how we show up and how we function and how we are doing stuff and, and being able to think and feel and choose and love and see the arguments and recognize the, all that stuff. So this ability to be alive, [00:14:00] that is our consciousness and there's lots of debate about what it is and where it is.

There's one version of neuroscience that tries to show, and I say, tries to show because it hasn't been very successful, even though it's the most spoken message, and that is that the brain produces this mind thing. That's consciousness as an epiphenomenon, as the result of chemical interactions and electromagnetic interactions in the brain.

But that's never been proven. And in fact, it's been disproven over and over, but it's still kind of a dominant thing. Seems to make sense 'cause it's physical and, but it's not the truth anyway. And if you look at the science and the way they've done the research, it models things up. So coming back to the mind, so what is the mind, this consciousness, I use the word mind, consciousness, same thing.

Okay. So, but mind has got different levels and the mind has got. What we call the conscious level. So mind consciousness has a conscious level, it has a subconscious level, and it has a non-conscious. NON Unconscious is not a level. Unconscious is a state [00:15:00] that the brain goes into. It's a physical state that the brain goes into where chemicals and neurochemicals and things shift when we sleep or under anesthesia or knocked out.

So just the distinction, the conscious level. The subconscious, the non-conscious, and then unconscious is a brain state. And the reason I'm stressing that is because subconscious and unconscious are used as one term to denote these programs that drive us, which is not. Really accurate. So we are getting the accurate stuff here.

Okay, so the brain and the body are the physical biology through which the mind works. So they are the responders to the mind. So the mind is driving the physiology of your heart beating and your lungs working and your everything, every system of your brain and body. Working is driven by your mind, your aliveness, this consciousness.

So it drives physiology, it drives neurology, and it also drives psychology. And that's why we talk about psycho neurobiology. The simplest way to understand this, just think of if you are very stressed out about something [00:16:00] very toxically stressed, you feel that in your body. You know, we all know that for years it's been, honestly a hundred years of research has confirmed that unmanaged stress creates sickness.

We all know that. We all know that. And so we are talking the same thing. Now, why would something like unmanaged stress, what is that? That's a mind process. If I'm stressed, it means something's happening in my environment. Something's happening to me and around me, and I'm battling to deal with it. So it's affecting.

How I'm processing it and, and that's affecting my brain and my body. Now the reason it does is because the mind is all around us and through, so if I put my arms in a circle around me just to give people something to understand, this is your mind zone, that consciousness zone and all the three levels are in that zone.

And it goes not just around, but through. When a person dies, the body disintegrates because that life force. Has gone, that aliveness has gone, that energy goes so that we know, therefore, that the energy, and there's so much research confirming this, that energy of [00:17:00] the mind, aliveness, consciousness, whatever we wanna call it, is making the body functional.

So therefore it works. The biology literally runs the biology, and the biology therefore is affected. So if I have chaotic mind and a frantic mind and a mind out of rhythm and coherence, and I'm not managing it, that's going to reflect in the brain and the body because whatever happens in the mind, which is fundamentally.

And drives brain and body is gonna happen in the brain and the body because the mind grabs at first processes at first, and whatever chaos or peace it creates with that information is then placed in the brain and then the brain grows that there's a chemical and electric. Reaction and proteins are formed and that holds that memory, those memories, that form a thought, and also it goes into the body.

So memory's not in the brain, only the memory's throughout the brain and the body. And so we always think, oh, my memory's affected. It's my brain. No, it's your entire brain and body. It's just different types of memory in the different parts. So therefore, every this conversation. Is being processed by the mind [00:18:00] fundamentally.

First, the different levels and then is copied, like think of a little rain cloud. Think of our words being like little droplets and a little cloud of energy forming around our head. And that's this conversation with Caroline and you and I together. And then as soon as it's being made and formed, a copy gets put into the brain and we get this reaction and we grow neurons.

We grow a little nerve cells, and then it also gets put into every cell of our body. We have 37 to a hundred trillion cells, and it grows there. So there's this very strong connection. So if I'm not controlling that anger moment, I'm going to create this storm cloud. And then proteins don't fold properly.

We creates inflammation. The chemicals don't flow properly, so we create chaos in the brain and the body, and it's all linked. And that's psycho neurobiological effect. So the mind is dominant. The fundamental driver does all the work, puts it in the brain and the body. The brain and the body are the biological responders.

We live through our nervous system, but the nervous system doesn't control us. We control the nervous system. 

Hala Taha: [00:19:00] Do you believe all sickness then is rooted from having a mental mess? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: You've gotta be careful how we see that because you can have a vulnerable immune system because of what you've been exposed to, because of diet, because of socioeconomic environment.

So the environment plays a massive role. And if you're living in an a non nurturing environment, if you're growing up in an abusive relationship, if you're in whatever, all of those weakened, that's all coming in and it's hitting your body and your body's vulnerability increases. So that's not your fault.

We unfortunately live in a world that creates vulnerability in our brain and our body. I mean, just by putting junk food in our body. We do. It's the same principle. You put junk food in your body, your body will not work so well. You don't do exercise, your body won't work so well. You don't have an environment that's very conducive to healthy thinking.

Your body won't work so well. So there's stuff that happens to us that creates this vulnerability. And then there is stuff that we do. So we choose 'cause choice is predominant. So how we choose to respond to that [00:20:00] angry moment. Which is what we started this conversation, how I choose to respond to the traumas in my life.

You're not going to excuse the trauma, you're not gonna ghost the trauma. You're not gonna ignore the clinical impact of that trauma on your brain and body and your life and the feedback loop that's created, but you also have the power to change. You can't change it, but you can't change what happened, but you can change what it looks like inside of that network and therefore how it plays out into your future.

