A brush with... Alberta Whittle

(upbeat music) - What's up? I'm Ron Rappetalo, and this is the "Rondering's Podcast." Around here, I sit down with guests for real, unpolllished conversations about the lessons and values that shape them. I'll be right there with you, Sarah Marone, take, laughing at myself when I need to, and wondering out loud about the semester you think called life. Glad you pulled up the chair. Let's get into it. Every once in a while, you meet someone who makes you rethink while everything. How you think? Why you think? It's actually doing the thinking. That's today's guest, Ellen Petrie Leanes. Ellen's story starts with a childhood tug of war between science and creativity, birds, geology, art, the pressure to choose just one lane. The life at other plans, rejection letter from Apple 1981, stamped with an iconic six-color logo, flipped a switch in her brain. She co-called the recruiter, got the interview, launched a 10-year-old and Apple during one of the most formative errors in tech. Here's the twist, when she saw happening inside the company sparked a 35-year journey into neuroscience. That the surface level of pop-science stuff, deep work, studying people like Dr. Ian McGill Christ, Dr. Joe Bolt Taylor, and Lisa Feldman Barrett. Learning how to left the right hemisphere shaped not just our productivity, but our perception, our creativity, our sense of possibility. Today, Ellen coaches leaders to understand that embracing isn't just hardware, it's a gateway. A filter, a storyteller, and a limiter, let's learn to work with it intentionally. We talked about attention, habit formation, heartbreak, ancient wisdom, creativity field, and worry so much more than what we have been told. This episode will stretch you in the best way. Let's get into it. Hey friends, before we get started, I want to share something that's been a big part of my own journey. Two years ago, I published my book, "Leverage." That experience cracked something open for me. I saw how publishing isn't just about pages, about owning your story, sharpening your voice, and amplifying your impact. The part that meant the most, readers reached out to me to say they felt seen. That's what I knew this work mattered. I love the so much I co-founded "Leverage Publishing Group" with friends who would make know this world inside and out. Now we help leaders, entrepreneurs, and change makers, turn their ideas into books and podcasts that actually move people. Got a store in you, and I know you do. Let's chat, find me a LinkedIn, or at leveragepublishinggroup.com, 'cause the world doesn't just need more books, it needs your book. All right, let's get to today's episode. Peace. - "Rondering's Universe" were infertile because we would be talking a lot about the brain. If folks don't know, I was a neuroscience major from '93 and '97. I always still carry a little bit of Philippine cap, the guilt that I didn't do anything explicit with my neuroscience major. And this will be one of the opportunities on the "Rondering's Podcast" that we get to, with my guest, Ellen Petri Leans. - And I say your name right? - Ellen Petri Leans. - Ellen Petri Leans. Yes, I'd say the second time. Is my "Rondering's Guest" today and shout out to Yamalai Tussant former "Rondering's Guest" for introducing us? How are you doing today, Ellen? - I'm doing great. How are you? - I am good. This is my previous guest talked about walking in your unique genius, and when I'm recording "Rondering's Episodes," I'm walking in one of my unique geniuses. So, it gives me joy being on these episodes and learning from and talking to great guests like you. - Good for you. How wonderful. - Well, Ellen, let's get right into it. What's your story? - What is my story? You know, when I'm asked that question, I always go back to a time in my life where I must have been four or no more than five years old. And there was a more confidence and clarity and an outer confusion because all around me, the grownups who were shaping my life were constantly asking me to choose. I was a fairly nerdy little girl. I loved books. I loved anything about science. I could look at bugs all day long. I received for a holiday gift one year, a Roger Tory Peterson field guide to the birds, which is a little paperback book that had picture upon picture of bird upon bird in it. And I could move it that all the time. So, I was captivated by the world of science and I loved geology and nature. And then I was also an artist. I loved drawing and making pictures and making things out of play dough. So, I was a pretty creative little human, but also kind of sciencey slash nerdy. And I couldn't understand why grownups were always asking me to choose. So, I little stuff to myself that the world made sense to me even when it was super clear, my way of being in the world didn't make sense to them. So, that started me on a path that I don't think I understood until many decades later because it comes back to the hemispheres of the brain. And both linear and kind of categorizing and classifying nature of the left hemisphere, which is so important for understanding the world we live in, yet also the very vast and sort of swirling big picture, realm of the right hemisphere and how it influences whole brain thinking. And what that means in terms of our human potential to generate ideas, create, innovate and be of service, really big way to this world we live in. The other thing that I think was part of my story is part of my story is, you know, I grew up at a time where I had plenty of time to get bored. And I say that with a smile because it was never boring. But I had the, you know, it was a very different world back in the late 50s and early 60s when I was a young child. But we spent a lot more time just figuring out, you know, what to do on our own. And what I think matters in my story with that is, it really taught me to check in with myself first before solving a problem or trying to understand something rather than outsourcing the sort of natural knowing that young children I believe have to a device I held in my hand or a grown-up who was telling me what to do with my time. Now, once you, you know, I say all of this and I spoke with my eldest son the other day about the things that I remember about my story and coming up in the world and how different they are from his experience. And he reminded me that there are plenty of advantages to, you know, the way he came up in the world too, to his story. But I'm very grateful to be able to see the contrast between the things that formed me as a young child and a young woman and even as a woman throughout my life. This is what's available today. Now, I will say just to wrap on the story, I think Ron that the reason I go back to those memories when you ask your question is having that sort of balance in my brain between curiosity about like the working ways of the world and getting things done and motivation, all those great things and this sort of wow creativity realm caused me to recognize something special in October 1981 when a rejection letter from a technology company landed in my mailbox and it had a little six color apple in the corner. And