Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning podcast, for episode #198 with mood and stress expert, Erika Ferszt, who was a senior creative executive for over 20 years and for 10 of those years, led all of the advertising, media and digital efforts for Ray Ban. She must have made such an impact with her work that the Ray-Ban Erika’s were named after her! Watch our interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/y-vFVaiBPrw On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ The signs and symptoms of work burnout that led Erika to leave a job she loved and create an app to help reduce workplace stress. ✔︎ How her health scare led her to pursue 2 years of Postgraduate studies in neuroscience. ✔︎ How someone without a science background can understand and teach neuroscience in a way that it's simple and easy to use. ✔︎ What she offers at Moodally.com for corporate executives. ✔︎ How a stress management program like her app can help improve self-efficacy, so we can better manage our daily stress. In 2015 she suffered a burnout episode and was hospitalized for 10 days with stress-related vision loss, and through this experience, went back to school to study the relationship between stress, the brain and the mind and founded her company Moodally.com as a result. If you’ve been following our podcast, you will see clearly why I have asked Erika to join us today, for season 7 of this podcast where we are focused on brain health and well-being. Welcome back. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or in the corporate environment. Today’s guest, Erika Ferszt, loved her job with Ray Ban. She will tell her story, explaining it was not like she was working for a terrible boss in a toxic work environment, but quite the opposite as she loved her work, but when her body reacted to the constant stress it was under, she was forced to make some changes, that led her to a whole new path in life. Let’s meet Erika and hear how her burnout led her to create Moodally.com and a whole new life. Welcome, Erika, thank you for meeting me on a Friday night (I think??). Are you in Italy now? (I know you said Europe). There was so much to your story, when I saw it that resonated with me when I saw the path that you took after your health scare, but I have to start with a question that’s not so obvious (like tell me where this all started). Intro Question: I’ve got to say that most people I know here in the US push themselves hard work wise. You know, the American Dream can be had, but there’s a price to pay, and I’m always watching those close to me, looking for a sign that the push is too much, and now we can measure if our body is recovered or not with these wearable devices that can tell us if we need to rest and slow down. Were there ANY signs or symptoms that you can think of, looking back, with that episode, that you were close to burn-out? Q1: So, you land in hospital, with quite a scary situation. I’ve lost my eyesight before, but it was temporary, and in one eye only, and I found out later, after I freaked out because I couldn’t drive the kids to school, that it’s common (it was an ocular migraine and I Googled it by looking out of one eye while calling my eye doctor) but your vision loss lasted much longer and was serious (and when I Googled loss of myelin sheath around the optic nerve I almost wish I hadn’t. Can you share what the stress did to your optic nerve to cause the vision loss, did you Google it and notice what I could have been, and with everything that you learned

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning podcast, episode #197 with a special returning guest, David A Sousa, who we first spoke with back in August 2020 on episode #78[i]. Click here to watch this interview on YouTube https://youtu.be/148InRAxFts On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ What's new with the 6th edition of Dr. David Sousa's "How the Brain Learns" The importance of the cognitive component of social-emotional learning The importance of student engagement, especially through academic teams Connections between Bloom’s Taxonomy and current instructional strategies, such as teaming and project/maker learning Strategies that ALL teachers can implement to reduce stress in the classroom and improve student learning/engagement. What happens in the brain when we are learning something new. How to make practice PERMANENT and transfer knowledge into memory. What we can learn from the specialized areas of the brain How the science of reading can help us as teachers with the learning process I’m thrilled to have the chance to speak with David Sousa again, as It was David Sousa’s How the Brain Learns book Series[ii] that is now in its 6th Edition (that includes How the Brain Learns, How the Brain Learns to Read, How the Gifted Brain Learns, and How the Special Needs Brain Learns) that I was given by an educator who put me on the path of helping others to understand how learning occurs in the brain. When reading this series, I was told from other respected colleagues that this book series is one that every educator should read, and after our first interview, was contacted from educators all over the country (and world) with how helpful this series has been for them. How the Brain Leans has helped me as a parent to understand how my own children learn (specifically with reading) and gave me more understanding and patience to help put into practice some of the secrets for accelerating literacy that we have dove into on this podcast, since this first interview with David Sousa, almost 2 years ago now. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or in the corporate environment. A bit about David Sousa, he’s an international consultant in educational neuroscience, has written more than 20 books for educators and parents on ways to use brain research to improve teaching and learning. He has conducted workshops for more than 200,000 educators in hundreds of school districts on brain research and science education at the Pre-K to Grade 12 and university levels. He has presented at national conventions of educational organizations and to regional and local school districts across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. Dr. Sousa has a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Bridgewater (Massachusetts) State University, a master of arts degree in teaching science from Harvard University, and a doctorate from Rutgers University. His teaching experience covers all levels. He has taught high school science and has served as a K–12 director of science, a supervisor of instruction, and a district superintendent in New Jersey schools. He has been an adjunct professor of education at Seton Hall University and at Rutgers University. He has received awards from professional associations, school districts, and Bridgewater State University (Distinguished Alumni Award), as well as several honorary doctorates for his commitment and contributions to research, professional development, and scien

Welcome back to PART 6, EPISODE #196 and our final episode of this series, where we will cover the final chapters and add “The Neuroscience Behind the Timeless Goal-Setting Principles” in Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, Think and Grow Rich to ensure we make 2022 Our Best Year Ever with brain-science in mind. This episode I’m dedicating to the man who has been reading this book for his entire life, who I have mentioned often in this series and podcast, Bob Proctor, who was the first person to see more in me than I could see in myself. It was Bob who asked me “What do you really want?” when I was in my late 20s, and just figuring it all out. He did catch me off guard with this question, but it didn’t take long to map out the vision, as crazy as it seemed at the time, when you have someone who believes in you to push you along the way, the vision becomes clear. Once you know what you want, and have a crystal-clear vision of it, it really is our duty to make it happen in our lifetime. Bob is the perfect example of someone who took action, inspiring millions globally, and someone I will forever be grateful that I crossed paths with. I found out that Bob was gravely ill, while finishing this episode, thought it was important to recognize his influence as an example for all of us, to put something into our goals this year that we have never done. Using Bob’s example, do something wildly different this year, than you ever have previously. He said many things that are forever stuck in my head, but I found a quote that makes sense to close out our book study that I think will stick with all of us. He said, “You can’t just THINK and GROW RICH, you’ve got to do something with those thoughts.” I’m hoping that this year, we are all looking for quantum leap results, that take us far beyond where we’ve ever been before. I have been studying success principles, and how successful people became that way, since the late 1990s when my paths crossed with Proctor. I saw these ideas could transform results for our students in the classroom, years before we talked about how important our mindset was after Carol Dweck’s[i] work made its impact on the field of education, and I wrote my first book, The Secret for Teens Revealed [ii] to document these success principles that are echoed throughout Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich book, and aren’t difficult to understand, but implementing them in our daily life is where the hard work comes in. Here’s my challenge to you—to go through each of the PARTS in this series and see what you can do to truly make a difference and impact with whatever it is you are doing this year. We’ve covered the 15 principles used by some of the wisest people in the world, and I want to add a sense of urgency for all of us to kick it into high gear this year. Think and act in a wildly different way than we have previously. This will take some focus, but the results will be well worth the effort. Remember that Hill says you haven’t read this book until you’ve read it 3 times? We can come back to this series next year and continue to apply the principles with the new experiences built over this year. This series is not only for you, the listener, I am doing the work right along with you! If you want to see my interview with Bob Proctor, and where my vision began, go back to episode #66[iii] and EPISODE #67[iv] on the Top Lessons learned working with him for 6 years which is one of our most downloaded episodes, and one I still receive feedback and messages about. With this episode today, I knew I had to tie in the most current brain research, so that we can look at ways to improve our current goal-setting/achieving process, with strategies that will take the guess work out of our year, to make a difference for all of us, since the strategies I will share are all peer reviewed, and have been proven scientifically to be the most effective way to achieve whatever it is that we are working on this year. When I say I want

Welcome back to PART 5 of Making 2022 Your Best Year Ever with EPISODE #195 on “The Power of the Mastermind, Taking the Mystery Out of Sex Transmutation, and Linking ALL Parts of Our Mind” as we continue our deep dive into Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, Think and Grow Rich, that has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. Before I go on with this episode, I just want to say that out of those 15 million copies of this book sold, I wonder how many people of those 15 million people read the book the way that Napoleon Hill intended? I know I didn’t until Paul Martinelli taught me how to read it, and I know from doing this book study that I’m only scratching the surface of these 15 principles, used by some of the wisest people in the world. Hill himself would say that if you haven’t read the book three times, or completed the exercises, you haven’t read the book yet! I hope this book study is helping you to dive deeper into these important chapters of one of this classic and timeless book, and that you are gaining a deeper awareness as we’re reading this book together. On this episode, you will learn: ✔︎ Review PART 1, 2, 3 and 4 to Reinforce the First 9 Chapters of Think and Grow Rich. ✔︎ What "power" can be felt and seen when we Mastermind with Others. ✔︎ What is the "Irresistible Force" That Hill Says Gifts Us With a Super Power for Action? ✔︎ How Do ALL Parts of Our Mind Work Together? For those new, or returning guests, welcome back. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding, and applying the most current brain research to improve productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. If you have been following our book study of Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, Think and Grow Rich, we are nearing the end of this study. Just to review, you will recall how PART 1 began with a reminder from Grant Cardone that “in order to get to the next level of whatever it is that we are doing, we must think and act in a wildly different way than we previously have been.”[i] We outlined all of the 15 principles that we will be diving into (have covered 9 of them so far) and in PART 2[ii] we looked at the importance of positive thinking, being crystal clear with what we want, and choosing faith over fear in pursuit of our goals. PART 3[iii] we examined the importance of putting these goals on autopilot with what Hill calls “autosuggestion” and then further honing our craft by studying, learning, and developing specialized knowledge that will separate you from others, making you truly unique with your talent that you’ll continue to perfect in your lifetime, while using your imagination to keep building and perfecting whatever it is that you want to create in your life. PART 4[iv] we dove deep into why organized planning, decision-making and persistence are important and timeless leadership characteristics, with strategies to help all of us to improve our persistence muscles. Leading us to the final chapters of the book with the last two episodes that will cover Chapter 10 on the Power of the Mastermind, Chapter 11 (one of the most misunderstood chapters in the book) The Mystery of Sex Transmutation, Chapter 12, The Subconscious Mind on this episode, and the final episode in this series, that will cover Chapter 13, The Brain, Chapter 14, the Sixth Sense and 15 on Outwitting the Ghosts of Fear. Before I began recording these episodes, I didn’t know how many it would take to cover these chapters thoroughly, but if you are like me, and just want to learn, keep listening and see if you can add anything new to your goal-setting/achieving process. I had no idea it would cover the entire month of January to properly review this book. We really could keep going all year, as each principle we could talk about for an entire month. Therefore, I think it’s important to revisit this book, every year, as we are working

