Dr. Philippe Douyon 0:38
So, yeah, recognizing how the brain works I think is incredibly important because again, we are not our brains, but it is the most powerful tool that we have at our disposal. It is the number one technology that we have on this planet is the brain. Yeah. So we need to learn how to use it. Yeah.

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INTRODUCTION

Lesley Logan
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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Lesley Logan
All right. Be it babe. We have one of your favorite guests back. You all love Dr. Felipe Deion. When we had him on before and I decided we had to bring on his other half of his podcast, the Brain Prophet, which is Douglas Mapp, and these two are brain nerds for sure. 100%. Um, and what I really loved is how they explained. Well, we all need to be doing so much with our brains, and typically we wait until something is in need to work on it. And really, our brains are something that we need to work on now. And how does this affect you being until you see it? Well, you need your brain to take you wherever you’re gonna go, so you are gonna absolutely wanna listen up to what Douglas and Dr. Philippe Duoyon have to say about this because y’all, um, We’re we, I think we tend to put ourselves last. And when you do that, you’re not only putting yourself last, but you’re putting your brain last, probably last last. And we go into how to actually put your brain more first and also like what we all can be doing more in this world to be more like our brain and to take the next level. It’s really interesting. We get to talk about a lot of things. Um, it’s a great conversation. I’m excited for you to have it. And I also really loved, um, there’d be action items for sure. And also one, like you can just do them. You don’t have to go buy anything. You can actually just go do them, which is really. And if you haven’t noticed on the podcast, um, outtakes, especially on the recaps are happening because guess what? I’m perfectly imperfect. No, I’m kidding. I take a lot of messy action. I make a lot of mistakes, and some of those things get taken out of the actual feed, but then the team puts it at the end of the credits. You know how when you’re at the movies and like something fun happens, At the end of the credits and only the people who like stayed after got to see them. Well, that’s what we’re doing with this podcast. So enjoy, um, hearing how many times I, um, can’t say a word. Can’t say my own name. Can’t say Brad’s name or forget how this podcast goes. Alright. And until, uh, and without further ado, here are the brains.

All right, Be It babes. I’m so excited because we have a two person show happening here today. Well, it’s three because I’m the third. But we have two people as guests. And it’s gonna be a lot of fun. First of all, they’re just like experts in their area, you already know one and loved him so much, Dr. Philippe Douyon is here. He is, as you know, like the brain doctor, and also part of The Brain Prophets podcast, and his other half is Douglas Mapp. And he’s here to talk about what they’re doing together what they do in the world of just all helping us like think in a different way. So you guys, thank you for both being here. Can you each have… Douglas, since this is your first time you get to go first and introduce yourself and then we’ll do the doctor.

Douglas Mapp 7:28
Alright, thank you. Thank you. I’m Douglas Mapp founder of Being Up. I’m a cognitive development professional. And I’m one of the halves of The Brain Prophets podcast. You can find me of course on Twitter made primarily @DMAPP2. And you can also you know, go check out thinkupexcellence.com (https://thinkuptn.thinkific.com/)

Lesley Logan 7:50
Awesome. That’s, you know, good for you to be on Twitter. It’s a brave place to be.

Douglas Mapp 7:56
I don’t really see. Yeah

Lesley Logan 7:58
Maybe we’ll have to talk more about that. Okay. Yeah, Dr. Philippe Douyon. For those who are new to you, can you remind us who you are and what you do?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 8:06
Sure. So I’m a board certified neurologist. I’m author of the book Neuroplasticity: your brain’s superpower. I’ve got a children’s illustrated series called Nervy The Neuron where we teach kids about their brains and how they can take care of their brains. And I’m also the creator of the online course Take Charge of Your Brain.

Lesley Logan 8:23
Very, super cool. I love Nervy the neuron I think it’s so cool. I don’t think that when I was growing up there was any books about the brain. So kids are definitely getting more more educated than I was when when they’re younger. Okay, so I want so we’ve all you all said some amazing words I think what’s really important is like to kind of go back to the basics so we’re on the same place. Douglas when you say like cognitive, everything you said can you kind of tell people like what a day in that looks like or what it is that you’re , like, what are you trying to get people to do with that?

Douglas Mapp 8:55
Yeah, what we’re trying to do is improve the way that people think so you know how you go to the gym and then this is kind of appropriate for this podcast. So you go out, you guys do Pilates in order to, you know, improve the strength of your body, your physical self, right so the cognitive development process is a process we put people to improve the mental capacity or just the mental, your thinking, so that you can perform and produce at a higher level.

Lesley Logan 9:25
So you’re basically saying that like we have the power and the ability to kind of improve how we think, change how we think, it’s not stuck just like how you were when you were younger, it can have, it has ever learning abilities.

