Introduction:
Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler is a doctor of psychology with over 45 years of pioneering brain/mind research experience. In addition to teaching mind power methods in universities and corporations, she was invited by former President Jimmy Carter to support his Special Commission on Women in Business, was invited to serve as a Pentagon consultant focused on business communications, and has authored over 30 books and hundreds of articles in both business and individual success categories.
Unlike other personal development approaches, her focus is on refining brain/mind power to create more successful action. Instead of presenting strategies that never work in the real-world, you’ll get genuine science-based information that can be immediately implemented. Learn more by scrolling down the page to check out Dr. Jill’s books, audio books, and other materials.
In her books, audio books and programs, Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler provides insights and action plans for every area of your life: from higher states of awareness to personal achievement … from instant stress management to healthy longevity … from enhanced mental performance to mind/brain enhancement.
Getting more satisfaction in life does not necessarily result from taking the latest personal growth program. True lasting success only happens when you commit to direct your thoughts and actions every day. In other words, your daily mental habits and resulting actions are what help you create the life and business conditions you want.
When not writing or teaching, Dr. Jill enjoys artistic pursuits, gardening and being out-of-doors, good conversation, home and garden design, and kayaking and skiing.
Key Takeaways:
(4:15) Jason reads an article from DS News
(20:25) A word from Bill Clinton
(21:01) Introducing Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler
(21:29) Jill Ammon-Wexler discusses her background
(24:28) Step one of the Seven Ways from the book: using both sides of the brain simultaneously
(30:07) Moving on to step two: single-tasking
(35:05) Number three: the unstoppable motivation in the brain
(38:45) Number four: outrageous flexibility
(43:11) Neural networks and addiction
(47:57) Number five: creativity
(54:19) The next step: resilience
(58:20) One more thing that sets winners apart: future orientation
Links:
Audio Transcription:
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Creating Wealth with Jason Hartman! During this program Jason is going to tell you some really exciting things that you probably haven’t thought of before, and a new slant on investing: fresh new approaches to America’s best investment that will enable you to create more wealth and happiness than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self-made multi-millionaire who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He’s been a successful investor for 20 years and currently owns properties in 11 states and 17 cities. This program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to financial freedom. You really can do it! And now, here’s your host, Jason Hartman, with the complete solution for real estate investors.
JASON HARTMAN: Welcome to the Creating Wealth Show. This is Jason Hartman, and thank you so much for joining me today for episode #410. 410. You know what that means! Any episode that ends with a 0 is where we go off topic, and I got a note from one of our listeners saying we kind of went off topic last time on 409. I agree. We had former Congressman Todd Akin on the show. It’s just kind of interesting to get some of these different people on the show to talk about some different things.
Real estate investing is—I want to say it’s complicated. But it’s really not that complicated. I don’t know. You know? I’ve been doing it so long, I guess it’s second nature for me. Probably seems complicated to outsiders. One of the reasons that I like to interview a variety of guests, and cover a variety of topics on the show—you know, the last 400+ episodes, is because I believe that you are all holistic people, and you know, there’s a lot more going on than just specific how to do a real estate deal type of stuff. There’s the broader economy, there’s the stock market. In fact, our next guest is gonna be talking about some stock and economic issues. I’ve just found with the real estate investors I know through the years who are just sort of strictly and narrowly focused, only on how to do a real estate deal, and they don’t understand broader economic and social issues that impact their investments—I just think that they’re really—they are never as successful as the person who understands the macro picture and the micro picture.
This is why, you know, when you go to college, and you study economics—college is not a very economical investment, by the way. It used to be okay. It’s just become massively overpriced. But that’s another issue that we’ve covered on prior episodes, folks. And if you study economics, what do you study? Well, you study macroeconomics, the big picture, and you study microeconomics, the small picture. And that’s what we do here on the show too. We discuss macro issues, and micro issues. We get real specific. We discuss how to read a property pro forma, which we recently did. We discuss the refi till you die game plan, which is the most tax efficient way to harvest your wealth from your real estate portfolio. And we discussed land-to-improvement ratios. We discussed different markets, and specific markets. We’ve been discussing Little Rock, Arkansas a lot lately. We even had Bill Clinton talk about that. Maybe we should hear from him in just a moment here. I think we’ll bring Bill Clinton back for a quick message today. How’s that sound?
Anyway. We’ll have him in a moment, before we get to our guest. But, we discuss specific markets, like Little Rock, and our upcoming property tour there, and all kinds of stuff. So, what we do on our 10th episodes is we go off topic and discuss a general personal development topic. And today, I think you’re really gonna like this one. I know I did. Our guest is Jill Ammon-Wexler, and she is the author of How Successful People Think Smart: Seven Ways You Can Develop Your Mind Power. She was actually on Jimmy Carter’s special commission on women in business. So, that’s quite an honor, for sure. And she’s developer of the quantum-mind training program. We’re gonna talk a lot about the mind, and how it is more than the brain, and how we can use it to be more successful in our lives. So, we’ll get to her in just a few minutes.
Jason reads an article from DS News
But on the topic of income property investing, I had to share a pretty amazing and interesting article for you. I subscribe to all sorts of different newsletters and publications and websites and so forth. One of them, that this one is from, that I will loosely read in single quotes, ‘read’ to you, is from DS News. And DS News is a publication for the mortgage servicing industry. They are talking to and writing for lenders who are servicing mortgage loans. And this article, I thought, was particularly important to share with you. It’s entitled, High Rents Prevent Potential Buyers From Owning Homes. Just as I sort of loosely read it and comment, you know, it’s all sort of intertwined here. This may not be exactly correct journalistic style here, but, heck. I’m just being kind of casual.
It says, the latest conundrum in the US housing market appears to be that while homes in 94% of the country’s top metro areas are more affordable than they’ve been, rents are so high that renters in 88% of those metros can’t afford to save money for a down payment to buy a home. So, it’s like that old thing, folks. Of course you can tell this is my commentary. It’s like that old thing, when you’re a kid, and you’re trying to get your first job, they tell you—what do they tell you? They tell you, well, we won’t hire you unless you have experience. But how are you ever gonna get any experience if no one will hire you? And this is kind of that conundrum, okay? According to Zillow’s July real estate market report, a mere 12 metros out of the top 100 in the United States—and remember, there’s about 400. There’s almost 400 of those metro areas total, okay? So when you look at Case-Schiller—this is obviously my commentary again—that only surveys 20 markets. So, you know—or, 20 metros. So, the Case-Schiller Index is like meaningless to us, almost, because 14 of those markets, we don’t even like. Right? So, that’s really incomplete, for information.