Welcome back to PART 4 of Making 2022 You Best Year Ever with EPISODE #194 on “Perfecting the Skills of Organized Planning, Decision-Making and Persistence” as we continue our deep dive into Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, Think and Grow Rich, that has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. On this episode, you will learn: ✔︎ Review PART 1, 2, 3 to Reinforce the First 6 Chapters of Think and Grow Rich. ✔︎ Why the Skills of Organized Planning , Decision-Making and Persistence are important and Timeless Leadership Characteristics. ✔︎The Major Attributes of Leadership. ✔︎ The Major Causes of Failure in Leadership. ✔︎ Strategies to Improve Your Decision-Making and Persistence Muscles. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding, and applying the most current brain research to improve productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. This month, I decided to share my notes with you on a book that I have been studying every January since 2018, with Paul Martinelli, who has studied this book for most of his career. It was the book that my mentor Bob Proctor has studied for his entire life, over 57 years, and a book that some of the wisest people in the world have studied. If you have been following our episodes of Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, you will recall how PART 1 began with a reminder from Grant Cardone that “in order to get to the next level of whatever it is that we are doing, we must think and act in a wildly different way than we previously have been.”[i] We outlined all of the 15 principles that we will be diving into and in PART 2[ii] we looked at the importance of positive thinking, being crystal clear with what we want, and choosing faith over fear in pursuit of our goals. PART 3[iii] we examined the importance of putting these goals on autopilot with what Hill calls “autosuggestion” and then further honing our craft by studying, learning, and developing specialized knowledge that will separate you from others, making you truly unique with your talent that you’ll continue to perfect in your lifetime, while using your imagination to keep building and perfecting whatever it is that you want to create in your life. Now we move into Chapter 7 on Organized Planning, Chapter 8 on Decision, and Chapter 9, my all-time favorite, on Persistence. If you think about it, we have developed our vision in the first six chapters, have probably created a plan to move towards what we want, and are using our mind, our five senses, and even thinking beyond our five senses with our 6 faculties of the mind that we reviewed on episode #67.[iv] These next three chapters are integral for making sure our plans stay on track, that we take continual action steps towards our crystal-clear vision, with a never give up attitude. Which leads us to… Chapter 7 Organized Planning This chapter holds some timeless secrets for success that are so important, you can go to Amazon and find hundreds of books that focus on “organization” whether in your personal or professional life. You can browse through Netflix and find shows based on the importance of keeping your home “organized” with the show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo[v] where she explains the energy that frees up when your home goes from disorderly to orderly. Hill reminds us in the beginning of this chapter on the importance of organized planning when he states “if the plan you adopt does not work successfully, replace it with a new plan” (CH7, Page 117, TAGR) and that “temporary defeat should only mean one thing—the certain knowledge that there is something wrong with your plan.” (CH7, Page 117, TAGR). Remember Thomas Edison “failed” 10,000 times before he perfected the incandescent light bulb. “A QUITTER NEVER WINS AND A WINNER NEVER QUITS” Hill suggests writing this sentence out on a piece of paper “and

Welcome back to PART 3 of Making 2022 You Best Year Ever with EPISODE #193 on “Making Your Goals Automatic by Putting Autosuggestion into Practice with Your Imagination“ as we continue our deep dive into Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, Think and Grow Rich, that has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. On this episode, you will learn: ✔︎ Review PART 1 and 2 to Reinforce the First 3 Chapters of Think and Grow Rich. ✔︎ Chapter 4: How to Use Autosuggestion to Set Your Goals on Autopilot. ✔︎ Chapter 5: Why We Must Acquire and Know How to Use Specialized Knowledge to Reach High Levels of Success ✔︎ Chapter 6: Why Imagination is Everything. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back to Season 7 of our Podcast. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding, and applying the most current brain research to improve productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. This month, I decided to share my notes with you on a book that I have been studying every January since 2018, with Paul Martinelli, who has studied this book for most of his career. It was the book that my mentor Bob Proctor has studied for his entire life, over 57 years, and a book that some of the wisest people in the world have studied. If you have been following our episodes of Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, you will recall how PART 1 began with a reminder from Grant Cardone that “in order to get to the next level of whatever it is that you are doing, you must think and act in a wildly different way than we previously have been.”[i] We outlined all of the 15 principles that we will be diving into and in PART 2 we looked at the importance of positive thinking, being crystal clear with what we want, and choosing faith over fear in pursuit of our goals. Before I began recording these episodes, I didn’t know how many it would take to cover these chapters thoroughly, but if you are like me, and just want to learn, keep listening and see if you can add anything new to your goal-setting/achieving process. We really could keep going all year, as each principle we could talk about for an entire month. Therefore, I think it’s important to revisit this book, every year, as we are working on new goals, to continue to improve our own process, and take our understanding of each principle, to a new level. Whatever it is you are working on—a new job or position at work, or smaller steps to a huge vision that you have, it’s normal to be skeptical of anything new, especially when the ideas are so abstract. At first glance the title of this book sounds crazy. Think and Grow Rich! Sounds a bit out there. The only reason I am covering this book on this podcast, is because it is such a classic, and has the ability to challenge anyone’s “thinking” and the principles have been used successfully from some of the wisest people in the world. I have met many people while working in the speaking industry who had successfully created beautiful lives with these principles, and they kept coming back to deepen their study, awareness and understanding. It’s a process. When I read about how Jim Carrey[ii] used these ideas when he first came into the film industry, visualizing his first $10M check, I wasn’t surprised at all. For this episode we will move into chapter 4 on Autosuggestion, Chapter 5 on Specialized Knowledge, and Chapter 6 on Imagination. What I’m noticing is how these chapters all work together, like my mentor Proctor says, “like the colors of the rainbow” as we think back to PART 1 of this book study and remember this whole process began with the realization that we must think about what we want (or desire as Hill would say) with a high degree of clarity, increasing our awareness of the world, adding an unwavering belief and expectation around the attainment of what we want, (by choosing faith over fear, overcoming all obstacles) and then

With the rise of mental health issues and with the COVID pandemic forcing less and less interactions amongst co-workers and leaders, senior leaders in many organizations are suffering numerous new ailments and challenges. With this workplace scenario continuing to be a problem, as times progress with more and more complications arising, many leaders are reaching breaking points in their personal lives. With no one to reach out to, many of these leaders may be suffering from what Nick Jonsson, the Co-founder and Managing Director of Executives Global Network in Singapore, calls “executive loneliness” that arises when top executives are exposed to extreme and prolonged stress, resulting in an increase in anxiety, isolation, and depression. Watch this interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/b6TCGyysI-A On this episode, you will learn ✔︎ What is "Executive Loneliness" and how has the Pandemic caused us to make our mental and physical health a priority? ✔︎ Nick's story and why he is passionate about talking about what others would rather shy away from. ✔︎ What is "smiling depression" and how to recognize when change is needed for yourself, and others. ✔︎ 5 Steps to Recovery outlined in Nick's book "Executive Loneliness" ✔︎ Where to begin to make changes with our physical and mental health. ✔︎ What increasing your activity looks like and how to measure it. We just uncovered on EPISODE #188 “Putting Your Mental and Physical Health First”[i] the shocking statistic that “one-quarter of Americans intend to improve their mental health in 2022”[ii] and that according to a poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association, “almost 70 million adults resolve to find ways to improve their mental health this coming year”[iii] but Nick Jonsson, from Singapore, shows us that this is a global issue, and he wants to raise awareness of this phenomenon, no longer being quiet about the issues he has personally faced himself. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or in the corporate environment. In his book, Executive Loneliness,[iv] Nick Jonsson outlines that most executives and leaders often do nothing to address this phenomenon of “loneliness” for fear of appearing unsuccessful and frowned upon. Worst, he shares that not addressing it exacerbates the negative and difficult feelings, to the point where it becomes more and more difficult for them to function. Ultimately, it takes a toll on their whole life.[v] As we were looking for leaders around the world to launch of year, with a focus on physical and mental health, Nick Jonsson was the one I wanted to launch our year with to be our first interview of 2022. If you follow Nick on social media, (and I’ll put all his links in the show notes) you will notice that he puts his physical health first (which we have shown on this podcast is one of the top health staples to make an impact on your overall physical and mental health) –you will see him riding his bike, hiking, and training at his local pool. Let’s meet Nick Jonsson and see what we can learn together with his experience and knowledge, to put our mental and physical health first this year. Welcome Nick! Nick, I like to open up the podcast with a question where we can get to know you a bit better, and just from looking over your social media posts over the holidays, it was more like a lesson in Geography, with health and wellness, and family tied in. INTRO: Can you share a bit about what you’ve been up to over the holidays, tha

Welcome back to PART 2 of Making 2022 You Best Year Ever with EPISODE #191 on “The Importance of Thinking Differently and Choosing Faith over Fear” as we continue our deep dive into Napoleon Hill’s Classic book, Think and Grow Rich, that has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. Be sure to click here to access the images in the show notes. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back to Season 7 of our Podcast I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding, and applying the most current brain research to improve productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. This month, I decided to share my notes with you on a book that I have been studying every year, with Paul Martinelli, who has studied this book for most of his career. On our first episode[i] and PART 1 of this book study, where we cover the Author’s Introduction and Desire chapter, we opened with a quote from Undercover Billionaire Grant Cardone, who said, “In order to get to the next level of whatever you’re doing, you must think and act in a wildly different way than you previously have been” and this is where I wanted to begin this episode, with reviewing Chapter 1 “Thoughts Are Things” with the idea that we must “think” in a wildly different way than we previously have to obtain NEW results in 2022. On this episode, you will learn ✔︎ How to go from fear to hope, using faith, in pursuit of your goals. ✔︎ How to “think” wildly different than you did last year. ✔︎ Examples of people who “thought” their way to their goals, making their ability to “think” the best investment of their lifetime. ✔︎ The 6 STEPS you must take every day, that will put your goal on autosuggestion. ✔︎ Common mistakes made when goal-setting/achieving. ✔︎ 4 steps to overcome your fears, helping you to break through to new levels in 2022. ✔︎ How to becoming unwavering with our faith, helping us when obstacles appear. How Do We “Think in a Wildly Different Way” to Get New Results? The answer is--by expanding our awareness. I’m sure you see now why studying Think and Grow Rich by reading and thinking about every word we are reading is so very important. We could spend a whole year studying this book, which is why I think we should all keep reading it, gaining more awareness long after January and this book study ends. Look at it this way. Remember the last lesson where we looked at how ideas are formed, and how it’s up to us to act on our ideas and bring them to fruition. IMAGE: Levels of Frequencies of Thought Look at the image in the show notes of the levels of frequency and think of this as an example of where you are now, or the thoughts, feelings, and actions you are currently living with, giving you a certain result. Then imagine all the lines above where you are now, leading to where you want to go. Think of these frequencies like radio stations. To tune into the radio station you want, you need to turn the dial to that frequency. This is exactly the same idea to think about when we want to tune into the frequency that our goals exist on. And it won’t be with the level of thinking you have at your current level. That’s the whole point of Marshall Goldsmith’s book What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful.[ii] To ATTAIN your goal, or a new result, you will need to “think and act in a wildly different way that you previously have been” like Grant Cardone, reminded us. That’s because the goal is on a different frequency than where you are now. To hit this NEW target, you will need to think NEW thoughts, take NEW actions, that will create NEW results, and none of them will be what you are currently doing. When I first saw this image, I remember wondering “well how on the earth do I magically get on the same level of vibration as the thing that I really want?” and the first time I did this exercise

