Hi, it's Grace again and welcome to my car.
I just got done recording a video on college.
You know, whether or not college is the right choice for you.
And I'm in my car right now.
I'm driving in the suburbs of Vancouver towards where I live, towards my place
And I just got this inspiration that I needed to tell you something.
I needed to give you a message.
So I wanted to talk to you about and share with you some of the things that I do
on a daily basis that really get me to where,
that mindset that performance that I need to carry on with my day to make sure
that I meet the goals for my day. Right? So a lot of people ask me,
because of my background in neuroscience, a lot of people ask me, they say,
is it true that we only use 10% of our brains?
You know, they ask me,
is it true that you know our potential to perform as a person,
to perform as an employee,
to perform as a professional, are we limited in our potential?
And that's the thing you hear a lot of people talk about, well,
so-and-so is natural at this skill. You know, or so-and-so,
I can't get good at this because I'm not born with it, right?
And so I get that question a lot. Do we use only 10% of our brains?
And what we're learning is, does it depend on being born with it?
Does it depend on, how much does it depend on genetics? Right?
And so I have good news. The good news is that it's not possible, right,
it is a myth that we only use 10% of our brain.
Because think about this. If we only use 10% of our brain,
then how could we walk and talk and learn and
socialize? I mean, even talking alone,
having a meaningful conversation with someone uses so much,.
so many areas of the brain, right, there is the motor component.
When your mouth is moving, your tongue is.
coordinating with the roof of your mouth to make the sounds you need to,
depending on what language. you speak, right?
Then there are the listening centers because in order to have a meaningful
conversation, you have to hear and feed back to them. Then there is the cortex,
the executive center of the brain.
And that is really complex because in order for you to respond in a way that
makes sense, in a way that delivers knowledge and authority,
you have to use those areas of the brain. And how does that
possibly add up to 10% right?
So it is a myth that we only use 10% of our brain.
In terms of potential, do you have to be born with it in order to
be good at it? So there is a science, this is actually a thing.
There's a science called the science of expertise and
there are scientists who are extremely interested in how experts become so good
at what they do. You know it doesn't,
it doesn't matter what you're an expert in, you're an expert when you have that
incredible success performing that one thing really well that people seek you
out for it.
People will seek you for advice on it and nobody could beat you at it, right?
So take for example chess masters, right? Expert Chess Masters.
These are people that know the game so well and they are the grandmasters that
the biggest title, the most prestigious title you can have as a chess player,
is being a grandmaster.
So are they born with it? Well,
the science of expertise shows that you're not born with it,
you train for it.
And it's not about practicing. It's not about working hard.
Just work at it and someday you'll get it. No, that is not true. A grandmaster,
becomes a grandmaster because they study intentionally and
they study with purpose.
And it doesn't mean that you become a grandmaster if you spend 10 years playing
as many chess games as you want, as you possibly can.
That's not how they practice. The way grandmasters
practice is they spend 10 years studying the next moves.
So they study the games of other people. They study the games,
other chess masters, real games, real life games, and they study each move
that was happening and what they're trying to do is recognize patterns.
They are looking at these games that actually happen, real life games,
and they're saying, okay, can I predict what the next 10 moves are going to be?
And when you do that, often enough, when you do that, often enough,
and sometimes they get the next move
wrong, right? So they assume in the game, I'm this player,
they're trying to predict what the next players moves are. If they get it wrong,
they go back again. They go back and say, okay, why did I get that wrong?
What gaps am I missing?
What knowledge am I missing and what that does is it builds up a mental
representation. If you do that for 10 years studying other people's games,
you do that for 10 years,
you have all the possible representations in your mind on what chess games look
like and what the possible
moves are depending on the relationship of each chess piece with the other chess
piece. So that's how a grandmaster is made. They are not born grandmasters,
they do not have a special gene
that predicts that they're going to be good at chess and the same is true of you
in your career.
There is no gene that you need to wish for that you had that will allow you to
be successful in your career.
There is no special quality inside of you.
There is nothing that that you need to be born with.
There is nothing that you need to be lucky enough to have in order to have the
success that you want. It is all about training.
It's all about purposeful practice and it's not just working harder.
