EP 229: The power of your brain with Liam Naden

December 27, 2023 Jens Heitland

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Description:

In this episode of the Human Innovation Podcast, Jens Heitland hosts expert speaker, writer, researcher, and relationship coach, Liam Naden. They discuss how people can create true success in life by using their brains correctly. Liam shares his journey from aspiring child with a religion-oriented perspective on life to a multi-millionaire plagued with problems, to becoming enlightened about how the brain functions. He introduces his model around the four parts of the brain namely: Thinking, Emotional, Survival, and Creative brains and the roles they play. He emphasizes that fear is the enemy and by eliminating fear, your creative brain will be activated leading to greater clarity, inspiration, new ideas and opportunities. He also discusses his approach to creating better relationships and how this is equally relevant in a leadership context and ultimately applicable to achieve personal growth and success.

Timing:

00:00 Introduction and Guest Presentation

01:00 Liam Naden's Personal Journey to Success

05:02 The Downfall and Rebuilding

12:00 Understanding the Brain and Its Functions

20:18 The Four Parts of the Brain

23:52 The Impact of Stress on Brain Function

26:04 The Importance of the Creative Brain

26:39 The Entrepreneur's Perspective

28:22 Understanding Happiness and Fulfillment

28:52 The Role of the Brain in Our Lives

29:28 The Impact of Fear on Our Lives

30:18 Exploring Relationships from a Leadership Perspective

30:32 Building Healthy Relationships as a Leader

31:57 The Role of Fear in Relationships

32:51 Understanding Leadership and Fear

34:12 The Importance of Self-Responsibility in Relationships

35:27 The Role of Fear in Business and Leadership

42:53 The Impact of Fear on Our Personal and Professional Lives

44:18 Understanding the Concept of Marriage Uncounseling

48:09 Final Thoughts on Fear, Relationships, and Leadership

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

Hello and welcome to the human innovation podcast, the podcast for innovative leaders. I'm your host Jens Heitland. And today my guest is Liam Naden. Liam is speaker, teacher, writer, and researcher who helps people understand the process for creating true success in life. By understanding how to use their brain in the right way, Liam is also an experienced marriage and relationship coach podcast host and author have more than 20 books and creator of four relationship coaching programs.

In our conversation, we explore the four parts of the brain, how they support and limit us, and we talk about how leaders can build relationships by overcoming fear. Please welcome to the show, Liam Naden.

Hello, Liam. Welcome to the show. Great to have you.

hello Jens, thank you very much for having me, it's , exciting to be here.

I'm looking forward to dive into the brain together with you and relationships, of course. But before we do this, tell us a little bit about how did you get to the topic and the power of the brain as a theme for yourself? Because what I found out with researching you, that was not a natural starting point where I would guess like you will end up in that world.

No, well that's right, well I started out, out in life , probably like many of your listeners, as a driven person wanting to be the, the most successful that I could be, you know,

I remember even as a young child when I was , brought up in a religious family. I thought, well, I really asked my parents when I was quite young, so, you know, what I was thinking, what's the key?

How do I get what I want in life? And the message I got back was you pray. You go, you pray to God for what you want and God will give it to you. So, being the feisty child I was, I really tried that out and I went to church every morning. It's 6 a. m. in the middle of winter for a month to ask God for one specific thing.

And I think it was something like to win a competition at school because I thought at the time in my As a I think I was eight or nine years old. I thought you know, I'm gonna try this out I'm gonna ask God if this works. I'm going to see if it does I didn't get what I wanted But it got me along. It was just an early example of always trying to figure out.

What's the secret? What's the answer? How can I be the best that I can be? So, really I carried this on throughout my life and I explored many different areas looking for that answer. I went to university because somebody told me you get an education. That's how you get to be happy and successful.

That didn't quite work out for me. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed it, but it didn't really make me rich or, you know, give, I still had problems if you like. , but eventually, or really in my twenties, I got into my own business because again, somebody. Said, well, that's how you're happy. You, you, you set up your own business, make lots of money and you'll be happy and successful.

So I did all of that. And in fact, I've had. 18 different businesses in my life now. I've been a real entrepreneur and a lot of them very successful and some of them not successful. But what I found was, as I went through my life and I was in addition to running these businesses and doing all of the things you need to do to, you know, setting big goals and, and working hard and looking for opportunities to grow my business , I was also studying, studying business courses.

And then I got into studying. Personal development, you know, and I went to all sorts of seminars and, and read all these books and, and went and did courses.

And I just did so much stuff alongside working on my businesses, and I did actually achieve a lot of success on the outside. I was a multi millionaire. I was able to travel and lived in a really nice home and do lots of great things. But one thing that was part of my life as well was a lot of stress, a lot of stress and problems.

And I thought, and I read in lots of places, and so I believed. Well, stress and problems, that's a natural part of success, that's the price you pay if you want to be successful. You have to overcome a lot of challenges, you have to break through all of your fears and deal with adversity, and set bigger goals, and have problems on a daily basis, that's just what success is.

So I accepted that. Now I subsequently discovered that's not true, but anyway we'll get into that I'm sure. But that's what I thought at the time, and here I was going along and setting my goals and doing really well, and I had multiple homes, and in my mid forties, something happened that should never have happened.

Here I was, I knew a lot about success, I knew about positive thinking, and I'd also done a lot of spirituality, meditation, different spiritual practices, learning about the law of attraction, all these different things. So I thought I had it all together, and I thought, well, this is how a successful life looks.

