Welcome to CORE Concepts

We use our brains every day. We ask other people to use their brains every day.

But most of us don’t have the slightest clue how our brains work.

That isn’t your fault, though. Truly.

In school, you were never taught anything about the brain and why humans do the things they do. Worse yet, you were probably also convinced at some point along the way that the brain can’t be understood. That it’s so complex and unpredictable that it isn’t even worth trying, and we should just continue to suffer and struggle, ensuring we enjoy the maximum human experience.

That is complete garbage.

The truth is that your brain is actually understandable…definitely enough to transform your thinking, focus, productivity, relationships, and success in many areas of life.

To experience this transformation, you do not have to become a neuroscientist. All that you need for a huge personal transformation is a tiny bit of knowledge that will blow your mind, awaken you to seeing your brain at work, ultimately making you more in control over the things that happen in your head.

Every decision involves using your brain. Everything you say and write comes from your brain. Your choices of how to manage and lead, and how all of those choices accumulate into your style and brand all come from your brain.

And yet you’ve been deprived of powerful knowledge and tools that illuminate how your brain actually works. Why it does what it does first, second and third. Why it likes what it likes and dislikes what it dislikes. What different parts of your brain do, and how you can intentionally steer thinking to the parts that’ll do anything better.

Before launching this weekly, brain-enhancing newsletter, I asked the people I know for feedback on the things they wanted most out of this (and I’d love to get the same feedback from you). The top three answers were:

1. Learn about how the mind works and how to get more out of my mind

2. Learn about how to become a better manager and leader

3. Learn how I can foster better discussions and team dynamics

So, since these emails and posts are designed to be brief, relevant, and actionable, we will start at the start and tackle these topics in consumable chunks.

How to get the most out of this newsletter:

Go into this newsletter like you’d go into culinary school. You’re probably here because you’re already pretty good at what you do. You already know how to lead or manage (like how someone in culinary school knows how to cook). You love doing it well and the successes you’ve had have built confidence and conviction.

But at culinary school, it’s all about starting over again, taking nothing for granted, and learning deeper principles that make you extraordinary. Sometimes, those principles reinforce something you already knew or were already getting right. Sometimes, those principles and lessons improve or outright fix what we weren’t getting right.

A lot of people think their existing habits “work” because they are seeing positive results or doing popular things. This is like how an old diesel engine works. Yes, it starts. Yes, it produces torque and makes the truck go and tow. But that old diesel engine is only working at a fraction of the efficiency and capability of what’s truly possible.

Replacing an engine that works with a better engine that produces more torque, uses less fuel, emits fewer pollutants, makes less noise, and vibrates less, all at the same time is a no-brainer. But when it comes to our habits and how we use our mind, this is exactly what a lot of people resist doing.

Many people are committed to using and spreading ideas that appear to work when in fact they are…

• …inefficient - we are getting good outcomes using a lot more energy than required.

• …impure - we are getting good outcomes, but we are also getting bad outcomes that could accumulate over time to topple all of the good.

• …ineffective - we aren’t getting good outcomes, but we are sold on the idea that we are doing the right thing because it’s a best practice, popular idea, industry norm, or continuation of status quo.

I believe that we should use what science knows works best instead of falling in love with approaches that are popular, impure, or inefficient. I believe we should get the most out of our efforts, especially when getting better outcomes takes the same or less energy than getting mediocre outcomes.

That is what I want to share with you: knowledge that builds an entirely new and vastly-superior form of confidence, makes everything easier for you, and makes your outcomes better, using the same or less energy. The better diesel engine.

We’re going to spend most of our time talking about how the mind actually works, and how you and other people can use your brains best

It’s amazing to me how many people are sold on the idea that the mind is impossible to understand. I’m not sure exactly who got this idea started, but it was probably someone who looked at the thickness of a few textbooks and ran away from them rather than opening them.

Your mind is actually not as complicated as it might seem. All-in, you just need to know three things to understand your mind (or any mind) at a useful, actionable level:

1. The brain has pathways that route thinking to different regions

2. The brain releases chemicals that change how you feel and behave

3. Different brains are not similar, and those differences affect how different people’s brains route thinking and release chemicals.

Each of these three truths are a very, very big deal.

Those pathways are a big deal because the wrong region of a brain cannot produce the kind of thinking that would come from the right region.

Those chemicals (called neurotransmitters) are also a big deal. They are much more powerful than most people realize, easily overpowering rational thought, propelling us to act out of stress, anger, fear, desire, passion, belief, obligation, and love.

And those differences between brains are a big deal. Other people’s brains do not work the same way your brain works.

So if you want to understand how the mind works and how you can get more out of a mind, it all starts with these basics that we are about to unpack over the coming weeks. You will learn how to route your thinking to the best parts of your brain. You will learn how to deploy the good chemicals into your bloodstream (and other people’s, too), and learn how to avoid putting the bad, performance-killing chemicals into the team’s bloodstreams. And you will learn how to spot and act on observable differences in minds.

Missing this eye-opening education, most of us accidentally do exactly the opposite, allowing thoughts to route to the wrong parts of the mind, activating only the wrong chemicals that put us into a lower-performance state, and acting on the belief that people are similar instead of dissimilar, constantly surprised by communication issues, crazy decisions, and worse-than-expected outcomes.

So, welcome to CORE concepts. A weekly newsletter that is going to transform your understanding of the mind, help you become more focused, influential, productive, happy, purposeful, self-aware, successful in relationships, and successful in life.

There is a huge body of science that can help you feel like life is easier and better. I can’t wait to share it with you.