Douglas Mapp 9:39
Yeah, yeah. So you know, once you understand the type of, the right type of activities to do, we can improve like, you know how fast your processing speed processes, right? how long your memory, how much your memory can hold…

Lesley Logan 9:52
Like a computer but from my brain, you can make my brain be faster.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 9:56
Yeah, your brain is already faster than a computer but yes, essentially, think about like your control of it like so imagine somebody who picked up a computer 30 years ago, probably one recognize how to really use this full capabilities, so were part of that process of utilizing your full capability or more of your capability, right? And so, you know, this is about, to me, no knock on anybody else. It’s about you know, next level stuff, like when, you know, productivity, how do we take it to the next level, and it comes by understanding, and not just understanding what your brain could do, but then putting it through the paces so that it can do it, right. It’s one thing to know, is one thing to know what the form is supposed to look like, it’s another thing to be able to do the form.

Lesley Logan 10:38
So that makes a lot of sense to me, I think that thank you for using that analogy. And it’s like, so I guess the next question for you is like, how do we know we need to improve our brains? Like, is it something so come to you for because I’m feeling stuck in my job? Like, is it like, or you can do it in your work and your capacity of thinking outside the box at home? Or at the gym? Like, what what is it that brings me to think like, I want to do this next thing?

Douglas Mapp 11:06
That’s a great question. Like, how would you know, so this is gonna be this is me and Philippe’s fight, because it’s our brain. And because we don’t really see our brain and because we generally judge each other by each other, we don’t really know. So I call it when I call it that, right now, we’re facing a problem in America, and maybe even around the world in general, despite our society, and least first world countries, and it’s called mental obesity. But because you can’t see it, you don’t know, how are, you know, how I guess subpar? Or where you’re lacking performance is at, right? So I would think that what we need to be doing is just like people should just generally exercise, we should be generally putting these practices into play on the things that we do. So if you want if you want, so if you so I’m gonna use some metrics, just to put put it in retrospect. So let’s go 20 years ago, well, almost 20 years. So in 2005, right. So in 2004, as a population that works on averages, we were productive, our production rate improved at a rate of 2.2% year over year, right? now, right? Since 2005 till now we improve at a rate of 1.4%, or at least from a productivity standpoint. So we’re less productive than we used to be.

Lesley Logan 12:33
Because we’re overwhelmed with thoughts?

Douglas Mapp 12:38
I would say, I would say that it’s not so much the overwhelm, but it’s the lack of ability to run the same race as fast and so we don’t have to train the same way. So like between 1948 1970 the world that we have now never existed…(Lesley: Oh, yeah) Right? I mean, as we have it now, so but right now, we have the internet, we have so many things that doesn’t allow you or doesn’t necessarily rely on you to have to think or create it, you can ask a question to some device, it tells you the answer, you don’t have to even think, right? You can hire somebody to do something for you that you could have tried to build something yourself just even get that you know that brain associated with what that should take that’s gone, right? So there’s a lot of things like visual processing that would be used in trying to put something creative together. So now, as people, we don’t exercise our brains the same way so that you don’t actually even know what you could have been doing. Overwhelm of course happens because now you’re trying to lift something that you’re not strong enough to lift.

Lesley Logan 13:45
Yeah, but we used to be able to we use that capability. It’s like when you get older, some things just aren’t as easy anymore. You could do the exact same thing. But we’re, we’re still young.

Douglas Mapp 13:57
Yes, yeah, you should be able to do it.

Lesley Logan 13:59
So so how does the two of you guys connect and start working together? Because you have this podcast and you and as you said, you’re like trying to get people to understand a problem that they don’t know that they have? Because I feel like they’d be pretty meta. The brain needs to tell you that it’s not at its capacity (…)

Douglas Mapp 14:18
Philippe, if you don’t mind, let me tell this part of the story then you pick up where you I throw you in there. So Philippe wrote this awesome book. It’s called Neuroplasticity: your brain’s superpower. And of course, in my field, once I saw it, I had to read it. And so fully tell the people about your book, man.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 14:37
Yeah, so it’s really about how you know, our brains adapt, how they learn, how they heal, but most importantly, that we have the ability to control how our brain evolves. So a lot about what we talked about is really about giving people their power back because one of the things that I always say is like you are not your brain, the fact that you are aware of your thoughts, the fact that you know you’ve got a brain inside your skull means that you are much higher level than your actual brain. And so now it’s about doing the things to keep your brain a healthy one, but to keep your brain evolving, so that way, you can overcome obstacles, you can overcome the challenges that you face, you can create the life that you want for yourself. And so when we ask the question, like, how do people know that they may need, you know, cognitive training or brain training? Well, we can always ask them well, how’s your life going? How happy are you? Are you anxious? Are you depressed? Are you accomplishing your goals? Are you living the life that you’ve always dreamed of? A lot of people that answer is going to be no.

Lesley Logan 15:40
Yeah, so this, um, like, my brain just went to like three different things and a little bit more and a little selfish. Mostly because our listeners are mostly women, does the women’s hormones and the changes in that affect the brain’s capacity to learn? And therefore do we have like, Is there something I should be doing now? Before the hormones change and bucket all up?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 16:06
Well, you know, here’s the amazing thing, right? That all of our brains change, depending on the phases in life that we’re in. And we see this especially happened with women, that their brains change in some incredibly, just beautiful, beautiful ways, right? And Pregnancy is a great is a great time, where you’re seeing a lot of changes in the brain. And the reason being that when a woman is going from not being pregnant, to pregnant to preparing for this baby to come, her focus has to shift, right? Her focus is no longer on her. The most important thing now is to make sure that this baby survives, and as well. And so the brain changes in ways to make sure that that happens. So you hear a lot of women talk about that they’ve got pregnancy, brain, pregnancy, brain is a is a real thing. Right? But it is not at all a bad thing. It’s actually a really great thing. You don’t need it’s not all that important for you to remember, you know, somebody’s phone number. I mean, you know, most of us don’t remember phone numbers nowadays.

