Translator: Zeddi Lee Reviewer: Zsófia Herczeg
I have some good news for you today.
And that is that you can rewire your brains
and be great in your own right if you really want to.
I'm going to give you a brain-based perspective
on why we say that.
Your brain will look different on the inside
when you go home tonight
than what it looked like before you came here this morning.
Nelson Mandela was known for saying, "I was in jail for 27 years,
but my mind was never in jail."
So we're going to have a little bit of a neuroplasticity perspective
on how we can become great in our own right.
Now, when we look at this slide,
that's what a normal brain is supposed to look like.
And specifically, I'd like you to focus on an area there
which we call the cerebellum.
When we look at a live model of this brain,
this is what your brain looks like,
and the cerebellum is this area at the bottom.
The cerebellum's function is to give you balance,
coordinated movements,
it controls certain aspects of your speech,
but it's also the home of 50% of your brain cells.
So obviously, one would assume
that that's a very important part of our brain.
Now, a woman in China was admitted to a hospital,
complaining of nausea
and just having vertigo and imbalance.
When they did a CAT scan,
it revealed that this woman's brain
looked like this.
Please note that black area there
is only cerebrospinal fluids.
Her cerebellum was missing.
Are you freaking out yet?
(Laughter)
How is it possible that you can go to hospital,
you act like a normal person,
you speak, you walk, you talk?
Yes, dizziness, nausea,
but no one expected this.
Now, our whole talk is about how your brain compensates.
And it's going to be very important
that we need to understand how that works.
The principle is called neuroplasticity.
Now, this lady,
despite mild mental impairment and some imbalance,
she managed to marry, have children,
and have a fairly normal life.
And scientists were fascinated,
How is this possible that someone can live a life like this
and be seen as normal,
yet half of her brain cells are missing?
And that's the significance of this case.
How is it possible that the brain can adapt
so that people can still have a fairly normal life
without half of their brain cells?
And this case is a testimony for this principle called neuroplasticity.
Now, to give you an example again,
this woman's brain, literally -
if we now looked at a model of the brain,
said this whole area was gone,
and she adapted.
Neuroplasticity
is about the brain's ability to adapt and rewire itself
so you can survive and thrive in your world.
Except for regulating basic bodily functions,
what we have to remember is the main function of your brain
is to help you survive.
And that's good news because your brain will help you adapt.
If you do the hard work to build new pathways,
the brain can adjust and adapt to help you not just survive
but to actually thrive.
What I'd like you to do as you are sitting there,
I'd like you to clap your hands
and cross over, touch your nose and your ear,
and switch over to the other side.
So just do this simple movement activity with me, please.
Aha!
(Laughter)
So how are we doing here with regards to feeling how brain fit we are?
This is a simple bilateral or cross-lateral movement activity
that we do to improve our brain fitness.
The good news about this
is if you're going to continuously try this,
the harder you try
and the more intensely you repeat this,
the quicker you'll learn to do this.
Again, it shows you how powerful your brain is
and how quickly we can improve our neuro-agility.
Now, our world is changing very fast,
and we are facing an era of disruptive change,
and we are going to need to be really neuro-agile people
to not just survive but to thrive in that world.
And that means that we are going to have to flex our mental muscle.
Now, let's quickly talk about how neuroplasticity works,
and what does it look like.
There are three levels that we need to understand
on the way neuroplasticity works.
Right now, at this moment, as you are listening to me,
your brain cells are making those connections.
But if we cut the brain open,
you will see that your brain has white and grey matters;
in other words, that's where the learning and the thinking really takes place.
So your brain on its most basic level functions electrochemically.
And if we talk about electrochemical functioning,
it literally means that the brain produces 20 to 25 watts of electricity,
and that these impulses are transmitted from one cell to another.
So what you will see on the screen
are those impulses being transmitted
through the dendrites of a neuron, a brain cell.
But what you are looking at now
is that you will see there are also some chemicals being released
that transmit these messages from one cell to another.
So the best way to illustrate this is -
I want two people who I have asked before we started this session
to just come on stage,
and I want to illustrate to you the electrical functioning of your brain,
and I want you to think about the impact of that.
So in my hand, I have a thing called an energy ball.
It's just a little ball with a flashlight, and it's got two poles,
a positive and a negative.
When these two poles are connected with each other,
the little flashlight goes off.
Guys, can you come on stage, please?
So all this proves is my body conducts electricity,
but it gets a little bit more interesting than this.
Can you just join me on stage here, please?
André, you stand on that side - and there, there we go.
Now, when we touch hands,
all I'd like you to do, just put your finger on that pole there.
Nothing is happening now.
Just touch hands.
Break up.
Touch hands.
Break up.
Okay, now, André, keep this in your hand
so the camera can see.
Hold my hand.
Again, just touch where you touched previously,
and -
Thank you.
Now, keep it there.
If I break up here -
What this illustrates -
Thank you so much. Much appreciated.
(Applause)
What this illustrates
is that my energy influences other people's energy.