That's the power we have. So what research shows in terms of the link between mind and illness in our body is that there is somewhere between 75 and 95%. The research varies, but it's in that range of diseases are coming from how we are managing our mind in response to life. And that makes sense. If 99% of my mind is the thing that's fundamental.

The work that's been done in my mind is going to impact the brain and the body because the brain and the body don't think they simply do what the mind tells it to do. So be putting the bad food, don't do the exercise, don't manage your thought [00:21:00] life. So there is that link. There are studies showing that 95% of current.

Illnesses, lifestyle illnesses come from our thought life. So when we talk about lifestyle, that's a big word that we hear a lot of and lifestyle are the choices we make about how we live our life, how we manage our stress, how we exercise, et cetera, et cetera. We are very good in this day and age. At looking at the physical, do the exercise, eat healthy, that's very strong, very established message, and it's well done.

People are very aware of that. But when it comes to mind, there's very little on mind management. Very, very little. So we pay a lot of attention to the 1%, but very little to the 99. So my work is to try and make people more aware of the 99. 

Hala Taha: Okay. Really quick, what does 63 represent? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: to 63. I'm playing on the number 63, so roundabout in 60 seconds.

We see that from the translation of the different levels of mind, the non-conscious mind's, the fastest part operates at about 400 billion actions per second and faster. The conscious mind is operating at about 2000. What does [00:22:00] that mean? It means that the conscious mind can only handle about. Two to three words or one conversation at a time.

You and I talking, if someone talked to you and someone talked to me, no one would know what was going on. So the conscious mind is quite slow. There's a reason it's not bad. It's just that that's what the conscious mind does. It focuses on one conversation at a time. The non-conscious. An infinite number of conversations never stops.

Its present past future. So now you've got this massive power and it's gotta fit into this slow conscious mind. That's why we have the subconscious, it filters through, slows it down, and filters little bits of information at a time into the conscious mind. And this comes through from the 400 billion to the different levels of speed, and then eventually gets into the subconscious minded.

Sort of 10, four to seven things per every 10 seconds. And eventually that comes through into the conscious mind as these little bursts, 40 bursts per second. But we consciously perceive that as a stream of consciousness every 60 seconds. So all those numbers that I've said very quickly, all those [00:23:00] levels we perceive.

Kind of like a comic book. Think of when you watch a cartoon, an animation, it looks like it's one flowing thing, but we all know if, I think it's 40 images per every frame that create that frame. That's kind of what's happening. So what we know is that the stream of consciousness can be interrupted every 60 seconds.

That's what it basically means, and it's very, very. Influential. That is a very important timeframe because it's that timeframe that then determines the mindset that instead of putting a stormy rain cloud into my brain, I can actually calm down and it's just a gentle storm. So you're still mad, but the madness has changed to a level where it's not controlling you, you're not absorbing that person's energy. You're kind of protecting yourself. 

Hala Taha: And it's less damaging for your brain, right? Because every single memory is something that can be damaging for your brain from what I remember. 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. 

Hala Taha: So I have to ask you this question. I wasn't planning on asking you this question, but now that we're talking, AI is. Highly prevalent. It's all the talk right [00:24:00] now. And I've talked to like every single AI expert. Everybody has a different opinion, but you know so much about brain and consciousness. So are you worried about AI taking over and do you think that it could ever reach. Human level consciousness or because you know so much about the brain, maybe you're not so worried about it.

Dr. Caroline Leaf: So I'm so glad you asked me that question. And how many hours do we have? 

Hala Taha: I know it's a lot. 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Okay, so I'm gonna give you a simple answer and then I'll just refer people to go to my podcast. 'cause I actually recently did a podcast on AI and on all of this. So they go to the Doctor Leaf show, they can just put in AI and they'll find the podcast and we have a blog and everything on it.

Okay? So to try and give you the simple thing, I'm not worried about ai. Because I know as a neuroscientist and as a psycho neurobiologist, I know the power of a mind. I know the mind is fundamental. I know that the brain is a biological organ that works on computation. Now, computation is algorithmic. It's pattern prediction, and [00:25:00] it's the complete opposite of what mind does.

Mind is abstract reasoning, intuition, when you do abstract reasoning, like now we are having an abstract conversation, there's no place in your brain that's for abstract reasoning because your brain, it's computes, it's algorithmic.

So what we'll see is your brain lighting up as a. Details stimulate the brain, but the abstract reasoning of this, me answering your question and you understanding my answer is happening in the mind, and then the energy is put in the brain. So having said that, AI could never get to that level because AI is developed by abstract reasoning.

So therefore, AI is incredibly useful in the fact that it can speed up those things that take us a long time, where you can do things much quicker. Where you can, if you're battling with how to express yourself, you've gotta fight through to work out how to express yourself. And then maybe say, okay, let me see if there's a better way of saying this.

And then you can use AI to refine it in maybe three different ways. That's. A good way of [00:26:00] using ai, but to just hand off completely. And Apple released a study just recently, which I'm sure you're aware of, where they showed that it's actually affecting the way that the brain functions. The brain does not exercise.

The brain requires building. It requires stimulation to keep it going. It needs to be constantly built. Neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, when you use ai, where you take away the friction and the challenge that thinking deeply and intuitively and struggling, when you remove that as. And you think AI is doing it, but you hand it off to AI and it seems like they're doing it because AI's got so much data that it can mimic back and seem like it's generating something very creative, but it's not.

It's mimicry clever, very smart, very useful, but when you do too much of that, your brain will literally shrink. The evidence is there. It's not getting the exercise it needs. It's not being built in a way that's healthy. So the way to use AI in a healthy way is to use it, to be aware of it, to get as much knowledge as you can, but to recognize that you need to still manage [00:27:00] it.