Lesley Logan 17:11
I don’t know Brad’s phone number. I alwasy have to ask, what’s your phone number?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 17:16
Well, probably not the best example. Because that’s actually one of the things that we have lost in the last 20 or 30 years, our ability to remember phone numbers, because we don’t do it anymore. But yeah, you don’t need to remember something that may not be important to the survival of your child. Right? And so women attribute that to pregnancy brain. Some women think that it’s not a good thing, but it’s actually a really, really great thing. So yeah, so hormones play a significant role on how our brains evolved.

Lesley Logan 17:42
That’s really fascinating. I love that you bring that up. I think every person listening here is like, oh, boy, what a great way to reframe that. And also, can we like shout it louder for all the people. So go ahead, Douglas.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 17:56
Now, I was gonna say to write back just a little bit on this finishing up the story when you are…

Lesley Logan 18:01
so sorry. I’m so sorry. I got distracted. I got excited. Go ahead. Finish. Sorry. Yes, we gotta go back.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 18:06
Yeah. So after I read that great book that he told everybody about, which, you know, go get the books on Amazon. I reached out to him over LinkedIn. And then you know, we just got to like chopped it up over that and we became you know, close and so now we’re you know, cool peoples and so I guess we’re friends with although we still have to meet in person, he’s been busy. I’ve been busy and we haven’t met in person yet.

Lesley Logan 18:27
How long have you guys known each other and you haven’t met in person?

Douglas Mapp 18:31
Oh, man. It’s been is it going on? Three years now? This is the third year.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 18:36
I mean, part of that is like COVID.

Douglas Mapp 18:39
yeah, like surgery

Dr. Philippe Douyon 18:42
And then he’s like, he’s like in Tennessee, like, nobody really wants to go to that part of the world.

Lesley Logan 18:51
(…) people I love that.

Douglas Mapp 18:54
We’re in Knoxville, and I tell him this all the time. One of the world’s most leading laboratories is like 15 minutes of the road.

Lesley Logan 19:01
Wow, that’s amazing. So there you go. I feel like you’re putting on thick but maybe we can find Vegas come to Vegas, everyone loves it here. So okay, so going back to like you talked about like, we can take our brain to like training camp basically. And we have neuroplasticity meaning we can, like, our brain is like we have the ability to change it. Is this like, so my dad isn’t listening to show so I could talk about him but he will do this whole thing is like I had an old man day moment and like he tells me that he couldn’t find his keys and it was around his neck the whole time. You know, like that kind of like and I’m like well dad I think like regular people like any age like that happens all the time. We’re just distracted but like, is there an age at which like that plus it’s harder to take the brain to the gym or is it like as long as we were doing it we can keep doing it like what are the expectations obviously without like, you know any external extenuating, like, conditions?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 20:00
Yes. So there’s definitely like critical periods in the brain’s development, where it’s easier for that to happen. But we retain that ability throughout our entire lives. As long as we’re doing certain things that are really healthy for the brain and promoting neuroplasticity, like exercising, like getting a good night’s sleep. Actually, that’s when you’re seeing a lot of these neuroplastic changes happening when people are in the deeper stages of sleep. And a lot of people are sleep deprived. And when we say exercise, it doesn’t even necessarily mean you go into gym and using some weights. It could be dancing. It could be you know, Pilates. Which, which you got me to do by the

Lesley Logan 20:36
Did you do it? I got another guest to do it!

Dr. Philippe Douyon 20:40
Yeah, you got me to do it which was awesome. Yeah. It’s really great. You just never find an appointment.

Lesley Logan 20:48
Oh, yeah. Well, well, after we’ll get offline, and I’ll find out where you are. And I’ll help you find that. But, you know, I love that you bring that up. Because I think sometimes people think that like, oh, the gym is exercise, and then yoga is stretching. And then we don’t really know where Pilates is, we’ll put it in somewhere in the stretchy camp. And, and really, it’s like any kind of movement that is intentional, that like you’re not on your I mean, I guess you could be on the bike on the phone. But like, you know, intentional movement, where you’re actually trying to like move the body in a different way and strengthen some things. But I to give Pilates a nice little hit, I have been trying to do this one. This exercise I’ve been able to do for years. So the strength part of it, no problem. But there’s a rhythm to it. It has this it’s so for everyone listening, Pilates is not slow. Pilates has its every action has a own rhythm. And this one exercise is a fast overhead like a fast plow. So legs parallel to the floor. And up that over up has to be really fast. And then you take your time. So there’s this moment where you throw your whole body over and up. And like because of that inertia to get it over and up fast. When you get up, you have to stop and you have to catch it. And like that’s really hard to do because it takes control. For years, I’ve been trying to get my brain understand the fast part to get to catch the slow part. And I finally did it finally did it and I was like, ah, you know, but like it’s a it is a string thing. It’s a coordination thing. It’s in your brain to like focus on it. So. So hopefully I like took my brain to the gym as well, in that moment.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 22:14
Yeah, yeah. And you know what I love about that story. You said for years, I’ve been trying to get my brain to understand the fast part. So you in that statement, recognize that you are not your brain.