I looked at it. I'd sent out a lot of resumes. I was looking for a job as a young, you know, a recent college graduate. I sent out so many resumes and I swear I got more rejection letters back than I even sent out letters. But when I saw that little six color logo in the shape of an apple, I certainly said, this better not be a rejection letter because I saw in that logo that there was a business that understood the importance of creativity and what we now call design and all of that. And I had a big moment. Yeah. So it was a rejection letter and I walked into my parents' kitchen and dialed a number on the phone, you know, phones who were hung on walls at that time. And the woman who answered the phone, she put her extension on, she was a recruiter. She didn't know what she was in for. And by the end of that call, I had an interview at Apple that led me to have a job there. And I ended up staying at the company for nearly 10 years. So that's how I think it's a lot of cool story. I know. I know. I've never done anything like it before or, well, maybe sense, I've done a few things. But it was very unlike my nature as a young woman to have done something like that. But the reason I brought it up in the context of the story was I think I'd spent so much of my life really advocating, really believing that there were these two sides of our potential as humans that we were meant to balance and not understanding why the world didn't really get that. And when I saw that logo, I had a really clear sense that Apple was a company that got that and sure enough, it was. It, that, that sounds like only a story that can live pre-technology, right? To get a letter like that, see that logo? Like I grew up as a child of the 80s, right? So I was born in 75 and I remember the Apple commercials. I remember the big Apple commercial during the Super Bowl. I was like, "Who, what is this come, what is this?" This is, this is very creative, right? It was always something around Apple and God bless me, Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs, right? That creative and technical genius, right? That I think lives in so many of us. Yeah, isn't always supported. So I'm wondering, Ellen, to go back into your childhood, you had this love of science. You know, the bird, we also had this very creative side. How did your community, your family support you with that, right? Because I would argue that there are many kids who had similar things growing up, but were asked to often choose one of the other. You were given a path that sounds like to now, not at all. I would say it seemed at every turn in my early education, in the, the messages I got from the world around me, I was being asked to choose and I don't know what in me refused to choose. I mean, I'm fascinating. I chose in subconscious ways or ways I didn't realize. You know, when I do remember, I grew up in a very, very strict kind of rigid household. Okay. When I was a fifth grader, first of all, I love to write stories and I actually was pretty active in that when I was a fourth grader and a fifth grader. And I'll be back then, people liked my stories. But when I was in fifth, and I think I was quite good with using the English language. It was, I actually was exposed to languages, but English was my first language. And, but in fifth grade, a very stern and strict teacher, one that I didn't like, gave us a big project and that was we had to diagram sentences using grammar structures. Have you ever seen those? Did you ever have to do those? It's, I found it mental torture. You had to take a sentence and break it down into different parts, labeling adjectives, adverbs, modifier subjects. Yeah. You're bringing back really bad memories of me. You would, for you. Yeah. I was like, oh, and I, I'm at an early rebel. I refused to do it. And I would, I remember I would try to do it sitting at my desk and I would have tears in my eyes, knowing that I hated it so much and being really angry about it. And so when the day came to turn it in, the teacher called my mom and told her, Alan didn't do this. You know, I mean, I'm sorry, I've had a one of fairly significant like story writing award the prior year. So maybe I was just a little bit inflated with myself that I already knew about this. It was so good. I needed taking something that felt like art and turning it into like a check board. And I remember I had a friend, a boy who got a lot of negative feedback because he was told he was a bad student and bad in English. He loved doing this because I think it gave him tools to make sense out of the fluidity and creativity that he could have didn't know how to access or hadn't been allowed to access. And I swear, well, first of all, back to my mom because I told you it was original and strict household. Yeah. Normally my mom would have come after me and been like, you need to get this done by four o'clock, this afternoon or whatever. My mom was so chill with it. I think she knew that it was absolutely a stupid waste of time for me. And that it wasn't and she understood why I rebelled against it. And gently, which was kind of unusual for her, you know, parenting style, she told me, look, you're going to have to get it done. Make the time to do it. Don't overdo it. Just do what you need to do to get it done. Let the teacher check it off of her list. You'll never have to do it again. But run that probably planted the seeds for me of what led me to neuroscience by drawing there's stand the dichotomy between really these two ways of thinking that are part of our human birthright. Yeah. I love that description of that micro moment with your mom, right? You know, that while may not have been the totality of how you grew up, that moment that gave you a sense of like, wait a second, my different way of seeing the world is being supported by my mom at that moment. Right? Yeah. Really small, right? Seemingly yet gave you this impetus to say, wait a second, there's something to this here. I love that. I love that. I called that out. So, hey mom, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. It was validating. You're right. And you know what? We all need validation. We all need seed. You know, for who we are. And at that moment, you're absolutely right. I felt seed. Yeah. So, let's talk more about how you continue to develop this curiosity around how the brain functions and what that led you to. Yeah. Well, you know, I hadn't, unlike you, I had not studied neuroscience when I was a college student. In fact, if we could turn back time, we would see neuroscience wasn't really a thing when I was. It was now. It was not now. You're right. So, I think if I'd known about it, I would have been drawn to it. I really loved biology and psychology. Yeah. I loved it so much. But I also knew that as, you know, a person was going to graduate from college in 1981, I knew I was going to need to get a job. I was going to need to work. And so I, my degree, I've two degrees. One of them is in international business and the other one is fine arts. And yeah. Even the choice of your majors, right? That is not a common mix when I think back to my undergrad years, right? I had someone