It still needs mind management. I don't believe AI will ever, like general intelligence, whoever reach the levels of human intelligence. Mind is the opposite. It doesn't compute as the actual anis. It's the opposite of that. The other thing is just if you look at the neurology of a brain, forget mind for a moment.

Just look at the brain AI's based on the algorithm of how one electron fires the principles, which is a hugely complex process. We've got a hundred billion we don't even understand with our current neuroscience how two neurons interact. Let alone a hundred billion, we don't even understand that conversation yet.

So we don't have the tools yet. Now, one day I think we'll get there and that'll make AI even more efficient and that's when we are gonna have to use quantum computers and that sort of thing. And then there's another aspect, and that is quantum energy, which is energy, and that's inside the neuron. We haven't even tapped into that yet.

So besides the biology hasn't even been tapped fully. So there's, you know, a lot of development down that side. The other side is that there's been research done for nearly 30 years called the Blue Brain Project, changed names a couple of [00:28:00] times. Actually a South African professor, Henry Markham, who actually started the project 30 odd years ago when he started the project.

He said, in 12 years, we are going to build a computer that will reflect what the human brain can do. 20 years into that billions of dollars later, he turned around and he basically, I'm summarizing the whole thing, but yeah. Basically said that this is an impossible task. Every single thought is its own universe.

All we've done in 20 years is map one pathway in a mouse brain as they look at cheese and a maze, and that's an infinite pathway. What could human thought be? 

Hala Taha: Wow. 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: So based on those plus research by Hammer, Hoff, and Penrose, many different theories, when you look at it from that aspect, you won't be frightened by ai.

You'll embrace AI for the usefulness when you recognize that mind needs to manage it. What we have to be concerned about is our next generation coming up where we want to make sure that as parents, as leaders, teachers, adults, whatever, that we make sure that they don't. Substitute AI for humanity. [00:29:00] And because of the smartness of humans and our abstract thinking, we can create things that look so and seem so human and that can cause a problem.

So we've gotta be careful of that. We've gotta work very hard at keeping our humanity the distinction. We need to train that distinction right from the word go. 

Hala Taha: Oh my gosh. I'm so happy I asked you that question. I feel like that's gonna be so useful for people to hear because people are just really scared about ai.

But I wanna get back to help in a hurry. So you've written more than a dozen books. I think it's like 19 or 20 books or something like that. 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Number 19. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. So incredible amount of work. Why did you feel like this book needed to be put out in the world? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: What I found when I was practicing clinically, which I did for 25 years, I've been in the field 40 years, and the reason I stopped practicing was because I can reach more people with these principles.

So alongside my practice, I've also been doing research for 40 years. We have a research team. We still do clinical trials and different research projects, and we publish. So everything that we bring to the table has [00:30:00] got a scientific basis. One of the key things, and I say that to say this, everything I do is grounded in science.

One of the things that I found when I was practicing and I found in the people that we reach millions on our platform, they would say that, how do I handle this moment right now? I'm in the middle of life. I don't have time to take 63 days to go resolve things. I've actually gotta get through this next hour, this next meeting, look after my kids, keep myself together for a podcast or whatever it may be, life.

How do I manage the moment?

 How do I create the pause? How do I learn to stop reacting? To start responding? Because reactions will drain our wise mind, our non-conscious mind, which is that wise mind way, reasoning, logic, and intuition reside. The conscious mind is thinking, feeling, and choosing, but it needs wisdom to make it think, fit, and choose well.

And when we. Get caught up in reactivity, we get stuck in a conscious mind brain loop, and the [00:31:00] conscious mind working without the non-conscious becomes very much a mechanical loop where it doesn't think things through. It's gonna just react from generally bad habits. Basically, it's gonna be driven by whatever bad habit at the most attention.

So if I've been constantly aligned myself to get irritable, never ever get it under control, that's a very established pattern. And if I'm not listening to my intuition. In my wise mind, then the conscious mind will draw on that pattern and the slightest thing will make me irritable. And I just set off that irritability loop and I just make it even stronger.

So I wanna stop that loop. Help in a hurry is for us to recognize those patterns and to recognize where they come from and to deconstruct and reconstruct them. To rewire them using neuroplasticity. So what we did was look at myself and my team, the top areas that people speak about, and it's easy to find those.

What do people say? I'm so pressurized, I'm so stressed, I'm so, I wish I didn't do that. They made me so angry. Everything's not so black and white. I always do this. I never do that. So these 18 [00:32:00] basically areas that we found that seem to be top areas, they were actually 23, but we took the top 18 areas and that's what these 18 chapters that cover these basic areas of what people would ask me about.

Most at a conference, questions, dms, all that stuff, and then from surveys and then looking at the general research out there. And so I've compiled those into simple chapters so that if people feel I'm under, under so much pressure or what do I do about. My child is diagnosing themselves from TikTok, or I'm stuck in a regret cycle.

I keep people pleasing, top sort of those, and you find the chapter that's relevant pretty much. I mean, I do all of these things. All of us pretty much do all of them, but there'll be some that will be more than others, and you find the one that's most relevant in your life at this moment. And then basically I explain what that means, simplistically a bit of the science and then techniques.

That you can use within that 63 second 10 minute framework, seven window framework. And that's why I wanted to give them, I call it the missing link. Where do I start? Because I know when I was in therapy and my patients would come [00:33:00] to me and they'd come with big stuff, and I worked with neurological issues as well as trauma.

I would work with people, stroke or heart attack issues from not being able to speak from heart attacks, from learning disabilities, autism, plus the traumas from. Sexual abuse and, and then just the day-to-day stuff, just living. When you're in a state, the last thing you want is for someone to say, calm down.

