Unlocking Potential with the Key of Knowledge

Ever feel like there's a voice inside your head that just won't shut up? That voice, which author Don Miguel Ruiz calls 'The Voice of Knowledge', can sometimes be our harshest critic, flooding our minds with doubt and self-deception. This week, we're on a mission to help you reclaim your power by silencing that voice and breaking free from self-limiting beliefs.

We'll guide you through Ruiz's transformative exploration of the 'Voice of Knowledge' - helping you to recognize the lies it tells, and providing you with strategies to tame its influence over your life. You'll discover how these lies, if not challenged, can hold you back from expressing your needs, and ultimately, from pursuing your dreams. But don't despair! The journey may be challenging, but the rewards of self-discovery and liberation are worth it.

In the second part of our conversation, we shift our focus to 'Career Self-Care' with Minda Zetlin. We'll share practical tips to boost your brain function, maximize productivity, and enhance effectiveness at work. Including everything from the importance of quality sleep and hydration to managing decision fatigue and distractions, Zetlin’s tips are designed to help you thrive in your professional life. Plus, we'll reveal the secrets of seasoned presenters and how they reset their mindset before stepping on stage. Tune in and let us help you transform your work life and personal life, shedding light on the power of the 'Voice of Knowledge' and the strategies to tame it.

Transcript

Heather Ross: 0:01

Welcome to At the Table when we are connecting entrepreneurs, discovering missions and building communities with purpose Body, soul, mind and Business with Charlie and Heather, with Free Time Solutions.

Charlie Hoffman: 0:18

Good morning, welcome to the Table. I'm Charlie, your host, and welcome to this week's weekly reading, if you have been along this journey with us. We are learning and growing together, and right now we are reading the Voice of Knowledge by Don Miguel Ruiz and Career Self-Care by Minda Zetlin. I'm going to read a chapter of each book each week. You can go back and listen to previous chapters or you can hop right in where you're at and grow with us. Either way, up to you. Thank you for joining us on this adventure and let's go ahead and get started. The Voice of Knowledge by Don Miguel Ruiz. This week we are in chapter 6, inner Peace Taming the Voice with the Two Rule.

Charlie Hoffman: 1:16

More and more, I kept exploring the whole dynamic of the story that humans create. What I discovered is that the story has a voice, a voice so loud, yet only we can hear it. As I said before, you can call it thinking if you want. I call it the Voice of Knowledge. That voice is always there, it never stops. It's not even real, but we hear it. Of course, you can say well, it's me, I'm the one who is talking. But if you are the voice that is talking, then who is listening. The Voice of Knowledge can also be called the Liar, who lives in your head. A beautiful tree of knowledge lives in your head and it's the home for guess who? The Prince of Lies? Oh yes, and this is the problem, because the voice of the liar speaks in your language. But your integrity is spirit. The truth has no language. You just know the truth you feel it.

Charlie Hoffman: 2:24

The voice of your spirit tries to come out, but the voice of the liar is stronger and louder and it hooks your intention. Almost all of the time. You hear the voice, and not just one voice, but the entire Mito-tei, which is like a thousand voices calling all at once. And what are those voices telling you? Look at you. Who do you think you are? You will never make it. You aren't smart enough. Why should I try? Nobody understands me. What is he doing? What is she doing? What if he doesn't love me? I'm so lonely. Nobody wants to be with me, nobody really likes me. I wonder if those people are talking about me, what will they think about me? Look at all the injustice in the world. How can I be happy when millions of people are dying of starvation?

Charlie Hoffman: 3:22

The voice of knowledge is telling you what you are and what you are not. It's always trying to make sense out of everything. I call it the voice of knowledge because it's telling you everything you know. It's telling you your point of view in a conversation that never ends. For many people it's even worse because the voice is not just talking nonsense. The voice is judging and criticizing. It's constantly gossiping in your head about you and the people around you. That voice is usually lying, because it's the voice of what you have learned, and you have learned so many lies, family, about yourself. You cannot see the liar, but you can hear the voice. The voice of knowledge can come from your own hidden, or it can come from people around you. It can be your own opinion or it can be the opinion of somebody else, but your emotional reaction to that voice is telling you I'm being abused. Every time we judge ourselves, find ourselves guilty and punish ourselves, it's because the voice in our head is telling us why, every time we hear a conflict with our father, our mother, our children or our beloved, it's because we believe in these lies and they believe in them too.

Charlie Hoffman: 4:39

But it's not just that. When we believe in lies, we cannot see the truth. So we make thousands of assumptions and we take them as truth. One of the biggest assumptions we make is that the lies we believe are the truth. For example, we believe that we know what we are. When we get angry, we say, oh, that's the way I am. When we get jealous, oh, that's the way I am. When we hate, oh, that's the way I am. But is this true? I'm not sure about that. I used to make the assumption that I was the one who was talking, that I was the one who said all of those things that I didn't want to say. It was a big surprise when I discovered that it was not me. It was the way I learned to be, and I practiced and practiced until I mastered that performance.

