Speaker 1: If you know the show and you know me, you
Speaker 1: know I love Seinfeld. And one of my favorite Seinfeld
Speaker 1: episodes is when George is in a meeting and a
Speaker 1: guy makes a snarky comment and George thinks of the
Speaker 1: perfect response later and goes to great links to set
Speaker 1: up the opportunity to be able to use his comeback
Speaker 1: that he thought of later, and then you know, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the jerk stores all out of you was the end result. Well,
Speaker 1: my next guest knows what it's like to second guess yourself,
Speaker 1: and she has actually written a book about destroying our
Speaker 1: self doubt and learning to trust our opinions. Doctor Helen McKinnon,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Andy, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about second guessing. What exactly are we
Speaker 1: doing when we second guess ourselves?
Speaker 2: Well, let me start with the opposition of second guessing ourselves.
Speaker 2: We are all inborn with the ability to listen to
Speaker 2: ourselves and not second guess ourselves, and second guessing ourselves
Speaker 2: comes from a lack of practice growing up listening to
Speaker 2: our own feelings or thoughts or ideas of what we
Speaker 2: wanted to do. It is simply a lack of practice
Speaker 2: where the child because of circumstances, not people being around
Speaker 2: parenting that might dismiss or minimize the feeling, not because
Speaker 2: we're going to criticize parents, but because they were parented
Speaker 2: that way. When the child doesn't get enough reinforcement for
Speaker 2: how they feel and what they observed, it's tense or
Speaker 2: what they want to do, the child walks away second
Speaker 2: guessing themselves and goes into young adulthood or adulthood not
Speaker 2: with the confidence of how to read themselves and know
Speaker 2: what to say or do, but they flip into reading
Speaker 2: first their parents and then other people for what to feel,
Speaker 2: what to do, and what to say.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times that's so subconscious you don't
Speaker 1: even realize how much you're letting other people's opinions affect
Speaker 1: how you make decisions. I know that for me in
Speaker 1: my younger years that was definitely true, where I got
Speaker 1: a lot of input from a lot of other people
Speaker 1: who never had to live with the repercussions of my choices,
Speaker 1: instead of just saying, what do I really want to do?
Speaker 1: So let's start there. How can you go from being
Speaker 1: a person like that to being a person who is
Speaker 1: able to make and then be satisfied with those choices
Speaker 1: after you've made a decision, well.
Speaker 2: The cues start with thing like you started with the
Speaker 2: program andy of walking away and going why didn't I
Speaker 2: think of that at the time.
Speaker 1: I want to be able.
Speaker 2: To do that, And my methodology is developed to allow
Speaker 2: the individual tap back into the brain in the way
Speaker 2: it's already designed to have us make good decisions and
Speaker 2: literally practice or go back to practicing listening to their
Speaker 2: own thoughts, feelings, and ideas and reversing the dependency on
Speaker 2: listening to others or a dialogue in their head that
Speaker 2: has them second guests themselves. That is my whole purpose,
Speaker 2: That is my life's work.
Speaker 1: Do you give strategies to people on how to make
Speaker 1: a decision? Do you have tools or is it really
Speaker 1: a person has to figure out what works for them
Speaker 1: to make a decision and then kind of roll with it.
Speaker 1: It's both. You're right on target.
Speaker 2: I don't ever tell anyone what to do. I teach
Speaker 2: them how to listen to themselves for what to do,
Speaker 2: and that tapping into the brain with a method I
Speaker 2: teach is important because this is what the brain does.
Speaker 1: I love the brain.
Speaker 2: If you're triggered by a person or a situation or
Speaker 2: your thoughts, there is a triggered feeling. If you pause
Speaker 2: with yourself long enough, the brain automatically uses how you
Speaker 2: feel in the moment and every time you felt that
Speaker 2: way before, configures that information in nanoseconds and spits out
Speaker 2: words or ideas of what you could do for yourself
Speaker 2: so you don't feel those ways again that didn't work
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: So it's a protective device, your brain. It's there to
Speaker 1: protect you from things that are upsetting or things that
Speaker 1: hurt you in the past, and use the.
Speaker 2: Way you are upset or feeling or darn, why didn't
Speaker 2: I listen to myself to make different decisions to listen
Speaker 2: to yourself. I just give you a method to go
Speaker 2: back and practice what didn't get practiced enough growing up
Speaker 2: now as an adult at any age, and emerge with
Speaker 2: confidence and reading yourself, not other people or listening to
Speaker 2: a voice that had you second guess yourself.