And the other last thing you want is for someone to give you a whole science lecture when you're so worked up. So what I wanted to do was to give simple things, okay, let's do these four things and. Choose our technique and let's practice that in the good times so that when you, we see this as a pattern in your life, you get really irritated really quickly about this sort of thing.

We recognize that. Let's understand it. Let's create your little network. Let's practice it. So let's wire it in to the mind, brain, body network. So when you are in that state, you can draw on that. That then helps shift your perspective, keep you in wisdom, keep your conscious mind connected to the unconscious.

When our conscious mind disconnects from the unconscious, we get into addictive patterns. We say the word addiction. People [00:34:00] think alcohol, drugs. Addiction's also those loops. What we keep doing that same thing over and over because even if it's not good satisfaction, it satisfies something, but it's not healthy.

It's a craving that's going in the wrong direction, but it satisfies the basic need to have order and control, but it's distorted. So we always wanna try and keep connected. So what I found from my research and clinical work was that, wow, this is such an amazing first thing that worked with my patients, and that's why I decided it's.

Hard time after 40 years to put this in a book. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. I feel like a lot of this stuff is really useful. So I wanna talk about the need to not label ourselves. There was a couple instances where I was reading that you were saying you don't wanna label things like stress as an illness. You wanna think of it as a signal.

And then you also were talking about how you're worried about people self diagnosing and labeling themselves with a DHD. That it can actually make things worse. So talk to us about when [00:35:00] we should be trying to label things, whether it's our emotions or illness or whatever it is, and when we shouldn't.

Dr. Caroline Leaf: So the word label isn't a bad word in itself, except when you use it to tie something to your identity. Mines are so powerful, as I've been saying. So when you label something and you immerse yourself in that label, it shifts your identity and that isn't necessarily the truth. So you can get locked in.

And because we have such a dominant messaging of neuro centricity, which means brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, brain. Brain, brain, brain. So once it's in your brain, well, pretty much that's it. That's been the messaging, which is a very hopeless message, and it's not accurate science, and it keeps people stuck.

So what I've tried to show people is we are not decrying, I'm not, I don't wanna say it's sidebar here. Depression, anxiety, these things, when they become extreme, they become a problem. You don't need a label to justify if you are broken from a situation and you at [00:36:00] in a state of depression where you need help.

That's not a brain disease, that's not a genetic disorder, and you don't need one of those scary labels to validate you. Are valid in what you are going through. That's very important that when we talk about not labeling, we are not invalidating, you actually validate with a label. Because if you think about it, if there's 10 people sitting in front of me right now and all of them are what we would call clinically depressed, is it fair for me to just say, oh, you have clinical depression, you have clinical depression, you have clinical depression, and stick them under a label without any real hope and then say, okay, you need this medication, or do a bit of this therapy that's changed their identity.

They are now I am depression, or I am anxiety, or I am bipolar, or I am totally toxically stressed and it's in my genes, or something like that. What we've done is just limited that person and we've given them a gift, but it's an empty gift. So initially they might feel, whew, such a sense of relief. Now I know why I am doing what I'm doing.

It makes sense. I've got all those symptoms and things like that. But then what? Then you open that. Box and there's nothing there. [00:37:00] And of all 10 of those people, these people in front of me right now, these imaginary people have all got 10 different stories. They don't just have one story. They have a thousand stories.

And that whole thing has contributed to the epigenetic story, the environment they all of that has fed in. They have a network of stuff in their mind, brain, body connection that has led to the point that they're at today. How do we minimize that to a label? So it's doing people an injustice. A disservice to say, whew, all of this you is now.

Whew. One thing. And by the way, it's genetic, it's in your brain. Whew. If that was true. This is the idea that was started being researched about 20, 30, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, I think it was about five years ago, that Tom Incel said that 20 billion has been spent in the United States alone on researching the genetic andneurobiological foundations of mental illness.

And he said that all we've done is publish some fancy papers. We haven't proved anything. I keep up with the top scientists in this field, and I can say to you, as a scientist, there is [00:38:00] no research confirming that any kind of mental illness has a neurobiological cause effect. Yes. 'cause whatever I put in my brain, as I've been saying, is going to change brain function, but it's not the brain function that caused the problem.

Now, another sidebar. Let's say that you're in a car accident and you damage your brain. Or let's say someone hits you over the head or you get shot in the head, or you have. A reaction to a very strong medication or something like that. Yes. That changes your biology for sure, and that can definitely have an effect.

Back the other way into your mind. Your mind is always powerful, but your mind works through biology. So if the biology is damaged, like the computer's damaged, it can't do what it used to do before. So that then impacts the efficiency that the mind can move through. One of my specialties was traumatic brain injury.

So we see a damaged brain, but the mind is behind it. So if we can try and pull the mind through, we can start changing things, which is what I showed with my research. Okay. So having said all of that, if I then take a label [00:39:00] and say that this is it with all the sounds I've just given you, I'm keeping myself stuck.

It would give way better to say, yes, there is depression, but instead of a label, let's look at a description. Let's. Ban the definition of what depression is. So now I can say, okay, I'm showing up with depression. What are the emotions? So that's an emotional warning signal. It's data. What are the emotions?

Well, it makes me feel totally flat. Makes me feel like I just wanna give up. It makes me feel anxious, whatever. So I'm now describing the emotional signals. Where do you feel that in your body? Every emotion doesn't work alone. It has a sensory input because that emotion is in the mind, brain, body, network.

It's planted deep inside the brain and the body and also in the mind. So it's going to have a bodily sensation. So where am I feeling that depression, total lethargy in my body, maybe gut ache, et cetera, whatever. Then I can say, okay, how's this affecting my behaviors? What I say, what I [00:40:00] do, how I say, and how I do it?