Charlie Hoffman: 5:31

The voice that says that's the way I am is the voice of knowledge. It's the voice of the liar living in the tree of knowledge in your head. The tall tech consider it a mental disease that is highly contagious because it's transmitted from human to human through knowledge. The symptoms of the disease are fear, anger, hatred, sadness, jealousy, conflict and separation between humans. Again, these lies are controlling the dream of our life. I think this is obvious. My grandfather told me in the simplest way Miguel, the conflict is between the truth and what is not the truth, and this was nothing new. Two thousand years ago, one of the greatest masters, at least in my story, said and you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free. Free from what? From all those lies, especially from the liar who lives in your head and talks to you all the time, and we call it thinking. I used to tell my apprentices just because you hear a voice in your head, it doesn't mean that it's speaking the truth. Well, don't believe that voice, and that voice won't have any power over you.

Charlie Hoffman: 6:45

There's a movie that illustrates my point beautifully. It's called A Beautiful Night. At first I thought, oh, another spy movie. But I became more interested when I realized that the main character is Schizophrenic. He's a brilliant man, a genius, but he sees people who don't exist. These people are controlling his life because he listens to their opinions and follows whatever they tell him to do. They are lying to him and by listening to what they tell him, he is ruining his life. He has no idea that these people are hallucinations until his wife puts him in a mental hospital where he is diagnosed as Schizophrenic and given medications. The visions disappear, but the drug has secondary effects and he decides to stop taking it.

Charlie Hoffman: 7:31

Without the drug, the visions come back and he finds out that it's true that nobody else can see the people he sees. Now he has to make a choice go back to the hospital, lose his wife and accept that he is mentally ill, or face the visions and overcome them when he finally has the awareness that the people he sees are not real, he makes a very smart decision. He says I will not pay attention to them, I will not believe what they tell me. The power the visions have over him is lost when he no longer believes in them. With this awareness, he finds peace and, after many years of not putting his attention on them, the visions hardly talk to him anymore, even though he still sees them. They don't waste their time because he doesn't listen to them any more.

Charlie Hoffman: 8:24

This movie is wonderful because it shows that if you don't believe the voice in your head, it loses the power it has over you and you become the authentic idea. The voice in your head isn't even real, but it's ruling your life and it's a tire. Once that voice hooks your attention and makes you do whatever it wants you to do. How many times has the voice made you say yes when you really wanted to say no? Or the opposite the voice made you say no when you really wanted to say yes? How many times has the voice made you doubt what you feel in your heart? How many times have you missed opportunities to do what you really want to do in your life because of fear. Fear, that was a reaction to believing the voice in your head. How many times have you broken up with someone you really love just because the voice of knowledge holds you to do it? How many times have you tried to control the people you love because you follow that voice? How many times have you gotten angry or jealous or lost control and hurt people you really love just because you believed that voice?

Charlie Hoffman: 9:34

You can see what you have done by following Instructions from the Voice of Knowledge, by following the lies. That voice tells you so many things to do that go against yourself, just like the visions of the character in the movie. The only difference between you and that man is that maybe you don't see the visions, but you hear the voice. It's overwhelming, it never stops and we pretend that we are not releasing. It's obvious that the Voice of Knowledge is a story talking by itself. As soon as an idea hooks your attention, your story goes in that direction. Then it takes you anywhere and everywhere without any direction. Every idea is repeating itself and there are so many ideas in your head competing for your attention that the voice is changing from one moment to the next. Boom, boom, boom. I compare the Voice of Knowledge to a wild horse that is taking you wherever it wants to go. You have no control over that horse, but if you cannot stop the horse, at least you can try to tame the horse. I tell my apprentices, once you learn to tame the horse, you will ride the horse and thinking becomes a tool that takes you where you want to go.

Charlie Hoffman: 10:54

If you don't believe that voice, it becomes quieter and quieter and speaks to you less and less until it stops talking to you. If you have to talk to yourself, then why not be friendly? Why not tell yourself how beautiful and wonderful you are? Then at least you have someone to talk to when you're alone. But if the voice in your head is nasty and abusive, then it's no fun at all. If that voice is telling you lies, if it's letting you know why you should be ashamed of yourself or why your beloved doesn't love you, then it's better to be quiet. If you don't like a person, you can walk away from that person. If you don't like yourself, you can't escape yourself. You are with yourself wherever you go. This is why some people try to numb themselves with alcohol or drugs, or maybe they overeat or gamble to make themselves forget who they are with Of course this doesn't work because storyteller judges everything we do and this only leads to more shame and self-rejection.

Charlie Hoffman: 12:00

Long ago I stopped listening to the voice of knowledge. I remember that I used to go outside and tell myself I don't look at the beautiful flowers. They smell so good as if I didn't know that. I no longer make up stories for myself. I know what I know. Why tell myself what I already know? Does this make sense? It's just a habit. I don't waste my time and energy by talking to myself. I no longer have that ongoing voice in my head and I can assure you that it's wonderful. You don't need internal dialogue. You can know without thinking.