Then in my mid forties... I went from being a multimillionaire to losing everything, literally everything, almost overnight. And I lost my friends all, all my money, all of my assets, my property, my family, my income, my businesses, absolutely everything. And I had to move back in with my elderly mother and sleep on the sofa in, in the living room of her small apartment. And I had people calling me up, wanting money, you know, I nearly, I nearly went bankrupt, fortunately didn't quite, but I nearly did. And I got to thinking, a couple of things. One is, why has this happened to me? I mean, this wasn't on my goals list, you know, and I know so much about how to create success and how to manage your life and how to achieve.

How did this happen? This, all of a sudden, or maybe not all of a sudden, but it seems like there's something operating that's out of my control. Because. So I thought, there's something really weird going on here. And it wasn't pleasant either. And the other question I asked myself was, How do I get out of this?

What do I do now? Because I had no clue, I had, I was in a town I hadn't been to, well, ever actually. So I didn't know anybody, I couldn't see any way to make any money or to get off my mother's sofa. So I was really in a, in a low place, as you can imagine, but what happened after that was really interesting, and that's how I got into the book to answer your question about how I got into the brain, because whereas what I noticed was, as I started to pull myself out of the situation and things started to get better, you know, I started to make money again.

I started to set up businesses, , and started to do things that I actually really enjoyed. So, but what I was finding with my life was I was again successful. I was successful. Doing what I wanted, I was making all the money I needed to give me the opportunity to travel, and, you know, I had a new relationship, which was marvelous, and, but I thought, there's something very different here.

Where are the stress and problems? Because I've, if I'm really honest, I would, I would say, and this is still the case, I don't really have any stress or problems. It's like, before, and this sounds a little bit, Woo woo, but before it was like I was chasing after success and I was always thinking what's next.

How can I achieve more? How can I be more successful? But instead of that and with that came a lot of stress now It seemed like success was coming after me, you know, things were happening to me without all the struggle People would show up in my life. I remember one man I was in a shop and a man walked in I hadn't seen him in 25 years And he said, Oh, Liam, he recognized me.

And he said, there's an opportunity for a business just around the corner from where I am. Why don't you do that? You know, and I did it and it worked really well. So I thought, where does, where's all this coming from? And why isn't my life, instead of me chasing after success and having to struggle, things are really flowing well in my life. Everything seems to be fitting into place. I mean, obviously I was working hard, but it wasn't a struggle. And everything I was doing, or most of what I was doing, Actually seemed to work. So that's when I thought, you know, I've done all of these things, learning about how to achieve success, what's missing.

And I went back to basics because I wanted to re engineer what I'd done, because I thought whatever I'm doing now, I want to make sure I keep doing it. I want, because this is working. This is great. So what I did, I started to think about what, what's the missing piece here. And the missing piece struck me as very obvious.

When I finally thought about it was here we all are going through our life trying to make things happen, but we forget we live in a natural world. We governed by natural laws. that far outweigh anything that we think we can do. For instance, the law of gravity, you know, you can, you can be a positive thinker.

You can have beliefs, you can have affirmations, you can pray, you can have determination. But if you still think that if you walk off a 10 story building, that you're not going to go down, that you can say, yes, I'm going to fly. It's just not going to happen. So there are laws that are governing our behavior, the laws of nature, laws of physics as well.

And they override everything. And if you, again, think about when it comes to us as biological beings, there are laws that govern how we operate. You can try and stop your heart beating. You can try and stop breathing. It's not going to work, you know. So what I realized was there's a natural order to things.

That we are a part of, and if we actually learn how to use that, we can get far more success.

Because here's the other thing I really realized and discovered when I started to get into what is the, what are the laws of nature that we're operating with. Maybe I should be using those rather than struggling against them.

Is that nature biology has a law which is called the law of survival. Everything biological, and we're biological, that's the thing we'd forgotten, I'd forgotten. We're a biological being. Everything biological is wired, designed, and literally programmed to survive. That's the main purpose of life. That's what it's here to do.

Every biological scientist will tell you that. When you really think about that, what that means is, if you're biologically, like everything else, wired to survive, what gives you the best chance of survival? And what that is, that is being the best that you can be. It's called homeostasis in biology.

So it means the perfect functioning of the organism. Every organism is designed biologically to be its best so that it has the greatest chance for survival. And when it comes to humans, being our best doesn't just mean physically, it also means mentally and emotionally. In other words, We're designed to feel good, to feel happy, and we all know that when you feel good, and when you feel happy, you actually prolong your life, because stress kills, kills us, and science will tell you that, , stress has a very detrimental effect biologically and physically on, on us.

It shortens our life and doesn't make it as pleasant. So if you take that through to its logical conclusion, the next thing you realize is, And the next thing I thought about is, so what has nature provided to me and to every biological thing for this to happen? Because if we're designed to be our best, so that we have the greatest chance for survival, what's the mechanism, the machinery, the, the system that is there to make that happen?

There must be something designed to make that happen. And it turns out there is. There's a machine, the most perfect machine that exists, it's this thing, the brain. The brain's purpose is not just to keep you surviving, at the bare minimum, it's not that. It's designed to make sure that you are the best that you can be so that you have the greatest chance for survival.

So that's when I started to study about the brain and think. And realize that there's a way the brain operates, we've all been taught wrong about how it is. In fact, have we ever been taught how to operate our brain? We're taught how to drive a car, we're taught how to use a computer, and if you were to get into a car and you didn't know how to drive it, or if you were to ask, say you're a 10 year old child, and you ask your father, you know, can I drive the car?