But it says, a mere 12 metros out of the top 100 in the US feature an affordable market for housing and rentals. According to the report, home prices rose to $174,800 in July, up 0.2% from June, and 6.5% up from this time last year. Well, that’s interesting. Remember, I’m always talking about those long term historical appreciation figures, where properties appreciate, give or take, at about 6% annually. And on the last episode, we talked about the linear market, the cyclical market, and the hybrid market, and how those three act, and how they differ in appreciation. Actually on the last two episodes.
But this is interesting—let me dive back into this. It’s almost finished. At the same time, renters signing leases at the end of the second quarter, paid 29.5% of their income toward rent, compared to only 24.9% in the pre-bubble period. One of the things I want you to notice about this article is how these housing reports are always so far behind. Because this article was written on August 22nd. I meant to share it with you a couple episodes ago, but just didn’t have the time to get it in. But they’re talking about the second quarter of this year. They’re talking about June and July. And that’s why these stats are always about three months in arrears when you look at them. So, that’s another thing, that it’s very, very important to understand when reading the news media. It’s always lagging by approximately three months. And it depends what they’re talking about, how much it’s lagging by. But use three months as a good metric. It can be up to five months in some cases, depending on how they count. And I’ve talked about this before, because properties—they go on the market, they go under contract, and then sometimes they don’t close, but if they do close, then they’re recorded, and a lot of this data is being taken from county recorders’ offices, so it’s always very much in arrears of what’s really going on in the marketplace. Very important to keep that in mind.
Just a little more in this article, because it’s very interesting, then I’m really gonna have some real commentary on it to help you digest and understand it. What this means for the future of the housing market could be trouble. Trouble to who, okay? It’s great news for investors. But, you know, if you want to build homes, and you’re a developer, maybe not as good for you, or maybe at least you’ve gotta change your focus, and you’ve gotta focus on more bread and butter necessity type housing rather than luxury housing. And this—again, in this article—boy, I just can’t keep myself from commenting, can I? I keep saying I’ll read the article. I read a sentence, and then it’s a whole narrative. Okay, Jason. One more thing, then get back to the article. This article is yet one more indication that as I have said for 10 years now, the American population is getting poorer. The general population is becoming poorer and poorer. The reason they’re becoming poorer is because of inflation. Inflation, that silent thief, that pickpocket that steals your money when you’re not even noticing it. And the reason it steals—it’s like a great pickpocket. Because if someone pickpockets you, they usually take your whole wallet, and then as soon as you look for your wallet, and you need to buy something, you realize, hey, I’ve been pickpocketed! I lost all my money! But inflation’s a great pickpocket, because it pickpockets you just a dollar at a time. Or maybe depending on how much you keep in your wallet, just a small percentage of your money at a time.
So, it slowly pickpockets you. It’s like I talked about boiling that poor frog in the last episode. Slow pickpocketing, slow boiling. And that’s what happens to most people, and this is why the population is becoming less and less prosperous as time goes on. But you, dear listener, you know that if you’re following my game plan, you’re actually going to be enriched by all of this. Okay? It makes you richer in so many ways. Number one, because it keeps more people in the rental market, thereby supplying more people to your investments, to your income properties, that you can rent to them, and putting upward price pressure on those rentals so that you can raise your rental rates and command higher rents just through the most fundamental law of economics, supply and demand, and also, you’re really serving a class of the population that needs to be served. You’re doing them a service by providing them housing. Now, granted, the central banking cartels and the Federal Reserve, and the government, who completely participates in, is complicit in, if not, they’re more than complicit—heck, they’re the ones causing it. Especially on the left side of the political aisle, I have to say that only because the left side spends more, and causes more inflation.
Now, personally, I love inflation. It’s the greatest thing possible to our income property investments, and you should too, as an investor. But for most people, inflation is a terrorist. It’s awful. The effects of high rent, high enough to keep prospective buyers away from houses, is particularly hitting Millenials! Now, how much have I talked about this? But I’m gonna keep reading. Who are already saddled with uncertain job prospects and enormous student debt. According to Zillow chief economist Stan Humphreys. The health of the for sale market, okay, so, homes for sale, not for rent—the for sale market is directly tied to the rental market, where affordability is really suffering, Humphreys said. Wages need to grow more quickly than they are, particularly for renters, and growth in home values will need to slow. Now, isn’t that interesting? Of course we know that Americans have been getting completely screwed for decades, because in real dollars, Americans haven’t had a raise in decades! So, this is why there’s this huge separation that’s only widening and getting bigger between what I call the investor class and the normal class of everybody else who is not in the investor class.
Thankfully, most of you listening are in, or on your way to being in, the investor class. That is a critically important move for you, to beg, borrow, or steal, as the old saying goes, to get yourself into the investor class. Because once you do, then you really have set yourself apart, and you start making ridiculous government spending, and time, and all of these factors that, to everybody else appear to be negative—they actually become, they’re very positive factors for you. And one of my missions in life is to help as many people as possible get into the investor class.
Alright. Back to the article. It’s amazing how an article that’s just a few hundred words can take me like 15 minutes to read. I guess I’m a slow reader. I don’t stop making comments. Where were we here? Okay, so, we talked about Millenials, okay, and the article addressed that too. I’ve talked about on many prior episodes, massive student loan debt that’s being one of the next big bubbles to burst. It’s well over a trillion dollars now. And this will keep these Millenials, these Generation Y people, in the rental market for many, many years to come. And you can serve them by providing them rental housing.
It’s not your fault that the entire population who’s not in the investor class, and investor class I mean income property investor class, because you don’t get these characteristics with Wall Street investments. It’s not your fault they’re being impoverished by inflation. But for God’s sake, at least have something there for them to rent. At least serve them by giving them an opportunity to rent something. Talked about wages growing, blah blah blah. Nevertheless, thanks mostly to low mortgage interest rates, the affordability of for sale homes looks much better. According to Zillow, US homebuyers, at the end of the second quarter, could expect to pay 15.3% of their incomes toward a mortgage on a typical home. Far less than the 22.1% share that homeowners devoted in their pre-bubble days. Wow!
