The Full Potential philosophy is meant to help people operate at the best perspective in any given situation. It is about options. It is about empowerment. Empowerment feels good. So does investing life resources in what we truly value. If everyone was living at this level - life would be bliss.

1. Full Potential Show Episode 5:
Hitting the Emergency Brake of Your Mind
H ello, I’m James Rick. You may not recognize me - I’ve shaved and I’ve got a new
background. This is the Full Potential Show, your number one, non-boring source for
personal development. Today, we’re going to talk about Taking Control of Your Brain.
That’s what the theme of this episode is. This spawns off of an earlier blog article that I did that
got lots of attention, lots of excitement, lots of people commenting on it. That is, how to hit the
mental emergency brake on your mind. If you have a mind that just won’t quit, it just keeps
thinking, well, we’ve got some strategies for how to hit the mental emergency brake on that
mind, so that you can get greater awareness, greater mental clarity, greater peace, greater
focus, greater willpower. Ultimately, there’s also some signs that this meditation, or focus
management, that I’m going to talk about can actually slow down or reverse aging. That’s right.
Focus management is the key theme for today. The first step that I want you to do in order to
start managing your focus is to just get an awareness inventory of what’s going on in your
mental space. An awareness inventory is almost like a worry inventory. Often the things that
are causing you worry, stress, or anxiety is your mind popping things in going “Hey, I’ve got to
take care of this.” or “Hey, what about that?” So, the first step is to become aware of what your
brain is urging you to be aware of. Just take time out to honor that.
Here’s what you need to do. Sit down. Spend about 10 minutes today, somewhere you can
relax and not have to worry about anything else. No phone calls, no email, nobody coming in to
interrupt you. Just take about 10-20 minutes would be great. But if you can just do 10, you’re
on the right track.
Full Potential Show Episode 5 Transcript
Hitting the Emergency Brake of Your Mind

2. So, let’s take 10 minutes. Sit down with a notepad and a piece of paper,
and just “be”. As thoughts come up, write them down in your
notebook. You’ll notice that you’ll have so many thoughts that flicker
in and out of your awareness. Just write them down. As a new one
comes up, just write it down. For 10 minutes, you’re going to give
yourself the command to just sit there and “be”. But thoughts will pop
in. They aren’t thoughts that you “wanted” to pop in, because you’re just
going to sit there and be. These are thoughts that popped in there almost
subconsciously, bubbling to the surface, and you’re becoming aware of them as you write them
down. By the end of this exercise, you’ll be amazed that, in 10 or 20 minutes, you may have
sheets of notes that have just popped up. You actually thought about and most of these are
going to be worries or concerns. But honor them. Write them down. And you’ll notice that just
this process of being aware of them and not shying away from them, they’re not getting caught
up and actually running with them in your mind. You’ll actually feel a little bit more clear. A
little bit more at peace. So, already the benefits will start to come from this exercise.
After you have done this first exercise, you will now have a clear window into your mind.
What’s going on in there? What thoughts occupy a lot of your time? You know, studies show
that we think about 50,000 thoughts a day. Those thoughts are roughly the same thoughts day-
to-day, unless you’re interrupting those patterns with new stimulating thoughts from say,
books, from shows like this. Or you could be interrupting those thoughts with TV, news or other
negative attention that could be causing your thoughts to be stimulated by something other
than what you want to feed in there. So, these are giving you a window into what some of
those 50,000 thoughts look like. This first exercise is important to become more aware, so that
you can start to influence those thoughts in a more positive direction.
Now the first thing that I want to point out though is that your mind worrying, and concerned,
and causing the stress and anxiety is not a bad thing. The worry or concern is your mind
programmed to help you. Saying, “Hey, worry about this.” “Hey, here’s another thing that
you’ve got to worry about.” This is another thing, so that you take care of them because if you
weren’t worried or concerned about them you’d probably just let them slip. You may know
some people like that or just don’t give a damn. So, honor these thoughts. It’s your brain trying
to help you.
It’s what you do with the thoughts after they come in that’s the real kicker. That’s when you
can actually go into negative mode, meaning you produce all kinds of negative emotions as a
result of those thoughts. Instead of feeling empowered like you’re going to handle it, you feel
Full Potential Show Episode 5 Transcript
Hitting the Emergency Brake of Your Mind