The father's saying, of course you can't, you don't know how to drive it. And What tends to happen with us is, we don't know how to drive it. Our brain is a machine, you know, a car is a machine designed for one purpose. To get you from where you are, to where you want to go, as easily and comfortably and efficiently as possible.

And it will do that, if you know how to drive it the right way. But if you don't know, what happens? You have problems. You, you break the car, or it's a, it's an unpleasant ride, or whatever. And it's the same with the brain. Your brain is designed to make you... Have in your life all of the things that are going to make you the best that you can be, physically, emotionally, and mentally. But if you don't know how to use it properly, what's going to happen? What happens with any machine? You're going to have problems. And what I really realized, and the obvious conclusion, is if you've got problems in life, and what is a problem? A problem is something that doesn't make you feel good. If you have problems in your life, think that they are harming you on a physical level, they are harming your chances of survival.

So therefore, not only are they not natural to have problems, you're going against the use of the, this machine of your brain, you're using it wrong, which is why they're there.

And that's what's led me into all my work, and the more I researched this, the more I saw that all of science, all of philosophy, all of religion, It's teaching the same thing from different angles that it's how you use this thing between your ears, this machine called your brain, that, that's going to determine your life.

And there's a way to use it to ensure what it says in the Bible, where you don't need to worry about what you shall eat, drink, or wear, it'll all be provided for you. So that's, , how I got into the brain.

Fascinating. So when we put ourselves back into the time where you basically, you were rock bottom and got started, I think that's a place where if we think about startup founders who are listening to this, who are just getting started. They might not be mentally in that stage, but they're in that stage, what you described, and I can tell you for me, it's the same, which is the physical, mental stress.

I need to push things through. What were the triggers for you and what helped you to not go back into this? , You explained you have had a lot of businesses and the natural thing you have done before was, okay, I will push it. I will push it. I will push it. What helped you to not do that? And are there little tricks you can share for the listeners as well?

Well, you know, the beautiful part about losing everything... And I'm sure some of your listeners have been in that situation and would agree.

It was actually the greatest gift that I ever had. Because one, apart from it getting me along this whole path of living life in a completely different way, one thing it taught me is you don't get anywhere in life through force.

If you really want, you know, force and struggle are against the natural laws of nature. Everything flows along the path of least resistance. You know, I've just finished spending eight years sailing around Europe on a yacht. And we went and visited 15 countries. It was, you know, an amazing time.

But one of the things about being on a yacht was the hull of the boat, the bottom of the boat, after a while in the water, it gets barnacles and growth on it. And it slows you down. So you have to pull the boat boat out of the water every once a year, once every two years and clean it off to make it all smooth again, because then you go a lot faster.

The point being, the less the resistance, the faster you go. So it's like riding a bicycle into the wind. It's going to be a lot harder and a lot more struggle trying to go into the wind. Then going with it. So the thing I really realized is the path of least resistance is actually the right path, because when I lost everything and I didn't know what to do, what I did differently was I said, I, I admitted I don't know what to do.

And when I did that, a different part of my brain started to engage and it took control, and it literally started to lead me down the easiest and fastest path to really having. Not only the best life possible, but but, but being the best that I could be. And for all entrepreneurs and for all of us. What we're after is we're not after the cars, the boats, the houses, the money, the, the big business, the great relationship we're after, how it makes us feel.

And biologically, on every level, that is the guide. You are. You wanna be happy, you wanna feel happy and successful. But the part of your brain that knows what you need and to be for you to be truly happy and successful and how to get you there is not the part that you've been using where you're trying to figure it out because you don't know what that looks like you want, you can't, and we'll talk about how the brain works, but particularly if you're in a state of stress.

Anxiety, worry, and struggle. There is no way you can know what the right goals are for you. Because you're using the wrong part of your brain. There's a different part of your brain that knows, that knows exactly what you should do. And just like my path was like a zigzag to the right place. You know, and I'd go in a wrong direction and push against it and have to be forced to go in a different direction.

I think the biggest problem for entrepreneurs, or certainly I face, is you're trying to figure everything out to start with, rather than saying, I'm going to go with the natural laws and allow the right things to show up. Because the other thing that happens when you use this other part of your brain, when you're not struggled and stressed, and trying to figure stuff out, you see opportunities.

Maybe we're there all along, but you only see it with this part of your brain. This is a physical, biological thing. It's what I call the creative brain. And this has a place in your head, this isn't some idea. This sort of... Theoretical idea. This is physical. So you see opportunities and not only do you see opportunities, but the right opportunities come along, but if you're busy in this other direction, trying to figure everything out and trying to plan it, you're going to miss all those opportunities or a lot of them, and you're going to try and force things to happen.

There have been so many examples of companies that And of businesses who've set these goals and it's bankrupted them for that goal because it was the wrong goal, but they were so determined and they thought that was the path to go down that they forgot or they didn't see where they should have gone down. So that really is the key when you're struggling, if you like, is somehow you've got to find a way to let go. And I know let go has this corny sort of connotation, but there's a, there's a biological. Principle as to why you should let go and what let go actually means and that's what I teach people is what let go Actually means it doesn't mean give up.

It doesn't mean say I'm a failure, you know That doesn't it's not about positive thinking or any of that sort of stuff But you have to train your mind to allow the part of your brain which wants the best for you to do its job, to bring you the right things, rather than you, you thinking you know, and forcing yourself in one particular direction.

Before we dive deeper into this, let's keep us with the brain. So you mentioned already the creative brain. Explain from your perspective how the brain works in this circumstances.