Now, I’m actually quite surprised that that—those numbers are as low as they are. Because in places like California, New York, Boston, Miami, you know, any of these more expensive markets around the US, people were paying way more than that as a percentage of income, in terms of mortgage payments. There’s gonna be a couple very interesting stats coming up here, so, I shall keep reading. Keep in mind, however, that mortgage rates are expected to rise in the coming year. Hmm. There’s some urgency for you, folks. Get as many long term low fixed rate mortgages as you possibly can. And when mortgage rates hit 5%, the number of unaffordable metros for homeowners among the top 100, will double according to Zillow. Whoa. That is huge. That is huge. You might want to just press that thirty second rewind on your iPhone, if you have an Android I don’t know what you do. Maybe you have the same thing. And just listen to that again, because that’s a pretty shocking statistic.
Here’s the quandary we’re in right now. We have interest rates that are for all practical purposes near zero. They are ridiculously low. And the one thing I have freely admitted—I’ve been right about almost every prediction I’ve made since I’ve been doing this show. But the one thing I’ve been totally wrong about is interest rates. I thought they would be higher by now. Because they should be higher! It’s totally illogical that we have interest rates this low! But, like I say, when I talk to these doom and gloom people who really just don’t get it—it’s not just about math. It’s not just about logic. The United States, because of its position, because of its bully pulpit in the world, and having the world’s reserve currency, and being able to enforce its reserve currency through the most powerful military the human race has ever known—and in many other ways. It’s not just military. It’s not like when someone wants to trade outside of the dollar we instantly go in and invade them. Or do we? I don’t know. That’s debatable.
By the way, you might want to watch—it’s interesting, I’ve seen this before, years ago, but you’ve probably heard of the Zeitgeist movies. Well, these are just online movies, okay, and you can get them on NetFlix or just on YouTube. And the Zeitgeist movies are pretty interesting. I recently finished my third time through the Zeitgeist movie, and then my second time through, the Zeitgeist addendum movie, which is focused much more on currency and things like that. I asked my guest bookers to get the director on the show, and we haven’t done that yet, but we probably will. That’s probably not too hard a guest to get on. But you know, they’re pretty interesting. I certainly don’t agree with everything they talk about, but they’re pretty interesting when it comes to the monetary issues. I think their whole outlook—and I know many of you have seen this, so I’m not talking to people that aren’t familiar with this movie. Maybe some of you aren’t. But their whole outlook is sort of this socialist utopia idea that that’s never worked, we know that, but you know, I’m open to hearing about it.
But it’s interesting what they talk about when they talk about the history of monetary policy and so forth. And I just recently finished that, and they talked about a lot of this stuff. And this reserve currency status allows us to operate in this illogical, gravity-defying environment that we’re in. So, look. The future has to be higher interest rates. And, even slightly higher rates, as the article just said, will double the number of unaffordable metros. Wow! Do you know what this means to an investor? I mean, that’s huge. That means that your rents are going up, folks. Okay? And that you’ve got a long term supply of renters coming at you. So, be really, really excited about that. As you should be. Because that is very, very good news for investors.
Humphreys goes on to say, the affordability of for sale homes remains strong, which is encouraging for those buyers who can save for a down payment, and capitalize on low mortgage interest rates. But therein lies the caveat. Homeowners typically make a lot more money than those who rent. Now, I told you, there was gonna be some other amazing numbers coming up. These are pretty shocking, okay? According to the US Census Bureau, homeowners on average make—and by the way, I don’t know if this is household income. It’s probably household income. So this is probably two or one and a half income families. When I say one and a half, I mean obviously a part time earner and a full time earner. Homeowners on average make $65,514 per year, while the typical renter makes about half of that. $31,888 per year. And this could mean that attaining the American dream will have to wait for an increasing number of Americans. And what does that mean to you, dear investor? It means, you are going to have a great supply of renters for a long time to come. And then the article finally closes with, “as rents keep rising, along with interest rates and home values, saving for a down payment and attaining homeownership becomes that much more difficult for millions of current renters,” Humphreys said.
So, I thought that was a fascinating article, and I just had to share it with you, with my commentary. So, very interesting stuff there. Without further ado, this is a 10th episode show, so let’s not be talking all about real estate. Let’s talk about us as holistic people that want to grow and want to achieve success in our lives, and want to do big, great things. We definitely gotta tap into the power of our mind. So, after we have a word from Bill Clinton, and hopefully you’ll join us for our Little Rock tour, we’ll get to our guest, Jill Ammon-Wexler.
A word from Bill Clinton
BILL CLINTON: Hi. This is Bill Clinton, and I want to invite you to hang out with my friend, Jason Hartman, in my hometown of Little Rock. Jason and his interns, you know I like interns, are having his famous Creating Wealth Seminar and Property Tour here! So drop everything, including Hillary, and go register at www.jasonhartman.com, right now. This event is coming up soon, but, as I like to say, it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. See ya there.
[MUSIC]
Introducing Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler
JASON HARTMAN: It’s my pleasure to welcome Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler to the show! She’s the author of How Successful People Think Smart: Seven Ways You Can Develop Your Mind Power. Jill, welcome. How are you today?
DR. JILL AMMON-WEXLER: I’m just great. Enjoying the sun. How bout you, Jason?
JASON HARTMAN: Great. Doing the same thing. You’ve got an incredible resume.
You served on Jimmy Carter’s special commission on women in business.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yes I did.
JASON HARTMAN: You’ve been consulting for 45 years on these topics. So we’re gonna have an interesting discussion! Tell us a little bit about your background.
Jill Ammon-Wexler discusses her background
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: I was initially going toward becoming a physician, and stumbled into the mind through a meeting that was happening at Stanford. It was just a very informal meeting. Students from Stanford, UC Berkeley, and San Jose—we were studying the brainwaves of meditators, Jason. And what we discovered—I mean, just blew the top right off our heads. We discovered alpha brainwaves, and went wild. We thought we’d hit the mother load.
JASON HARTMAN: And can you imagine if you had back then the functional MRIs we have today?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yeah, we had very primitive equipment compared to what we have today. But still, it was very exciting. And it literally changed my life, and changed my career path; although I’d done all my premedical studies, I immediately came to the conclusion that I wanted to study how the brain influences our behavior, and it just became a burning passion of mine, at that meeting.
JASON HARTMAN: There’s a lot of ROI here, a lot of return on investment, if we can—you learn how to more successfully use this incredibly powerful tool between our ears. We can do amazing things. And you know, you mentioned Stanford. Did you go to Stanford?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: No, actually I was at San Jose University. University of California at San Jose. And completely my first two degrees there. Then I went on after that to Columbia.