It is knowing what patterns you need to recognize what are at these mental
representations that you need to build in your brain in order to know everything
and know everything that you need to know about that field. So for example,
for me, I have been in career coaching for 10 years.
I started coaching people in their careers,
I started helping people in their career decisions during my PhD and that was
like, that was more than 10 years ago actually.
And so in the 10 years time I've talked to so many people.
I started out in academia.
So I started talking to Master's students, Phd students and recent graduates,
recent college graduates. So fast forward to that,
and then I started expanding out. I started to talk to savvy professionals,
I starting to talk to executives. I started to talk to mid level managers,
senior level managers. And so in that time I am practicing
what I'm good at. I am practicing. And in that time, I have,
for lack of a better, it's like saying I've heard all the
problems that they could have.
I've seen them all and I've seen what that problem could cause for an
individual.
I've seen the symptoms that come up that present themselves and I'm able to see
those symptoms and know what the problems are.
Right?
And it's because I've developed 10 years of mental representations that I can
recognize patterns and I can
identify the problem. Right? And so the same is true of you.
Where do you want to go in your career?
What success do you want and what industry do you want success in?
Like what do you want to be known for? Right?
And how far do you want to take this? Like do you want to be grandmaster,
chess grandmaster?
Do you want to be a master chess player or do you want to be a good chess
player? Right? So you have to decide for yourself because taking that level,
that next level of your career, in other words,
being the master chess player and then being the grandmaster chess player.
So being the master or the
grandmaster in your career industry and your career path,
there is a cost associated with it.
There is a price that you have to pay.
So you have to be willing to pay that price.
The grandmasters certainly did.
They've paid the price to be the grandmasters that they are.
And the price could be of course the amount of time and energy that you dedicate
to becoming an expert. But it also,
there could be a monetary price as well, right? In order to be a grandmaster,
you're also learning
from other grandmasters and you're also learning from other masters in their
fields as well. You're modeling success based on them.
So find those people who have the success that you want,
who've done what you have identified what you would need to do to have the
career that you want. Identify those people.
Go out and find them and do what you can to work with them.
Do what you can to talk to them and figure out what they did.
What they did to have the success that you desire. Right?
And so what you're doing is you are benchmarking.
When you model what is successful, then you can have success.
When you are close to you have that proximity
to people who can be that mentor for you,
who can be that sounding board for you and who can provide that
feedbackl for you because they've had the mental representation,
they've paid the price to develop those patterns,
to be able to know what it takes to succeed.
So do what you can to work with those people,
do what you can to be coached by them, to have them as your mentors.
So that's what I wanted to share with you today, just from knowing,
the principles of brain science that it is possible. It is possible.
You just have to want it badly enough and you have to be willing to pay the
price.
And first of all, and, and you also have to believe that your
potential is not limited. Because there is no,
there's no evidence that says that our potential as human beings are limited.
It's not like a cup that you fill and then you can only fill it to the brim
before it starts overflowing. Your potential is not like that at all.
There's no evidence that says that shows that proves that there's a limit to
what you can do, right?
There is only a limit depending on how far the boundaries are of your own
belief.
So do you believe that you have the ability to get to that next level?
Do you believe in your mission? Do you believe strongly enough in the path,
the journey that you've decided to take?
So it all starts with beliefs. Start there, start there.
So that's what I want to share with you.
Thank you for joining me on this ride and I'd love to hear from you.
Comment below what are the things that you desire in your career, you know,
where have you noticed some limitations, you know,
where have you noticed some challenges? What are they? Share them with me.
And I would be happy, if you have questions, drop them down below as well.
I love to take some questions from my listeners. From my viewers as well,
and I answered them. from time to time. So I might be picking your question too.
So feel free to drop that comment below. And also, if you enjoyed this content,
enjoyed the ride with me in my hometown in Vancouver, give me a like,.
give me a thumbs up like this and remember to hit the bell,
to subscribe to my channel so that you can receive
notifications each time I upload a new video and I always try to do something
new for you.
So give me a thumbs up and I look forward to hanging out with you again,
maybe in the car again, maybe a different part of Vancouver.
So thanks for listening and I'll see you in my next video.