that, because I was a math and neuroscience major for like three years, which people thought was psychotic because it is psychotic to be clear in terms of the amount of credits you need to do, right? But there was someone I met when my upper level math classes, who was a math major, who was an acting major as well. I was like, I love that. I like that. I like that. Rare. Not something I often saw, right? Well, especially now also when we look at the decline in like liberal arts degrees and things like that. So I love that you called my non-choice of majors a choice. Thank you. So I'm here for the host to notice these patterns. Yeah, that's right. So I joined Apple in November, on November 3rd, 1981. I began my first day there. And my work was in international product communications, which was unbelievable. Like it's not something that could happen again at this time. It's not something given how little I knew, I mean, none of us knew about technology, right? But I love, I had a real affinity for it. But after Steve left Apple in 1985, as we all know, he was ousted by the board for a number of reasons, the culture really changed there. And I kept doing the things I had done at the Apple I known from my first years there, which allowed me to feel like I was really doing my thing. But I felt like I had to kind of partition myself a little bit differently in those years. By the way, John Scully was great, but the new guard that came in from all of the more stayed and established tech companies, they really, they had a much more much as creative and much more limited palette for how they made decisions, took risks and all of that. So I kept wondering like, what is going on with me? What don't I understand that all of these people who've been so successful in their professional journeys are so shut down. And I don't want to be like that, but do I have to be in order to new to, you know, have my role here? So I began to study psychology to try to understand myself, not to understand that. I thought it was my problem, right? And by the way, I did shut off notifications, but for some reason it's coming in. So y'all who just heard the little thing forgive me. So I started in psychology and very quickly stumbled into neuroscience and after that nothing like it all shifted and I am studying the brain, not for psychology's sake, but for the brain's sake just because there's something so fascinating about it. So I have deeply studied neuro. science now for about 35 years and map it to an understanding of consciousness and what it means to be human. And so I look at the brain as the organ of our survival, our physical survival, this container that we're in. And I've come to see Ron over the years of studying neuroscience and learning from some of the real greats like Dr. Ian McGillcrest and certainly from, you know, the incomparable Dr. Joe Balte Taylor and many other people, Lisa Feldman Barrett and others all along the way and others beyond even naming, but also from the School of Life and from the School of Raising Kids, just a whole other thing. But I've really, yeah, right? I've really come see the brain as both the key to our potential as humans, but also the filter that limits our potential. And so in my work and in my speaking and hopefully on my podcast, I always begin with the brain to take a very unconventional approach to our mental states, cognition, emotional intelligence and so forth to help people connect more fully with what it means to be human. Quick pause in the action here. I know a lot of us leaders entrepreneurs, folks are trying to do good work and felt that grind of pushing a bolder uphill by ourselves. The learnings, you don't actually have to do it all alone. You need to discover your program at Thought Leader Pat, like having a think tank in your corner, not some cookie cutter formula, but your story, your plan of impact, giving you the clarity and pass that's to take the next big step. I've seen people go through this and walk out with their voices amplified and the Assharpen. Some even launching podcasts like this one, Brontherics. So if you're tired of grinding the dark, you're ready to step into your impact with right support, check out geniusdiscovery.org. I have this interesting tidbit. I think similar to you, Ellen, when I started in my undergrad years, I know what it's to be pre-med like every good Filipino. I was going to be like a very professional career, but I didn't know what I was going to major in. And I took a freshman honor seminar at NYU in 1993. I believe it may have been the first year they started offering these freshman honor seminars. And the one that I took was on the servitone and system, Ellen. Good old, yes, on good old 5-HT. And learning about serotonin just blew my brain literally. It was so faggot with the amazing professor at NYU. We got to the 10th floor biology conference room. And it was across the university. So there are folks from the performing arts college, from Stern, the business from the College of Art and Science. It was just across who just curious to learn about the brain of this particular neurotransmitter. And the beauty of understanding just that neurotransmitter and then fast forward, many of the drugs that are used for depression, the SSRIs, yes. Pros, acts amongst others, come from understanding how serotonin works in our bodies. And for me, then got this curiosity to learn more about the brain and the early stages when I saw their real science of like, there was so much that was known yet in the vast world of science. So little was even known back then. That's what got me excited because it was like this big frontier of like, you could discover literally on the fly, which is why I'm majoring in it. I love it so much. I do have a question for you about that. You want to tell, you know, as you know, and really listen or should know is, I made just my strong opinion that we still know so little about the power of our body. So what blew your mind run about serotonin? Like what made you go, oh my gosh, this is fascinating. The very vast effects that 5HT had in the body. Like I was just like, wait, what does this, it just seemed to be in it. I think if I remember in my neuroscience major and that class, right, it was, I think the way that Professor, as Mise said, it was like, it was the police officer of neurotransmitters in the brain. I think was what I vaguely remember, right? I was like, what does that mean? I just, there was something about learning about its chemical structure and the way it had this cross cutting effect throughout the brain. Obviously we learned about other neurotransmitters too, right? You know, no, I've been there for an et cetera, or I dope a mean, yada yada. And it got me just really excited to see how this one neurotransmitter affected behavior. It affected, you know, other things and like how your body regulated, right? It just got me really curious, like wait a second, there's all this stuff around your similar like curiosity and like knowing oneself. That's what the serotonin system really started with me, but then in parallel, like I remember my freshman year taking honors writing