JASON HARTMAN: I’ve been very interested in the work of Dr. Karl Pribram, who you’ve probably quite familiar with, at Stanford, and his holographic brain theory, and how it applies to goal achievement, and you know, even the more, you know, catchy phrase nowadays, the law of attraction. Let’s dive in and talk about this. I mean, what are some of these seven ways—and why do you call it—first, maybe, the title of the book is interesting to me, because it seems like a play on words. Seven Ways You Can Develop Their Mindpower. What do you mean by that?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Well, basically speaking, the people that I’ve studied through the years, just an amazing people. Especially in the very beginning. Folks in Silicon Valley that were just entrepreneurs, company presidents, judges, performing artists—fascinating people. And I discovered very quickly, using EEG, that they all shared very similar brainwave patterns. You don’t have just one brainwave. For example, you don’t just sit there are you are in alpha. Basically, you’re creating a whole scope of brainwaves simultaneously. Well, I discovered that this group of people had a great similarity in their configuration of brainwaves. And from there, that directed all of my subsequent studies about, what is different about the brains of these winners? And can normal people learn to do what they do? And I quickly discovered, yes, there are ways to train that.
JASON HARTMAN: That is probably where we go into the seven ways.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Okay.
The Seven Ways from the book
JASON HARTMAN: But tell us—highlight those for us, if you would!
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Well, I’ll just run right through then. Basically speaking, the most important thing that I want to open with is that you can train your brain to duplicate the special ways that beginners have developed, and use their brains. You aren’t just born with that brain. It’s developed and used. And the seven ways that winners’ brains are extremely different, is number one, their functional balance. They have developed an ability to simultaneously balance and use both sides of their brain. Jason, ordinary people can’t do this; they’re either right brained or they’re left brained. They go back and forth. A winner can focus and use the whole brain simultaneously. It’s amazing.
JASON HARTMAN: Of course I’m sure you’re familiar with the holosync program and binaural beats, and those types of things that claim to help us put the brain together, the two sides of the brain together. Why is it so important that we use both sides? I mean, do we need both sides at the same time, or are some tasks really suited for one side or the other?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Well, some tasks might be suited for one side or the other, but Marian Diamond, years ago, studied Einstein’s brain, and discovered that he had a massive, massive amount of [indiscernible] cells, which are the cells that basically create the highways in your brain. Those cells were tremendously thick. Supporting the communication between the two sides of the cortex, the cerebral cortex, the left side and the right side. Now, there’s some people that do not have that highway system. It’s not normal. It’s developed. It’s there, in terms of being able to use it simultaneously. I’ll tell you one of the things that happens when you truly have a balanced brain, and I’ve seen this not only with the people I work with, but also in myself; when you have that balance, there’s almost like an aha experience that goes along with it, Jason. You can almost feel a flash of light in your brain. You may feel a sense of vibration. And the insight that comes with it is awesome. It goes across the two sides.
JASON HARTMAN: My first question is, with that, you say that inside that flash of balance—that aha moment, if you will. Is that something that, you know, we all experience occasionally, even if we’ve never tried to train our brain to use both sides simultaneously?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: It’s possible. It’s possible that in a moment of great insight, or even religious insight, that that could occur Most normal people don’t report that happening in their life, but that doesn’t mean it can’t!
JASON HARTMAN: People who have trained this, and of course I’m going to ask you how we train this, and I can’t wait to hear, but the people that have trained it—are they always functioning on both sides at all times, or—
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Not by any means.
JASON HARTMAN: Oh, okay.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: No. This is a state that they can generate, that they can enter into, more likely on demand, as opposed to the normal person that, you know, it’s like a gift that comes, and it’s gone. It is learned. The ability to control it is learned. For example, you look at Tibetan monks; you can bet that they go in and out of that state. And in fact I know of one religious leader that practically lives in that state.
JASON HARTMAN: If one can do this, and if it’s so powerful and beneficial, wouldn’t you just want to stay in the state all the time? Or does it take effort to stay in that state?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: It would take effort. It would take energy. It would take, basically speaking, the individual I spoke of that pretty much lives in that state—that is not a state where you would remember to get out of the way of a speeding bus.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay. So it’s—
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: You can’t live there. That’s a state you might want to enter into, if you are making an extremely important decision.
JASON HARTMAN: It seems like our creator gave us so many great tools, and why wouldn’t this just be natural? That we would be able to use both sides of our brain? Why are the hemispheres separated, and why wouldn’t they work together?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Actually, the hemispheres are quite different. The left hemisphere, for example…if you go down into a molecular level, there are almost vertical stacks there, that basically create a capability—this one stack for this one, this stack for this one—that portion of the brain is one plus one equals two. It’s rational, it handles that aspect of our being. The creative side of our brain, on the other hand, is very interconnected with [indiscernible] cells. And this creates an ability to literally swim around that side of your cortex to create new combinations of thoughts. Not one plus one equals two—one plus one might equal two and a half over there, and it’ll make sense, and it will equal two and a half. So, you have two different aspects. There’s certain people, for example, you look at an engineer, mathematician, they’re probably using those vertical stacks, and literally going through them looking for analytical answers to things. If you want to be creative, you fall over onto that other side, and that’s where you begin to generate alpha brainwaves, and go into altered states where you can allow yourself to flow into your answers, as opposed to logically, analytically breaking them down.
JASON HARTMAN: You were talking about the seven steps.
Moving on to step two: single-tasking
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Right. Let’s go to step two. And this is very, very pronounced in successful people from all walks of life, Jason. Winners in any avenue of life, have an extremely refined ability to really focus on an activity. They single-task. They do not multitask. Multitasking can be very, very expensive in terms of being able to solve a problem, or do something creative, because if you break the thought process and go on to a multitask, it can take up to half an hour to refocus and come back to your initial task. So, refined focus. Extremely refined.
JASON HARTMAN: I wonder about that, though, when it comes to things like driving. It’s been said that once we learn how to drive, and we’re relatively good at it, we’re in an alpha state, unless we need to really pay attention to something in particular. But generally, isn’t driving a sort of an alpha state?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: It could be an alpha state.
JASON HARTMAN: When we’re in that, my question is—the reason I ask is this. It does not seem to me, regardless of what anybody says, at least to me, dangerous to drive and talk on the phone. Or dangerous to drive and listen to music. Or dangerous to drive and listen to an audio book.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Okay. Well—
JASON HARTMAN: Dialing the phone may be dangerous, but actually having a
discussion on the phone does not seem dangerous.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: The minute you think a thought, or the minute you open your mouth to say a thought, you are in beta. Period.
JASON HARTMAN: Oh. Okay. Okay. So, talking is beta.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Talking is beta. Talking to yourself is beta.