And the implication of this is we need to think,
What energy did you bring into this room here today?
Often when people meet Nelson Mandela,
they often would refer to him being charismatic.
And on its most basic scientific level,
this man transmitted tremendous constructiveness,
positive energy.
You see, we should think about energy and electricity
like dropping a stone into water.
When we drop a stone into the water,
it has a ripple effect,
and so your and my energy influence each other
all the time.
So that just illustrates the electrical functioning.
So the moment we choose to change our thinking and our emotions,
we change the energy that we radiate into our world.
But if we look at the chemical functioning,
very important that everything in your body is always about chemicals.
And maybe the best way to illustrate this again -
when we look at the next picture,
you will see that they are chemicals
that help to transmit messages from one brain cell to another one.
We call them neurotransmitters.
Now, I want to illustrate this through a story.
When Nelson Mandela was president,
he once visited an old age home, and he was in the Alzheimer's ward,
speaking to people there.
And he walked up to an old lady,
and he asked her, "Do you know who I am?"
And she looked at him like this,
and she took him by the arm and said,
"Listen, if you don't know who you are, go ask the nurse."
(Laughter)
Why I told you this story
was, simply, you experienced a good feeling when you laughed.
You experienced a chemical called serotonin being produced,
which is good fuel.
But we can also, if we stress too much,
produce chemicals that act as inhibiting chemicals.
They block transmission between cells.
So our thoughts and our emotions
impact the chemicals that regulate our mind.
If I drive down the road and someone runs right in front of me,
and I hit the brakes, and the car comes to a standstill,
I feel pins and needles in my legs -
an example of the inhibiting chemicals
that influences - the fuel that's not good for me.
You control that.
So, neuroplasticity on its most basic level,
is about your electrochemical functioning.
But when we look at how your brain functions,
and we cut open the brain,
you look at your brain model like this,
and you look at the white and grey matters.
At this moment, as you are listening to me,
your brain cells are connecting and making structural changes;
and if you sufficiently reinforce those structural changes,
it becomes a permanent pathway;
and when it becomes a permanent pathway,
it means your behavior, that emotion or that habit,
becomes second nature - it becomes automatic.
This is good news.
You are the results of these neuron pathways,
and if they are pathways and habits you don't like,
you can change it,
but you need to carve a new pathway
into the white and grey matters of your brain.
With intensity and repetition,
you need to replace the old negative pathways
with new constructive ones.
But if you do,
you bring about a structural change in your brain.
That's good news
because it says we never have to be victims
of our "behavior" and our environment,
but we can outthink our circumstances.
But this case of the Chinese woman
is a case where even functional changes take place in the brain,
where the functions of the cerebellum,
of balance and coordinated movements and some speech functions
have been replaced by the cerebral cortex -
this outer layer here.
Fantastic!
It means we can overcome adversity,
and miracles can happen.
Because from a scientific point of view,
I still think it must be a miracle
for someone to be born without a cerebellum,
and she lives a fairly normal life,
and she's a mom,
and she understands the world the way I do.
So, the implications are we can change whatever we want
if we could rewire ourselves
and sufficiently spend time with reinforcement and intensity
to replace old negative behavior patterns
with new constructive alternatives.
The other implication is quite profound for me.
This woman never experienced the label of being "disabled"
because they didn't know that she didn't have a cerebellum.
Yes, she started only talking at six years old.
Einstein started talking at five.
So what's the problem?
(Laughter)
But she started walking only at seven.
Yes, that's a bit late.
But not having had the burden of a label that "You are disabled"
actually made her live a fairly normal life.
We should be careful of the labels we put on ourselves and on others.
So, if I want to, then, change my brain,
how do I do it?
One, assess all the bad habits,
the things that are bad for your brain,
the behavior you'd like to change.
Two, you make a conscious choice
to reinforce the new behavior so much more than the old behavior,
so you focus on your solutions so much more than your problems.
Three, it takes a lot of hard work and reinforcement
to build those pathways.
Your brain works like a movie:
it has a soundtrack, it has visuals,
and it has emotions.
So the bottom line,
you want to reinforce new behavior,
you start speaking words of life
and speak positive, constructive solutions.
Two, think forward.
Envision your solutions.
Feed your mind
with the pictures and the dreams
that will help you become that person who is great in your own right.
Four, act upon it.
Just do it.
I love Nike statement: Just do it.
Because when we do it,
we seal the deal in the deepest parts of the brain
called the limbic system.
So say it, see it, do it, experience it.
I'd like to conclude this session simply by saying this,
You are the result of your thinking.
Your habits is how you think habitually.
So when your start changing your thoughts habitually,
you start changing your emotions.
When you change your thoughts and emotions,
the fuel you run on,
you change your behavior.
When you change your thoughts, emotions and behavior,
you change your performance.
That puts you in the driver seat of your own life -
master of your own destiny,
architect of your own life.
And that was an idea I thought was worth sharing.
(Applause)