workshop, which everyone called like freshman therapy. Taking writing workshop was like, you were right and then you would like then do meta writing, which I always found really fast and like, what the hell is a meta? I was like, can you talk about how you felt when you're writing? I was like, that is very emo. But I did it. It was a concept construct to be able to like think and it just, there was like in parallel, like my science brain, my creative brain, you know, being at NYU at that time. I just so much was poured into me and then the practical life experience of being a student leader, being a student activist, right? There was so much, even if I didn't do anything explicit around neuroscience, the what I learned in neuroscience and how like analytical I can be and how much then I use that approach around getting to know myself and get to know others has really been a hallmark of like my profession career for sure. I love it and what would I, when your listeners are lucky to hear you speak about it in that way because it is really important to know that the brain is a biological tool that let to itself will optimize everything for what it thinks is very tough to survival. And again, left to itself, which I think are three of the most important and underused words in the concept of neuroscience, left to itself the brain will run you as its tool rather than yes, this is very important. Oh, yes. I also love that you first became fascinated with serotonin because I feel pretty sure that we that it wasn't known until more recently than you took that class that something like 80 to 90 percent of the serotonin produced in the body and serotonin is, it's a neuro reward. It rewards different types of motivation in the brain and different types of action in the brain, but it's been captured in the gut, in the gut showing the importance of this brain body connection, which brings me back to this idea. This humans are so much more complex and powerful than we tend to be told. Yeah. So let's go on that thread right because I think one of the notions that I've thought about as I understand the brain, when I give the oversimplified version of Ron Rapatello understands the brain from all the time I've been around the neuroscience is our brains are built to be patterned recognizes, right, which has a brilliant to it, right? I think if I take the riffing off what you said, Ellen, around the brilliance of our brain can allow us to innovate to be ambitious, but at the same time, if you let your brain follow, like, make, like, Lee, you, yeah, like our brain is high from being a pattern recognizer also believes in homeostasis, right? This idea of like it's to regulate at some level, right? It's always been right. I've told people, but like the pattern recognition part of the brain, right? I think when left to its own devices, I've understood it, right? You're just going to fill in the blank for whatever is around you, but it takes a level I think of I have found in my own, you're like, cognitive, spiritual, disciplined to say, well, the pattern that the brain fills in for me may not be the pattern that allows me to innovate. It's so interesting. So, you know, one is sort of going on three things. One of them is the homeostasis and you're absolutely in saying that in the most ancient part of the brain, I mean, the evolutionary biology of this is so fascinating. Yes, the brain is going to be regulating space and also optimizing for energy conservation because the brain, I like to say, it's an ancient technology we use to navigate the modern world. And so the ancient technology is still locked in, you know, I don't know about you, Ron, but I might have a saber tooth tiger lurking right behind my laptop. I guess it could happen. And per the brain, it's sort of stovered against that. So yes, the basis, making sure that the body is doing all of the things the body needs to do. But now you brought up very interesting words. You said pattern recognition and yet, as you spoke about it, you really spoke in a very whole brained way and I'll explain why. The atmospheres of the brain actually function in ways that some people say are as if we had two brains. And of course, those two different brains are joined together in the center by the corpus colosa. - Yeah, corpus colosum. I don't remember the last time I heard corpus colosum. I'm like, I'm loving it. - Well, you know, and it's really funny because the corpus colosum is actually structurally kind of different in female brains than it is in male brains. And then in male brains, the way that the glial cells connect over the surface of the brain is quite different than it is in female brains. It's all, like the way that male and female brains connect information is fascinating. But, so I describe the left hemisphere of the brain as a linear pursuit of outcomes. So it likes moving from point A to point B. And if we can visualize a point A to point B, we can also see how much of our world is like that. Check this box if the answer's right. - Correct. - You can raise your hand fast and you're either right or wrong. Categorizing classified to make sense of the world. So the left hemisphere likes results. It likes the chase of results. And the reward systems, primarily in the left hemisphere, are the dopamine reward systems. And I believe we over stimulate those dopamine reward systems today through our constant reliance on the short term rewards of technology. - Yeah. - This has changed our brains. I call it mental climate change. - Mm-hmm. - On the right, yes, there's pattern recognition but to be really careful with those words, it's big picture pattern recognition. So it's a little bit different or it can be a little bit different than, okay. This, I saw this giraffe. And then I saw this llama. The llama is like the giraffe. So I'm making a pattern. That's a little bit rare. Left hemispheric. - Yes, yes for sure. - Classification. But if I'm going, wow, animals tend to wander and graze on the earth. And I wonder what other animals are kind of like giraffes and llamas. Now I'm more in the big picture and taking long term domain of the right hemisphere. - Yeah. - A bet you can hear from those descriptions. We actually don't want to be pathologically over reliant on either one. - Correct. - Yeah. - We're better together. And so knowing how to stay curious and stay intentional and you see an intentional for those who are watching I'm touching my forehead, the area above my eyebrows with the frontal cortex. This is, we bring on whole brain tend cognition. Now, because the brain prioritizes energy conservation in that ancient way, it doesn't like the newest part of the brain, which is the prefrontal cortex, the human prefrontal cortex to come on the line because it's a hungry baby. It's the newest part of the brain and it's sort of. (laughing) - I love the way you describe the prefrontal cortex. It's like, give me, give me, give me, give me. - It's so smart, but it wants energy. - Energy. And so this is why if any of us have ever experienced, I'm sure we've all experienced, trying to focus on how our brain wants to get distracted on all of this. This is part of the biological energy management systems that make it a little bit harder to bring our highest human cognition online. - Yeah. So Ellen, because I know that you and I both coach, your knowledge of how the brain functions and influences behavior and behavior influences the brain, must make you have just astute suggestions and understandings of how leaders lead. And so I'm curious, how has that allowed you to coach leaders and people better? Because I think it sort of allows me to. I don't have the knowledge you have, but I sort of think about these things of the influence of one's body on behavior, but also one's cognition on behavior and vice versa. 