JASON HARTMAN: Hmm.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: So, in terms of being in an alpha state when you’re driving—not necessarily. Not necessarily at all. You may be quite stressed. It depends on traffic, and the conditions. So, I really have to say that beta is something that that’s the normal state that most people live in.
JASON HARTMAN: Mmk. And beta—beta is not that effective? I mean, alpha—is alpha the only one that’s effective?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: No, no. Beta is very effective for logical, analytical tasks, and for communicating. You can’t really communicate too well without it. Above beta, you go into gamma. The beta-gamma division there really looks at passing up into stressed brainwaves, until you reach about 40 cycles per second, and that particular brainwave frequency, which is in gamma, equals a frequency that is often produced by Tibetan lamas and monks. They go into altered states of consciousness. It’s interesting, there are breaks there. And then below the beta, of course, is alpha, and alpha’s pretty much creativity. It’s more relaxed, thought process, when your mind would drift, rather than hammer, for an answer. Below that, you fall down, down, and end up literally into deeper brainwave states. Most people go into a state of sleep as they go down. Whereas the minds of winners, the people that I studied, can actually hold all four brainwaves simultaneously. They can have delta brainwaves without being sleeping. And incidentally, about down in that level is where things like ESP occur. I’ve actually measured that. And where altered states begin to appear. So, these leaders, the thinking leaders, have access to deeper thoughts and deeper aspects of theirself than the normal person who walks around in beta, and gamma.
JASON HARTMAN: So, how many total states are there, or how many total states are we aware of at this point?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Probably infinite.
JASON HARTMAN: Oh! It would span beyond the alphabet?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yeah, it probably would. We are aware of gamma, but the fact is, then you have technology limitations. We have so much more to learn about the brain than we know now, it’s almost silly. It’s ridiculous. I’ve spent 45 years studying it, and every week there’s something new.
JASON HARTMAN: This may be as unlimited as space exploration. There’s a lot here.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yeah, if you look at string theory, for example—I mean, string theory is telling us, they go beyond quantum mechanics, and they’re telling us, basically there is a web, a matrix, that creates the entire universe, and that we are each of us a dot on that matrix, that at the same time, we have access through consciousness, which is thought, to everything that is connected to that matrix, which means, we have no limits. We create our own limits. We create our reality. It’s basically speaking, what’s happening is, metaphysics and science is just coming right together. Want to go to number three?
Number three: the unstoppable motivation in the brain
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah, I’m really—let’s—I can’t wait to cover these. Number three. So, number three is the unstoppable motivation in the brain, right?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Exactly. And for most people, and you’ve probably experienced this in your younger years yourself. You get motivated, you’re hot on a project, you’re going for it, you hit a bump in the road, and you think, why am I even doing this? And that’s a common problem of why. Really, super, super motivated people, the winners, will just go right past that bump in the road. They have found ways to take the ordinary, the boring tasks that they have to face, and to tie those to the big picture, which them makes them more interesting. Oh gosh, when I get number C done, I can go to D. Now that’s where the action is. So, there’s a very steady motivation, and bumps in the road that would knock most people right off their horse are not that important.
JASON HARTMAN: Winners are persistent.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Persistent and motivated. And they don’t stop.
JASON HARTMAN: Forgive me, but that’s just somewhat kind of trite, right? I mean, that’s not a big technical idea, right?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Well, actually, that is a technical idea. That is directly related to a brain state. It’s related to a particular neurotransmitter in your brain. All of what I’m saying is directly related to the actual state of the brain. Now, in order to be motivated, in order to be focused, to feel enthusiasm, etcetera, you need dopamine. Dopamine is not dopey. It is basically the, you know, it’s what gives you that motivational spark that lets you just burn through a task. And other ways to do that, you can basically feed yourself in a way that creates a higher dopamine level. You can eat protein, you can avoid sugar, you can take tyrosine supplements, which is something that I enjoy doing, because tyrosine, in turn, creates sustained increases in your dopamine levels, and you can get that right at a health food store.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay, so tyrosine. T-y-r-a-s-i-n-e?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: No, t-y-r-o-s-i-n-e. Or you can get out in the sun. Sunshine also stimulates production of vitamin D, which is required for the production of dopamine.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay. So, dopamine is the persistence supplement, then?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: That’s what you can call it.
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah, and it’s an internal—I mean, it’s something that’s manufactured internally. I suppose that tyrosine just helps increase the production of it, or something?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Exactly. And if you’re tired, if you’re stressed, that will knock those levels down.
JASON HARTMAN: Proper sleep is important too.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Sleep is important. It’s not a joke.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay. How much sleep, by the way—there’s so much debate about that, how much we need.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: There really is a debate about it. Some people function so well on 5 or 6. Some people need 8 hours. I think that’s a very personal thing. And how do you feel when you get up? Are you clear, or are you groggy? If you’re groggy, you’re not getting enough. I find that I really enjoy a 20 minute to half hour nap in the afternoon. It just really regenerates everything for me. Other people take a nap and they wake up and they say duh.
JASON HARTMAN: Right, yeah.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: So you really have to feel into what works for you.
JASON HARTMAN: Right. It’s different for everybody. Okay.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yeah, it’s very different. But basically, it’s based on brain chemicals. There’s no guesswork here. This is all chemically based on how your brain does what it does for you! Or doesn’t.
JASON HARTMAN: So persistence is a scientific thing.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yes it is.
JASON HARTMAN: I’m glad that you made that connection, so thank you for doing that. Okay. So, let’s look at number four.
Number four: outrageous flexibility
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Okay. Number four is outrageous flexibility, that these winners have. In their brain—and again, this is not—what we’re talking about is again, brain chemicals, and what happens when you stretch it. For example, I’ll go back to Einstein’s brain. He had massive, massive highways of cells that were packed within an abnormal amount of neural networks, and he built that brain when he was a young man. He was considered to be beyond being educated. He was so brilliant he was just not together. And his teachers had a terrible time with him. So, basically speaking, Einstein was a self built genius. And he did that with flexible thinking. Now he, for example, and many others, down through history, had a way of sitting in a chair, and he would allow himself to go into an altered state of consciousness. Now I can tell you right now, he was going all the way down into delta. And the way that he would do it, to maintain consciousness so that his thoughts would be up there with him on a conscious level, is he would hold a little black pebble in each hand, and let his hands go over the chair. You know, over the arm of the chair. If he dropped one, it would wake him up. He trained himself to be able to hold that state of consciousness. So basically speaking, most people, as I’ve said, and you know this to be true, live in what we call the comfort zone. They don’t like challenges. They have certain habits. They drive to work the same way. They think the same thoughts. They go home and watch the same TV programs and drink the same beer and read the same magazine. And that’s the ritual. Now, the ritual is easy and it’s comfortable. But the fact is, the leaders, the thought leaders that I’ve worked with, don’t stick to those rituals. They challenge themselves. They challenge constantly, to force brain growth. Because here’s what happens. When your brain thinks a thought, it creates a neural network. If that neural network is not used, guess what? It’s gone! In about three to five seconds. Three to five seconds.