“In order to get to the next level of whatever you’re doing, you must think and act in a wildly different way than you previously have been. You cannot get to the next phase of a project without a grander mind-set, more acceleration, and extra horsepower.” Grant Cardone, author of the 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure [i] Be sure to click here to access the images in the show notes. MAKING 2022 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER: WITH CHANGE I chose this quote to launch this episode, and our 7th Season of The Neuroscience Meets SEL Podcast with Grant Cardone,[ii] who I’ve been watching for years before he starred on Undercover Billionaire[iii] when I saw him working with (at that time) 16 year-old Caleb Maddix[iv], teaching this young man, who is now in his 20s, how to truly make an impact on the world and live his life with a success mindset. Since the day I watched him coaching this teen, I realized he has a heart for helping our next generation to become successful, while inspiring the rest of the world with his 10x Rule book, countless programs that focus on financial education, and encouraging anyone who will listen to shift their mindset to make 2022 their Best Year ever. To do that, Cardone reminds us that we must all THINK differently and “change what we did last year.” For those new, or returning guests, welcome back to Season 7 of our Podcast and Happy New Year! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding, and applying the most current brain research to improve productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. I wanted our first episode to launch our 7th Season to be different from past years. Instead of releasing an episode with goal setting or achieving tips, I challenge you to do something different this year. We all know that in order to achieve different results in 2022, we must CHANGE and I’m pretty sure we all have a list of things that we want to do differently to really make a mark on this year, but to make sure I was on track, I thought I’d better check in with what Uncover Billionaire, Grant Cardone is suggesting we change this year, since his results are proof that he knows what he’s talking about. Cardone suggests in order to make this change, we must keep 6 things in mind that will drive us towards our goals. We must have: Discipline: By waking up early, watching the sunrise, and getting to bed early. This practice gives you 2 extra hours to launch your day, which translates into an extra month a year to work on your dreams or yourself. It will also help you to become highly motivated and will be a driver for your year, boosting our Confidence: To further drive what you are doing and help you to fill up your calendar with meaningful work where you will create your Action Plan with Activity: and be open to listening to Feedback: From the marketplace (or your network) on how you can improve. Surrounding Yourself with Your Network: Of other like-minded, successful people who will encourage you/holding you accountable. And there is only one outcome-- Success: This is Our Duty/Obligation. We Must WIN/SUCCEED in 2022. To truly make an impact on this year, so it’s our best year ever, I think we should all take a look at what Cardone suggests and do whatever it takes so that we achieve our end result (or whatever it is we are working on) at the end of this year. But how exactly do we do this? Make 2022 Your Best Year Ever by Studying the Best-Selling book Think and Grow Rich[v] I challenge you to practice Cardone’s TIP #1 with me, and develop discipline by waking up early, and study the #6th All-time Amazon Best-Seller, Think and Grow Rich with me this month. This is a book that has sold over 15 million copies worldwide, that has timeless principles used by some of the greatest minds of the 20th century, and I hope that together, we will uncover some new

I know we’ve all heard of the old saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but have you ever wondered if science could open our eyes to what exactly this means? I’ve wondered this, and it led me to this week’s Brain Fact Friday where we will explore hormesis or the idea that “short, intermittent bursts of stressors can actually trigger a cascade of cellular processes that enhance overall health, slow aging, and make you more resilient to future stress (both physical and mental).”[i] On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ How our cells respond to short, intermittent periods of stress. ✔︎ A look into 2 pathways that are important for longevity (The Sirtuin and mTOR). ✔︎ 4 Ways to boost our health, using hormesis or stress, making us physically and mentally stronger. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding, and applying the most current brain research to improve productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. The purpose of this podcast is to take the mystery out of this new discipline that backs our learning with simple neuroscience to make it applicable for us all to use right away, for immediate results. I had no idea while initially researching for this episode that neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Andrew Huberman, would be hosting Dr. David Sinclair[ii] (a Professor in the Department of Genetics from Harvard Medical School) on the Huberman Lab Podcast this week, and covering this very topic on “The Biology of Slowing and Reversing Aging”[iii] where the idea of hormesis was discussed throughout. I do recommend this episode for those who want to take a deeper dive into the science of anti-aging, longevity and the fascinating work that Dr. David Sinclair is doing in this field, in addition to Dr. Peter Attia’s Podcast, The Drive, on “Dr. Sinclair, Ph.D. Slowing Aging, sirtuins, NAD, and the epigenetics of aging.”[iv] If you are listening to this, and thinking “What? She’s lost me! What is she even talking about? Slowing down the ageing process? What is NAD and what are sirtuins?” Just remember to keep an open mind--this podcast focuses on looking for the research from the most reputable place (Pubmed.gov), learn what the experts in the field have to say about what they are discovering, and then we break down the research in smaller pieces, so that we can all make it applicable in our daily life, whether we’ve taken a neuroscience course, or not. What I’ve learned from studying closely with neuroscience researcher Mark Robert Waldman the past few years, is that we must be open to what the research says and keep our egos (and judgements) out of whatever it is we want to prove. I’m working hard on an abstract that supports the importance of educational neuroscience as a new discipline in our schools, versus the old model of learning, and although there is research that supports my hypothesis, it’s still a new field, and I must remember what Dr. Sinclair tells his students, that “most things we thought were true are not…or will change over time.”[v] I’m now on my third revision of this abstract, because it’s not easy to step away from what we want to believe, and leave it up in the air, because we might be wrong about everything, when it comes to looking at life through the lens of a scientist. Just keep an open mind, especially when you hear that Dr. Sinclair, now at the forefront of anti-aging research, after all the criticism he’s received over the years, is in the late stages of clinical trials of working on something that mimics exercise in a pill to speed up metabolism. The next few years are going to really blow our minds with what is possible, and I hope that we can all embrace new ideas, with open minds and make the needed chan

As we are in the middle of our holiday season, wherever you might be listening around the world, rushing about, tying up loose ends with work, with a focus somewhere in our heads towards whether we are ready, or not, for the holiday, where we can spend that quality time with those we love, I want to release a quick episode to thank you, the listener, for your support with this podcast. This year, we were listed in the Top 15 Best SEL Podcasts for 2021,[i] and Top 20 Best Neuroscience Podcasts for 2021[ii] and I owe this honor to you. Without listeners, and high quality guests, there is no podcast, so thank you for tuning in, sharing the episodes that you enjoy, and sending me messages and feedback with new ideas to continue to feature the leading experts in neuroscience, education and the brain. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding and applying the most current brain research to improve results in our lives (whether we are a teacher in the classroom, or using these ideas in the corporate space). This podcast uses Seasons to separate our content, and as we move into Season 7 at the start of the New Year, our theme will remain “Brain Health and Well-Being” as my friend Dan Vigliatore[iii] Health and PE Teacher from Toronto, Canada reminded me this year, that there’s more to this podcast than providing meaningful content around neuroscience. Wellness education must be at the heart of everything we do, since our brain is involved in everything that we do, and everything that we are, and I do want to make that apparent for those listening, like Dan noticed. Especially with the fact that I began my teaching career as a PE teacher in the late 1990s. As we move into 2022, and plan for a new year of content, around the theme of Brain Health and Well-Being to optimize our cognitive, social and emotional competencies, I’m truly honored to have this opportunity to host this podcast, because the strategies that we are uncovering in each episode are not only for you, but they are transforming my results, as well! I do look forward to uncovering new ideas, strategies and research in this field in the New Year that we can all use to take our results to new heights. Especially since it’s such an interesting time in our world. Last night, we were speaking with our pediatric cardiologist who told us that at the beginning of the Pandemic, almost 2 years ago, it was very quiet in his offices, and now, with the new spike in COVID cases, he is busy with new patients coming in, with symptoms they weren’t experiencing in the early stages of the virus[iv], showing us how important our health remains for us. With everything going on in the world today, I’m sure that YOU will have health in the back of your head this whole time, knowing full well that 2022 is only a few days away, and before we know it, we will all be back in the swing of a New Year, with our old schedules, homework routines reestablished, and hopefully, healthy habits back on track, so for just a minute, I want take this moment to stop, pause and think about what’s important at this time of year. Instead of releasing an episode about setting goals, like we did to launch the New Year Last year, with EPISODE #103[v] on “The Neuroscience of Leadership: 3 Ways to Reset, Recharge and Refuel Your Brain for Your Best Year Ever” that I still think is a good episode to revisit, for this week’s BRAIN FACT FRIDAY and EPISODE #188, I want to cover “Putting Our Physical and Mental Health First: To Ensure a New Generation of Thriving Adults.” Our next generation needs us to model the way. The signs pointing in this direction have been clear the whole time of the Pandemic, but have you noticed there’s a sense of urgency around mental and physical well-being at this time? I saw it with one of my first XMAS cards th