'Cause if you don't, then you're sort of then not using what I got research, you know, base practices and you know, on what leadership and like what coaching should look like. - It's such a great question, Ron. And I hope it is of service. I believe it is of service. I've definitely had clients who are like, I don't want any of that neuroscience stuff. Just tell them it'll be like, "Ah, my head's gonna explode." - Yeah, yeah. Sooner later, everybody seems to come around to it. What I would say, the most important thing in leadership is really understanding this thing of being human and understanding how we're all playing an inner game and an outer game and what that does to our, you know, the way we show up emotionally, cognitively, spiritually in whatever we do. And so when I begin with the brain, which I think I do in many aspects of, you know, my understanding of life, it's really good. I have seen it be very effective for people to understand, okay, what's really going on here through the lens of the brain. This doesn't mean we talk for 10 minutes about what's happening in the basal ganglia or the new thing that I'm learning about the Codate Nuculi. Nuclii, excuse me, the Codate Nuclii. Nuclii, we don't need to talk about that to get stuff done in life. That's fun for me to geek out on, but it doesn't mean it's useful for anything else. But to really say, look, this person was emotionally triggered and that's why they couldn't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And here is what you can do if you recognize that again. It can be as something as easy as saying, look, most people in meetings because of all of the different competition for their attention that's going on don't really focus. So here is a way that I have seen over time allows people to run and participate in super focus results or in meetings. So we get the outcome that we want. I also can't say that without talking about intentionality. And intentionality is the gift of human prefrontal cortex to set an, but I've already told you that the energy management systems in the brain resists that so it's harder to remember to bring intentions online. And then there's so many more things I could say, but the last thing I would say is when people understand the brain's role in creating habits and habituating behaviors that we desire, when we honest, we can hack the system and allow the brain to move into habituation, either changing old habits that we've outgrown or bringing on new habits that take us to our next chapter, we can do that with more efficiency than we otherwise could. Yeah, this makes me geek out one of the ways I like to describe habit creation was remembering in biology class, learning about Eplezia and the creation of memories, right? There's something around like, I think when I was pre-med understanding how these things are done at a cellular level, tend to cascade and have whole system effects. That's what I thought was the brilliance of learning and stuff like, wait, that little, that, oh my God, wow. But that's not just geek out on this for a minute. I know, please. I mean, really think about this. All we are is assemblies of cells. Most of these cells, wait, I can't say most, I don't actually know, it's the, but I suspect that most of these cells are human DNA, but not all do. Each body is actually a mix of so many different organisms. You know, we mentioned the gut biome where the serotonin is produced. These cells don't have human DNA. And so when we really think about the way that, gosh, what's the number? I've heard like, I think I've heard 13 trillion, I've also heard like 60 trillion, I don't remember. But all of these cells are orchestrating and collaborating. This incredible thing of us and the ability for all that's happening on a, you know, cellular level, actually allowing crazy stuff to happen, like us to have a conversation like this, right? Yeah. So I want, yeah, I want to take this to another level that we had when you and I first chatted before. Yeah. Recording today is just the level of like spirituality and intuition you and I both have, right? And obviously folks may think that this is nothing to the brains, but I think there's a lot to do with our brains, right? Our ability to be intuitive in spiritual is governed, I think, in large part of like how our brains manifest. I'd love to hear you Ellen talk about that a little bit, because one of the things I geeked out about and talking with you was wait, we're going to geek out about neural science and end and end. We are aligned in terms of how we like, kind of spiritually intuitively see the world. Yeah. Well, wow, this is one, I mean, this is a topic that's so important to me, especially as an elder, you know, to later talk in life. Yeah. But I, you know, I have, well, there have been times when I've been able to go into experiences and even to trying to understanding research with absolute conviction that this reality that we experience is completely mechanistic. It's just, you know, just a fabrication of the brain. And many people do believe that. In fact, in the neuroscience community, where some of the people that I've learned the most from are straight up materialists or, you know, mechanists, like they're just saying, this is just a biological function. So I'm sort of a hologram or hallucination that's made up some sort of, you know, it's like a dreaming world that isn't real, but the brain convinces us that it's real. Okay, I can really enjoy the science of that from, you know, how the way some people express it and find it very curious and interesting. Now, on the other side is, wow, the brain is an organ that's capable of receiving information, you know, that it perceives, prioritizes, cuts off some of it. We don't, we could not possibly experience all of the phenomenology that's happening around us. But then it gives us perception, thought, you know, interpretation and then the action that stems from it. And I can see that as being part of a great field of access with realms beyond those that I will ever understand. And the more I've gone in to try to figure out which one is it? The more I see, the more the only thing it is is yes and the mystery and a wonder that does to some extent create our sense of reality through its own projections. Yet it's also incredibly connected in ways we don't understand to vast fields of consciousness and spirit and, you know, as a matter of fact, I have to put in a plug not to take anyone away from your podcast. No, no, please, please