You know, science has done lots of research into the brain, and we still don't know a lot, but I've actually created a model which explains it in a very simple and practical way. So it doesn't have all the fancy, you know, scientific biological terms, but this is about, these are biological processes.

And essentially, I've broken the brain down into four parts. The first part is your thinking brain, and this is where, all the information that's coming at you through, throughout your life, in every moment, through your senses, you're labelling it, you're putting language, you're describing it, and you're storing it as information in this part of your brain.

Then there's your emotional, your feeling brain, which is obviously, as the name suggests, responsible for how you feel. It creates emotion in you. The third part of your brain is, The survival brain, and this is actually an automatic part of your brain that, that is managing your survival on a moment by moment basis.

So it manages all of your automatic functions, you know, your, your, your breathing, your heart rate, all of your organs, all of your bodily functions. And it also in your survival brain has another very important weapon or a tool, which is your fight or flight mechanism. And the purpose of the fight or flight mechanism is to, to protect you and be a, and a weapon against the very odd time in your life when you might be faced with a, a threat to your physical survival. So. It's like for an emergency. It's an emergency button, if you like, or tool to fight. So, we don't need this very often these days because we're not faced by many, , threats to our survival.

But maybe going back 20 million years or whenever, when the, you know, there was a lion behind every rock, we, we needed that a lot more. Maybe you only need it once or twice in your lifetime. But that's what it's there for, is to deal with a threat, an immediate threat to your survival. And the fourth part of your brain is the part I've just mentioned earlier, your creative brain.

In your creative brain, when you activate that, you have clarity of thinking. So if you've ever been in a situation where you go, I can see, I see something new, or that I didn't see before, oh, I see the right answer to that problem. I see what I should do. I should not do that. I see it really clearly.

That's your creative brain at work. It's also when you get inspiration and new ideas, you know, and this happens to, to business owners and entrepreneurs, doesn't it? You wait, you, you, you are wrestling with a problem and then you wake up one day and outta the blue, you can suddenly say, ah, that's the way to do it.

Or you see some new opportunity, something comes to you, some new idea. This is all your creative brain at work. It's your imagination, your creativity. You know, artists and, and musicians and composers have described. This part of the brain. Composers have said things like, I just heard the music and I wrote it down.

I don't know where it came from. And I think if people are really honest and start to think about it, you realize that it's the unexpected things that show up in your life, which is your creative brain at work. They're the things that really determine what goes on. You know, you're busy struggling, trying to achieve a goal.

And then suddenly someone comes out of the blue and you do something different or a part of your business or whatever. You change it. So this is all the creative brain at work. And the point is that's the part that manages is supposed to manage your life because it knows it has the clarity and the wisdom and it knows exactly what you want.

It knows how to get there, it knows how to solve problems, the right answer. And it raises your awareness to see more opportunities and to do more of the right thing and avoid doing the wrong thing. But here's the thing, most of us hardly ever use that part of the brain. And the reason for that is, when we activate the fight or flight part, that part shuts down.

Because that part's of no use to us when we're fighting off a danger, when we have to react. But instead of using our fight or flight once or twice, In our lifetime, we're using it throughout the day, because every time we feel fear, frustration, stress, worry, anxiety, anger, whatever that negative emotion is, what we don't realize is that we're triggering, that's activating the fight or flight part of the brain.

And we do that through all the annoyances, the arguments, the negative thoughts we might have, the disagreements, the disappointments, they're all triggering these feelings. Which activate the fight or flight brain and shut down the resourceful, creative part of the brain. And that's why we're struggling.

We're trying to use the wrong part to figure it out. Because that's like a five year old child. That doesn't know, all that knows is how to react to a threat. That's what it's there, it's not there to think or to know anything. And if you go to a five year old child and say, What should my goals be? The first thing you're going to say is, I don't know.

I don't know. And that's what we all do when we're stressed. We go, what do I want? What do I want? And we're confused. We don't know. But if we keep asking, if we keep saying to that five year old child, I'm relying on you. You have to tell me. What do I want? I need you to tell me, please. The child's going to go, , well, maybe you want to be rich.

Or you want to be, , you want to have a great marriage to this person that you're married to right now. Or you want to have a business that's worth 100 million. 100 million. , is that all right? And you go, thank you. Okay, right. I know what I want now. And you go after it. It's crazy. It sounds crazy, but that's what we're doing all the time.

And what happens then we go after the wrong things we create and we do the wrong things. Because again, the five year old child doesn't know what to do, and we're continually asking it, What do I do now? Do this. And we think that through force and struggle and determination and positive thinking, we're going to make, get work to where we want, but it just doesn't work.

And if people are honest, they'll realize it doesn't work, and the truth is, it never will. You have to learn, you have to figure out how can I shut down that part? How can I stop it from activating so that I can allow and operate from my creative brain? So I can see much more clearly what to do.

And you know, there's another word for that. Being in the flow, being in the zone. We've all had that experience. We've heard about people who have that experience. That's the way your life is supposed to be all the time. Unless there's a lion coming at you or, you know, once or twice in your life, someone might want to come and hit you or a...

Car comes towards you and you need to jump out of the way. Apart from that, you're supposed to be being the best that you can be. You're supposed to be in the flow, in the zone where all of the good things are happening. And that's because that's what your creative brain is designed to make sure you are

The fun part is that it's all in your head. So the stress it's not coming from the outside. As an entrepreneur, at least speaking about myself, if we take me as a guinea pig. Just because of my ambition, where I want to be and what I want to make and what I want to do, that's making myself the stress..