JASON HARTMAN: Wow. Whoa. It does not stay. Is the neural network—I mean, the neural network is physical, right? That’s the—they talk about the plasticity, right, or the elasticity, I’m not sure which—
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: The neural network is physical reality. It is in your brain. But the thing is, it’s plastic. It changes.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay, so—let me understand something. So okay. When you think a thought, Jill, you’re literally changing the physical composition of your brain, just on one little thought.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Absolutely.
JASON HARTMAN: Amazing. That’s incredible.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Now, here’s an interesting thing about the brain. The brain likes the comfort zone. Why do you think people fall into their comfort zone? It has certain neural networks, Jason, that are very well established. I want a Budweiser. Okay. Budweiser. I don’t think—I didn’t say hams. I said Budweiser. So, those networks are well established, and they are there. Those networks create the basis of what we call our habits and our beliefs.
JASON HARTMAN: The marketers and the branding companies and the advertisers love this, by the way.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: You’ve got it. And your brain will go first to those networks. Automatically!
JASON HARTMAN: Yep.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: You want a beer, you go into the kitchen, take a Bud.
JASON HARTMAN: We’re all Pavlovian dogs.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: You don’t say, what kind of beer do I want. There’s no question. And so, that’s the basis of your habits and your thought process. Most people live in those places.
JASON HARTMAN: I want to ask you, because I think this applies to pretty much everybody listening. Myself included. We all have, whether small or large, addictive behaviors. And they’re not serving us. Okay? I think everybody has their little addictions. Some people have really big, bad addictions, okay? But you know—I don’t know that any type of addictive behavior is good. I notice it in myself sometimes. I do this or that, or I think this or that—even little addictive thoughts. How can we rewire, assuming we want to, those neural networks? Because those have got to be the basis of addiction, right?
Neural networks and addiction
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yes, they are. Look at it this way. Picture yourself walking through a meadow. You walk through a meadow the first time, and you leave a little trail in the grass, and it’s gone in 3-5 seconds. You turn around and walk back over it—well, maybe it takes a little longer before it’s gone, because that’s the second time. The more times you walk on that path, the more times you use that neural network, the more established it is. The only way you can undo a trail through a meadow, is to stop using it. So, the only way you can undo an addictive habit, is to replace it with something else. So, are you going to create a new addiction? Well, maybe a new addiction should be something that would be more positive, such as, I know I can stop any behavior I want and create something new. So that that would become your new neural pathway. As a pathway is not used, just like a path through a meadow, it begins to diminish, and the neurons that were used are scattered out, and go elsewhere. That’s the thing of plasticity. Your brain is plastic. You can change it.
JASON HARTMAN: Then the question becomes, can old dogs learn new tricks, as the saying goes? Because I assume we’ve got more flexibility here when we’re younger. I have a feeling you’re gonna say that. Maybe not. Maybe there’s hope if we’re older. You know, like the alcoholic who’s been drinking all his life, or her life. You know, that’s a pretty tough thing to change! Isn’t it? Especially with the chemical that comes from the outside, that changes your body composition too.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yes it does. It changes your body composition dramatically. Yes. It’s going to be harder. And yes, it depends on one’s motivation. It comes back to, do you have fire and desire enough that you will immediately stop that behavior and create an alternative?
JASON HARTMAN: Maybe there’s a scientific part, and I think there is, I think maybe that’s the overall macro look at this, is the fire and desire. Because, what I was getting at with the addictive behaviors really is, an alcoholic, using that as our example here—they can never take a drink again, from what I understand, because they’ll just fall back in. It’d be nice if we could sort of, you know, I’m just gonna say it—kind of flirt with our addictions once in a while, you know, to have a little bit of a release, maybe. So, you know, if we know that, you know, this isn’t exactly the best behavior for us, but it’s not something extremely destructive—can we kind of go back in, and maybe enjoy it once in a while, and then, you know, just back out of it, and then, we’re just making the pathway better every time we do it, right?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yep, we are. We’re playing with fire.
JASON HARTMAN: So that doesn’t work that way. We’re playing with fire.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: We’re playing with fire, and guess what? You’re gonna burn your fingers.
JASON HARTMAN: Right. Boy. I wish you would have given us an easier way out, Jill!
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Actually, it takes the fire and desire. Addictions are born in a millisecond, Jason, and they die in milliseconds. A decision, decision—now I can tell you, an interesting story about Anthony Robbins.
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah, sure.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Everyone thinks oh my god, he is so together, and blah blah. Anthony Robbins as a young man was very heavyset. Very overweight.
JASON HARTMAN: I’ve heard the story. Yep.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: And was sitting at a motel, because he was so poor, of a flophouse, probably, and got up one morning, and was dressing himself, and just became so disgusted with his behavior, he picked up a shoe and threw it at the wall. Then he picked up another shoe and threw it at the wall, and said, that’s it. I have had it. And he made an instant decision. Fire, passionate decision, to change his life. So, you know, there’s no way around it.
JASON HARTMAN: Here’s the problem. Usually, and like, Anthony Robbins was in his comfort zone. The alcoholic is in their comfort zone, if you will. And but, the problem is, it usually has to get so dire, and so bad, and then it gets harder to rewire! Because there is just more neural pathway wiring. And you know, the longer you wait, the longer you’re in that comfort zone, or that addiction—I guess the comfort zone is an addiction, in a way—the harder it is to rewire. So the thing to do is, notice proactively, hey, this is not exactly good for me. And before I go down this path too far, I’m gonna change it now.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Right. Now is always better. Now is always better than tomorrow. Tomorrow has a way of not arriving.
JASON HARTMAN: Right.
Number five: creativity
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: The thing about that—the fifth thing, if we go back to that list that we’re working on, the seven things, is creativity. And I will tell you, the people that I’ve worked with through the years, especially the higher level folks, including the ones on Jimmy Carter’s list, actively, actively, actively have stretched their brains. They use their creative muscles in just outrageous ways.