“We are not limited by money, but rather by the poverty of our own dreams.” Doug Wead Watch this interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/VN2Ng6mMtHc On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ Why it's important that we ask others for help with our goals.✔︎ How Andrea met the advisor to 2 American Presidents, and how he helped her to create Character and Leadership programs for the K-12 School Market.✔︎ A Look back at an interview with Andrea and Doug in 2014 on the Greatest US Presidents.✔︎ A Formula for Leadership that Doug noticed with many US Presidents involving a Mamma's Boy and an Absent Father. Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #187 with a release of one of our earlier interviews that we released long before we launched this podcast from March, 2014 in memory of my mentor, Presidential Historian, and advisor to two American Presidents, Doug Wead[i], who passed away unexpectedly on Friday December 10th.[ii] You can listen to the back story of how I met Doug, and his impact on the work we’ve been doing in the field of education on this podcast, since the knowledge and ideas he shared with me back then, are relevant for us today. REMEMBER: This is one of my earlier interviews, and the sound quality is not the same as it is today with advancements in technology and experience. I do hope you enjoy this interview on “The Greatest or Best US Presidents” where I asked him the following questions: Who was the greatest of all US Presidents? Which Presidents showed great leadership? Can you explain this formula for leadership that you discovered studying our past Presidents? (A mama’s boy with an absent Father)? Will we ever see a female President? How is Barack Obama doing as a President? He was the US President at the time of this interview (March, 2014). How is President Obama doing as a Father? What was President Gerald Ford like as a person, since Doug knew him personally? Final Thoughts of how Doug’s career led him to the Whitehouse. Wow, what a man! Doug had an incredible career working in the Whitehouse, inspiring many around the world, and it all began with his vision to feed people who were starving to death in Cambodia. In 1970 he co-founded the Charity Awards and was a part of the founding of Mercy Corps which has distributed $2 billion of food and medicine around the world and my hope is that he has inspired you in some way to take action with your goals, whatever they might be. With that, we say goodbye, and I’ve got to say, this is one connection that I am grateful I wasn’t too afraid to reach out to ask for help. BIO: Doug Wead is a New York Times bestselling author and former adviser to two American Presidents. He served as special assistant to the president in the George H.W. Bush White House. Mr. Wead's books are known for their primary sources. He has interviewed six American presidents, seven first ladies, 19 presidential children and twelve presidential siblings. In 1970 he co-founded the Charity Awards and was a part of the founding of Mercy Corps which has distributed $2 billion of food and medicine around the world. FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI: YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi Website https://www.achieveit360.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697 Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/ RESOURCES: Newsmax https://www.newsmax.com/politics/doug-wead-presidential-historian-obit/2021/12/13/id/1048472/ Mount Rushmore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore REFERENCES: [i] www.dougwead.com [ii] https://www.charismanews.com/culture/87802-top-of-the-week-conservative-political-commentator-doug-wead-a-lifelong-pentecostal-dies-of-heart-failure-at-75

DID YOU KNOW “that the brains of introverts and extroverts are measurably different? MRI technology reveals that the dopamine reward network is more active in the brains of extroverts while introverts have more grey matter.”[i] I posted a graphic this week with this brain fact written on it on social media, and it drew more feedback and comments than usual, making me think that this needs to be this week’s Brain Fact Friday. Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for BRAIN FACT FRIDAY and EPISODE #186 on “Using Neuroscience to Understand the Introverted and Extroverted Brain” DID YOU KNOW "That MRI technology reveals that the dopamine reward network is more active in the brains of extroverts while introverts have more gray matter?" (Deane Alban).On this episode you will learn:✔︎ Where the terms introvert and extrovert originated from.✔︎ Characteristics of an introvert, extrovert and what's in between.✔︎ 3 ways the Introverts' and Extroverts' brains differ.✔︎ How you can use this information to improve your workplace productivity and social life. After I posted this graphic on social media that you can see in the show notes, John Harmon, Mind/Brain Researcher from EPISODE #170[ii] made a comment that really made me think, which is the purpose of this podcast. I want us to all think on a deeper level about understanding how our brain functions and impacts our results. He said “this makes sense to me since extroverts engage in more high energy personal interactions. Conversations trigger more emotional ups and downs, including rewarding thoughts and feelings. Especially feelings. With introverts, solitary activity tends to be much more even-keeled emotionally. Feelings of reward are weaker and less frequent. Therefore, the dopamine-laden neural networks that coincide with this feeling will be less active as well.” I had to stop and think after reading John’s thoughts, and it took me inside my own brain. I could those times that I’m stepping away from my usual introverted self where I’m studying, reading and researching in my quiet office, towards a more extroverted persona when I’m speaking in public, and interacting with larger groups, that this high energy interaction results in a spike of dopamine that I enjoy, but not for too long, as I crave the quiet and solitude of my office to bounce back, and recharge before another event. John’s comments made me want to dive a bit deeper into understanding our personality traits, especially over the holidays when we may be interacting with others more on a social level. If we can understand ourselves and others at the brain level, it might give us more clarity and awareness throughout this holiday season and into the New Year, helping us to see why we feel the way we do, and see beyond the labels of introversion and extroversion. When I typed introverts and extroverts into Pubmed.gov[iii] where I’ve been taught to look for the most current brain research, I found 170 articles ranging from different topics like Childhood experiences and adult health[iv] or Introversion/extroversion, time stress and caffeine: effects on verbal performance[v] I knew that this would be a good topic to take a closer look at if there were this many abstracts to read. If you want to dive deeper than I go with this Brain Fact, you can easily go to www.pubmed.gov and type in the words introvert and extrovert to see the studies that have been done on this topic. Also, if you want a quick reminder of how to tie in the most current neuroscience research to your next presentation, go back and listen to EPISODE #124 on “How to Be a Neuroscience Researcher in 4 Simple Steps”[vi] and you can easily add brain research to your work. So, back to this week’s Brain Fact Friday on Introverts and Extroverts. It was Carl Jung who created these terms in the first place, way back in 1920. He deduced that “extroverts gained their energy from their social interactions and exter

DID YOU KNOW that research from the Max Plank Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Germany, led by neuroscientist John Dylan-Haynes has shown that the decisions we make daily to act on something, begins “automatically and without involvement of our consciousness”[i] up to 7 seconds BEFORE we take the action we are thinking about? I learned this from Adele Spraggon,[ii] the author of Shift, in this week’s interview #184, while talking about her 4 STEP re-patterning process to break habits for an improved 2022 and it got me thinking about how we could use and understand this brain fact to take our results to new heights, especially as we are preparing for a New Year. If you are like me, and have ever done something and then wondered “why did I just do that?” then this episode is for you! Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for BRAIN FACT FRIDAY and EPISODE #185 on “Using Neuroscience to Repattern Our Brain.” For those new, or returning guests, welcome back! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. This week’s Brain Fact Friday took me back to the late 1990s, when I worked in the personal development industry[iii] and first learned about how our results were all determined by our thoughts, feelings and actions. I’ll put an image I want you to see in the show notes. I used to have this picture taped to my wall so I could see it every day from the speaker I worked with. I’m sure he used to carry it around when he would speak to people one on one, explaining that our thoughts come first. We think an idea (I really want this goal) and then we add emotion or feeling to this goal, that charges us up as we picture ourselves in possession of that goal, changing our body state, and getting us to take action of some sort, moving us in the direction of this goal. The action steps that we take (calling someone, getting mentored and getting ideas to take NEW actions) give us new information that we didn’t have before, and this in turn, changes our conditions, circumstances, and environment, taking us to places beyond where we have ever been before and we achieve our goals, the end result. This is how I was taught how to bridge the gap between goal setting and achieving, over 20 years ago, and how I’ve tackled every single goal since then. I’ve taught this concept to thousands of people (of all different ages) around the world over the years through the books and courses I’ve created. They are old, but the information is still relevant. If you want to take a look, you can access some of my first online courses on Udemy[iv]. On the back of my first book, The Secret for Teens Revealed,[v] I even wrote something that showed how important it was to distinguish the difference between a goal setter and achiever. I wrote: “When we look at people who have achieved great things, we often believe they are more talented than the rest of us, or luckier, or more well-connected. But the only thing that separates the successful from everybody else is that they have learned to bridge the gap between setting goals and achieving them. They have developed ways of behaving and—more importantly—ways of thinking that enable them to get what they want.” I knew when I wrote that in 2008 that there was a fine line between setting and achieving goals, and that we must have an unwavering mindset around the goal we are going after, but what I didn’t know, that I learned this week, was that our thinking precedes our actions by up to seven seconds and is pre-determined with a pattern or neural pathway that’s created in my brain, as unique as my own fingerprint long before I take any action. Understanding this pattern is behind why some

As we are finalizing Q4 of 2021, with the holidays on the horizon, I know that you are probably like like me, and on the lookout for any new strategy that we can learn that will take our game to a new level in 2022. I’ll cover our lessons learned this year in another episode, and have some fun ideas coming up as we approach episode #200, but as you know, we are always looking for brain-aligned strategies that we can all use to implement immediately, and I found something that I think we should all know about, with our next speaker. She was recognized in 2021 as the Top Behavior Expert of the Year[i] with her 4 STEP re-patterning approach that digs deep into our subconscious mind, so we can change those habits or behaviors that we’ve got running on auto-pilot, for new and improved results in 2022. If there are ANY new brain-aligned strategies that I come across in my research, I will find them, and share them with you here. Watch the interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/U7N0JzxJHO0 Learn more about Adele Spraggon and her Shift book https://www.adelespraggon.com/ On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ ONE question you can ask yourself at the end of the year, to free up your energy for 2022. ✔︎ How habits are formed in the brain (good and bad ones). ✔︎ How Adele Spraggon found a NEW 4 STEP re-patterning approach that does NOT involve replacing an OLD habit with a NEW one. ✔︎ How to know if our habits and patterns are working for us, or not. ✔︎ How Adele's simple and easy to use 4-STEP re-patterning method can help you to jumpstart your 2022. ✔︎ The benefits of re-patterning old, outdated habits. Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #184 with an award-winning author, thought leader, international trainer and fearless speaker, Adele Spraggon[ii]. Her book, Shift, 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment[iii] has won three awards for its powerful message of inspiration and hope and is sweeping the globe, transforming how people are setting and achieving their goals. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or in the corporate environment. I want to welcome Adele Spraggon, from my hometown of Toronto, Canada today, and get straight to some questions that I hope will give us a new look at goal setting/achieving with our brain in mind, and be the perfect episode for us as we leap into 2022. Welcome Adele, thank you very much for joining me today and sharing your book and proprietary 4 STEP repatterning approach with our listeners at this very important time of year. Adele, we have a common thread that I learned when I began reading your book and studying your work. We both began our work in the personal development field and before I get to my first question for you, I noticed as we connected on LinkedIn that we have a couple of speakers and authors in common from my hometown. Just curious to see if we were in similar circles when I lived in Toronto, did you attend Gerry’s Book Publishing seminar or any of Bob’s events? I know we both noticed there was something wrong with the way that we were initially taught HOW to set and achieve goals. (think/feel/act (that I learned in the late 1990s) vs FEEL/ACT/THINK) where we use what neuroscientists call interoception to FEEL before we act. This was missing from everything we were taught right from our first days in school, through college and into our careers. I noticed this distinction over the past couple of ye