Charlie Hoffman: 12:42

The value of cultivating a silent mind has been known for thousands of years In India. People use meditation and the chanting of mantras to stop the internal dialogue. To have peace in your head is incredible. Imagine being in an environment where there is a constant sound. The moment comes when you don't even notice the noise. You know something is bothering you, but you no longer notice what it is. The moment the noise stops, you notice the silence and feel relieved. Ah, when the voice in your head finally stops talking. It feels something like that. I call it inner peace.

Charlie Hoffman: 13:26

When I shared this with my apprentices, they understood what I was telling them. They said we know the voice of knowledge lives in our head and we know that it's a liar, but how do we stop it? But, talking to us, can you give us a little more help? By that time I had already won over that voice and I was completely at peace. I said okay, I will give you two simple rules. If you follow these rules, there is a chance that you will tame the voice or even win the challenge against the liar.

Charlie Hoffman: 14:01

The solution for taming the liar is to stop believing what it tells you. What happens when someone tells you a lie and you know it's a lie? It doesn't affect you because you don't believe the lie. If you don't believe it, the lie cannot survive the test of your skepticism. And boom, the lie disappears. Simple, but in the simplicity there is also a big challenge. Why? Because believing your own lies makes you feel safe and believing the lies of other people is very tempting. When you are ready for the challenge, the following two rules will accelerate the process of purifying your belief system, which is everything in your personal tree of knowledge. Rule number one don't believe yourself, but keep your mind open. Keep your heart open, listen to yourself, listen to your stories, but don't believe it, because now you know that the story you are writing is fiction. It's not real.

Charlie Hoffman: 15:06

When you hear the voice in your head, don't take it personally. You know that knowledge is usually lying to you. Listen and ask if it's speaking the truth or not. If you don't believe your own lies, your lies will not survive and you can make better choices based on truth. Don't believe yourself, but learn to listen, because sometimes the voice of knowledge can have a brilliant idea and if you agree with the idea, then take it. It could be a moment of inspiration that leads to a great opportunity in life. Respect your story and learn to really listen. When you listen to your story, the communication with yourself will improve 100%. You will see your story with clarity and if you don't like the story, you can change it.

Charlie Hoffman: 15:54

Don't believe yourself, mainly when you are using the voice against yourself. The voice can make you afraid to be alive, to express who you really are. It can stop you from doing what you really want to do with your life. That voice has been in control of your head for so many years and no, that voice will not give up just because you want it to leave you alone. But at least you can challenge that voice by not believing what it's telling you. That's why I say don't believe yourself.

Charlie Hoffman: 16:30

Rule number two don't believe anybody else, and that includes me. For the same reason, you know that if you lie to yourself, surely other people lie to themselves, and if they lie to themselves, surely they will lie to you as well. When people talk to you, who is speaking through them? Who is dictating what they say? You have no idea if what they are saying is coming from their heart or from the Prince of Lies who lives in your head. You don't know. So don't believe them, but learn to listen without judging. You don't need to judge people because they lie. How many times have you heard someone say, oh, he's a pathological liar, when in reality, everybody is possessed by the Prince of Lies? There are lies everywhere. People are always lying and when they don't have awareness, they don't even know it. Sometimes they really believe what they are saying is true and they can really believe it. But it doesn't mean that it's true. Don't believe anybody. But this doesn't mean closing your mind or your heart.

Charlie Hoffman: 17:36

Listen to other people tell their story, you know that it's just a story and that it's only true for them. When you listen, you can understand their story, you can see where people are coming from and the communication can be wonderful. Other people need to express their story, to project what they believe, but you don't have to agree with what they say. Don't believe, but learn to listen, even if it's just a story. Sometimes the words that come from other storytellers come from their integrity. When this happens, your own integrity recognizes it right away and you agree with what they are saying. Their voice goes directly to your spirit and you feel all ready and you feel you already know what they are telling you is the truth. Don't believe anybody else, but listen, because sometimes a moment of inspiration or opportunity can come through the voice of someone else.

Charlie Hoffman: 18:41

The way other people create their story might reflect the way you create your story and when they are exposed, you can see how they invest their faith in lies. You might see the lies right away when you couldn't see them in yourself. By listening to their story, you might recognize the truth about something you do all the time and that truth can change your own story. Listen to their story, but don't believe it. That is the key. If other people tell you, look at the way you are dressed, that remark doesn't ruin your day. You listen to their story, but you don't believe it. You can decide if it's true or not according to your story, but you don't have an emotional reaction anymore. If you decide that it's true, you can change what you are wearing and there's no more problem. This is something simple that is happening all the time.

Charlie Hoffman: 19:41

People constantly express their point of view and reject any response for their friend to do, but don't believe them. When people talk about you now you know that they are talking about a secondary character in their story who represents you. They are talking about an image they create for you. You know that it has nothing to do with you, but if you agree, you believe what they say. Then their story becomes a part of your story and if you take it personally, it modifies your story. If you don't take it personally, the opinions of others do not affect you the way they used to and you have more patience with people. This helps you to avoid a great deal of conflict.