And that's where we can start looking at, okay, I'm withdrawing. I. Don't wanna do anything, I'm not getting out of bed, whatever. Then you're going to look at how is this affecting my perspective? Well, my life sucks. So now what I've done is I've described, so I'm not depression, I am depressed because of I am showing up with depression and these bodily sensations and these.

Behaviors and these perspectives, four signals, categories of signals. So those aren't it. Those aren't symptoms. They signals of what they're coming from something. A signal's coming from something. It's coming from a thought. What is a thought? A thought is a collection of memories that are form an experience.

That could be the abuse that you suffered for years. That could be the. Financial strain. That could be the socioeconomic environment that you're living in. That could be the political whatever. That could be the problem with your child that's stressing you out as a mom, that you just dunno how to help your [00:41:00] child.

It's the million stories that we have and those over time play out. So there's a thought attached to it, and that thought's got memories and every thought's made up of anything from 50 to 5 million memories, depending on how long, how. Et cetera. So if I can go from my signals to my thought, then I can say, okay, so if I'm feeling depressed, I've got all these other categories that depression is linked to all these other signals.

It's data. That data leads me to the thought. That's also data. That's a story. It's a narrative, it's an experience, and I can't change that. It's happened, but I can see, ah, that's why that's. The because, so I can go down to the root cause and I can do the work to deconstruct down to the root, and then I can say, okay, how do I want this?

Now I've got it. I can't find out why that person abused X or why that person chose to behave like a narcissist and er wreck my life or whatever, or why that situation happened or whatever. But at least I know that I'm not depression. I'm depressed because of, and there's a source. Now I've got power the minute I go through this process.

[00:42:00] This is mind management. This is the conscious what's doing this, all this stuff I've just said. Your conscious mind, working with your non-conscious, the two together you are using think, feel, choose, think, feel, choose of the data, and you're using reasoning, logic, intuition, and intelligence and intellect and all the good stuff that's in our wise unconscious.

You're putting it together and you're doing this analysis, and you're doing it in an organized flow, and then you reconstruct, how do I want this to play out in my future? Now, as you can imagine, that's not going to happen in one day or 63. Seconds, 63 seconds just arrests. The process gets you into a state to find the pattern.

That sort of thing happens over 63 days. So labeling takes you completely away from that process. Labeling is a finite. You are this because of this. What do I do now? Lacking in hope. You see, it takes hope away from people and that is not good. And also your identity changes. So we've done research where we've shown in people's brains where you do use.

QEG, which is a great way of looking at the energy flow in the brain. You don't read the brain, but you see the [00:43:00] response in the brain. And we've had people that have been abused as children for years, and they've sat in situations where they have in the clinical trial, for example, saying that I am depression, and they didn't know why they'd suppressed it.

Anyway, long story short, we see in the brainwaves that their identity has been fused with depression or fused with. I'm only as good as the amount of stuff I do for other people. People pleasing. There's a fusion, so there's a distortion. You can't see that in the brain, but what you can see is a drop of energy in the front part of the brain.

And we know in people's identity is a compromised, that's an abstract concept, but. That abstract concept of me not having an identity shrinking is going to affect the energy in the brain, and we see that as a drop. So I'm just giving an example. We'll also see the change in hormones. We'll see changes in things like pro lain, which is a hormone that picks up on these things.

So you'll see change, DNA, we're right down to the level. We've looked right down to the level of telomeres, which are the ends of chromosomes. So labeling affects you all the way through, right down to that [00:44:00] level. So I always tell people, take the label, turn it around and say, okay. Don't say I am. Say I'm showing up as this because of, and then complete the cycle, get all the other descriptions added, find the thought, do that process.

And that, by the way, is called the neuro cycle. 

Hala Taha: And we cover that actually in our first episode. So I am gonna make sure that I play that episode so you guys can figure out how to undo your trauma and things like that. And what I hear you really saying in like the simplest terms, 'cause obviously I'm not a doctor or a scientist, is.

Instead of labeling yourself, what is the story that you're telling yourself yes. About you? What are the details of that story? And then how do you wanna retell that story? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: You summarized that beautifully. And the brain mind body connection, psycho neurobiology works on exactly that, telling the story and in an organized way.

So that's why I said literally find those four signals. That's the neuro cycle. It's a formula for how you actually get the rewiring, how you direct the neuroplasticity, how you change those faulty networks. So all that stuff [00:45:00] is happening in the back, but you are, you are acknowledging, why am I like this?

How do I want to be? Where's it from? You're changing your narrative. You have the right to write your story, no one else, and you can rewrite your 

story. 

 

Hala Taha: So what is the difference between overthinking and deep thinking and how can we pivot between the two?

Dr. Caroline Leaf: overthinking goes nowhere except in this loop that creates a lot of toxic stress inside of you. It makes you feel worse and worse and worse. You don't move anywhere versus deep thinking. Find solutions. It's a struggle.

It's creates friction, but it's growth and it's movement, and it gets to a point where you are getting some level of solution. So overthinking is very often. Triggered. We can imagine overthinking doesn't tap into the non-conscious, the wise, non-conscious. It's one of those loops that we get stuck and it's like this.

Someone says something to you at work or a family member says a statement, something like, yes, you always do that. Now it seems so innocent. Maybe they didn't even [00:46:00] mean to say it, but there's something that you maybe just. Just a response that you had to something in the conversation. And they turn around and they say that to you and it activates.