Have you ever held back something about yourself that you are either aware of consciously, or not, without realizing how impactful sharing this part of you could be for your career, or how many more people you could help when the shields come down, and you finally allow others to see yourself for who you are? Watch the interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/CmPlSZKc-NA On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ How Dr. Simone Alicia made the connection between the fashion runway, and helping young people tap into reservoirs of self-esteem. ✔︎ How she began teaching young people brain-aligned solutions with success, years before knowing this is what she was doing. ✔︎ How her life skyrocketed when she became authentic, and began using her background as a runway model to help others. ✔︎ How you can join and help her self-esteem mission at www.theselfesteemdoctor.com Our next guest, a former model turned educator, who has brushed shoulders with Jamie Foxx and Will Smith, did just that, for many years, until she questioned why she was holding back this critical piece of who she was, and it opened the doorway for her career, helping many young people in the process. Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #183 with Dr. Simone Alicia, otherwise known as the Self Esteem Doctor. For those new, or returning guests, welcome! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or in the corporate environment. Today’s guest, Dr. Simone Alicia, or the Self-Esteem doctor was introduced to me over Thanksgiving week. When I began researching her work, I was shocked at the many similarities in her life, to mine. Not that I was a runway model, like she was, as exciting as that looks, but we were both educators, who saw a serious need to help young people with their self-esteem. She built her business through the fashion runway, helping young people to find their potential this way, launching a magazine[i] (twice a year) just like we did with The Teen Performance Magazine[ii] where we interviewed celebrity teens to help improve the self-esteem of young people by showing them that even celebrities suffer with self-doubt, and how they overcame their insecurities. Dr. Simone Alicia says it best herself that "Self Esteem is a mindset. It’s a focused belief about yourself and your ability to succeed in life. This is your path to clarity, wholeness and lasting happiness. It is the key for you and for everyone. Life’s too short to wait, align with the greatness within you and do it now!” she says and I agree 100%. Life is short—so don’t hold back, with anything. Dr. Alicia went on to create incredible resources on her YouTube Channel,[iii] with online courses[iv], and has been a keynote speaker with many different organizations around the country.[v] She has her own podcast that people as young as age 6 and up, will find engaging and motivating. I was drawn to Dr. Simone Alicia because I’ve always been curious as to why we hold ourselves back. It began when I was younger and missed opportunities because I was afraid of taking risks, and it’s why I began working with young people and self-esteem in the late 1990s, with the hopes that even one of the young people we’ve helped, goes on to accomplish their wildest dreams and this is exactly what Dr. Alicia said inspires her. It’s like Marianne Williamson’s poem where she says “our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light

DID YOU KNOW that “How quickly and successfully the brain learns to read”[i] is greatly influenced by the student’s ability to speak. “It is important to understand what cognitive neuroscience has revealed about how the brain processes the spoken word” (Souza, page 11) when looking to unlock the secret for accelerating literacy with our students, or children. On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ How the brain learns to read. ✔︎ Why it's so important that our children/students learn to read by 3rd grade. ✔︎ Strategies that you can use today to accelerate reading with your emergent bilingual students, or struggling readers. Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for BRAIN FACT FRIDAY and EPISODE #182 on “Accelerating Literacy: Understanding How the Brain Learns to Read” For those new, or returning guests, welcome! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. For this week’s Brain Fact Friday, I’m deep in the middle of preparing for a presentation with Assistant Superintendent Greg Wolcott[ii], and his Learning Abilities Summit. If you are an educator, looking for new ideas and strategies for your students, please do visit his Summit page to learn more.[iii] For a reasonable cost, he offers training for educators that’s available virtually, from people around the country who share their expertise to accelerate learning for your students. I highly recommend following these Summits and offering them to your staff for professional development. As an educational consultant, I first began making the connection with how the brain impacts learning back in 2014 and began creating presentations around what I was learning years before I had launched this podcast. One project was with an educational publisher who asked me to create a whitepaper on how ELL (English Language Learners or our Emergent Bilingual) students learn to read. This was right in the middle of watching my youngest daughter struggle with learning to read in 1st grade (she’s now in 5th grade struggles much less) but as we begin, I have to say that I have not only taught these strategies to educators, and created training materials with them, but have personally used them with my own daughter as learning to read is not only a challenge for our ELL students, but many English speaking students as well. Before I offer some of the strategies, I discovered in my research to create this whitepaper to accelerate literacy, I think it's always important to dig deeper into "the why" behind looking for solutions to the most common challenges our students are facing when learning to read. We know that every child learns at their own pace, but there are important metrics to notice with reading and I did ask Dr. Daniel Ansari, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning about these benchmarks when it comes to numeracy and math on our interview #138[iv] this past summer. If you want to review the important metrics he suggests for math, please do revisit his interview by looking at the references in the show notes. But getting back to literacy—I want to share some statistics (and these are US statistics for our international listeners) but you will get the point no matter where you are listening to this podcast. I’m sure it wouldn’t shock you to know the problems that illiteracy is causing in America (and internationally) but if we dig just a bit deeper, did you know that: 2/3 of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Over 70% of America’s inmates cannot read above a 4th grade level. 1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read at all. Students who don't read

Did you know that there is crucial component of mental, psychological, and social health that is often overlooked[i] and that “Gratitude is a mindset that activates your prefrontal cortex and sets the context for your experience such that you can derive tremendous health benefits?”[ii] Dr. Andrew Huberman On this episode you will learn:✔︎ Why your gratitude practice might be outdated, like mine, without brain-science in mind. ✔︎ The physical, psychological and social benefits of an effective gratitude practice. ✔︎ The most effective way to practice gratitude, with your brain in mind. ✔︎ 5 STEPS for an effective Gratitude Practice that will help you tap into the mental, psychological and social benefits. If you are like me and have a gratitude journal that sits on your desk, and you might have heard of the many health benefits that being grateful can have on you and your life, but you aren’t really sure if your gratitude practice is truly an effective one—then, this Brain Fact Friday is for you. Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #181 on “The Ingredients of an Effective Gratitude Practice.” I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. We can achieve outstanding and predictable outcomes with whatever it is we are working towards, when we act intentionally, with our brain in mind. For those of us in the United States, we are approaching Thanksgiving, where we traditionally think of what we are grateful for. I know our Canadian listeners have had this holiday last month, as I watched friends and family celebrate, but I always wonder why there is just one holiday that puts an emphasis on practicing gratitude, especially when there are so many studies that show the clear benefits that gratitude has on our life. You can see for yourself. Go to www.pubmed.gov and type in the word gratitude and fMRI and you will see many recent studies that show how “gratitude leads to benefits for both mental health and interpersonal relationships”[iii] and when you look at the researchers immersed in this work, you will see University Professor and Chair in Neuroscience, Antonio Damasio’s[iv] name come up often with his contributions to the understanding of brain processes that underlie emotions, feelings, decision-making and consciousness, in addition to his work with gratitude. I’m sure those of you listening to this podcast would know that gratitude is good for your brain, and if you dig deeper into it, you would have discovered that “scientifically speaking, regular grateful thinking can increase happiness by as much as 25%, while keeping a gratitude journal for as little as three weeks results in better sleep and more energy.”[v] But as I dug deeper into the research behind this episode, I started to see there was much more to creating the benefits of a gratitude practice when you dive into the Science of Gratitude like the impressive and respected podcaster, Dr. Andrew Huberman[vi] who covered this topic on his podcast this week. I highly suggest listening to his podcast, where I had many AHA Moments, for a thorough look at the why gratitude has such a profound impact on our health and well-being. Then I came across professor of psychology, at the University of CA, who has studied more than one thousand people, from ages eight to 80, and found that people who practice gratitude consistently report a host of benefit that go far beyond helping us to be happier and well rested. Robert Emmons, a leader in the positive psychology movement, editor in chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology and Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, is the author of over 200 original publications in peer‑

Did you know that “many people experience an increase in respiratory rate prior to any other symptoms of COVID-19?”[i] Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #180 on “Monitoring Your Health During the Global Pandemic.” I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. We can achieve outstanding and predictable outcomes with whatever it is we are working towards, when we act intentionally, with our brain in mind. This week’s Brain Fact Friday hit me unexpectedly, when I woke up and saw something that caught my attention with the Whoop Fitness Tracker I’ve been wearing, since I interviewed Kristen Holmes on EPISODE #134 earlier this year.[ii] BRAIN FACT FRIDAY: Changes to Respiratory Rate Are An Early Warning of COVID-19 Did you know that “many people experience an increase in respiratory rate prior to any other symptoms of COVID-19?”[iii] I woke up to an exclamation mark next to my daily vitals that I watch, and never having seen something like this, I clicked on it to see that my respiratory rate had risen, higher than usual. Not thinking much about this, I clicked on the chart, and noticed it had jumped up significantly from 15.5 to 17.6 rpm and the note at the top of the screen said my “recent RPM measurements are significantly above your typical range. This indicates that your body may be experiencing illness, anxiety, or another condition.” I felt completely normal, but remembered reading something that WHOOP had covered with a Pro Golfer who noticed his respiratory rate jumped up prior to a positive COVID test, and I searched for that article. WHOOP measures respiratory rate [iv] during sleep using a phenomenon called Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia. Emily Capodilupo from Whoop explains that “when you breathe in your heart rate increases, and when you breathe out it decreases. Typically people average between 12 and 20 respirations per minute (RPM)” and this data set usually doesn’t change much on a daily basis. But when it does, it’s something to pay attention to. Not feeling any symptoms at all at this point, and being double vaccinated, I didn’t think I had COVID, but seeing a jump in these numbers made me wonder. When I read the article WHOOP posted last June about pro golfer Nick Watney, who noticed his respiratory rate increased (similar to mine) before he was to play in the second round of the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage tournament[v], and this rise in respiratory rate seemed like a “pretty consistent tell-tale sign” so like Nick, I was tested, and sure enough it was positive. This was long before any symptoms had hit, allowing me to take a proactive approach to recovery and isolation, and when the symptoms did hit (a temperature increase and the worst nausea I’ve felt since pregnancy) I was prepared for them. So, for this week’s Brain Fact Friday, did you know the science behind respiratory rate and COVID-19 and why this finding is so important? “COVID-19 is a lower respiratory tract infection. The infected cells are the alveoli, the point of contact in your lungs to your blood. As they get damaged, your ability to get oxygen into the blood and get carbon dioxide out becomes less efficient. In order to compensate, you have to take more breaths.” (Mark Van Deusen, WHOOP.com) which explained why my respiratory rate increased. I also noticed that it was more difficult to take deep breaths, and my lungs felt like they used to feel after swimming laps of a pool (something I haven’t done in years). While WHOOP is not a medical device, and this Week’s Brain Fact Friday is not medical advice, but to provide additional information to help you to understand the importance of staying o