Lesley Logan 22:24
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, fascinating. So well. So when you, so Douglas, when you are taking people to gym and taking their brain to gym, what does that look like? For let’s say, I just like want to be able to take in more information and not, you know…

Dr. Philippe Douyon 22:42
We can do one right now. Okay, we’ll give you a working memory exercise. And you can just follow along with the people. So all I want you to do is tell me the sum of the last two numbers that you tell me.

Lesley Logan 22:54
Okay, so if I just tell you, Oh, I’m, you’re gonna give me the numbers.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 22:58
I’m gonna give you the numbers. And you’re gonna tell me the sum of the last two numbers that I tell you. Of course, this is a conversation. So you’re going to speak and then I’m going to speak, but I still want the sum of the last two. Okay. All right. 12…Lesley: 3) 1

Lesley Logan 23:14
4, oh wait, no. Oh, I see. I’m missing, I’m misunderstanding. So the last two numbers. So you said one, two, then 3

Dr. Philippe Douyon 23:27
2 So this is where we push the red light focus on what I’m saying? Not what you’re saying. And most people’s brains want to go like, Oh, what did I say? What did I say?

Lesley Logan 23:44
I’m definitely feel like I’m a most people right now. Not feeling.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 23:49
And so that’s just a simple working memory exercise is also focused on, well, not necessarily processing speed, but auditory processing. And you could use some visual processing in as the same time as you’re doing that particular thing. But it’s about putting yourself through the right type of rigorous exercises that are right underneath frustration to promote positive neuroplasticity processes. So that’s what we know. That’s just one little one that we do.

Lesley Logan 24:17
Yeah, that one is that one. I’m gonna say I needed to go back to school for that.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 24:24
We didn’t, I mean, I just kept repeating the same numbers over and over. Now the crazy part is, well, if I did it and said something you said, then you start to question, why are we saying the same things?

Lesley Logan 24:37
Right? Yeah, no. There’s Yeah, I also the brain is very funny because like, I think, because I know I have a brain. And then I get a little I’m one of those people. I’m not a hypochondriac, but sometimes I like when I switched a word. I wasn’t reading the word. I was remembering the word from Instagram and I was dyslexic with it. And I was saying it and I was saying like, that’s not it, but like it in my brain I could picture was like chapel Allerton, I was saying Chalo Appleton, I was like (…) speaking. So then it’s like, okay, what am I getting too old? Do I need more sleep? Is this something wrong? Nothing’s wrong before or if we’re just being like a crazy hypochondriac.

Douglas Mapp 25:19
Yeah, that’s a great question, how do you know something’s wrong. So it’s harder with our brains to recognize because we, you know, we’re always kind of doing that too many routine things to really notice. So when something starts to slip off, that’s when we notice and sometimes that can be too late. But I would like to say one of the things that we are about manfully is about being proactive, right. And if we stay proactive, then we don’t have to worry about the slip, right? You don’t want to worry about the problem. You know, it’s too late at that time, you’re like way behind the eight ball. And it’s costly, more costly to fix the problem, and it’s to kind of stay healthy. And so I’m in that camp of like, of trying to stay ahead of the game, because our brains, we only have one brain. And as resilient as it is. You know, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s too nuanced to say, let me let this particular part of it slide. Yeah. So that’s what I said about that. But I do want to say sleep like, you know, people talk about getting sleep a lot, because it’s just like, it’s, it seems, well, when the general person I think, hears, hey, you need to get more sleep. It’s, it’s, I think it’s dead airs to some degree, because it’s like, Oh, why do I need more sleep? But there’s a process your brain actually has to go through, and Philippe talk about the brain washing process if you don’t mind

Lesley Logan 26:36
Yeah, I want to hear it. Because I’ve been, I’ve been trying to get my aura ring, average sleep to be up. And whenever I actually read the stats, I get depressed, because I’m like, well, I’m my REM is not getting any longer my deep sleep as I’m like, What do I want these numbers to be? Because they all don’t seem high enough?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 26:55
Yeah, so you know, here’s the great thing, like, we always recommend that people get like six to eight hours of sleep per night. And there’s a reason. So the brain goes through this cycle, right? we have non REM sleep, REM sleep. And it’s really in the deeper stages of sleep that we see a lot of the healing that happens, right? but it takes about 90 minutes or so, 60 to 90 minutes, to get into those deeper stages of sleep. And you need to go through that cycle, at least four to six times in the middle of the night. And so that’s why we tell people six to eight hours of sleep per night, when you get into the deeper stages of sleep. So our brains are bathed in fluid, our brains and spinal cord are bathed in fluid because it’s cerebrospinal fluid or CSF. And what we’ve realized is that when we’re in the deeper stages of sleep, there are waves of this fluid happening. And it’s thought that the reason that we’re seeing these waves is that the brain is essentially clearing out the toxins that build up throughout the day. And when those toxins accumulate over a long period of time, that’s when people develop things like dementia. Right. And so there are links between dementia and sleep deprivation, especially Alzheimer’s, dementia, and sleep deprivation. Everything that we know is that in the deeper stages of sleep, your brain and your body released brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is the chemical that triggers neuroplasticity, that it’s the chemical that promotes neuroplasticity.