And then in your mind you're thinking, what do I always do? What do I always do? Am I bad? Do they not like me? What have I done? And there's this loop and there's no logic. It's just going nowhere. It's right. It's like hamster wheel. And that's 

Hala Taha: the addiction you were talking about before addiction. 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Exactly. It creates an addictive pattern because it releases all these dopamine, serotonin, andandamide, but all of these great chemicals, but in the wrong way, not in an organized, satisfying, healthy growth way, but in a destructive creates what we call it reduces the entropy of a system and what that fancy word means is.

It creates disorder and wherever there's disorder, there's going to be chaos and there's going to be a price we pay physically and mentally for that. So overthinking, you want to recognize that. And very often it'll take a good seven days to recognize the pattern and the patterns are the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, the how.

So when I talk about finding a pattern to overthinking or any of these things, you are asking yourself, who do I [00:47:00] do it with? When do I do it? Why do I do it? How do I do it? So the who, what, when, where, why, what have I left out? Who, what, when, where, why, how to ask those questions. And I've got little tables in the book that you can actually fill in.

And that's really important because then you can actually, you're honing down to what this thing is, you getting control over it. And that way it's easier for you to reconstruct how you want to change that. And then to recognize. 'cause once you've had some practice with overthinking, you may have heard me say this earlier on.

Whatever you've done, whatever story, whatever pattern, you'll always have them there, but they change instead of them being powerful, dominating forces, you turn them into teeny little shrunken little things. But at any point, if I don't control it, I could go back to overthinking. So one of my big things was regrets.

Regret cycles, and I know what it. I've shrunk the tree, I've done the work, but if something big happens, I can easily find myself saying, if only I see that, then this and all the scenario that would never, ever happen. And it makes me overthink, it makes, throws me into a cycle of overthinking that I know how to catch it.

I know how [00:48:00] to stop it and not let it regrow, et cetera, et cetera. 

Hala Taha: Let's talk about black and white thinking. How can people catch when they're doing this and what are the signs of it?

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Black and white thinking, there's a lot of use it or lose it. There's a lot of these kinds of phrases or it's like an and or game.

But life is not like that. Life's a gray scale it life. It's not either or, it's and. Okay. So it's not just one thing. So instead of saying words like always, never, those words rather shift to sometimes, and I may do that, those very strong adjectives. Are very good key signals that you stuck in black and white thinking.

We very harsh on ourself with black and white thinking. We get very judgmental of others. People that are very judgmental on themselves and others have a tendency to black and white thinking. If you don't think like me, then you are wrong. That's not correct. If you don't follow this religion, you're wrong.

If you don't follow this way of thinking, you are wrong. That's very black and white thinking and it's definitely not what life's about. So it limits connection, communication, et cetera. And so the way to break that, and I'm giving this quickly 'cause I know we are running out of [00:49:00] time, is, you know, these charts in the book, but go and have a look and I've put down the general words like always, never, et cetera.

And you can then track the pattern and then I've given you words that you can. Train yourself to say, so if you catch yourself saying never, which is a word I used to use a lot. If I say it now, the minute I say it, 'cause I've trained myself, I'll immediately, there's boom, it goes off in my head and I'll shift it over to, oh, sometimes you know, that's what you can do.

The deep thinking, overthinking. One of the quickest ways to break that. 'cause Quickest technique. Read fiction. Read stories, find a book you love and. As you read it, think about the close your eyes and just think about it.

In other words, to recreate deep thinking and find your identity. Again, characters in stories. We love stories. Humans love stories as we know. That's a quick way. There's a lot of other ways, but that's a very fast way of helping to get you into deep thinking versus overthinking. 

Hala Taha: So the next is a game segment and I'm gonna list some emotions and I want you to just quickly tell us what are some things that we can do to snap out of that emotion.

You might tell me it's all [00:50:00] the same for all of these, so we'll see. So it's a help in a hurry. Quick fire segment. You brought up regret, right? So let's talk about regret. What are some of the things that we need to know about regret and how can we make sure that we stop feeling so regretful in the moment?

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Everyone regrets. Everyone has suffers battles with regrets, some more than others, but according to research, literally 99% of the world's population battle with regret. I dunno what the 1% does, but they're the ones that have started managing it. So it's normal. But regret. You have what we call upward and downward counterfactuals.

And what that means is there's a fact that's happened. Something happened, something was said, something was done. You did something, whatever, wrote an email, had a conversation, whatever, and then that's happened. Those are the facts. Now we counter the facts with a regret, say. Ah, if only I had said that, then this would've happened.

And then we visualize this wonderful ending of all these great things and you feel absolutely terrible. Or you might say it could have got worse. That's called a downward counterfactual. So the thing to break it is never [00:51:00] ghost yourself. This is really key. Never ghost yourself if you have a regret. Honor that regret.

That's how you break the cycle, interrupt the cycle with honoring the regret. What do I mean by that? I'm not making it better. I am validating. I'm not ghosting it. I'm gonna say, okay, I recognize I'm in a regret. I'm saying, and I'll actually say that I am saying, and as you say it out loud to yourself, you'll think, gosh.

Caroline, you can't do that. It's puts you in a state where you can almost give yourself therapy literally. So it's very much one of acknowledge, say it out loud, preferably if you are in a crowd or in company, just say, okay, I'm in a regret cycle. I validate what you're saying in your head, but you can't go any further and let's move on.

Enter back in the conversation or enter, do something different, like a minor distraction. Then you can come back and you can see is this a pattern? And then you can do a 63 day. It's not to ghost yourself, but it's immediately to stop it. So this is it. Okay, I acknowledge it, but now let's move on. Let's close that curtain and let's move on.

I'll deal with it later. I'll find the pattern. 

Hala Taha: So [00:52:00] is shame or embarrassment, something similar that you would do? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Shame's a heavier one than embarrassment. So I would almost separate those two embarrassment. It can lead to, obviously these things. There's a lot of crossover. So when we embarrass, we often think, I wish I had done this.