It's, it's not coming from the outside that anyone else like my wife or my daughter or anyone else out there would say, no, you need to achieve this by then, or you need to have this. You need to have that. It's just me. It's just my brain forcing me into, and then that's making this stress. And I think that's where we entrepreneurs are in all the time. And then you get up at five in the morning, start working and you finish at 11 in the evening and you're still under stress. And then the creative brain most probably is not at all working during the day. And then it's maybe popping up in the night and then you wake up and you have a good thought.

absolutely. And you get to what you achieve your goals. You know, I used to think if I could make a hundred thousand dollars a year, oh, my life would be so amazing. I would be so happy. It would be perfect. I got to that and then I thought, Oh, if I could only make 200, 000 a year and you just keep going and what you, you get to the point of realizing how much money do I have to make to be happy?

And you realize you're on the wrong track. That's the wrong game. You're playing a game with rules that you can never win. And the rules of that game are you always have to have more, but you cannot be happy with what you've got.

Yeah.

So that's a crazy game. To to be playing, but unfortunately, that's what most people are playing because that's that's the way they think it works.

That's the only game they know how to play, and that's why they get to later in life for it. You know, a lot of people that I talk to are like me a bit older, and , they're at the stage where they're thinking,

Is this all there is?

You know, why can't I be happy? You know, I've, you know, there's got to be some, there's some, I'm, I'm, it's not just about making more money, I, you know, I know how to do that, I've got all the money I need, I've got the houses I need, I've got all the freedom, why aren't I happy? You know, and what is, what am I missing? And that's because you've been going, you've been trying to use this, Your five like your five year old child fight or flight brain. to tell you what you need in your life. And you're trying to find happiness, which is what you really want. You know, we want to feel in control of our life, that things are going really well, that we're making a difference and that we're happy.

That's what we really want. But we've been using the wrong part of our brain to show us what that looks like for us. And the other thing that happens for me and many of the people I help, and I know we're going to be talking about relationships, and this is very relevant to this as well. People think they want something.

That will make them happy. But if they actually start using this, the creative part of their brain, their life very often goes in a completely different direction. And you know, people contact me and say, this is amazing Liam, I don't know how all this happened, I don't know why I've ended up doing what I'm doing.

It was never in my wildest dreams what I would imagine that I'd been doing, it's something completely different. But I've never felt so happy, and now I realize this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, not what I thought I was supposed to be doing. So that's the beauty of it. You need to be open to the fact that your life is going to go in any sort of direction, but your brain, your creative brain, is going to take you in exactly the right direction.

But you have to learn to allow it to do that, rather than force and struggle and think that you have to go in a different direction.

It's fascinating. You have been mentioning already the relationship piece. Relationships. Let's look at this from a leadership aspect. I know you work with a couple of different angles, but I think let's start to get into that from a leader's perspective. How do we get from the brain towards building relationships in a different way? Let's focus maybe on healthy relationships as a leader.

Well, when you think about, you know, we all want great relationships, you know, if we're in a marriage or even a business relationship, we don't want to want to be filled, filled with miscommunication and struggle and, and, , problems and stress, we want to have a great relationship and coming back to a personal relationship or a marriage, if you like, is you want to be with somebody where you, that makes you feel great.

You know, that, that you can totally trust that who, who totally trusts you and who looks you in the eye and says with the eyes, you are the most wonderful person in the world. I am so lucky to have you in my life. That's what you want. So what do you have to do to achieve that? Well, one clue is to look back at the time.

Has there ever been a time in my relationship with the person I'm with where I really felt totally loved by them, and I, and I looked at them, and I couldn't see any of the faults.

All I saw was the most amazing person, and we were communicating well, and there weren't any problems, and we didn't, we weren't working on the relationship and trying to figure out how to fix problems. Was there any time like that? Yes, there was. When we first got together, that's when it was, it was, it was magical, it was all, I, I just thought they were great, they thought I were great, we didn't worry about the imperfections, whatever, we were just in awe of each other and having a lot of fun.

So what's the one thing, one difference between what was happening then and what's happening now when you've got all those problems and stress and trying to figure out how to make this relationship work? One word, fear. You weren't afraid then. Of the consequences of the relationship not working. You were just enjoying yourself.

You weren't afraid of That if you said something, it might be construed the wrong way. You weren't afraid that if the other person said something that it might be construed, you might take it the wrong way. Because if something like that happened, you would say, What did you mean by that? Oh, okay, I understand.

Okay, that's fine. You wouldn't get all upset by it. And you also wouldn't second guess what everything kept meaning. Oh, are they, do they, you know, they're talking to someone else on their phone or on Facebook or something. Oh, does that mean they're having an affair with somebody else? And, you know, and we've got all these problems and things aren't so good.

So the thing about this, the word fear is that's what leadership is. Leadership is lack of fear. Leadership is having clarity that you know exactly. The right things are going to happen at the right time. You are in control, not of everything else, but of yourself. And you trust yourself and you say, you know, I know the right things going to happen.

And true leadership is knowing that whatever happens, it is the right thing. Because again, whatever happens in your life, you know, you can't necessarily affect what happens, but you can affect how you feel about it. You can affect whether you allow a five year old child. You'll fight flight to be activated through and react through fear, stress, worry, anxiety, and therefore do the wrong things, or you can react to something with your creative brain and see that it's there's an opportunity, a gift that it's just something that's of benefit to you.