Douglas Mapp 28:24
So think about, think about that as like fertilizer for your brain if you think about, like, you know, growing plants and stuff.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 28:31
sleep is made really for your brain

Lesley Logan 28:32
Well, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think people are there if they would actually say it’s for their brain, they might actually think of it in a different way, you know, or use it in a different way. I think they’re there. They sometimes I hear I feel like the people around when they talk about sleep, it’s like, oh, I have to go sleep because like, got a workday tomorrow. And it’s like well, actually, it’s so your brain can like run your body through whatever you want to do tomorrow. Yeah. So you can do whatever so when it comes to like, I’m sure there’s so many tools, but like what are some things that can help people like? Like be it till they see it when it comes to being a better sleep? Or are there things like that they could be considering during the day, obviously, like screen time before bed is a terrible thing, but like, what are some other things that people could do to just really prepare themselves for their brain going, you know, to fertilizer school?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 29:24
Yeah, so having good sleep hygiene is really important. And what I mean by that is that you do need to prepare your body and brain for sleep. And so you probably shouldn’t eat three to four hours. Your last meal should be three to four hours before you go to bed. And you should turn down the lights as the evening approaches, because that signals to your body to start releasing melatonin, which is the chemical that tells your brain that it’s time to go to sleep. You should avoid caffeine eight hours prior to when you’re gonna go to bed. I tell people all the time the bedroom, only two things take place in the bedroom, sleep, and sex, everything else, get all the electronics out of the bedroom, TVs, laptops, phone, all of that. So there are things that you can do every single day to help to prepare yourself to get a good night’s sleep.

Lesley Logan 30:15
Yeah, I think I definitely, I was so good about my phone not coming into the room. And then my husband went away for a month that we have this, this is downtown, we have an electronic glass door. And it’s because to let the dogs out, there’s only one way out. And we have to go all the way around, we’re in the back of the house, in order to go to the front of house, to go back through the middle, to the back of the house to let them out. And so we got this electronic door. However, it only lets them out, it doesn’t let them in, you have to let them in with a phone app. And when he’s here, he can do it.

But he went away, which is only for two weeks, and it was a month. And so then my phone, made it back in the room and I have not gotten myself back into habit. So by the time this episode comes out, and Brad and I do the recap, I will I will let you guys know if I’m able to recreate that habit, but it made a massive difference for my sleep. Because I like I hit sometimes well, I spent many years where I had stomach issues that then caused me not to sleep much. And then my sleep stomach issues became this vicious cycle. So I’m really like, I’m always very aware if I’ve got deeply burned out because I’m like, What did i What did I eat what’s going on, because I don’t ever want to go back to where I don’t get my sleep, which then therefore doesn’t put me through my digestive cycle. And then I go back to like not sleeping again, it’s my own priority thing. But I find that people don’t realize the two can be very connected. And then they don’t see it that sleep is so amazing. So I love those you guys are gonna have to tell us how you use them. So you guys decided to start a podcast together because you wanted to hang out more, because you realize you were like trying to do the exact same thing or, I mean, I can see the main problem you guys have is that people need to do what you’re talking about before they need to do. So they’re trying to get people to do something they don’t know that prevent a problem, which is always hard to get people to do. So how how did that whole thing come about?

Douglas Mapp 32:04
Yeah, so I think well, we can we do use our podcasts for two reasons. That’s of course to elevate the conversation, right? And then also kind of learn from people, if it’s as important to them as we think it should be. Right. And so most often, it’s not as important. That’s one, but they met but at the same time, they don’t recognize the factors necessarily, that lets us know, or that would let them know, hey, there’s an issue. And so, but but we won’t keep it fun. So it’s still a fun podcast, we talked about some of the challenges that arise and what could happen if people did kind of put their brain through these pieces that kind of help them do better, right. And so we’ve had a mix of people from the like, you know, sexuals, or sexual but sex psychologists, right to help people that are relationships all the way to like business owners, we even had a one of the physicists from the Oak Ridge National Laboratories who came on to talk about, you know, how the thinking of people in that world could be affected by you know, the work that they do, and how, you know, their performance matters in that range or in that realm.