plug. There's a glorious podcast out there called the telepathy tapes. Wait, telepathy tapes, excuse me. Telepathy tapes, yes. And it starts out exploring nonverbal autistic kids who seem to be communicating with each other across space without ever meeting. Oh, shit. Oh, it's great. And it was the top podcast I believe in the world for some number of months this year. But the second season looks at how we interact with, you know, consciousness and even things like creativity in a very unconventional way. And I would recommend you and maybe anyone else who's interested, treat themselves to listening to season two. I believe it's episode three of the telepathy on creativity because the people there, and it's some world-class creatives. And I think Steve Jobs would have agreed with this. Is that there is a field of information out there that is giving us everything we need to be the most innovative and creative and powerful beings that we can possibly be. And the the the win goes to those who let themselves receive that information. Cool. That I know, there could just be this rainbow cloud that we were all like floating on as a result of this. It's a unicorn. It's a unicorn, you know. Oh, my gosh. You know, one of the things I wanted to ask about Ellen based on our, you know, first combo was this feeling of what is happening today. Right. The sense of what's going on not only in a world but our country, right. There's the anxiety people are feeling. The sense of I can't control anything, right. Is that political? It probably is. We're not going to delve into that at least with this episode, right. But you know, there's so much going on that when I think about how every day people I'm interacting with are feeling, right. Those adjectives anxious. Oh, yeah. Loss of control, like what is possible, right. Yeah. Like as an elder in this space, Ellen, what advice would you give us and what are you seeing from what is possible with what is going on. So I'm going to answer in three ways if you'll let me. The first one is I have learned so much from wisdom of the ancients. So you don't think that human civilization existed based on some things started, based on some things 3,500 years ago that began to shape the Western world. And that's really the paradigm that we live in. However, humans and proto-humans were doing very sophisticated and really in very survival-oriented things for hundreds of thousands of years, some would say before that. So I look at some ancient wisdom to really activate my sense of faith in participating. I hope in a, you know, in a values driven way in a mystery greater than I will ever understand. I hope I'm in service to something that's greater than I will ever understand. Dao is with a talk about Yin and Yang, the quote, "oppositional," but mutually necessary forces of feminine and masculine energy, of movement versus stillness, of action versus reflection, all of these things. If you look at Daoism, it's going to tell you again and again, everything will always be out of balance until it comes into balance for a moment and then it will go out of balance again. Which by the way, if you look at the latest sort of quantum mechanics, the ways of thinking about the universe, the big bang and then the shrinking expansion, you know, all of this, it kind of describes it. So there's something there. And then the other thing is from a more contemporary source in the United States. And these would be, I believe it's the Algonquin people of Southern Canada and Northern Northeastern United States, Southeastern Canada, Northeastern United States. And these are people who have prophesied for about 300 years that we were experiencing the rise of something called Wettico. And Wettico is a word that sort of translates into the thought virus of evil. And the thought virus of evil is going to lead, the prophecy says, to hyperindividuation, excessive hierarchy and competition and control, you know, grabbing, hoarding some people, dominating the planet in an unsustainable way. Now when people who really understand this principle write about it, they say that the darkness or the hardship of this, the actual, they do call it an evil. The evil is here to teach us that we will reach a point that we can no longer go on unless we reclaim the good. And so I find some comfort in wondering, oh, how I don't even have things, I find some comfort in knowing that this is a human way that is bigger than I can understand. Now. We're timing with this question is fascinating because last night I recorded after 10 months without recording a podcast. I recorded it on being stuck and I was trying everything I could find, Ron, to understand what is the neuroscience of stuckness because I had a belief if I could understand stuckness, I could understand how to get out of it. And when I really, I wrote three drafts more than 8,000 words and each paragraph sucked. It was horrible. I hated it. And I even do this. And I'm talking about how we're doing this. And then, and this is the really cool part, I came across a study about heartbreak and what heartbreak does to the motivation systems in the brain. And I saw that heartbreak without a target, and I'm really simplifying this, I'm also extrapolating, you know, there's no real evidence for the first sentence I'm going to say, though, there will be for the second, but heartbreak without a target. Like, it was, you know, you did that to me. It's passive, dull, and stuck. Because gloomy, you're in the murk, you don't know what to do, kind of like I felt for the last 10 months, right? Yeah. Heartbreak with a target. Look what she did. Look what he did. Turns into action and motivation, but not necessarily good. It does, I wrote it, couldn't be villainous, victim, me, or vengeful villainy or victim, you know, you do damage to someone because once you have an active target for your heartbreak, you want to go in and, you know, all of that stuff. I thought about that when I considered the times this year where I have wanted to cast blame or point fingers at specific things that happened and say that person did it or if only we'd done this differently or whatever else. Then I went into those sort of vengeful, you know, villainous, you know, probably had some ideas come to mind that I wouldn't want to share in a public forum. You know, things that I didn't feel good about, but when I retreated them without a target, I was dull, I was passive. So I turned that word heartbreak into the word heart ache and I postulated possibility that heart ache without a target is dull with a specific. target of someone to blame, it is angry and vengeful. But what if we shifted the target and made it a target like what I came up with? Hope. And all the sudden run, I was on stuck. And I actually, the episode's only 16, 16 minutes long. I started crying as I recorded it like you can hear my, I'm crying because I felt the pain of all that it had me stuck. And I also realized like I had not seen a way to re-habituate that stuckness toward an action pointed at a positive outcome. And so, you know, as I say at the end of the, I go, it's probably pseudoscience, okay? Some of this can't be