So if you want to be really again, I think this whole leadership thing, if you want to be a great leader, in my opinion, it's to work on what your fears are and remove those because for two things. One is. It gets you using the wrong part of your brain. But secondly, it's not attractive. You know, we, we warn to people who aren't afraid, who aren't afraid of what they, of what they say.

They aren't afraid of upsetting you, the other, when you're talking to them. Because here's the thing, if somebody gets upset with what you say, that's actually their problem. It's not your problem. Because it's all about how, and people react according to how they're feeling and what they think things mean.

So that's the thing to work on. Because we, we, we talk about leaders are fearless. Learn That's what's charismatic. That's what's true. That's, we want, we like to be around people who know where they're going and who know that if it doesn't work out, that's fine. They know they're on the right track. So when it comes to relationships, when you get rid of your fear and you become a leader, it doesn't mean you dominate the other person, but it just means you say fear has no place, part to play in this relationship.

If things go wrong, if things don't go according to plan, well that's fine, we'll sort them out. And, you know, if, if somebody did something to upset me, that's my problem. Why did I get upset? Why did I think they should have done something differently, particularly if I just made a mistake? And if we're not meant, if this relationship isn't meant to be, well, it's not meant to be.

Okay, but I'll stay here. We'll both stay here for as long as we know it is the right thing. But when we know it's not the right thing, well, we don't, we have the courage to say. This is no longer right. We'll move on.

Yeah. It's fascinating that you explain it from that perspective because that's exactly what I've experienced over the last 10, 15 years in business from a leadership aspect. The best leaders can lead themselves first before they lead others. Because that's exactly what you say, just in different words, being in tune with yourself, that's what I'm often saying, you need to be in tune with yourself, what you want to do and where you want to be and how you want to be.

And then it's way easier to work with, let's say, in air quotes, difficult people. Because in the end, it's like you said, it's, it's about how you feel about someone being difficult. Often they're, they're just difficult because they're not happy with themselves.

Absolutely. You know, your relationship with other people. I like to say, and I think it's true. Your relationship with other people is a reflection of your relationship with yourself. If you're not happy with yourself, if you're not secure, if you're not comfortable that you're on the right track, you're going to get affected by what other people say and do, and it's going to knock you off track and you're going to have cloudy, difficult relationships.

But if you're, you're like, well, look. If you have a problem with what I say, I'd say or do, then obviously that's your problem and you either come along with me for the ride because I'm here to be the best I can be. That's the when I'm the best I can be. I contribute the most to other people. I make the most impact.

I make the most difference on on all sorts of levels. And biologically, that's what you're supposed to do because it's part of survival is that we, we have a part of our brain that's resourceful, creative, finding better ways to do things, finding ways to help everybody expand their life or extend their life in a good way.

Because that's what it's all about. We're all, we don't only, we're not in there to help ourselves survive, but help everyone else because when we help everyone else survive, that helps us as well,

yeah. I was just smiling inside because when you said, if you don't like it, it's your problem, not my problem. It's saying that out loud in a larger corporate is not, not, not the smartest way of.

but imagine a culture

I agree.

in a company where everyone took responsibility for how they felt and they said, Hmm, no, I reacted to that. Why, what is it about, what do I think that's making me not happy with what someone else does? Wouldn't be just a different, , company, it'd be a different world if everyone took responsibility for themselves and realized that it's not what's happening, it's what they are thinking it means.

That's creating their feeling and it

and again, this is what I teach as well. It is about perspective It's not about telling lies and and and being as I say making things up But when you use your creative brain again, this sounds slightly weird But you actually see that everything is perfect And when you see that everything is perfect and nothing you don't need to change anything That's when your creative brain makes all the right changes You don't, you get rid of all these expectations that things have to be a certain way.

You know, I, I have my own podcast and I talk to a gentleman who's in his 70s, I guess now. Really successful guy. He had a company, , in the 1990s, I think. And he had, it was the biggest in the world for what it did. It did, it taught courses on, , , commodities trading. He had a million customers in, , in 90 countries.

He had 500 staff. He had. , two private jets and he said, you know, Liam, I could never have put all this on a goals list. I, I didn't expect any of this to happen. I have no, you know, this, this just came along. So, and he teaches, he talks about in a slightly different way to me. He says, just take the next step.

Don't bother trying to think the next 20 and your life will turn out far better than you can possibly imagine. So this is the key. It's, it's actually really to give up expectation. And I know, you know, with companies. You say we have to set budgets and all, all of that sort of thing, and it probably goes completely against the grain to say this, but for instance, , was it the Ford Motor Company, I think in the early 2000s, they set a goal that they would, no, it was General Motors in the, in the, in the 60s, set a goal that they were going to have 29 percent market share of the U. S.

car market, and they had t shirts made with number 29 on it, and everyone went around and said, we're going to get 29 Share, and this is our great goal. And what happened, it nearly bankrupted the company. They had to get bailed out by the government. Because it got people to cut corners, not see opportunities, get greedy, and do all the wrong things, and it just turned to chaos. And that's the problem. Sometimes very often you have to, you always have to evaluate why am I creating these expectations that all they're doing is creating stress and struggle, and maybe they're leading me down the wrong track

Yeah. I was just discussing that with someone today where we talked about the, the challenge of public companies that always need to deliver every quarter to what they have promised in the beginning of the quarter. And that is exactly what you just said. It's pushing a whole company into a stress mode.

And that's what they're trying to get always the growth running so that the shareholders can get the money. And I understand it from a capital perspective, but if you, if we think about the humans, which the discussion this afternoon was, it's totally wrong.

and look at where it's leading us. You know, this whole thing about goal setting and success and pushing and having, you know, I often start off saying to people, okay, you've got, you know, you're a successful entrepreneur, but you're struggling with, with your business and you're, you've got problems and stress and you've got all these goals.