“What if we could practice for those most difficult moments that we will face in competition, for those moments when your mind begins to unravel, and self-doubt starts to creep in? How could this type of practice change our lives? Not only for sport, but for anything that requires mental toughness?” Sun Sachs, Rewire Fitness Watch the interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/vJf_avKW5g4 Download the Rewire Fitness App FREE TRIAL here. www.rewirefitness.app/360 Stay tuned for today’s episode #179 with Sun Sachs, CEO and Co-Founder of Rewire Fitness[i] who will explore this very important question with a human performance platform that he created, combining his passion with endurance sports and software development, to create an app that many of us have been looking for, providing evidence-based solutions for tracking your readiness to perform, building mental resilience, and improving your mind/body recovery. For those new, or returning guests, welcome! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. I can’t even tell you how excited I am to share this new platform with you. At a time when mental resilience is crucial for the entire world, not just those who know the importance of mental toughness for sport, but for every one of us, myself included, this is a skill that requires daily practice. Every athlete knows the importance of mental resilience in sport and would tell you that at least 50-90% is mental when it comes to the focus and precision needed for their performance, but if you ask them “how much time do you spend training your mind?” most will not have a solid answer for you. I receive many emails from people around the world with different ideas and suggestions from the podcast, and I’m laser focused with the direction we are going and the speakers we are looking for, but every once in awhile, someone comes in front of me, and if I had read the email quickly, or not taken the time to understand exactly what their product is, it would have been a missed opportunity. This was the case when I was saw the email from Rizala Carrington from Rewire Fitness that came in just a few days before the end of October. The heading of her email said “First to Market Neuro Performance for Athletes” and in the body of the email I saw something about an app that “unlocks human performance” with major investments from Under Armour and elite athletes such as NBA All-Star Kyle Korver. On this episode you will learn: - Sun Sach’s journey as an athlete and why he founded Rewire (would love to know this!) - Why cognitive fatigue is a blind spot for most athletes (I wonder what solution he has?) - Why most readiness trackers are using an incomplete data set (YES! As a fitness tracker user, I’ve noticed this and I wonder what they see is missing/the solution). - Tips for accelerating mind/body recovery (YES! What do they suggest?) - Why the traditional way of building mental resilience is flawed (exactly! I don’t have all the answers but know there must be a better way than just pounding the pavement). This began my conversation with Rewire Fitness, and I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this app. I signed up right away, so that I could experience the product before creating their questions, and each day, kept emailing Rizala with how impressed I was. If you are an athlete, or a regular person like me, looking to take your performance to new heights, sit back, and listen to this interview and when it’s over, I highly recommend going to their site, Rewire Fitness,[ii] and starting your own journey with the FREE trial they offer. Let’s meet Sun Sachs, the CEO and co-founder of Rewire Fitness, and explore this app together. Welcome Sun Sachs, it’s incredibl

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #178 with Dr. Brian Stenzler,[i] M.S., D.C. the CEO of Dream Wellness on his new book “DREAM Wellness: 5 Keys to Raising Kids for a Lifetime of Physical and Mental Health” where the DREAM in the title of his book stands for (Diet, Relaxation, Exercise, Adjustment and Mental Wellness). Watch the interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/gIEnOiH1fUM Take the DREAM SCORE Assessment here https://dreamwellness.com/dreamscore In this interview you will learn: ✔︎ How healthy you are, according to Dr. Stenzler’s DREAM SCORE Assessment. ✔︎ Recommendations to improve areas of weakness from the DREAM SCORE with tips from the DREAM Wellness book. ✔︎The 5 Keys for DREAM Health and why they are important for everyone. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom, a parent, or in the corporate environment. The purpose of this podcast is to take the fear out of this new discipline that backs our learning with simple neuroscience to make it applicable for us all to use right away, for immediate results. I first met Dr. Stenzler in 2014 when I was at a conference in San Diego with brain training and business expert, John Assaraf, and I was cutting it close to making it to the airport on time on the last day of the event. Dr. Stenzler was standing next to me, and offered to give me a lift so I could stay a bit longer and not have to worry about the time. When you meet him, you will see that this is who he is. Offering to take me to the airport (when we had only just met that minute) is just a small testament to who he is. Although he had been helping thousands of people with his chiropractic work (at the time he was President of the California Chiropractic Association) when the coronavirus global pandemic hit our world in March 2020, he knew that his book was urgent, and important, and he made it a priority. In 1996, Dr. Stenzler and his business partner Dr. Gregg Baron first trademarked the term D.R.E.A.M. to make it easy for people to remember what a wellness lifestyle entailed and in 2021 he published his book, DREAM WELLNESS to bridge the gap from the current reactive system of “healthcare” toward a proactive model of wellness by providing the tools and venue for one’s journey. To give you some history on Dr. Stenzler, by the year 2003, he had two successful DREAM Wellness locations on Long Island, New York. His unique holistic approach towards helping people express their true perfection has enabled DREAM Wellness to expand to the west coast where there are currently three thriving locations in San Diego (Del Mar, Pacific Beach and Santee). By offering a wide range of holistic and wellness services under one roof and traveling around the globe to consult with businesses and organizations, Dr. Stenzler is truly living his DREAM. He is the picture of health that you can see for yourself in the picture of him in the show notes that was taken just last Wednesday when he was attending a conference at a hotel not far from my house. I ran out to say hello, we exchanged books, and in a short conversation, Dr. Stenzler was there to offer ideas and suggestions, saying “how can I help you” with what you are working on. I’m honored to call him one of my friends and love the work that he is doing to inspire physical and mental health in our next generation. Without further ado, let’s meet Dr. Brian Stenzler. Welcome Dr. Stenzler, so good to see you again. Brian speaks, and I ask “Hey, how was your confere

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for our very FIRST Panel Interview and EPISODE #177. Watch the interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/vIcdMG-a6Ag For those new, or returning guests, welcome! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. This week, I’m thrilled to welcome back 4 guests to our very first panel interview, with Horacio Sanchez, from www.resiliencyinc.com, Dr. Jon Lieff, MD from www.jonlieffmd.com, Dr. Howard Rankin, PhD. from www.hownottothink.com, and Tom Beakbane, author of How to Understand Everything. Consilience: A New Way to See the World" This panel was actually Tom Beakbane’s idea, after his EPISODE #144[i] this summer, he mentioned that he had listened to Dr. Lieff’s episode on his book, The Secret Language of Cells, and thought it would be a good idea if we hosted a panel discussion in the near future. Not wanting to miss any opportunity to learn something new, I agreed, and wrote down the idea, thinking of late Fall for this panel discussion. When the time felt right, I emailed Horacio Sanchez, Jon Lieff, Howard Rankin and Tom Beakbane with the idea, and all agreed immediately, and it was set in stone. Today I want to welcome back all 4 speakers to our discussion, and will give their background, so you can see where they have come from, as you listen to their thoughts and ideas on this episode. The topic for today will be “What is the most significant insight from neuroscience that can transform the future of education” so as I read through each speaker’s bio, you can think of how their experience can contribute to this topic, with some ideas that we can all take away and think about the action steps that we can bring to our schools or workplaces. I really do believe that these ideas can transform our results, and it just takes you, the listener, to implement one idea at a time, for this change to occur. Here’s today’s panelists. 1. Horacio Sanchez https://www.resiliencyinc.com/ We have had Horacio on the podcast twice before, so this will be his third episode. What I love about Horacio is that he was mentioned as an expert in educational neuroscience in our first interview with Ron Hall, from Valley Day School, who said what he learned from Horacio changed the trajectory of his career in education. I just remember putting an image of him in Ron Hall’s video and thought for someone making such an impact in the field I’m most interested in; I should learn more about his work. And that’s where my friendship with Horacio began. You can listen to both his episodes to learn more: EPISODE #74 we covered “How to Use Brain Science to Improve Instruction and School Climate” with a focus on his book The Education Revolution, and on EPISODE #111 we focused on his most recent book “The Poverty Solution.” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/resiliency-expert-and-author-horacio-sanchez-on-finding-solutions-to-the-poverty-problem/ https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/leading-brain-science-and-resiliency-expert-horatio-sanchez-on-how-to-apply-brain-science-to-improve-instruction-and-school-climate/ 2. Jon Lieff, MD https://jonlieffmd.com/ Our next panelist, Dr.Jon Lieff, I was introduced to last summer, with his new book, The Secret Language of Cells that we discussed on EPISODE #143. His topic was fascinating and inspired me to write EPISODE #147 on “Improving Mental Clarity by Understanding our Brian States, Brain Fog, and How It’s Created” and gave me a new understanding of how our cells communicate with each other, how T cells send messages to the neuron to stop making so many memory cells when we are stressed, creating brain fog and making me think of new ways to support brain health. I had l

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #176 on “The Neuroscience of Communication: Why Our Brain Doesn’t Like the Word No!” I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. We can achieve outstanding and predictable outcomes with whatever it is we are working towards, when we act intentionally, with our brain in mind. This week’s Brain Fact Friday hit me this weekend when I was handed a book and asked what I thought of it. It was Jack Carew’s You’ll Never Get No for an Answer[i] with a copyright date of 1987! I looked at the cover of the book, and it was clearly written in the 1980s. The author was on the cover, dressed in a suit and pointing at you, the reader with the intention of making a connection. My gut reaction was far from what the author intended. I thought, “oh no, I can’t see how there’s anything relevant in this book, for today’s workplace” feeling that sense of neural dissonance or conflict at the brain level, but if this book wasn’t exceptional, I don’t think large sales organizations would still be using it, around the world, over 3 decades after it was written. I usually read books through Kindle on my iPhone, so when I have a physical copy, I love to flip through and see what I notice from the pages. We all have our styles of what we are looking for, and I noticed the interior looked “old” and I thought old-school, when I saw that the print wasn’t crisp or modern looking. And there weren’t many testimonials, just a couple, but the one on the front cover stood out. It was by Og Mandino, American author of the best-selling book, The Greatest Salesman in the World.[ii] Og is the most widely read inspirational and self-help author in the world. He was the former president of Success Unlimited magazine, the first recipient of the Napoleon Hill Gold Medal for literary achievement, a member of the International Speakers Hall of Fame and honored with the Masters of Influence by the National Speakers Association. Og Mandino sadly passed away in 1996 but his books continue to inspire thousands of people all over the world. So if a pro like Og Mandino said this book was “one of the most powerful and helpful books on salesmanship” that he had ever read, my brain went directly to Confirmation Bias, and I thought I had better not judge a book by its cover, and read it right away! I was shocked to see how Jack’s 10 strategies, written over 34 years ago, were timeless and relevant for anyone who wants to get their point across to someone else, not just those who are in sales. We all need to be able to persuade others whether it’s coming to a consensus in your personal life, or in the workplace, there is a power behind being able to naturally influence someone, without the use of force, which we all know negates. As I was reading his book, I wondered how his strategies could be connected to simple neuroscience, just like The Neuroscience of Personal Change, EPISODE #68[iii] where we took Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits book and connected each habit to brain science. I thought about the 10 unique strategies that Jack used to show us how to position ourselves to never receive that dreaded “no, I’m not interested” in whatever it is you are selling, or whatever idea you are trying to convey, and this thought inspired this week’s brain fact Friday on “The Neuroscience of Communication: Why Our Brain Doesn’t Like the Word No!” and with this I mean not just with the word no, but looking at how the words you choose, and how exactly you say them can influence someone, or not. I know Chris Gargano mentioned this in episode #166 when he was taking about leadership in the workplace. In a world where