proven. But if this is pseudoscience, more please bring it on. Because if I can take an energy that's been holding me back and transmute it to an energy that lets me be more aligned with the person I, I, I yearn to be in the world. More of that please. All right, let me keep it real. A lot of this have write-up books and air goals lists. Maybe for years, I sure did. Good news is there's more than one way to get it done. If you've got more money than time, a ghost rider can help bring your story to life. If you've got more time than money, a great book coach can guide you through the process step by step. If you're on a written thing, you'll want someone to shepherd you to publish it and see it on waste time or cash. Here's the thing though, no matter how you do it, the real win is writing the right book. The one that builds your credibility, grows your business and actually makes difference. That's what the team of books that matters all about. Head to books that matter, that board. I get some feedback in your I do your manuscript. Don't sit on any longer. Your book can be exactly what the world needs. You know, this makes me think of Ellen when I dealt with my first heartbreak heartache in college. One of the things I did to cope was to pour my energy into working out and literally started working out and I dabbled in working out in college, but it was never consistent. It was definitely ego filled, right? How much can I bench press? Like stereotypical like Jim brostuff, right? But the workouts became this like sense of release like yes, it was coming out of anger over the heartache. I needed to do something with that energy and it turned into why I have to do something as energy or else it's going to consume me. Right. And so six days a week, two hours a day that I started eating along with that and it became as I got more mature and older more aware. It's now something like that working out sort of has this triangle of the physical the mental the spiritual for me because when I work out, it's this it's a flow. It's like it's just it's what it feels like I'm floating when I'm having a good workout. It's such a wonderful way to almost reprioritize the activity of the brain in a way that is integrating integrates with the body as well and balancing to all of the things we do when we're like chasing after outcomes in I mean we can chase after after some outcomes on the gym floor as well or the dance floor, you know, whatever it is that we do. Yes, it is I would say self care right now and really bringing ourselves into the body and the power of our bodies is I think one of the most emotionally spiritually and mentally nourishing things that we can do. And it's a little bit of an odd thing that in when we are stressed and we get a little bit hijacked the brain tends to turn often can turn away from things like actually the self nurturing and so forth. We have to be intentional about doing those things in order to be habituated and bring back the balance. So yeah, it's important so important. I mean my last anecdote on this on this thread before I ask you the rendering question Ellen is you know we're recording this Thanksgiving weekend and I am out of my usual habit driven routinization of my workouts, which is driven by morning routine. I'm dropping off the girls in the morning right going right to work out after that between 9 and 11 Monday through Friday. It's pretty routinized by workout right it's just something even when I'm tired, having eaten or I just I just do it right because my body it's just inertia right because I'm out of that routine because it's Thanksgiving right I was like. This is going to sound crazy to my listeners people know me know that like I'm driven by this stuff I didn't work that in two days the last workout I had was Wednesday I don't include the walk I took Thursday to like by groceries throughout the neighborhood right and so I was itching for workout because it started to affect my mood yeah the gods on his truth right and so it's like moron let's use what you've learned from James clear atomic habits and neuroscience and like lived experience. What's going to get you to finally do this kettlebell home workout that you've been putting your calendars in Thursday morning you keep. It's like wait. Yeah. What do you do right the workout plan I wrote it yeah I then put it in the calendar I then said a time of when I said I would do it, which was then linked to like doing laundry at the same time right. And then when my wife went to drop off her grandmother to go back to the bus station to get back home the Baltimore is like that's when I begin my workout so it was sort of like all set of like all right put on a workout t-shirt it was like all these little things the inertia of like that I just couldn't say no because the other than I brought my laptop and there was music and I said okay what do I usually do with work I take a photo and so it's like well how do I take a photo with my Mac like oh yeah I've quick time on site took a video of like one of the like sets that I did and so. The long story short is you I can create I think we start to get conscious of this stuff Ellen related to neural science I can root in eyes in real time right the thing that I know is good for me even if I'm out of my routine I didn't want to wait till Monday morning to work out because I felt my mood was off of like and the working out today got me to feel like pass because I realized the way that I would say this is more the more. Most of us right now but he definitely talks about this in schools the movement factor right is how much movement is so key to our overall well that's a lot mean like you know that you got to do crazy stuff like me like parallel thing on those I like these things right I'm competitive right that's the left brain side me like I like to compete yet the right stuff right brain side me quote unquote enjoys the like creativity of the workout like what like I'm going to do it. Like what like I'm getting out of it that's not just sent out of the result like I don't get wrapped up about the result but I follow plan. How did my ability to hit the result and have fun with it probably lessons greatly and so it's like I use a little bit like my parallel thing is the perfect like synergy between you know my left brain and right brain because it allows me to track results without being so stuck on it and I get this more like creative spiritual mental pursuit out of it that is more. Of the benefit that I get then yes I'm 15 my bodies and better shape than it ever has been and yet that's nice but there's something bigger than that that I never imagine I would be getting out of it. That's a whole other you know journey. But what I really heard from you is it's spiritually and really as a whole being you were really activated to pick up the weights and swing them around or do your thing and you were saying my habit stacking pattern has been disrupted okay or do I fit it in and that boy I hear things like that all the time that's it. But what you did so well is you recruited the power of your left hemisphere to create a plan and one of the things that I've also seen