Charlie Hoffman: 20:23

If you follow these two rules don't believe yourself and don't believe anybody else, all of the lies that come from the voice of knowledge won't survive your skepticism. Being skeptical is not about being judgmental. It's not about taking the position that you are more intelligent than others. You just don't believe, and what is true will become obvious. This is very interesting, because the truth survives your skepticism, even if you don't believe it. That is the beauty of the truth. The truth doesn't need anybody to believe it. The truth is still the truth, whether or not you believe it.

Charlie Hoffman: 21:02

Can we say the same about lies? No, lies only exist because we believe them. If we don't believe in lies, they simply disappear. Every day. The sun is in the sky. Whether we believe it or not. The earth is round, even if the entire world believes that it's flat. Hundreds of years ago, everyone believed this lie. They would swear that the earth was flat and they were certain that the earth was the center of the universe, with the sun revolving around it. People really believed this. They had no doubt about it. But just because they believed it, did that make it true? No, but believing those lies made them feel safe. Humans believe so many lies. Some of these lies are so subtle and convincing that we base our entire virtual reality on them, without even noticing that they are lies.

Charlie Hoffman: 22:00

The lies we believe about ourselves can be difficult to see because we are so used to them that they seem normal. For example, if you believe the common lie I'm not worth it, that lie lives in your mind because you believe it. If you don't believe people who tell you how great you are and you don't believe them because you believe the opposite, your faith is already invested in a belief that is not the truth. It's a lie, but your faith guides your actions by not feeling worthy. How do you express yourselves with other people? You are shy. How can you ask for something when you do not believe you are worth it? What you believe about yourself is what you project to other people, and that is what others then believe about you. Of course, that is how they treat you, which only reinforces the belief that you aren't worth it. And what is the truth? The truth is that you are worth it. Everybody is worth it.

Charlie Hoffman: 23:01

If you believe the lie that you cannot speak in public, then thy will be done. When you try to speak in public, you are afraid. The only way to break your faith is this agreement, and this agreement is by taking the action and doing it, then you prove that it's a lie and you are no longer afraid. If you believe that you cannot have a loving relationship, thy will be done. If you feel that you don't deserve love, even if love is a friend of you, you just don't take it because you are blind to it. You only see what you want to see and you only hear what you want to hear. Everything you perceive is just more support for your lies.

Charlie Hoffman: 23:45

If you understand these examples, you can just imagine how many lies you believe about yourself and how many lies you believe about your parents, your children, your siblings or your partner. Every time you judge them, you give voice to the false beliefs in your own tree of knowledge. You give your power to the lies, and what is the result? Anger, jealousy or even hate. Then you accumulate all of that emotional poison and the moment comes when you lose control and say something that you don't want to say. You can see the power of what I'm sharing with you.

Charlie Hoffman: 24:24

You can change your life by refusing to believe your own lies. You can start with the main lies that limit the expression of your happiness and your love If you take your faith away from the lies, they lose their power over you. Then you can recover your faith and invest in different beliefs. If you stop believing in lies, everything in your life changes just life of magic. There's part of the Iliad by Homer that I really love we, the gods, will live as long as the humans believe in us. The day the humans no longer believe in us, all the gods will disappear. This is beautiful. Centuries ago, the Greek gods were worshiped by hundreds of thousands of people. Today, they are just lesbians. When we don't believe in lies, the lies disappear and the truth becomes obvious. Many lies enslave us, but only one thing can free us, and it's the truth. Only the truth can set us free from the fear, the drama and the conflict in our lives. This is the absolute truth, and I cannot put it more simply than that.

Charlie Hoffman: 25:39

Wights to ponder. What you call thinking is the voice of knowledge, making up stories, telling you what you know and trying to make sense out of everything you don't know. The problem is that the voice makes you do many things that go against yourself. The voice in your head is like a wild horse, taking you wherever it wants to go. Once you take the horse, you can ride the horse. The knowledge becomes a tool for communication that takes you where you want to go. You don't need internal dialogue. You can know without thinking. You can perceive with your feelings. Why waste energy telling yourself what you already know or worrying about what you don't know? When the voice in your head finally stops talking, you experience inner peace.

Charlie Hoffman: 26:34

The solution for taming the liar in your head is to stop believing what it tells you. If you follow two rules don't believe yourself and don't believe anybody else, all of the lies you believe won't survive your skepticism and will simply disappear. The truth survives our skepticism, but we cannot say the same about lies. Lies can only survive if we believe them. The truth is still the truth whether or not we believe it. That is the beauty of the truth. The voice of knowledge rules your life and it is a tyrant. If you refuse to obey that voice, it becomes quieter and quieter and speaks to you less and less until it no longer controls you. When the voice loses power over you, lies no longer ruling your life and you become authentic again. Okay, and this week in Career Self-Care by Minda Zetlin, chapter 19,. You have a Brain. Here's how to make the most of it.