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #175 that was inspired by our recent interview with Dr. Francis Lee Stevens whose book that was just released this week on Amazon, Affective Neuroscience in Psychotherapy[i] that reminded us that we can accelerate our results, experience less stress and psychopathology (like depression and anxiety) when we can understand the emotional science (affect is the scientific word for emotion) that can be mapped and understood within the depths of the human brain. To access the images in the show notes, click here. There were many AHA Moments during our interview with psychologist Dr. Stevens this week, but with mental health at the forefront of this podcast, and the fact that we are now into the last quarter of 2021, I wanted to provide something that we could all use to give us clarity and focus to finish this year on a strong, high note. When I thought about what Dr. Stevens taught us, and why an application of affective neuroscience could help patients with psychological disorders, I thought about that for a while and wondered how this week’s Brain Fact Friday could bring us to a heightened sense of clarity, focus and direction that would give us a razor’s edge advantage in our life, with whatever it is we are working on or moving towards, and set us up with the right footing for a solid Q1 in 2022. In Today’s Brain Fact Friday, You Will Learn: ✔︎ Why a calm brain is important to achieve ANY level of success. ✔︎ Strategies to calm our brain/regulate ourselves before we can access the thinking/decision-making parts of our brain. ✔Why a calm, regulated brain, precedes mental clarity, needed for high performance. ✔︎ How to calm or regulate ourselves before we can access knowledge, well-being and high-performance. From Focus to Calmness Dr. Stevens taught us some great strategies that can help us to understand our emotions, and even reconsolidate past traumatic memories, but there was something I knew I was missing that comes before we can access those higher, thinking parts of the brain that we need when thinking or making decisions. Today’s topic is not just about how we can use the understanding of our brain to focus, so we can accomplish more, Friederike Fabritius dove deep into the neuroscience behind the focused brain on episode #27.[ii] She reminded us of the recipe needed for achieving peak performance as a mix of fun, and fear along with focus”[iii] but that’s not where I wanted to go with this episode. Then I saw it and it was as clear as ice as I thought about some of our past speakers. I mentioned to Dr. Stevens that in order to apply any of the lessons he uses with his patients for accelerated results, and improved well-being, we had to get to a place of calmness, where we could step back from the busyness of our world and allow our thinking brain (or our Central Executive Network) to come back online. We have to be able to switch from our Thinking (Central Executive) Network to our Imagination (Default Mode Network) for this calmness to occur. I did talk about the importance of switching between our brain networks to allow for these flashes of creativity and insight to flow in episode #48 which is a good episode to review.[iv] For this week’s brain fact Friday, I want to add a sense of calmness behind our clarity to push us forward. I remember my mentor Bob Proctor always saying to accelerate your results you need to “Speed Up and Calm Down” and he would give us examples of how he stayed focused by saying no to what’s unimportant and direct 100% of his energy and focus to what is. If you want to accelerate your results, it begins with a calm brain, that’s focused and ready for speed. From Calmness to Clarity Then we can take this calmness and laser focus to clarity. Clarity is one of the six habits that Brendon Burchard found that research shows pointed the needle towards high-performance vs

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #174 with Dr. Francis Lee Stevens who works as a psychologist in Worcester, MA. He has taught a variety of classes in psychology and neuroscience and his research focuses on affective neuroscience applications to psychotherapy. Today we will dive deep into his new book, coming out on November 27th, Affective Neuroscience in Psychotherapy: A Clinician’s Guide for Working with Emotions and will explore how Dr. Stevens has taken the latest developments in affective neuroscience and applies these science-based interventions with a sequential approach for helping patients with psychological disorders. Learn more about Dr. Stevens https://www.drfrancisstevens.com/ Watch this interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/2H-g1xg6FRY In this episode you will learn: ✔︎ What Dr. Stevens saw was missing from previous forms of psychotherapy. ✔︎ Why changing our thinking doesn't change how we feel, and what he suggests instead. ✔︎ What Affect Reconsolidation is--that changes difficult emotions and feelings. ✔︎ How an understanding of the science of the brain works together with the practice needed for a new model of intervention. ✔︎ What we should all know about our emotions, how to dig deeper into our past to unlock memories, and deal with the feelings that keep us stuck. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom, a parent, or in the corporate environment. The purpose of this podcast is to take the fear out of this new discipline that backs our learning with simple neuroscience to make it applicable for us all to use right away, for immediate results. What I think is fascinating as we are exploring this topic together, is that education is not the only field that can benefit from the understanding of simple neuroscience and “there are equivalent fields that seek to translate neuroscience findings to law (e.g. Royal Society, 2011a)[i] economics (e.g. Glimcher & Fehr, 2013)[ii] and social policy (e.g. Royal 2011b)[iii] bringing in research in behavior regulation, decision-making, reward, empathy and moral reasoning.” (Thomas, Ansari, Knowland, 2019). When I received an email from Dr. Stevens about his new book that he wrote to help patients with psychological disorders with science-based interventions, I was very interested in learning more. If American psychologist Dr. Daniel Amen, whose book The End of Mental Illness we reviewed on episode #128[iv] believes that “normal” is a myth and that 51%[v] of us will have a mental health issue in our lifetime (like post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, addiction, or an eating disorder—to name a few) then it’s clear that it’s more normal than not, to have a mental health problem and we must all pay attention to the first sign of any mental health issue, for ourselves, but especially our younger generations, since it’s critical for children’s success in school and life. Research shows that “students who receive social-emotional and mental health support achieve better academically”[vi] and “mental health is not simply the absence of mental illness but also encompasses wellness promotion; social, emotional, and behavioral health; and the ability to cope with life’s challenges. Left unmet, mental health problems are linked to costly negative outcomes such as academic and behavior problems, dropping out, and delinquency. Mental and behavioral health problems not only affect students’ short-term classroom engagement, but also interfere with long-term develo

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #173 on “The Neuroscience of our Beliefs” where we will take a deeper dive into what are beliefs are, how they impact our day-to-day life, habits, successes, and failures, and how we must pay attention to them “because they can make the difference between life and death, health and illness” (Larry Dossey, MD)[i] and increased clarity in our life. In Today’s Brain Fact Friday, You Will Learn: ✔︎ What are beliefs from the perspective of neuroscience? ✔︎ What's the problem with what we believe? ✔︎ Understanding our Cognitive Biases. ✔︎ Becoming a Better Believer in 3 Steps. For those who are new here, I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. The purpose of this podcast is to take the fear out of this new discipline that backs our learning with simple neuroscience to make it applicable for us all to use right away, for immediate results. This week’s Brain Fact Friday comes to you as I am in the final stages of writing a research paper, or an abstract to complete a year-long neuroscience certification course I have been taking with Mark Robert Waldman, who began teaching me how to understand the impacts of neuroscience on the brain and learning, back in 2014. I know that I was one of his very first students who began working with him years before he launched his training program that is rigorous, and not everyone who joins, completes it. Learning anything new requires consistent focus and effort, and my hopes are to continue to translate the most current and accurate neuroscience research, to be useful in your daily life through this podcast. Once this abstract is graded, I will share it with you for a more in depth look at the future of educational neuroscience, with a look back at where it began, some of the criticism it’s faced, while sharing the impact I see it having on our future generations of teachers and learners. Stay tuned for this, and for more interviews coming next week, but until then, for this week’s Brain Fact Friday, we will examine how beliefs show up in our brain and what we should all know about what we believe and how to sharpen and even challenge our beliefs, for improved results. If I asked you right now to define what a belief is, I am sure we would all come up with a different definition. But did you know that from the perspective of neuroscience that all beliefs (factual beliefs, self-beliefs, social beliefs, monetary beliefs, health beliefs) just to name a few- are “incomplete predictions, formed in the Default Mode Network (Imagination Network—the yellow and orange areas in the brain in the image below). These predictions (whatever it is that we believe) combine subjective feelings (that are mostly imaginary and a product of the DMN-our Imagination Center) with factual observations, forming an emotional cognitive bias which is embedded into our long-term memory. IMAGE SOURCE: Mark Waldman “Beliefs and the Brain” showing what our beliefs look like in our brain in the Default Mode (Imagination) Network. Remember that “all beliefs have limitations, and every one of them contains assumptions and inaccuracies concerning the true nature of the world.” (Born to Believe, Mark Waldman and Dr. Andrew Newberg)[ii] SUMMARY: “Our beliefs are incomplete predictions about the future, formed as a part of our imagination network, combining current feelings with factual observations, with bits and pieces of old memories, forming a cognitive bias (whether you are right or wrong—this is how your brain sees the world). Your brain doesn’t care if it’s true or false, right, or wrong. It will create what you need to help you to go