Lesley Logan 33:18
Yeah, yeah, that’s, uh, I like it. So you’re like, trying to see what people actually are thinking about, if they’re thinking about it at all, when it comes to what you guys are doing, and also, how other people are doing it. That’s a nice little combination that people can really learn from Yeah,

Douglas Mapp 33:30
yeah. Because like I said before, with, if you look at the numbers, you know, most of the things that we work on, at least on my side, we work on, is, has to deal with what we were studying in children up until 1984. So at that time, 1984, that’s when people were like, Hey, I wonder if this if, you know, all this brain stuff is gonna matter to adults. And (…) they found that it did. And so now from there, you know, you move us, you know, 10-15 years later, this is, you know, this neuroscience field is one of the latest fields in the country when it comes to like, how we can help ourselves do more with this super powerful machine.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 34:13
It’s o fascinating that like it’s now a fast growing field. Like, I feel like we should have been making that happen sooner.

Douglas Mapp 34:23
Yeah, I agree. But I don’t know. I don’t know, if from a historic standpoint, I don’t know, if there was enough of us curious enough to see the dynamic moves in, you know, how we can kind of put things together and move. Right? Most of the people that are movers or shakers, or that are creating are not in this that field, right? And it’s hard to study them. So I don’t know.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 34:51
Well, you know, I come from a healthcare world where everything is incredibly slow and archaic…(Douglas: So you are used to it?) No, but actually what I will say is business people move conversations forward. And business people have a really amazing take on the brain, whether they realize it or not. When, as opposed to people in healthcare as opposed to doctors, nurses, pharmaceutical company, the agenda is different, right? And so when you look at entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, it’s all about growth, I got to grow my business. Well, in order to grow my business, I need to grow, I need to evolve, I need to develop myself, well, that’s all a brain thing. Your evolution is about your brain, whether they put into those terms or not. And I was recently at a conference with a bunch of entrepreneurs, got to hear like Tom Brady speak, some really powerful speakers. And it’s really, in their conversations about who they had to be, who they had to become, it really was about how they had to change their thinking. How they had to change the actions that they were taking, in order for them to create the lives that they wanted for themselves. And as a neurologist, I’m like, oh, it’s all a brain issue.

Lesley Logan 36:08
I love that you brought it that way. Because it made me think like, when I started doing what I was doing, I was by myself. So I was doing everything by myself, I was pulling my like, you know, I was like, trying to learn this over here and trying to figure how to, like, update a link on a website, by myself, like all these things. And then I grew the team. But that required me to think in a different way to stop thinking like, I’m the only one doing it, I had to start thinking like, there’s other people here and then relying on that. And that’s a whole other way of thinking, because now you’re leading a team, to do the thing that you wanted to do, while still learning how to do what you want to do. And then years later, the team expands. There’s now even more things. And so I think we I think as as you brought that up, it made me think 1,000% we have to change the way we’re thinking, but also how much we underestimate that we think there’s something wrong with us, that we aren’t able to quickly switch into this new role. Like, and it’s like, well, actually, no, you have your brain hasn’t been doing it like that, you have to probably train your brain to re consider, like, you know what I mean, we’re not born with like, all all the skill sets that are there that we were learning, we have to learn them just like a new language or something when we were a child, right?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 37:19
Yeah. And if you think about the way that we learn in school, right? it’s very much about being an individual. Right? There’s no teamwork in school, we call that cheating. But in real life, it’s all about teamwork. Right?

Lesley Logan 37:31
Or if you are doing a group project, one person is doing it, and everyone is…

Dr. Philippe Douyon 37:35
That’s right. And so it’s really about, so, you know, essentially, we’ve been trained for years on how to do things by ourselves, which, you know…

Douglas Mapp 37:49
Is counterproductive to how the brain works, right?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 37:51
Yeah, it’s not a successful way of going about it. Even when we think about how the brain works. The reason why the brain is so powerful is because it’s got billions of neurons that make trillions of connections together. Every brain disease is because of a breakdown in communication between those neurons. Every brain disease, a stroke, you know, you get blood flow is blocked a particular part of the brain, neurons start to die, they can’t communicate with each other. Right? Unless you can’t send signals as quickly as you should. And so the communication is impaired, whatever it is, it’s a breakdown in communication. So teamwork is incredibly important.

Lesley Logan 38:33
That is interesting. So, so I guess, like, training, so you’re obviously you’re saying like the brain as being teamwork, but also like teamwork with others, like, what are some what are some ways to? Or where can we have fun? Is it your book? Like, where can we find out how to like, get our brain to understand that teamwork? Because all I’m thinking is like, oh, my gosh, you need all of those connections to like, stay fresh, stay young?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 39:00
Well, one of the things that I tell people all the time is you need to act more like neurons. Right? The reality is that when there’s communication breakdowns between couples, that’s when divorce happens, or separations happen. When countries have communication breakdowns. That’s where war happens, right? When bands no longer communicate, well, that’s when the Beatles breakup or whoever. Right? So yeah, recognizing how the brain works, I think is incredibly important. Because again, we are not our brains, but it is the most powerful tool that we have at our disposal. It is the number one technology that we have on this planet, that’s the brain. So, we need to learn how to use it.