Now, just. Be honest here and tell me what percentage of your goals have you achieved in your life? Is it 99%? I go, , no. Okay. Was it 90%? Is it 80%? Is it 70, 60, 50? Tell me when to stop. Is it 10%? Is it 2%? And they go, ah, it's about 2%. And then I say, well, look, hang on a second. You're setting up, you've got a whole system here.

The world's got a whole system of doing something that only has a 2 percent success rate. Now, if you were to go to a heart surgeon and say, I need a heart operation, what's your success rate? And they'd say, Oh, about 2%. You're going to say that doesn't work. What are you crazy? I'm not, I'm not going to follow what you, you don't know what you're doing.

But we all have this idea that's been drilled into us from the day we were born. That goal setting is the way to go. But if it only has a 2 percent success rate, there's something wrong with it. And for anybody, you know, and the other thing about, , people, you know, I know companies, public companies, maybe they're set up the wrong, you know, maybe this whole idea is set up the wrong way, but obviously directors and people who work there have a legal duty to maximize the profit for shareholders.

That's what they're there for. And they're going to get. into trouble if they don't do that, but maybe on a personal level, if you're in that situation, if you're working in that way and you're really feeling stressed, and I say this to people I work with, if you're really feeling stressed, maybe on a personal level, you need to say, well, all the stress that I'm feeling, maybe this is a sign that I'm doing the wrong thing, that this isn't right for me.

And what's stopping me from going and doing something else? The number one word, fear. They don't realize that their creative brain, if you walked out the door tomorrow, your creative brain will make sure you survive. Your creative brain might turn around and say, Thank goodness, I've been trying to get you to leave that job or that thing for all these years.

I'm, I've been trying to give you the message that it's wrong for you. And I'm, I'm going to keep giving you the message by putting more and more pain and struggle and problems into your life till you get the message. This is not right. You're supposed to be doing something different. But we don't do that because we're afraid.

Oh, well I don't know what would happen. I don't know what I'd do. The five year old child doesn't know what to do. But your creative brain, it's designed to make sure that you survive. That you survive to the best of your ability. It's going to make sure that you'll be fine.

Combining this two things, I'm just having a lot of aha moments for myself as well, which is always the beauty of doing doing your podcast, where you can heal heal yourself on the way.

Yeah, learn a lot yourself. That's why I do it too. Yeah.

Because one of the things and we haven't talked about that yet is, Not just the work relationship, relationship in general. And you work a lot with marriage and marriage counseling. For example, you have brought out your book. How was it called? Marriage counseling?

Marriage uncounseling.

Yes. Tell us about how did you get to writing that book? And as well, the other work you have done in that field already, because we haven't mentioned that.

Well, marriage uncounseling is really my approach to relationships, , in the way that I've been talking about, or we've, we've been talking about, which is, if you're going to focus on the problems, because what happens when you go to counselling? You go to, you say, we've got problems in our marriage, Let's go to a counselor, and the counselor sits down with you, and you focus on the problems.

How can we solve the problems? Like our communication isn't good, or our intimacy isn't good, or we're having all these arguments, or he's had an affair and I can't forgive him for it, or she is having an affair and I don't know how to get her to stop, stop it. Whatever it is, you focus on the problems. And when you're focusing on trying to fix problems, you're using your fight flight brain.

You're feeling all stressed and you're saying, I need to fix, we need to fix this problem. So all that happens is you end up with more problems because that part of your brain doesn't know how to solve your problems. All it's going to do is get you more confused. And I've, I've many people who've come to me, most of the people who've come to me have said, unfortunately, we've been to counseling and it didn't help and it pretty well made things worse.

And I realized after several years of people telling me this, that it's because it's people are using the wrong part of their brain, trying to figure things out. So marriage uncounseling is about saying, or you've got to focus on something, not focus on the problems. You've got to focus on the solution.

And what is the solution? The solution is not a happy marriage. The solution is you feeling good and you want to wake up in the morning with somebody who's wonderful, makes you feel wonderful and excited. That's what you're looking for. It might not be the person you're with, but if you, if you have, if you allow fear to stop you from, from, or to keep you focused on trying to solve the problems in your marriage.

It's never going to work. You need to get... Because what happens when you focus on how you feel and letting go of your fear, sometimes your marriage will be absolutely transformed. And you'll be in this relationship which is the relationship you want, which is, there's no fear attached. Hey, you know, you did something wrong.

We all do something wrong. That's not a threat to my survival that you went and had an affair with somebody and it was a mistake you made. Okay, I can forgive you for it. Let's get on with it. And let's enjoy life. Or other times... So it, it makes marriages much healthier when there isn't the focus on the problems.

But other times, it's people realizing, Hey, I've been in this marriage for 30 years and I've been struggling and I, and I can see it's just not the right thing for me. So I'm going to give up my fear and worry about what might happen. I'm going to end it. And then they, and I'll go and find somebody else better.

In all of those situations, everybody wins. Everybody. Because everybody either learns the lesson that you can't, you know, force somebody else to do something that they don't want to do, or you shouldn't. Or the whole key to your happiness is to let go of fear and just let your creative brain take you in the right direction.

You know, many people have contacted me, sometimes years later, and said, Oh Liam, when I finally got that, I'd been struggling with my marriage all this time, and When I gave up on it and I said to my wife, this isn't working, we've got to end this. That's when her attitude changed and she said, Oh no, I don't want to lose you, I know, and I'm really sorry, I know things, let's, let's, let's heal our marriage.