that helps people if they you know if their habits stackers and then their habit is disrupted and this is really hard thing to spend people with kids right because why the day that that little one is sick and you don't go to school it's like oh my god now how do I make here's a beautiful question you can say what is one thing I can do. One thing I can do one thing to meet this goal that is my spirit is calling me for if all you do is pick up those you know kettlebells and do you know your 12 of this and your 12 of that or whatever else. Yeah, I think one thing but then the body goes back to the the normal mapping the circuitry of whatever that habit is and makes you want to keep doing it. That's so good. Yeah, it just and it's amazing right it reminds me right of one of the things I've learned speaking of like the melding of like the spiritual mental the physical like my meditation practice right learning to meditate has allowed me to pull from this power of intention that you talked about the proof from to cortex right and it's been. I like to brag about this because I'm the results or is it part of me forgive me but don't forgive me i've been meditating since fall of 2016 to head space shout out the head space the app that's just it's. I don't know what I do without head space every morning yeah auto pilot. I just it's just part of what I do every morning right at the head space app I do the daily thing. And that power of attention of understanding my body's feeling, it just it's then carries over to other things that I do with a lot more consistency than if I did not have a daily meditation practice. Right. Well, another time maybe we'll talk about two practices. One is meditation and one is gratitude. And what those. Yes. Yes. What those two practices change in the brain. Well, Ellen, you'll need to have if you would have me as a guest and your podcast, I you can continue that comment there. That would be amazing. Well, we're at that time, Ellen, we're at the ask you the rendering question. What lesson or value do you want to share with the audience today? I'm going to keep it really simple. And that is that my hope, my dream, my prayer would be that every person who is listening to this podcast takes a moment to drop into their inner realm and really feel how powerful they are, how deeply connected to something larger than themselves they are. And I love to express it like this. We are so much more than we have been told. The prevailing stories about who we are as humans make a lot more sense for the society that we live in, which enforces all of that conditioning, than they do across the long arc, the long journey of human existence. And the deep powers within us that our culture does not necessarily encourage, acknowledge, or activate may be exactly the ones we need to fall in love with and start practicing now to create the future that we want to be part of, that we can be proud to be part of. I love to say what's gotten us here will never get us there. And there is something more we need to get us there. And the beauty is, I believe, it's been inside us all along. And the more it's awake in that, see that as our brilliance rather than the crazy part of us that scares us, scares us sometimes because I know a lot of people do. The better problem solvers we will be. Yes. Thank you for your wisdom, Ellen, on rounderings today. Before we leave, how do people find you? What would you like to promote? Well, there are two things. Thank you for asking. One of them is I have a really cool talk I'm giving right now. And it's called intelligence reclaimed. And you probably heard the AI and the word reclaimed. And it is looking at a full spectrum of human intelligences to complement the very linear and quite specific, you know, bound on the spectrum intelligence of AI. And so the understanding complemented intelligences. And they're really interesting. And the talk seems to be, people seem to get something from it. So that is all found on my website, which is ellenleance.com. And then the other thing is I am returning after 10 months of being stuck to my podcast, which is called the brain and beyond. So at thebrainandbeyond.com, there are a number of different episodes, my different experiments with how to bring this love of neuroscience to the world, different practices, interviews and, you know, interpretations. So those two ways are really the best ways to find me. Well, ellen, I love how much you love the brain because you're like reigniting what I've always known is my own love of the brain and being able to geek out with you. I'm like, oh my god, I remember all these substantial nigh ground. I'm like, remember all these books and things I've read. I'm like, oh my god, I need to start like re getting back into that world. So thank you for your gift of being a guest on Ron News, the gate, Ellen. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for this conversation and to all the listeners. Really glad you're there. Absolutely. And the words of one of my heroes, the brilliant Dion Sanders, we always come up with amazing guests like Ellen, Petrie, Leanne's, peace. Peace. If you're feeling a little expanded right now, good. That's what talking to Ellen does. What I'm taking with me is this. I bring to powerful but there also buys toward efficiency patterns and the short term. And we don't understand that. We think stuck this means failure. When a reality it often means our prefrontal cortex that hungry baby is out of fuel or heartbreak doesn't know where to go. Ellen reminded me that tapping into our right hemisphere, the big picture, the long term, the interconnected, isn't some woohoo idea. It's necessary if you want to evolve beyond the narrow thinking that God is here. Spiritual layer? That was a gift. The idea that the brain is both a physical organ and a receiver connected to ancient wisdom, intuition, creativity, fields, is something we need in this culture moment, especially as AI accelerates faster than our consciousness has been trained to handle. If you want more from Ellen, visit EllenLeans.com, follow her podcast, the brain and beyond. And watch for a talk on intelligence reclaimed, the 10 human intelligences we need alongside AI. Ellen left us with this. We're so much more than we've been told. To tap into that, stretch into that, and as always, keep rendering. Peace. Before we wrap, I've got to give a huge shout out to the crew that helps make "Rondering's Come Alive" every week. Podcast that matter. Their mission, simple but powerful, every great idea deserves a voice. So, if you've been sitting on that spark of a show or story, don't overthink it. Just start head to podcastmatter.com and let their team bring your vision alive. Until next time, keep rendering, keep growing, keep sharing your voice with the world. Peace. [Music] Thank you for listening to "Today's Rendering." I enjoyed hanging out with me and my guest. And I hope you leave with something worth chewing on. If it makes you smile, think, or even roll your eyes in a good way. Pass it along with someone else. I'm Ron Rappertowell and until next time, keep rendering, keep laughing, and keep becoming.