So you can go into a regret cycle, but you can use that. Data. So if you're embarrassed, it's okay to be embarrassed. It's okay to not be okay. That's a big, strong message throughout my book. It's okay to not be okay. So when we embarrassed, we need to be able to tell ourselves that it's okay to not be okay.

This is what I'm embarrassed about. It's valid to be embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for you being embarrassed. Whatever you that don't ghost yourself. That's what you can hear me saying. And then mind shift say, okay, well it's happened. And I can tell you those people are, if they laugh at you for a few moments, listen, there's another thing coming along that will be more embarrassing, that'll be entertain them even more.

It's happened. It's done. How can you grow through it? You know? It's that kind of mind shift that will catch it and stop it. But it's not to allow self to keep going down the rabbit hole. Catch the regret. Catch the embarrassment. Shame is very deep. Shame. Tends to be linked to identity. [00:53:00] Shame tends to need a lot more work than embarrassment.

Very often we'll need a, you know, it'll need a 63 second catch, and then a 63 day, if not more. I find a lot of my patients that were abused had a lot of shame because it was spoken over to them and those patterns were established, so they battled, receive compliments, and they always will see the worst in themselves and a lot of self-talk, that kind of thing.

Hala Taha: Okay, the last one here. What if you're feeling lonely? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: So this is AI question. They're worried about, are we gonna turn to AI bots to solve our loneliness? Okay. That's just a sidebar there as well, is that it can never satisfy our, and a bot could never satisfy that human connection. Okay, so loneliness is, we've gotta separate being alone and loneliness, and there's so much in the media.

Rightfully so about the epidemic of loneliness, and I even interviewed a previous surgeon General about this, and he had a whole, and I'm totally all behind that loneliness has become a problem. We do live in a country that is very much individualized as opposed to community focused. So what we do [00:54:00] about loneliness is we all pretty much understand that there is a problem.

And that it goes against our human nature. We need connection. We all get that. So then the thing is just to think not, oh, this is so terrible. It's going there, it's gonna kill me and whatever. 'cause it does affect your heart and all that. It's to think, what can I do? What is the smallest thing that I can actually do?

I can reconnect with an old family member and I can set up a text thing once a week where we can talk, or I can go and invite my neighbors over for coffee and do it on a regular basis. I make it. It's getting yourself comfort zone. We from. Individualized society and working so hard and pressure. We are just too tired to do anything.

So if you don't feel like physically going and having coffee, text each other, get on the phone, set a date to have a chat, and then try and get to the physical so it's action. 'cause we all know the reasons. There's enough literature out there. 

Hala Taha: so I wanna talk about your career because we've got a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs out there, and you have a unique career where you started as a doctor and a researcher, and then you [00:55:00] decided to start a personal brand and post online and start a podcast and write books.

So first of all, talk to us about why did you decide to actually step out as a public figure? What was that decision making like? And then what were some of the early things that you did to break out there? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: I didn't know about branding and social media and all that kind of thing when it was not a thing 25 years ago as much as it's now.

But what had happened was that in my career of, I worked in private practice, I had a clinical practice and quite a big one, and then I used to do a lot of training and lecturing, so I lectured students and I trained physicians. And so I was already in a public speaking environment and I got invited more and more public speaking.

It was people telling me, Hey, you need to share this with more than I got offered a publishing deal. This was. 30 odd years ago, and I wrote my first book, and so it was a natural progression to recognize that, hey, this is something that I can help X amount of people individually. We have restarted our individual coaching again, but it's [00:56:00] very limited.

Obviously we have limited numbers. That I work with, but I can reach millions and I, we do. We literally reach millions. My goal is to empower people, to empower themselves. As I said earlier on, 1% is brain and body. 99% is mind. So I wanted to teach people about mind because if you can tap into intuition, you can find your identity.

I know you know my book, the Perfect You. That is very key because in this world of influencers, social media. Branding, there's a lot of competition and there's a lot of, I've gotta be like that person and a lot of loss of authenticity and a lot of, oh geez, I need to be like that person. They in my arena, and look what they're doing and I've gotta emulate what they're doing.

My advice, I've fallen in that trap and as soon as you do that, you lose your authenticity. The thing is, is to try and not look at the numbers and try and not look at, even though now then have it that you don't have to look at numbers. Be more balanced first. Find you. There's something you can do that no one else can do.

Maintain that authenticity. This was so key for me. I've had one message for [00:57:00] all these years and I have stuck to that message. Come, hello High water. I have been told by many people, change this, change that, change this. Careful of that wording there. And I have. I respect and honor any advice, but I'll keep to the truth of the science and the message.

And I've kept to that and I've tried to keep as authentic as I can. And then around that, I've let teachers come in, people come into my lives to say, Hey, maybe you could say this differently, or maybe you could do a little bit of this for personal branding or whatever. It's. People that know more than me about areas that I know absolutely nothing about, I will learn from them.

Open to learn. So authenticity is number one. Retain your identity. Don't allow yourself to get into competition. The minute you start competing, you will lose your authenticity. You may have numbers and whatever, but the sustainability will go, don't compete, rather enhance. We are actually designed. As humans for enhancement, which means lifting others up.

If I celebrate you, hola, I'm not taking anything from me. I'm actually increasing my own empowerment and my own authenticity. I'm growing, but we don't live in a culture like that. We live in a culture [00:58:00] that, oh, I've gotta do better than this one. I've gotta do better than that one. And it's very, very hard.

It's so easy and I fall in that trap, but I catch it quickly. I use Ari, I get out of it as quickly as I possibly can. So that's really what I would say. And, and learn. Get the best teachers. I have some of the best teachers around me. I have people in my team that I know nothing about that have taught me so much.