Charlie Hoffman: 27:41

Many years ago, a neuroscientist named Josh Davis was scheduled to give a presentation at a large conference. The conference was in a destination city, so his wife cleared her schedule and arranged for vacation time so she could accompany him. The presentation was scheduled for Monday and on Saturday, just as Davis and his wife were planning a day of sightseeing, he learned that a more senior colleague of his was going to give almost the same presentation that Davis had planned. As a more junior person, I had to change my presentation. Davis, now the chief scientist at Mentor Institute, said in an episode of the podcast Intersections. This meant he had less than two days to create a new presentation to give to a huge audience, even though his wife had gone to a lot of trouble to be there with him so they could enjoy the city together.

Charlie Hoffman: 28:39

If it had been me, I would have been overcome with frustration, anxiety and flat out fear. I'd have apologized crumply to my spouse and sent him off to explore the city on his own. I'd have been furious at my colleague for stealing my thunder, at myself for not having to come up with something more original and at my husband for getting to have a good time while I had to slave away in our hotel room, I'd have ordered a gallon of coffee and maybe some pastry from room service Popped up in my laptop and struggled to contain my broiling emotions long enough to get a new presentation written. Fortunately for Davis, as a brain expert, he knew better than to do any of that. He spent the next couple of hours strolling around the city with his wife and then had a nice leisurely lunch. The stress levels started to reduce, he said yeah, it was still on my mind.

Charlie Hoffman: 29:39

I knew I had to do it, but there were breakthroughs occurring in my mind as I started to realize what was important for me to do here with this audience and what messages I had that really were unique. I was able to stay focused so focused on my purpose. Because of that, not wanting to abandon his wife any longer than necessary, he rewrote his presentation in two hour and one hour work sessions over the next day and a half. Working in that limited time had surprising benefits because it forced Davis to zero in on what was most essential to include in the presentation. My mind automatically started going to this place of what is important here. He recalled the work I did was so on point and I managed to reuse a lot of his existing content from other things. How did the presentation go? People loved it. It was a big hit, he said. I've been able to use it again and again and I got to spend time with my wife. She was happy that she'd come.

Charlie Hoffman: 30:55

I'm not sure many of us would have the nerve to go for a leisurely stroll while facing the pressure of having to rewrite a major presentation. The knowledge that helped Davis make that choice is the basis of his work Two awesome hours, science-based strategies to harness your best time and get your most important work done, which is a quick read and full of information Davis has collected over the years and how to get your brain working at its best. The title comes from his conviction that the majority of us spend most of our time on the job working with less than our best brain power, and that some of this is inevitable. But, he argues, if we pay attention to what helps and what hinders our brain function, most of us can achieve two hours of awesome productivity and creativity, which is enough to get our most important tasks done. Most people don't have two daily hours when their brains are working at their best, he says Many have none at all.

Charlie Hoffman: 31:58

Davis understands what few of us do that people are not machines. I know how obvious that might sound. Yes, we all know we're not machines in theory. In practice, though, we expect ourselves to work with the same consistency and dependability as a machine, even if we already been working for many hours, even if we haven't had the proper amount of sleep, leisure, exercise or nutrition, even if we are distracted, worried, frightened or emotionally drained. We may know that we're not machines, but we expect ourselves to act as though we were.

Charlie Hoffman: 32:34

I used to expect machine-like consistency and stamina from myself, but researching inkcom columns over the years about how to operate at your best eventually cured me of that expectation. Over time, I've adjusted my approach to work to take my own humanity into account and to make room for my personal habits and preferences, such as relaxing and reading for a while in the morning and working into the evening. It was painful, but I slowly let go of the belief that, through sheer self-discipline and force of will, I could make myself do whatever needed to get done. If you're still clinging to that belief, I hope this chapter will help you. Let go as well.

Charlie Hoffman: 33:20

If you must think of your brain as a machine, think of it as a very expansive, high-performance sports car. Yes, you can fill up with low-octane fuel, skip its need and maintenance, drive it for thousands of miles without stopping to let your engine cool down and slam on the brakes and push the accelerator to the floor over and over again. But if you do that, your sports car won't perform the way you want it to, and the more you do those things, the less well it will work. So how do you treat your brain like the high-performance vehicle that it is. Begin with the simplest fact about your brain, which is that it's an organ inside your body. I realize that I'm once again stating the obvious, but it's astonishing how many people act like their brains and their bodies have nothing to do with each other. They stay up late, arrive at their desks hungover, eat pastry for breakfast and french fries for lunch and then blame their colleagues for being too boring when they can't stay awake through the team meeting that afternoon. Many of the things Davis and the other experts recommend as ways to make your brain work better will sound very familiar, because they're also the things countless physicians and health experts, and probably your mother, have said you must do to stay healthy. This may sound like I'm nagging you, but to be this may sound like I'm nagging you to be healthier, and of course, I do want you to be healthier in the long term. But for the purposes of this chapter, let's forget about the long term. These are all things that will help you be more alert, more quick thinking and smarter in the here and now. You see tactics as short-term solutions. When you want your brain to be working at its best, you can return to your usual habits, healthy or not, the rest of the time.