Or, they have ended their relationship and they've gone on and found someone better and they contact me and say, I never, never realized, I don't know why I struggled for so long. You know, if I'd only known that this was going to happen, and life's so much better. So that's what Marriage Uncounseling is.

It's about not focusing on your problems, it's focusing on the real problem, which is your fear. Letting go of that, and allowing your creative brain to bring you all the right stuff. Just like you did when you started out in your current relationship. You felt great. There was no fear attached. And you let things go the way they did.

and I think they're like, like we discussed before we started recording, there are a lot of similarities in leadership relationships, because in the end it starts always with yourself.

Absolutely.

if you're capable of learning to do that with the brain, then you're growing as a person. And as a person, you will be successful in whatever you're doing.

Yeah, you know, fear is the enemy. And even the Bible. And a lot of people are Christians. I was brought up a Christian. I'm not a practicing Christian anymore. But it's the greatest or one of the greatest manuals on how to use your brain that exists because it says there more than 360 times be not afraid.

Do not be afraid. Trust. Now, it doesn't say try not to be afraid. Try not to worry. It also doesn't say, you know, set your goals and you know, doesn't and work towards them. It says be not afraid because when you're afraid you're activating the fight flight survival part of your brain and that can't That's not how you're supposed to operate.

You're not activating the intelligent part of your brain. So that's why it's saying to you, whatever you do, don't be afraid. Find a way not to be afraid. And it keeps telling you in the Bible, have faith, trust everything, you know, give no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Do not worry about what you shall eat, drink, or wear.

It'll be provided for you. And if you look around the rest of nature, this is how nature works. Everything is provided for in nature. If you get a, you know, I never used to do this, but if, I didn't have time to get into the real world, but if you go and sit in a, sit out on the, in a park, and you look at birds, or you look at insects, or anything, you look at life, you see this just perfect balance.

If a bird needs food, it sees some food and it eats it. It's not stressed and worried and trying to figure it all out. You know, I really learned this when I was sailing around Europe on a boat as well. Birds and nature and it all just works perfectly. We're the only ones, you know, nature, I read it recently, nature has a 98 percent success rate.

There's the odd thing that doesn't do well, you know, a tree planted in the wrong place or a storm comes and washes things 98%, it's all working perfectly. But humans have a 98 percent failure rate. Why is that? We're not using this natural thing the right way.

We overthink it.

with the way things work.

Yeah. Let's use that to get into the last part of the podcast where I'm asking questions that might be related, but might be as well not related depending on your answer. So if you could work with a project that is impacting every human being on earth. What project would you work with and why would you like to work with that project?

Well, I guess just something that teaches people how we're really supposed to live. How you are a natural biological entity. I mean, there's more to us, but there's the biological part. And it's really quite simple. And you just need to learn how to use this machine the right way.

What advice would you give to a young innovator that's just getting started?

Learn about yourself and who you really are and realize that your number one enemy, because when you do learn about who you really are, and how you operate, and how your brain operates, you realize your number one enemy is fear. So, that's the only thing you need to focus on, is how can I eliminate my fears.

And I'm not talking about doing something that seems a little bit risky or makes you anxious. That's not real fear, but there's a part of you that knows whether it's the right thing or not. And when I started out, I was always doing things that on a gut level, I knew were wrong. So I'd set up a part of my business where I'd employ somebody and I'd think, on a really, if I was really honest, I'd say, Oh, this doesn't feel right.

But then, but I overrode that part and thought, well, I need somebody or I need, need more or, or more importantly, I'm going to make it work. It doesn't feel right, but I'm going to make it work. I can make anything work. We hear this all the time. You can achieve anything. You can make anything work. It's just not true.

All that does is create false expectation and stress. So I'd say to myself, if it doesn't feel right, just don't do it. Now, obviously, when you're young, you're not as, like, well, when I was young, I wasn't good, I didn't know this, and I wasn't as good at, , being aware of what felt wrong. But that, that's really the key because it's going to trip you up, you're going to, you know, hopefully you won't, it won't be like me, you lose everything eventually when everything catches up with you and it all just collapses, but it, it's, you're always going to find that it's the wrong thing and it, I used to have a, , a sales company and I spent 80 percent of my time with the sales people who would producing 10 percent of the result.

I didn't spend time with the good ones, which is what I should have done, but I kept going, Oh, I've got to get this person working better. You know, how can I get them to see how to be a better salesperson when they just weren't salespeople there in the wrong job. They didn't like it. I didn't like it. So when you let go of your fear and you start to go with your gut feeling, you're going to avoid all of those problems because a lot of those problems, the ones you make most of the problems you have, the ones you've made yourself by doing the wrong thing because you went against that little voice that knows what you should do because you were afraid you were afraid that something else wouldn't come along or that you wouldn't be successful or whatever.

yeah. Liam, where can people find you? How can people reach out to you?

Well, I have a website, which is just my name, liamnaden. com, , I've got a lot of stuff there, but people can contact me through that if they'd like to learn more, but I have a podcast about the brain. I have another podcast about relationships and my book, Marriage Uncounseling, of course, and a lot of other things.

But yeah, that's the place to get me, liamnaden. com.

Yeah, I will put everything and as well your social media profiles into the show notes so people can straight away get to you. Liam, thank you very much spending your early morning with me was a pleasure having you on the show.

Thank you, Jens. It's been an absolute pleasure being here. Thank you