JASON HARTMAN: Should we all be subscribing to, you know, Lumosity.com, or those?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Lumosity is not going to teach you to be creative.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Basically, what I recommend you do—creativity is very connected to your central brain. And also to your right brain. So, creativity, you can build your creative muscles, but what you have to do is determine that you’re going to respond in new ways to challenges, in new ways to problems, to allow yourself to develop new connections in the brain, and especially in the regions of the central and lower parts. So, creativity is not just a right brain thing; it also, it can stimulate whole brain integration that we talked about earlier, and strong ties down into your emotions. If you close down your emotions, you’re closing down your creativity. Because creativity utilizes the limbic system, the emotional system, in the center of your brain.
JASON HARTMAN: So, you’re really saying we should all be more emotional?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Allow yourself to be more emotional.
JASON HARTMAN: Oh, wow.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Allow yourself to feel your emotions. Allow your emotions to come to the surface, because there is just such a tie between emotions and creativity. You wouldn’t believe it. People that are shut down emotionally are not tending to be creative! They just aren’t. So, what you want to do is, you know, spend time to explore unfamiliar topics. Challenge yourself. People that are very logical, I recommend they go and take a painting class, or take a poetry class. Or something that will totally put them in the other side of their brain, and allow them to expand that. And also, I’ve done a lot of brainwave studies, that basically speaking, when you have one of those aha insights that lights up the whole surface of your cortex—what you’re doing is you have a high gamma brainwave spike. Now, this level of gamma brainwave creativity is when your neurons suddenly connect, and they create an entirely new neural network that reaches up into the gamma level. Okay, that enters your consciousness. And is occurring in the right cortex. This is all measurable. It’s all measurable, and you can develop this by concentrating intently on a goal or a problem, and then let it go. Relax. Just relax, and go into an altered state. Let it go, but don’t go to sleep. That’s when you’re generating alpha. And that’s gonna set the stage for that—those novel connections that are going to occur. So, just allow your mind to drift, and you can always do what Einstein did—hold a little rock or something in each hand, so that you keep yourself from falling into sleep, because sleep is not going to generate creativity.
JASON HARTMAN: There’s gonna be a way to use what I’ll call the dead time. But it’s not dead time, I know it’s super important, and that is sleep. Sleep learning, playing audios while we’re sleeping—would that just disturb us and diminish our sleep quality, or is there some way you can hack sleep, if you will, to learn more while you’re sleeping, or to use the power of your dreaming? You know, I read a book on lucid dreaming. I don’t really know how to do it, but it sounds like a great skill.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: The interesting thing is, when you’re doing lucid dreaming, you’re not asleep.
JASON HARTMAN: Well, okay.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: There’s really no way that I have discovered personally, either a science or an art, of actually using sleep training.
JASON HARTMAN: So just leave the sleep alone. Now, what do you think? I mentioned at the beginning, but what do you think of things like binaural beats, and holosync, these—
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: I’m glad you asked.
JASON HARTMAN: These things that promise to make your brain work together, both sides.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Right. Well, I use brainwave training extensively, and I have for 45 years. One of the first things I discovered is that binaural beats, unfortunately, you very soon find a way to turn them off. Your brain does. Your brain gets bored and says, I’m not gonna listen to that anymore. And turns it off. It’s much more effective to use isochronic tones, which I also like to use in many of my brainwave trainings that I do. And to introduce some music, and some change, because the brain loves changing stimulation. It doesn’t like the same old thing for hours and hours. It just shuts it off!
JASON HARTMAN: The bineural’s pretty boring. The holosync’s a little nicer to listen to.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yeah, holosync is a little bit better—
JASON HARTMAN: But where do we get these isochronic beats? Is that what—
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yeah, actually, I have two places that you can come, and I recommend that anyone that’s interesting in the brain come to buildmindpower.com. Okay?
JASON HARTMAN: And just for disclosure purposes, are you involved with that? Is that your company?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Oh yes, that’s my—that’s one of my websites. I have over ten.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: And actually, there’s a free course they can get there that they’ll enjoy. There’s articles there that they can read, and in addition to that, there are products. And they will learn a little bit more also about the audios, or they can go to quantum leap audios, and learn more about the audios that I use. I have many, many different audio collections. Some for creativity, you know, whatever. Full range.
JASON HARTMAN: What was that? Quantum leap what?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Quantum leap audios.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay. And are these things where it’s an MP3 download, or a CD or something, or do you have an app for the iPhone?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: MP3s, and they do play on iPhones and Pads and computers.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay. Let’s talk about the remaining steps. We have a few more steps, I think.
The next step: resilience
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Okay. Let’s go to resilience. For that, basically speaking, that is a learned trait, and I often think of Martha, when she had her encounter with the government a few years back. And basically met the press, and had lemons in her hand. And what she said to them is, my mother always taught me to make lemonade out of lemons. There is an unstoppable resilience that comes with this winner’s brain. And basically speaking, you can take a winner and knock him to the ground, and they’re gonna get up faster than anyone else. And sometimes the harder you hit them, the faster they’ll get up. Now, obviously that’s a learned skill; it comes as you develop your brain. It’s not something that’s necessarily automatic. But it is learnable. And the ability to deal effectively with challenges is very important. It’s a refined skill. Especially if you look at investors, for example—I’m an investor, I know how it is. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you can get kicked in the shins. And that’s the truth. And if you stop the first time you get kicked in the shins, you’re not an investor anymore, you’re a loser. So, basically speaking, alpha breaks I think are one of the most important things to build resilience, to not identify with a failure, if it happens, to immediately call it a lesson, a learning, to restructure anything that kicks you in the shins into something that you have learned that’s going to take you forward. And that’s an attitude.
JASON HARTMAN: I think a lot of this comes down to just self talk too, doesn’t it? Because if we—if we tell ourselves in a convincing manner that we’re persistent, and we get up after we fall down, then we’re just going to become that person, right?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Yes, we are. And the way that that works is, let’s take a little sidetrack here, and take a look at that. What you’re talking about is really affirmations, in a way. There’s a person that wants to become a successful investor or a successful tennis player, you know, whatever, and if they spend five minutes a day saying, I am a successful investor, I am a successful tennis player, you might presume that this would be helpful to them. But the truth is, the minute they put that down, if their brain then comes back and says, yeah, well, I lost $25,000 on that last deal, and the brain will return to negative thoughts, unless you are very persistent. And I mean you have to mean it. You have to put someone—put the monkey on your shoulder to watch for those negative messages. And they come into the subconscious mind, and the minute you hear it, turn it around and say no, I am a successful investor. I learned from that. So that you have to restructure your thought process, and you can’t just do it five minutes a day and expect it to do anything for you. So, perseverance.