Speaker 1: How long does it take someone to gain confidence in
Speaker 1: this way? Because for me it was a slow process.
Speaker 1: But the more that I made decisions on my own,
Speaker 1: the easier of the process.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 1: And now, to my husband's great chagrin, occasionally I will
Speaker 1: make decisions they probably are a group, you know, a project.
Speaker 1: So you know, now I'm very certain. Even if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: I'm still certain. So how do you build that muscle?
Speaker 2: Since the method is built in neuroscience and how we
Speaker 2: all can read our emotional instincts, it takes practice. So
Speaker 2: if I were a golf coach and you were a
Speaker 2: golf pro and you would work with someone else for
Speaker 2: thirty years, I would come in and say, I'm going
Speaker 2: to teach you a new coach and I would break
Speaker 2: down the steps of how to perfect that new.
Speaker 3: Swing the golf or would go out and practice every
Speaker 3: day all weeks long, until that swing became automatic and unconscious.
Speaker 2: In fact, the definition of self help is doing a
Speaker 2: new behavior over and over again until becomes yours.
Speaker 1: The book, so oh, go ahead week week week. So
Speaker 1: it's just it's a matter of repetition, and you gain
Speaker 1: confidence every time you make a choice and go what
Speaker 1: is your thought on this, doctor mckimnon. I saw this
Speaker 1: the other day on a video, and I believe the
Speaker 1: woman who was talking is a professor at Harvard, I think,
Speaker 1: And she said something, you know, second, guessing your choices
Speaker 1: is a waste of time. It's instead of worrying about
Speaker 1: making the right choice, worry about making the choice right
Speaker 1: do you address like, once you've made a decision, how
Speaker 1: to just move forward with that decision.
Speaker 2: The brain automatically allows you to move forward if you're
Speaker 2: listening to yourself and not reading other people or your
Speaker 2: second guessing yourself. This practice of tapping into the brain
Speaker 2: the way it's already designed to have you make excellent
Speaker 2: decisions that those words, those ideas. Once you make a
Speaker 2: decision of what to say or do and say or
Speaker 2: do it, you walk away and you don't think about
Speaker 2: it anymore. The brain doesn't keep bringing it up. You
Speaker 2: don't second guess yourself. So included in the method is
Speaker 2: if you learn to listen to yourself and then secondarily
Speaker 2: make a decision of what you do then or later on,
Speaker 2: it completely resolves the trigger for the feeling for the brain,
Speaker 2: It resolves second guessing, and you walk away back to
Speaker 2: being in the moment, enjoying what you're doing instead of
Speaker 2: the alternative. And I'll tell you what the brain does.
Speaker 2: The brain adapts to what feels better, not what feels worse.
Speaker 2: So when you practice this new method for weeks, all
Speaker 2: week long, until it becomes yours. Your brain is going
Speaker 2: to go to the new methodology, methodology of pausing, listening
Speaker 2: to your first thoughts, feeling their ideas, and the way
Speaker 2: you didn't get enough practice before. It's going to do
Speaker 2: it all the time because the end result is self
Speaker 2: reliance and not second guessing yourself anymore.
Speaker 1: Doctor Helen mckibbon is my guest. Her book is called Drop.
Speaker 1: Where why did you call it drop? I'm curious about that?
Speaker 1: It's Drop? And then what's the subhead? I just had
Speaker 1: this drop making great decisions? Where did Drop come from?
Speaker 2: It came from developing a method based in neuroscience and
Speaker 2: mind body medicine of how do you even notice your trigger?
Speaker 2: The body lights up physically if you take the time
Speaker 2: to pause and go back to neutral instead of immediately
Speaker 2: reacting to a person or a situation. That's when the
Speaker 2: brain is configuring every time you've felt that way before
Speaker 2: with how you feel in the moment, and it spits
Speaker 2: out these words or ideas are instinct and that's what
Speaker 2: we listen to. So Drop is that pause and getting
Speaker 2: back to neutral and listening to the brain's configurings for
Speaker 2: what to say or do next.
Speaker 1: Our emotional inst doctor Helen mckibbon. I put a link
Speaker 1: for people to buy the book and a link to
Speaker 1: your website on my blog. Very very interesting stuff and
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2: Oh I appreciate yours. Thank you for having me, and
Speaker 2: thank you to your listeners as well.
Speaker 1: All right, that's doctor Helen mckibbon.