How to Wash Your Brain — Sleep Soundly and Honor Your Fundamentals

Just like brushing our teeth every day, we need to brush our brains.

How? We need to prioritize our sleep. We harp endlessly on the need to honor our fundamentals (eating, sleeping, moving, and breathing) so we can build the energy necessary to go all-in 100% on accomplishing our work/school/athletic goals and our relationship goals. When we get sufficient sleep it’s like taking a Zamboni to our brains so we can start the next day fresh.

Naturally, our bodies know how to sleep. For instance, you don’t need to tell a baby how to sleep! However, as we become adults we develop bad habits that get in the way of what we showing up and giving our best selves to the world. The solution is to patiently chip away at the layers of bad habits that cover up our natural ability.

So, where to start? Well, when developing any good habit, a good place to start is with your why.

Flipping the Switch — The Entirety of Mental Toughness Training!

This is a phrase that we purposefully recite in almost every note that we write.  We do this because you can sum up our teaching in that one command, “Flip the Switch”.

Mental training is that easy, and that hard!  To be happy and successful this is the only thing that we need to do, “flip the switch”.  When? As emotions and circumstances outside of your control arise, moment-to-moment, day-by-day, for the rest of your life! The process is simple:

  1. Create more moments of awareness
  2. Celebrate noticing those moments of awareness
  3. Choose to act as your best selves in those moments; “Flip the Switch”

This is what we refer to when we say “Flip the Switch”! You will never be exonerated from this process.  And that’s a good thing because in this process is where you will find happiness, joy, confidence, and eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is an emotion you may not have heard of but it’s what we are all after it is what Aristotle called “the summon bonum” or highest good.  You will shine with radiant enthusiasm when your primary purpose is all about high-fiving your inner soul and more consistently expressing the best version within yourself.  Experiencing Eudaimonia is the process of “flipping the switch”!

All the inspirational stories, pre-game speeches, ancient wisdom, scientific studies that you will learn in this course and have already heard again and again throughout your life are designed to encourage you to “flip the switch”!

However, before you can “flip the switch” you must do the pre-emptive work.

  1. Your job is to distill this inspiration and wisdom into practical tools that you will have available ready at hand to “flip the switch” at the moment that you need it.
    • These tools will come in the form of: a mantra, meditation, prayer, power-pose, visualization, or if-then command.
    • You must journal, experiment, and reflect to chose your response to each emotion and circumstance that you can imagine facing throughout your day.
  2. Once you have a response “ready at hand” for each emotion, your next step is to:
    • Confidently seek opportunities to practice “flipping the switch” (invoking your chosen response to both pleasant and unpleasant emotions).

Continue this process, moment-to-moment, day-by-day, for the rest of your life! The more you practice, the more you will see the benefits.  Now, when you celebrate noticing moments of awareness,  you will notice that your initial response more closely resembles your most empowered response. “Flipping the switch” will become less dramatic as you spiral-up into the best version of yourself. You will experience higher highs and lower lows. As you continue the process new levels of happiness will open that you never dreamed possible.