Charlie Hoffman: 35:29

Sleep In chapter 16, I dived into the topic of how lack of sufficient sleep can affect your long-term health and even put you at risk for Alzheimer's disease. Research has shown that getting only six hours of sleep a night for nine nights produced the same effect as a 0.10% blood alcohol level. You probably wouldn't show up for work with that much alcohol in your bloodstream and expect to be as smart, efficient and alert if you were completely sober. Expecting yourself to perform at your best when you're even moderately sleep deprived is just as unrealistic. Don't do it.

Charlie Hoffman: 36:11

Nutrition People talk about brain food, but what is that exactly? It's not entirely clear, since the short-term effect of various types of food on mental function hasn't been studied as widely as it could be, according to Davis. Here's what we do know Carbs aren't brain food. Eating carbs might give you a very brief 15-minute boost in mental function, but after that they will drag you down, which may lead you to eat more of them and then more after that, and it's a losing battle. If you want to do your best work, avoid carbs, especially those that can spike your glycemic index, such as sweets, white bread and pasta. That's, on the other hand, maybe a better brain food. In one experiment that Davis City's subjects experienced a three-hour boost in brain function after consuming fat. You've probably heard right now that there are bad fats, such as animal fats and saturated fats, and good fats, which come from things like nuts and fish, contain omega-3 fatty acids. Davis notes that in the long term, those omega-3 fatty acids seem to help brain function, while saturated fats seem to harm it.

Charlie Hoffman: 37:25

Three caffeine may be good for you. A growing body of evidence seems to show that up to about four cups of coffee a day is fine, unless you're pregnant, in which case you should avoid it. According to Davis, an estimated 80% of the world's population consumes caffeine daily in some form, which is to say that most of us have a caffeine addiction. I know I do. While drinking coffee or another caffeinated beverage is definitely beneficial, davis warns against a very common error increasing your caffeine intake when you're feeling particularly tired or when you're short on sleep. Have whatever your normal dose of caffeine is, he advises. Having more than that will just make you jittery and anxious.

Charlie Hoffman: 38:15

Number two hydration. Most of us don't realize how much of an effect water has on our mental function and our moods. I learned this lesson myself on a trip to southern Utah with an old friend. We set out on a multi-day backpacking trip through the desert carrying plenty of water, or so we thought. Then we saw a sign at the trailhead that said we needed one gallon per person per day on the trail, and we had about half that much. We asked a passing park ranger for advice and he said we'd be okay because the weather wasn't all that hot. So often we're figuring we'd ration our water just to make sure we were thirsty over the next two days, which was to be expected since we were rationing water. What was more surprising was the dramatic effect it had on our moods and our relationship. It turns out that dehydration can make you very grumpy, and we found ourselves squabbling over just about everything. Eventually we came up on the stream. We immediately cut our plan hiking route short and instead camped next to it for two nights. We had a water treatment kit with us and we drank and drank and drank.

Charlie Hoffman: 39:36

Davis has some simple advice that we should all follow If it's been two hours or more since your last drink of water, have some Soda. Beer, juice and especially coffee don't count. This alone can noticeably improve your mood and energy level. Learning about the importance of hydration has turned me into one of those annoying people who carry a water bottle everywhere. I'm also inordinately fond of those old-fashioned water craft and glass combinations where the glass fits over the top of the bottle and doubles as a lid You're likely to see on the set of a period drama. They turn up in antique stores and flea markets, and my husband bought me one two years ago that sits on its own special coaster on my desk. I find that if I fill it before starting work in the morning, it's emptied by the end of the day without my having thought about it. Sometimes, just having a container that you like with an easy reach is enough to get you to drinking your water without any extra effort.

Charlie Hoffman: 40:47

Movement. You know by now that the regular exercise is important for your overall health and will lengthen your life. That's the long-term benefit of exercise. In the short term, exercise is a great idea because it's proven to improve your mood. In fact, a Harvard study found that people who spent an hour more a day moving than their sedentary counterparts had a 26% lower risk of depression, and that benefit helped even if they were doing everyday activities such as climbing stairs or folding laundry instead of official workouts. There's no doubt at all that regular exercise will make you both healthier and happier. I'm not here to tell you about the health benefits of regular exercise. I'm here to tell you that brief bits of movement too brief to have any real effect, can nevertheless change your mood and improve your brain function within moments.

Charlie Hoffman: 41:51

Years ago, I interviewed an executive coach and stress expert named Jenny Evans, who suggested something so simple and quick that anyone can do it in any circumstance, and it's absolutely brilliant. When you're feeling stressed, your bosses just chewed you out you realize you're going to miss an important deadline. You just lost a deal or a promotion you were counting on. Do some vigorous exercise, but only for 30 to 60 seconds. This could amount to running up one flight of stairs, doing a handful of lunges or jumping jacks, running in place or putting in your earbuds, turning on some dance music and dancing around your office or the parking lot for one minute or less. That's not enough time to work up a sweat, so you won't need to fuss with your clothes or change your shoes. Set a timer and when your 30 or 60 seconds are up, you're done. How can such a short bit of exercise make any difference at all. It's because of evolution, explains Evans.