Be open to learning and get the experts around. I can't do everything. I know what I can do. I stick to what I can do, and then I get the experts around me to do the other stuff. 

Hala Taha: Well, your brand has blown up so much that it's become sort of a family business, right? So your husband is the CEO. I believe your kids work for you.

So talk to us about mixing family and business. What are the pros? What are the cons? Why do you do it? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: It's always funny story because I never actually asked any of them to come in. They all chose to. Now my son-in-law was also involved, which is really great. So we've got the whole team involved. Our core team is basically family and then everyone else, our contractors.

So how it happened was that I had my private practice, my husband had his own business, and he [00:59:00] always ran, did all the. Sort of accounting side of the business, sort of business management side, and then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. So he then basically sold his business and came in and took over CEO.

By that stage, my eldest daughter had finished her degrees and so she had been helping out while she was at university, and she got involved and then second one went after her degrees, went to work, and then she decided, this is interesting. And then that's what happened right down to the youngest. So, yeah, it's just didn't happened naturally.

I think that's really important. I didn't ask them to get involved. I'm thrilled they're involved because they're immersed. They've grown up with us, but it was something that came naturally from them. I think the key is they like what I do. This is important. It's important content that we deliver and.

They sold on the content and they determined to try and get this out, and I think that's what's drawn them in. Yeah, sure. We have our issues. You have to be very careful that you don't work 24 7. We have to have, okay, it's now weekend. We are on a walk, we don't talk business. We at dinner, we don't talk.[01:00:00] 

It's hard. I mean, they're so easy to slip into, oh, you know what this, and to bring up work over dinner. So it's very important. And then the other thing is, is you gotta lay ground rules in meetings. And that's been very hard because it's, oh mom, you know, or, or you can, it's so much easier to snap it to your husband or your child or get irritated or say something would never say to a colleague.

So these rules, you have to put rules in place and you have to keep. Putting those rules in place and we fall all the time, but we keep picking ourselves up. Don't take offense, keep moving on. None of us take offense. We say sorry, fast. Very key. You irritated with someone, you snap at them. Say sorry. Fix it.

Take ownership. Take responsibility. No one forces you to get angry. No one forces you to get irritated. You choose. Take responsibility. You choose. You can choose to change. 

Hala Taha: This has been such an awesome conversation and I wanna make sure I'm respecting your time. So I end my show with two questions. You can answer them really fast.

What is one actionable thing our young Anders can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Manage your mind. Get [01:01:00] to know your mind. Understand the importance of mind. Don't think you ruled by your brain and your body. Your mind is fundamental. Your biology is driven by your mind. And then the other thing I'd say as well is that you can't control events and circumstances, but you can control your reactions. You can turn reactions into responses. 

Hala Taha: You have so much work out there. Where is the first place that people should go find your stuff to get started? 

Dr. Caroline Leaf: Probably social media, Dr. Caroline Leaf. I'm on every platform. My webpage is dr leaf.com and my books are available wherever books are sold. And then I've got the podcast Dr. Leaf Show. 

Hala Taha: We're gonna stick all those links in the show notes. Dr. Caroline, you were always welcome to come back on the show. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much. Great questions. I really enjoyed it. 

Well, yap. Bam. What an insightful conversation with Dr. Caroline Leaf back on the show for a second time and as eye-opening as ever. If you take away one thing from this episode, let it be this. You don't have to wait to heal. Dr. Lee's new book, help In A Hurry [01:02:00] is all about giving you fast science-backed tools that you can use in the heat of the moment.

You can reset your mind in just 63 seconds. That way you stop reacting and start moving toward a more intentional response. I love the concept of mind, brain, body connection. A reminder that what we think about will grow if we stay stuck in negativity. We're not just spiraling emotionally. We're literally wiring toxicity into our brain structure.

But the good news is that we can choose to think differently. With awareness. You can create new neural pathways that lead to peace, clarity, and better business outcomes. Entrepreneurs, this is your competitive edge. Dr. Leaf also dropped a massive truth bomb. Not every emotional struggle is a disorder. We live in a culture that loves to label depression, A DHD, but those labels can quickly become boxes that we live in.

Caroline challenges us to stop identifying with the problem and instead get curious about the root, what is triggering all of it? What is the pattern? What are the stories you're telling about yourself? She [01:03:00] encourages us to stop identifying with our struggles and start organizing our thoughts into meaningful narratives and take back our control.

And lastly, my favorite part of the conversation was when we talked about ai because her take was refreshing, it was unique, and it was also relieving because she knows so much about the brain and consciousness, and she says that AI may replicate human output, but it's never gonna replace humans. It's never gonna replace human consciousness.

The ability to think deeply, feel meaningfully, and manage our minds. That's what makes us truly human. As entrepreneurs in the age of automation, our ability to regulate our thoughts and emotions will be our. Ultimate differentiator. So yap, bam. If you're feeling stressed, anxious, or mentally cluttered, don't rush to label it.

Pause, reflect, reframe, and remember, your mind is literally a magical tool that is near impossible to replicate, not even by ai. So manage it well, and there's no limit to what you can build. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting podcast. If you listen, [01:04:00] learned and profited from this amazing conversation with Dr.

Caroline Leaf, then send it to somebody who you know is ready to transform their mental wellbeing. And if this episode helped you shift your mindset, do us a solid and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show. It's one of the best ways to support us. If you guys wanna watch all of your videos on YouTube, it's uploaded on there.

We're also now on Spotify video if you guys wanna check that out. You can follow me on Instagram at YAP with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha.  is your host, Hala Taha, AKA, the podcast princess signing off.