Yeah. And then what and then everyone’s like, how can I outsource this amazing tool into like chat GPT? And it’s like, well, your brain

Douglas Mapp 39:53
Yeah, that’s a niche thing. So you know, I talked to educators sometimes as well. And one of the things that I, that I think what this is going to do, well will be the next separator. So I want to say this too, because this is very important for, for business owners that are listening. So the best companies are more productive than the slowest companies by five times. So if you’re not, so if you’re not putting yourself through the paces to try to close the gap between you and the leader in your market, they’re five times better than you. That’s number one. So the gap will continue to increase. But when you look at like the AI, like these AIs that can kind of think for us, you know, think in quotations, what’s gonna happen is the people who are going to use that the best are the ones who have the wherewithal to ask it the best questions. Right? So not just asking any type of question, it’s going to be the best questions, which means they’d have to know well enough to work with the AI and not have the AI kind of work, you know, them work for the AIs. Right? And so that’s going to be the separator between those who succeed next, and everybody else, I believe.

Lesley Logan 41:03
Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s like the difference between asking it to tell you a nighttime story. And they also ask you to tell your nighttime story read by a pirate, who understands that they’re trying to get, you know, like, just like really getting what you needed to know. Yes, exactly. Like, we, I haven’t used it yet. Because I actually really love to write. And I really know who I’m writing to. And it’s actually slower for me to edit anyone else’s writing, but my husband used it, and he’s like, here, make me a two sentence description based on this outline, boom. And so like, what he got back was, like, amazing and very useful and needed very few edits. When he said, make me a two paragraph description of this outline. There were some edits there, because he’s like, I wouldn’t use that word on this one. But then when you make me a blog post, it got, you know, like you, it’s, if you can figure out, but you have to actually have the cognitive ability to understand what you want, why you want it, what’s the best thing it’s going to happen? Otherwise, it’s just going to be a different Google search.

Douglas Mapp 42:05
Correct. It’s going to, well, so we’ll see, you know, we’ll see where it’s taken us where it will take us, but history will show this probably not going to help us as much as we think it is. Maybe right here, now, it’s gonna be fine. But like, next generation will probably hurt us (…)

Lesley Logan 42:24
That’s what I worry about, though, right? Because we already know, like, what screens do to our eyesight and, and to our ability to sleep and all of these things, right? So then it’s like, if we’re not using and like, I’m okay with not memorizing, people’s phone numbers. I’m, there’s other things I can like, you know, maybe memorize instead, but like, I do worry that I do actually worry, people will use their brains less. And I’m actually like, it just makes me a little like, sad. Because it is such a powerful tool, as you know. And like, I think when people, I think when people lose their ways when they feel like they don’t have purpose. And they don’t feel like they have purpose because everything is doing everything for them.

Douglas Mapp 43:04
Yeah, it is, right, I want to amend what I said and said that, you know, it’ll take us down this dark path, but only if we don’t train our brains alongside it. Because, you know, so if we do nothing, and go down the same path of you, we’re gonna have some problems. But if we do, if everybody does what me and Philippe say, they’ll be fine. But um, you know, it’s got to take but it takes effort. And that’s the thing that, that there’s no pill for this. I know, everybody wants to take some magic pill that’s gonna, you know,

Lesley Logan 43:36
What’s the supplement we can all take for our brain? I didn’t ask because you know

Douglas Mapp 43:41
Philippe we got one for sale on the website? it almost seems like we should get in that game. But that game is such a you know, is not genuine, because it’s not going to give you the overall performance that you want. Which is just, you know, more fitness, brain fitness, is just going to get you to where maybe you have tricked yourself into thinking more so than likely that you’ve done something great. Yeah, the placebo effect is real. You know, I think from an analogy standpoint, getting better sleep they’ll probably do what those pills are trying to do. If you thought about for people who live in like the northeast and some places where it snows and they they put brains all over the ground and it throws up on your car then like the next day you think I need a power wash my car so this stuff doesn’t ruin my car. That’s why you need to sleep be so that your brain can have those those toxins pushed out right so if we can see these more harsher images maybe we need to do like a “this is your brain, this is your brain on no sleep” type of commercial.

Lesley Logan 44:41
Hey, as a child of the 80s it really hit, I did not do drugs. I only drank.

Douglas Mapp 44:47
You only drink

Lesley Logan 44:49
Have you ever noticed like if you look at a kid from the 80s who saw all those commercials with a (…) So every ad person ladies I know that Was it like I don’t I don’t do drugs but I drink I think all like it didn’t do they didn’t do the same thing for drinking.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 45:06
They definitely didn’t run the same ads for drinking…(Lesley: Yeah, they did not). And it was just eggs. It was just eggs frying on a pan for the (…)

Lesley Logan 45:14
Yes, that’s it. That’s all it was, it’s not complicated. Um, it’s probably a different visual that we all think our brain is actually doing but yes, don’t do drugs guys. Some of them are great. And and I’m really excited to see what they’re doing with the with the vets but before I let you guys go, I just want to make sure that we highlight you have an amazing podcast. It’s called The Brain Prophets podcast and people can nerd out on the brain with you guys, every single week over on your podcast. Yes? Anywhere they listen to podcasts.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 45:51
Yeah, we bring on some phenomenal guests like we’ve had, we’ve had like psychic mediums. We I mean, we’ve had you.

Lesley Logan 46:03
Yes. We’ve to go back to the psychic mediums.

Douglas Mapp 46:06
Oh, that’s interesting.