Charlie Hoffman: 42:56

When you're under stress, hormones such as cortisol flood your system to produce the fight or flight response that help keep your ancient ancestors safe from an attacking enemy or other threat. Those hormones cause them to spring into a short burst of action, either to run away or to fight back. So 30 to 60 seconds of movement is enough to satisfy that urge and put some endorphins into your system instead. Years ago I was on a fight that had just arrived and I saw a tall man standing up to leave his seat in Bang's head painfully, on the low ceiling above him. He turned around and punched that ceiling hard, even though it was a silly thing to do and there were about a hundred people watching him. We've probably seen, or even had, such a reaction. That's how powerful stress hormones can be and why a short burst of exercise is such a good way of dealing with it.

Charlie Hoffman: 43:57

Beyond that, josh Davis says you can use exercise to maximize your productivity and effectiveness during your workday, and especially before giving a presentation or participating in an important meeting. In the next 30 minutes to five hours, how do I want to be thinking and feeling, he says, if you engage in some moderate exercise. A 40 minute risk walk, a 20 minute light job on the treadmill, 10 minutes going up and down stairs that is an extremely reliable way to reduce anxiety. That will get you in a more positive mood and able to collaborate more effectively. Use it when you really need to hit the reset button. Davis uses this tactic himself. Now that I know this, I build it into my preparations. If I'm traveling and I'm going to present, I'll jog in place for 15 minutes in my hotel room if I need to. The sort of thing is common among the most seasoned presenters. Tony Robbins, for example, famously bounces on a mini-tremble before heading on stage, knowing what to do.

Charlie Hoffman: 45:13

When I used to start my work day by reading my email and answering anything that required a response before digging into my real work, it seemed like such a logical approach. I could get any specific matters or questions that needed answering out of the way, giving good service to my clients by providing a rapid response. I even wrote a column about how all the efficiency experts were wrong about the need to combine email to an hour or two in the late afternoon. At the time I was HASA president and I argued that if I didn't answer my email properly, I would prevent others from getting on with their jobs because they'd have to wait for me to respond to their questions and requests. Besides, reading email is so enticing it doesn't seem to take much brainwork or energy. Every time that you answer someone's question or solve someone's problem and hit send, you're filled with a small sense of accomplishment. It seems like the perfect way to ease myself into the work day.

Charlie Hoffman: 46:16

But then I interviewed Davis. He made me see that starting the day with email was a terrible idea because of decision fatigue. Although we're mostly unaware of it, every decision we make, even if it seems inconsequential, costs us mental energy. We make a lot of decisions without noticing. He says Email involves a lot of decisions. Should I send this right now? Am I including the right people? Did I say it right way? A lot of people try to peck that in right before they're going to give a presentation or do something creative and they're affecting their ability to do that effectively. Conversely, later in the day, when you're worn out from more important tasks, it's a great time to tackle email and a terrible time to try to get yourself to do something creative or make an important decision Getting your most challenging creative work first thing which I try to do, though I don't always succeed and leaving email and other mundane tasks for later is one way that timing things properly can help you be much more effective.

Charlie Hoffman: 47:26

Another is to pay attention to your emotional state. Your mood also has a big effect on your ability to work productively. Even though you might not want to admit it I know I don't want to admit it I figure I should be able to do my best work whether I'm feeling happy, competent and fresh, or miserable, worn out and full of self-doubt. But I'm slowly learning to stop expecting machine-like consistency from myself and to recognize the massive effect my emotions have on my ability to function. I'm a very moody person and when I'm feeling happy it's easy to get in the flow of work. It's a great time to write pitches or meet with potential clients. People feel my bright mood and it makes them want to work with me. When I'm down, the opposite is true and everything drags. At those times, the best thing I can do for my productivity is to get up from my desk and find some way of getting out of my bad mood, such as going for a walk, watching something really absorbing on TV or talking with a friend Dealing with distractiveness.

Charlie Hoffman: 48:44

Most of us strive, or at least wish, for a workspace with few distractions and a relatively quiet setting in which to do our most awful work. We're right to want that, david says, since a calm, quiet environment is best for optimum brain function. But most of us also think that once we're in our workspace, we can concentrate fully on our work and, with nothing to pull us away from it, we can knock out hours and hours of focused productivity. That is pure fantasy. The human brain isn't wired to focus on one thing for hours on end. Instead, its natural state is to constantly scan whatever is in our environment, paying particular attention to anything new or unexpected. Once again, blame evolution. Detecting, approaching people, animals, flying objects and so on is a straightforward survival strategy, whereas staying focused on one thing without keeping an eye on potential dangers will leave us fairly exposed. This writes in two awesome hours.