3. like, “Oh, crap, you’re right, I’ve got all these worries and concerns. I’m feeling overwhelmed.
I’m feeling overanxious. I’m feeling anxiety. I’m going into survival mode.” Trust me, nobody
make good decisions from survival mode. If you’re in that place, even if it’s not a reality, like
you’re not going to be put out on the street tomorrow and you’re not going to starve
tomorrow, you’ll literally react from survival mode as if you are and make worse decisions than
you would if you were in a place of stability. That’s what this exercise is ultimately about. We
want to get you to a place of peace, of mental clarity, of stability so that you can make better
decisions.
So, we’ll go back, the first exercise, take inventory of your awareness. Once you’ve done that,
commit to feeding your brain more positive thoughts, more positive programming, so that you
can, next time you do an awareness inventory, you’ll see, boy, they’re getting to be better, I’m
not having as many weird thoughts there causing negative emotions. That’s the first step.
The second step after you’ve done this awareness inventory is to start taking control of your
focus. So, in the first case, where you just sat and you were going to “be”, now you’re going to
“be” and focus on something specific. That specific thing that you’re going to focus on is 10
breaths. Getting to 10 breaths without thinking about anything else. Now, you may have done
this exercise from an earlier episode and some people that are proud of themselves say,”What
do I do when I get to the 10 breaths? I was able to do it.” Well,
congratulations, now go to 20. But for those of you, who haven’t done
the exercise, do try to get to 10 breaths without thinking about anything
else. You’ll find that in your first try, that it’s actually very difficult,
surprisingly. That’s because there’s a force working against you. There’s
you committing to getting to 10 breaths, but then there’s this force that is
caught up in the momentum of everything that you’ve lived up till now
just running on autopilot. When you meet that force, and you’re trying to
get to 10 breaths and it’s kind of rolling over you, that’s okay.
In the process of getting started, you’re going to have some challenges. Your focus muscle
might be a little weak. So, in step 2, you’re going to focus on getting to 10 breaths without
thinking of anything else. If you do think of something else, something else comes in the way of
you getting to 10 breaths, you’re going to start back at 1. Keep going through this process. Every
time you remember that you were on doing this exercise, you may get a little frustrated. You
put a little more effort into it, a little more intention and you feel a little bit more strongly
about getting to 10 breaths. That’s what’s creating that mental muscle. You’re getting a little bit
Full Potential Show Episode 5 Transcript
Hitting the Emergency Brake of Your Mind

4. more focused. If you are getting frustrated, that’s okay. That’s good. You’re going to put more
effort into it and you’ll notice what it feels like to really put mental effort into something.
When you finally get to 10 breaths, like I said, you can then go to 20, but then at the same
time, you’ll notice that you have an easier time focusing on things. You’ll also notice that, at the
end of this exercise, you’re going to be a little bit more clear. You’re going to be a little bit more
at peace. That’s because you’ve really started to establish your dominance over the mental
space rather than letting it dominate you with all this clutter. You know, if you like to clean a
lot, I know some people who like to say, “I have messy habits in my physical environment, but
mentally, I feel like I’m very organized.” If you’re the reverse, if you’re organized in the physical
environment, I’m showing you a way to organize your mental environment as clean and
organized as maybe your physical environment. So that’s the second step doing this 10-breath
breathing meditation. Going to 10 and maybe even challenging yourself to get to 20.
After you have completed that step, the third step that we’re going to discuss is focusing on
visualizing what you want to create in your life. Now, if you’ve ever heard about visualizing
exercises before, you know, visualize and create what you want. You maybe experienced the
difficulty of focusing because you hadn’t done some of these earlier
steps. “Well, that’s great for some people, maybe they can focus easier
than I can, but I’m having a challenge here. Every time I try to focus on
what I want, all the crap that I don’t want comes into my head.” That’s
okay. After you’ve done the first two steps, you’re on the third step,
it’s kind of like we’ve strengthened the muscle a bit. Now you’ll be able
to focus on what you really want to create in your life.
Just take a couple of minutes out of every day and really envision what you want and really
embody it. Speak about it as if it’s first person. You know, as if it’s here and now. I’m so happy
that this vision, whatever it is for you, has become a reality. I’m so happy that I have all this
money coming into my life now. I’m so happy that I have all this energy in my life now.
Whatever it is, embody that vision and imagine what that is like, what that looks like, what it
sounds like, what it feels like. Try to get as many as your senses involved in that visualization as
possible.
When you’ve gotten through with these three steps, you will have created a foundation of
control in your mind. Like I said, the benefits that come out of that, not only are you going to
feel more at peace, more stable, and reverse the aging process, possibly, or at least slow it
down; you’re also going to be able to take more control over your mental space. Whatever
Full Potential Show Episode 5 Transcript
Hitting the Emergency Brake of Your Mind

5. you’re trying to create in your life, it’s going to be more likely to become a reality. You’ll be able
to stay fixed on a purpose, or a focus, or an intention, rather than setting a focus. “I know I
need to do this, or I know I should do this.” Just like the 10-breath breathing meditation, but
then your focus goes somewhere else in a few seconds. Imagine how hard it is to stay focused
for a few days or a few weeks or a few months on the same thing, if you can’t even focus for a
few seconds.
This is the Full Potential Show, I’m James Rick. Try the taking control of your mind exercises that
we talked about today. The awareness inventory. The 10-breath breathing meditation. The
visualizing what you truly want to create in your life. This should keep you busy for a few days,
actually, while you’re building this mental muscle. We’ll have more things for you to practice
once you’ve developed this mental muscle and you’re ready to lift some heavier things. But for
now, take these lessons, try them out in your own life, come back, report back, give some
feedback on how it worked for you.
Again this is the Full Potential show, you’re number one, non-boring source for personal
development, I’m James Rick, I’ve shaved, I’ve got a new background. The show is getting
better and better. Stop by and subscribe and come back and see us again. Thank you.
About Full Potential:
The Full Potential philosophy is meant to help people operate at the best perspective in any given
situation. It is about options. It is about empowerment. Empowerment feels good. So does investing life
resources in what we truly value. If everyone was living at this level – life would be bliss. To find out
more, visit: www.fullpotential.com.
About James Rick:
James Rick, also known as “Mr. Full Potential,” is host of the Full Potential Show, Founder of Full
Potential Academy, and author of “Unleash Your Full Potential”. James Rick started his first business at
the age of 17, currently employs more than 150 staff around the world, and his businesses have
generated more than $5 million in revenues over the last 36 months.
Full Potential Show Episode 5 Transcript
Hitting the Emergency Brake of Your Mind