Lesley Logan 46:08
Well, you study the brain, like, is this possible?

Douglas Mapp 46:12
Anything’s possible, as possible. Do you know how strong your brain could possibly be?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 46:16
Yeah. And when we think about our senses, right? we think about sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste. But there’s so much more to our ability to sense what is going on around us.

Lesley Logan 46:31
There’s a psychic, you guys should interview. She is uh, her name is Jen something, I’ll find it for you. She’s James on James Wedmore podcast. She’s his girlfriend. And she talked and she broke down like the different psychic abilities because you can be psychic with smells like you can smell something. And then it’s actually like, it’s not the smell is not there. Like you just like your sense picks it up. And then it’s like that will alert you to a psychic ability that you have or a hearing thing. And you can hear something before people say it. Or there’s the thought one. And then there’s there’s another one. It’s a really fascinating and I was like oh, because sometimes I hear things before they’re said. And I was like I just thought I was going crazy. But now I just think I’m psychic.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 47:16
I’m reading a book right now called Mental Distal Influence. The ability to connect with people. Yeah, that are nowhere near you.

Lesley Logan 47:25
That is crazy. That’s like a twin thing.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 47:30
That’s like a twin thing.

Lesley Logan 47:32
So we’re gonna take a quick break, we’re gonna find out all the places you can work with them. And also their Be It action items. Alright guys, so I know it’s at the top, but just in case, people are like skipping through. Where can people find you, follow you, work with you, get connected with you? Go ahead, Douglas.

Douglas Mapp 47:55
So you can find me on LinkedIn. I’m Douglas Mapp, one S two Ps on LinkedIn. And you can find me on the Twitter streets which I don’t say too much on there other than maybe some sports things and then from time to time, I say some interesting things. But that’s @DMAPP2, D M A P P 2 on Twitter. And of course you can go visit the website at thinkupexcellence.com And you can hit me up on my email just at dmap D M A P P @thinkup.tn.com

Lesley Logan 48:27
Very cool. And Dr. Philippe, where can people find you, follow you, work with you?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 48:32
So people can go to my website inlebrainfitinstitute.com So I N L E BrainFit Institute.com They can find me on Instagram Philippe.md They can find me on Tik Tok. I’ve even started tweeting, I’ve made it this thing to I need to tweet something every day. So yeah, they can find me on all the social media platforms.

Lesley Logan 48:52
And also the Tick Tock well, for Nervy the neuron or…

Douglas Mapp 48:55
I can’t wait to see you breakdancing

Dr. Philippe Douyon 49:01
No, I don’t think I’ll be breakdancing.

Lesley Logan 49:02
No, I’m one of those like I refuse. I will I will I will get my message out without pointing and dancing. Okay, so bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to Be It Till You See It. What do you have for us?

Dr. Philippe Douyon 49:21
This is something I’ve started doing recently. I take freezing cold showers.

Oh, Brad’s been doing this. I hear a yelp through the house every morning.

But they, they are amazing. And when we think about the brain, right? So the brain is like 2% of your body weight. It only weighs about three pounds and yet it consumes about 20% of your energy. Much more if you’re a child, much more if you’re, you know, sort of actively doing something. And so, when you are taking a cold shower, you are, the blood is going from your periphery to your core. It’s reducing inflammation throughout your everywhere. But all that blood is going into your core and gets pushed up to your brain, feeds your brain everything that it wants. And you just feel cognitively alert. You feel a lot more awake. And it’s been it’s been just awesome.

Lesley Logan 50:18
Yeah, I’ve been making excuses to not do this. But as you’re saying this as like, oh, I can use the guest bathroom shower to do this cold shower in the morning. So I’m not waking up everyone. So thank you for that. I like I love that. That’s wonderful. And also it prepares you for sleep that night. Everyone just so you know, like, it’s actually part of the morning routine that prepares you for nighttime that helps you sleep. At least that’s what I learned when I was learning during the whole sleep thing. Douglas, do you have a Be It action item for us?

Douglas Mapp 50:49
Yeah, yeah. So understand your cognitive abilities, like I would say go for either a cognitive assessment, learn about your cognitive strengths and weaknesses. Then create a cognitive or a mental regimen, to put yourself through in order to level up. And if you ever need help with that, you can come visit us, find us on the social media streets. And we can help you figure that out.

Lesley Logan 51:20
Wonderful. All right, you too. It’s just so fun. I really love nerding out on the things that can actually help us sometimes get out of our own way. Literally. And really do more in this life because we have so much to give and so the more we can actually understand our brain and really propel it forward so that it can take us to the next levels is really appreciated. So thank you both so much, y’all. How are we going to use these tips in your life? Tag us the Be It pod make sure you tag the guys here from The Brain Prophets and let them know how this affected you what made you think and then until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Dr. Philippe Douyon 51:54
Thank you for having us. Yeah,

Douglas Mapp 51:55
for sure. Thanks, guys.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of the ‘Bloom Podcast Network’.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan
It is produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals and Ximena Velasquez for our transcriptions.

Brad Crowell
Also to Angelina Herico for adding all the content to our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.