Charlie Hoffman: 49:53

What should you do about it? Begin by eliminating your most compelling distractions. If you want to focus on an important task, you should, of course, have email and social media notifications turned off. David's also suggests putting your smartphone somewhere you can't easily reach it, such as on the other side of the room. If you start looking at Instagram or checking the latest news, you can lose half an hour or more before you realize it. Once you've removed the most compelling distractions, don't be afraid to let your mind wander. In fact, you should expect it to, david says, because that's the nature of the human brain. He recommends looking out the window or, if you don't have a window with a good view in your workspace, gazing at a poster from time to time during your workday. Whatever you do, don't get angry at yourself when your mind wanders away, because that's what it was designed to do. Looking out the window or at your poster is a sufficiently boring activity that your attention should naturally snap back to whatever you were working on within a few minutes. In Chapter 16, I talked about your brain's default network, which helps you solve problems while your attention is elsewhere. You just may find that once your mind is done wandering, the solution to whatever you were working on will have magically appeared.

Charlie Hoffman: 51:22

Exercises to Try 1. Break the email habit. How much time every day do you spend on email? More importantly, what time of day do you read and respond to email? If you're in the habit of reading email at the beginning of the day, try putting it off till late afternoon. The same goes for Slack messages, chat, text, phone calls and social media, and if you're accustomed to starting the day with some other mundane tasks, such as filing, filling out paperwork, set that aside for later as well. Instead, when you first arrive at your desk in the morning, tackle your biggest, most important task, the one that requires all your creativity and problem solving skills. Try this for a week or, if you can't imagine a week, for three days. At the end of that period, ask yourself whether doing your most important work at the start of the day helped you make more progress on the tasks that are most important and meaningful. Also ask yourself whether dealing with your email or Slack, etc. A bit later in the day created any major problems for you or for anyone you work with. If the answer to the first question is yes and the second one is no, consider making this a permanent change.

Charlie Hoffman: 52:38

2. Sleep Must. Adults require between 7 and 8 hours to sleep a night and, as I mentioned in chapter 16, some researchers believe that means you need at least 8 and a half hours in bed, since you don't spend 100% of your time in bed sleeping just for a week. Try to get those 8 hours Temporarily set aside other priorities you might have to make sure you have plenty of time for sleeping Really enough to wake up without an alarm. While you're at it, up your sleep hygiene by shutting down all electronic devices at least half an hour before bed. That includes the television. You can improve sleep hygiene even more by taking a bath and or having a cup of herbal tea before bed, having some light exercise, such as a walk during the evening, and eliminating all light from your bedroom. You don't have to do all these things, and you don't have to do any of them forever, but just try for one week to pray or to sleep over other things, even if you don't feel particularly sleep deprived. Remember that humans are very bad at knowing when they haven't had enough sleep. At the end of the week, check in with yourself and see how you feel. Ask yourself if your work is going well or badly. You may find that improved sleep really does make you feel better.

Charlie Hoffman: 54:03

And number three, create a schedule that takes your brain into account. You might start the typical workday with a set of tasks you want to either accomplish or make progress on Executive coaches and other career experts often recommend putting the most important of these into your calendar. In effect, making an appointment with yourself. This is a good idea, but try taking it a step further by making sure to block out the time when you know you're at your most creative and energetic to work on your most important and meaningful tasks for the day. For many people this might be first thing in the morning, although for me it's late afternoon to early evening, which just tells you that everyone is different. Thank you for joining us for this week's weekly reading. I hope you enjoyed this and make sure you join us on mindset Monday as we discuss the topics in the book. We'll see you next time, namaste.

Heather Ross: 55:09

As entrepreneurs, we have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in the world around us. In a time when the world is shifting towards supporting local businesses and embracing community-driven initiatives, it becomes even more important for us to give where heart leads us At the table. We believe in the power of giving back and that's why we have our cause of the quarter. This quarter, we are proud to support Perfect Pals, a local organization dedicated to rescuing and providing care for stray cats in our community. By supporting local causes like Perfect Pals, we not only make a difference in the lives of those in need, but we also contribute to the growth and well-being of our local community. We believe in small acts of kindness, and they can create a ripple effect of positivity, inspiring others to do the same. As we shift our focus solely from supporting large corporations to championing local businesses and giving back, we not only strengthen our community, but we also foster a sense of connection and unity. Together, we can create a thriving ecosystem where everyone can flourish. So let's follow our hearts and give where it truly matters. Join in supporting Perfect Pals and making a difference in the lives of these furry companions. Together, we can make our community a better place, one act of kindness at a time. Thank you for being part of our journey and for embracing the spirit of giving. Together, let's create a brighter future for all.

Heather Ross: 56:56

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Heather Ross: 57:47

Whether you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, freelancer, we offer comprehensive services tailored to your needs. Our goal is simple to give you back time freedom to do what you do best, while we handle the rest. So join us at the table and let Free Time Solutions empower you to take control of your time and unlock your full potential. Visit our website at wwwyourfreetimebackcom that's wwwyourfreetimebackcom to learn more and schedule your consultation today. Free Time Solutions your partner in success. Let's make the most of your free time together. Thank you for joining us at the table. Stay tuned for weekly readings on Sunday mindset Monday discussing our weekly readings on Monday and on Friday, our interview and potentially guest host stay tuned.

Charlie Hoffman: 58:53

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