JASON HARTMAN: How long do you need to do it then?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: You have to do it all your life, as long as those negative little things sneak around in the back of your mind, persevere! Because you know, each of our devils live within us. Each of the things that encourage us to fail, or give up, or not try again, or you know, I’ve fallen down 95 times on this skateboard, and I’m not going to fall a 96th. Every time you find a negative thought, go after it. Go after it and mean it. And just watch for them, and turn them around, and you will find that you’ll have fewer and fewer, and more and more positive thoughts happening. It’s reconditioning the brain, its elasticity. Your brain will pay attention to the path you pass over the most times. That’s the simplest way I can put it.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay.
One more thing that sets winners apart: future orientation
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: One more thing that really sets winners apart, and that’s future orientation. The winners in any field are not looking over their shoulder at what happened before. What they’re looking at is, what is my goal? What are the two things that I have to do today to move forward on that? Have I done them? Okay, let’s go do them now. Where am I going? They focus on what it is that they want, and where they’re going to get it, and not what has happened in the past. Past successes are okay, but don’t focus on just a past success! Focus on how you’re gonna use it to go forward.
JASON HARTMAN: The future orientation. I can definitely see that. You know, I recently had Dan Millman on the show, Peaceful Warrior, great book.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Great guy.
JASON HARTMAN: Great movie. Yeah. He, or Eckhart Tolle—they would say, live in the now. So, how do you reconcile that future orientation with the live in the now advice?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Basically speaking, you’re creating your future in the present moment. Like Alan Watts. Alan Watts said, be here now. Unless you are present in the present moment, you’re not creating the future. You create it. Basically speaking, we are probably about, you know, maybe 15 seconds ahead of ourselves anyway, is what the evidence seems to appear. That we live in the future already. So, be here now is an excellent thing to say. It’s what the religious leaders say, it’s what Alan Watts used to say—just being here now, and you will be enlightened, and you know, you know, how to move forward, and then the next five minutes, and I’ll be here now.
JASON HARTMAN: So, that future orientation isn’t about having long term goals for the next five, ten years, or even the next year—it’s about having a goal 15 seconds out?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Well, you can have a goal for the rest of your life. There’s nothing wrong with goals. Goals set your mind to what it is you want to accomplish. But if you are here now, what if you suddenly discover that that’s not really the goal that you want anyway? Being totally present in the moment is an expanded consciousness, and no one would tell you that, you know, any of them would tell you that you are expanded when you are in the present moment.
JASON HARTMAN: There’s just one more thing I want to ask you about. I know I’m keeping you a little long here, so I hope that’s okay—
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: That’s okay.
JASON HARTMAN: It’s your fault, because you’re so interesting. So, you have to take responsibility for being interesting, you know.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: I take responsibility.
JASON HARTMAN: The thing I want to ask you about—we’ve alluded to it a few times just throughout the conversation, I think, but the law of attraction type of stuff. I find that to be missing. You know—and I’m really referring mostly to The Secret, I guess, when I say that. It was so popular a few years back. I find that to be missing, certainly some important parts, you know? It’s just not the whole picture. You can sit around and hang out at new age conferences, and, you know, say you’re attracting prosperity, and all the people I know that do this, they’re not generally very prosperous. There are those who think and talk, and those who do, maybe. But when it comes to the scientific side of Karl Pribram and the holographic brain theory stuff that I discovered so many years ago, I just think, wow! I mean, that seems to make some leaps in logic that we have not yet discovered, but hey. In 1960, going to the moon was magic. What do you say about that? You know, how do you have goal achievement? And we’ve definitely alluded to that in this talk, but maybe wrapping some of it up, or adding to it.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: I see law of attraction, and goal achievement, from the standpoint of the brain, which is logical. That’s where I come from. And when you talk about the two, again, what I want to go back to, is the path through the meadow! It’s really that simple. Are those law of attraction people actually creating a neural network that will take them where they want to go? Or are they doing their oogam boogam, this thing today, that thing tomorrow, try something else the next day—not really committed to believing that they are achieving it. They are wanting it for the future. And they spend maybe five minutes thinking, you know, I blah blah blah, but then the minute they turn away and go back to their life, there’s this little voice in the back of the mind that says yeah, yeah, yeah, you want a new house, but you can’t even take care of the one you got. Or, what do you mean you want a new car? What do you need a new car for? So, there is the distraction that comes up. Doesn’t matter whether it’s law of attraction of goal setting. It doesn’t matter. It’s the same, same, same. Are you committed? Are you on the path? Do you really know what you want? And are you taking the steps to create it? Regardless of the bumps in the road, regardless of what anyone else says, are you using your full brain in the most efficient way, to create and manifest your goal or your law of attraction goal? It comes to that.
It’s the same. It literally is the same. It’s not oogam boogam. It comes down to what’s happening in your brain.
JASON HARTMAN: You didn’t really talk much about visualization. You talked about the neural pathway, I guess. So that really—I guess we influence that neural pathway through visualization, through self talk, and through actual live experiences, too, right?
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Right. Through things that we read, things that we focus on. What you focus on, you will create. Basically, we create our lives according to what we focus on. Again, that comes to the law of attraction, that comes to goal setting, that comes to what you’re visualizing, it comes to what you’re affirming, it all comes together, and it’s all brain science. You know, how effectively are you using your brain to accomplish what it is you want to accomplish.
JASON HARTMAN: I want to compliment you; your interview was excellent, and you have so many books, and the reviews are numerous and very, very high on Amazon. You know, I get suspicious whenever I see a book with like eight reviews. But your books have, you know, over 100 reviews many times, and you know, 4½ stars, so very good stuff. I’m looking forward to diving into more of your content. And so, you can find a lot of it on Amazon.com, but I’m sure you want to give out one of your websites, and tell people where they can learn more. You gave out a couple, the audio websites, but I don’t know if you have a more general one you want to mention.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: The more general one is buildmindpower.com. And I think they’ll really enjoy that website. And also there’s a free course there, a 12-part course. It’s not just a lightweight yah dah dah. It’s a very meaty course that they’re welcome to pick up.
JASON HARTMAN: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And everybody, there’s some great stuff here, so use it, take advantage of it, and Jill, we appreciate having you.
JILL AMMON-WEXLER: Great, Jason.
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ANNOUNCER: This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews, please visit www.HartmanMedia.com, or email [email protected]. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, or business professional for any individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own, and the host is acting on behalf of Empowered Investor, LLC. exclusively.