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #172 with a veteran principal from New Jersey, USA, who has actively been writing about highly relevant solutions to problems in educational leadership since 2018, Michael Gaskell. Michael’s second book, Leading Schools Through Trauma[i], was just published this September, and his first book, Microstrategy Magic[ii], last fall. Watch this interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/V7sJTeFi-1c Learn more about Dr. Gaskell here https://www.facebook.com/Mikesmicrominute/ See past Neuroscience Meets SEL Podcast Episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On Today's Episode You Will Learn: ✔︎ Why we must NEVER give up on a struggling student. ✔︎ What we should ALL know about being trauma-informed in today's schools. ✔︎ What Dr. Gaskell's 3-STEP Process says about the importance of educator well-being. ✔︎ How to recognize trauma, and next steps for working with our students in the classroom. ✔︎ The Pygmalion Effect and why our belief in our students matters. ✔︎ What Dr. Gaskell would say to a new, first year teacher, who is struggling in the classroom. ✔︎ Putting Together a Trauma-Informed Plan in your school. ✔︎ The importance of surveys for Teacher Training and Implementation. ✔︎ Actionable Ideas That You Can Implement Immediately. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or in the corporate environment. When I first began presenting on the topic of stress, learning and the brain in 2016, in those early days of learning about how the brain works and responds to stress, I started to receive messages from teachers around the country (and the world) with questions about how to handle students suffering from the damaging effects of trauma. Educators would attend the webinar presentations I was offering, and their emails requesting help at the end of these presentations were urgent. Since starting this work, I have always replied personally to every single email that comes in, but the ones about trauma I know I didn’t have the best answers for, and I remember not knowing exactly how to answer these questions. I only knew from my viewpoint or experience working with behavioral students in my first-year teaching what worked for me back then, but I definitely lacked the strategies that are needed more than ever in our schools today, and understand now why being trauma-informed is so important. I’m grateful that this podcast has not only given us a platform to what’s new and relevant, timely and important as it relates to educational neuroscience and leadership, but where else would we all gain access to the leaders around the world, working directly with the most innovative ideas in educational reform, productivity, and results. I want to thank you again, for all who tune in, and offer interview ideas and suggestions. The reach goes beyond those early days when we would host those webinars, now into over 154 countries, and we remain in the TOP 100 charts for iTunes in the category of education/how-to) in many of these countries around the world. This is only the beginning of our vision for this work so we can answer the questions that I know we all have, with the leading experts in this field. Which brings us to our next guest, Michael Gaskell, who has a unique story, because he’s not only writing from his experience working in schools, and offering trauma-informed solutions from what he has seen working in his day to day world, but Michael takes it a step dee

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #170 with Robin Hills,[i] the director of Ei4Change, a company specializing in educational training, coaching and personal development, focused around emotional intelligence, positive psychology and neuroscience. Watch this interview on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xBhcVYj7No Learn more about Robin Hills here https://ei4change.com/ See past Neuroscience Meets SEL Podcast Episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On Today's Episode You Will Learn: ✔︎ What is Emotional Intelligence and Why is it Critical for Future Workplace Success? ✔︎ How can we Learn, Measure, Practice and Assess Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace? ✔︎ What is Resilience and how can we strengthen this skill in ourselves and others? ✔︎ During Difficult Times, What Should We Keep in Mind That Guarantees Happiness and Future Success? I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or in the corporate environment This week’s guest, Robin Hills, who I found out is well connected with some of our past guests, Dan Hill from EPISODE #163[ii], who taught us how to “Read the Emotions in Others” and the author of The Leading Brain, Friederike Fabritius from EPISODE #27[iii] joining us all the way England this week. Robin has taught over 250,000 people in 185 countries how to build resilience, increase their self-awareness and understanding of others. After my interview with Dr. Perry this week, I have been thinking about the upside-down triangle, or Dr. Perry’s “Sequence of Engagement” where he mentioned that ALL information comes in through the brainstem, and we have been programmed to REACT to what we take in from our 5 senses, instead of take a few minutes to PAUSE, and RESPOND. I’m hoping that our conversation with Robin will give us some practical ideas that we can all take away, to make ourselves better teachers, leaders, and parents, looking at emotional intelligence through his lens, and make us better supervisor/leaders in our workplaces, parents, teachers, and coaches. If you want to learn more about Robin’s programs, you can see books, courses, and audio programs through his website[iv] that cover the most comprehensive and detailed education of any emotional intelligence organization and are today used in educational establishments in different parts of the world. Let’s meet Robin Hills and see if we can Sharpen Our Saw with our EI skills. Welcome Robin! Q1: Robin, thank you for joining me today, all the way from the UK, where I was born (Worthing, Sussex). Welcome! Intro Story: Robin, I was watching another podcast you did[v] recently to learn more about you as I was thinking up some questions on your work and saw some of the English Countryside behind you. I haven’t been back to England since 8th grade when I went on this school exchange program. Seeing the trees behind you, and thinking of my questions, I remember this experience I had that is relevant to what we are going to talk about today. Can I share this story with you, with the idea that you give me some EI insight into what you see? So, I was back in 8th grade and there was a school exchange program where I would go to England for 3 weeks, and someone would come stay with me for 3 weeks. Since I came into the program late, I was partnered up with a boy for this exchange, and we were very different personality wise. I arrived from the big city of Toronto to this small town in Bristol, called Hallatrow,

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #170 with John Harmon, an independent researcher who's developed a new way to define the mind and map it to the brain, called the MA (Memory Activation) Method. This cognitive neuroscience tool enhances CNS (Central Nervous System) medicine, natural language processing, cognitive computing and most of applied neuroscience. John’s goal aligns directly with ours on the podcast—to enhance humanity’s understanding, appreciation and use of the human mind, and its manifestation in the brain. Watch this interview on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCjPIikAISU Learn more about John Harmon here https://www.neuralnetworkbiomarkers.com/ See past Neuroscience Meets SEL Podcast Episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On Today's Episode You Will Learn: ✔︎ How to get comfortable with not knowing everything when it comes to neuroscience, the brain, and learning. ✔︎ John's Core Research translated so we can all understand how our brain maps to learning something new. ✔︎ The importance of belief with our goals, and with anything we want to accomplish, like health, or eliminating pain. ✔︎ What we need to know about how our brain works under pressure (throwing a football in a game) or taking a test. For those who are new here, I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision for this podcast is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, and take the fear out of this new field of educational neuroscience. My hope is that this podcast will bridge the gap between the science, theory and application. I picked the perfect guest to do this today, because he will agree with me that this topic is not easy to explain conceptually. This is the reason why I record these podcasts using video so that I can add images to explain the concepts discussed that we might at first glance think of as difficult and dismiss them. But they are important and I hope that we can learn them together. It’s been a few years that I have followed John Harmon’s research through LinkedIn, where we connected, and I noticed that he often comments and what I call “plusses” an idea or takes it to the next level with his understanding. I started to read his comments in my early days of learning this field, because it helped me to see things through a new lens, from someone more immersed in the field than me, but when learning anything new, it takes effort. This is when you know that true learning is taking place. Whatever John would write, I would have to stop and really think about what he was saying. Here’s an Example: Neuroscience News Posted an article recently called Single Neurons Might Behave as Networks[i] and someone commented on their LinkedIn post[ii] “Why wouldn’t they behave as networks?” and I could agree with his train of thought as I have done a few episodes talking about Brain Network Theory[iii] and how we need to now think of the neural networks in the brain versus single parts of the brain, or neurons operating individually. Someone else chimed in to give their thoughts saying “isn’t the discovery here that a single neuron can function as its own self-contained network?” and John Harmon plussed this comment by providing his thoughts of his take-away of the article where he offers “the article as I read it talks about individual neurons and their function in the context of a larger network activity” and that “if a neuron doesn’t function as part of a network, then it’s a noisy neuron—ie. It doesn’t contribute, or is a part of, any stored mental process (perception, recognition, meaning, executive control, goals, language, attention, intention

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #169 on “Improving Your Self and Social-Awareness” through Dr. Perry’s What Happened to You[i] book and our insightful interview with Dr. Perry and Steve Graner on EPISODE #168. In Today’s Brain Fact Friday, You Will Learn: ✔︎ How to improve your self and social-awareness after reading this book by thinking about the areas that hit you on an emotional level.✔︎ Tips for cleaning up your emotions, so that we can be more resilient in the face of adversity.✔︎ Strategies that you can use right away to apply The Neurosequential Model in your classroom, sports, or other work environments. After speaking with Dr. Perry and Steve Graner this week on a deep dive of the book he wrote with Oprah Winfrey What Happened to You, I could pick out many important lessons to focus on for this week’s brain fact Friday, and will revisit this interview in future episodes, but if I had to pick just one, it would be to see if you can use the lessons in his book to improve your self and social awareness. Dr. Perry reminded us that “there’s motor, cognitive, social and emotional capabilities that remain unexpressed in many people” and the purpose of this podcast is to help us as parents, teachers and coaches to understand these SEL competencies in ourselves, and others, with strategies that we can all use to further develop these skills that are not automatic. They require practice. I picked out 6 SEL competencies to focus on in this podcast, and you can go back and listen to the Lessons Learned from our TOP 100 Episodes[ii] that ties in these 6 SEL Competencies as a review. HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF-AWARENESS: As you’re reading Dr. Perry’s book, whether it’s your first read, or 21st read, I encourage you to think about what parts give you an emotional charge. Dr. Perry mentioned that he went back and forth from Oprah’s difficult emotional stories, to challenging neuroscientific topics on purpose, to provide a regulating back and forth pace, just like we do with athletics, and high intensity interval training, There was an intentionality to the way the book was written to help us to not become overwhelmed with the content and they do remind us in the beginning, that if we do, to just put the book down, and come back to it. The end of the book powerfully ties in Oprah’s story where she makes sense of her life and relationship with her mother. With this lesson in mind, can you make sense of your own life by looking for themes of what happened you? What themes came up for you while reading the book? If you haven’t read the book yet, it’s not difficult to think about things that push your buttons, whether at home or in the workplace. Think about your interactions with others and whether these themes show up in your life. Dr. Dan Siegel[iii] talks about being able to “Name it to Tame it” and Marc Brackett from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence reminds us that we can unlock the power of our emotions with the “Permission to Feel.”[iv] Write them down and when you are ready, you can pick the one that stands out the most to you and clean it up. Self-awareness goes a long way here. Go back and listen to Dr. Carolyn Leaf’s BONUS EPISODE[v] on Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess to help you to make sense of whatever it is that comes up for you when reading this book. She has a simple 5-step process that can be used to help you to unpack and make sense of these emotions that we all have, (Dr. Leaf herself uses this process to keep her mind operating optimally) so that emotions are expressed and healed, instead of turned inwards into toxic thoughts that will impact our mental health and well-being. This does take some time to first of all identify emotions that are bothering us, and then making sense of where they came from, to clean them up, but there’s nothing like the feeling of having a clear mind when we are able to do this. HOW TO IMPR

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #168 with a much-awaited conversation with someone I have been quoting since we launched this podcast, after getting to know his work on a deeper level when I tuned into a video training series[i] he conducted during the beginning of the Pandemic to help people around the world to better understand how the brain works while under stress. I learned specific ideas on how to reach those who were most affected during and after those very difficult days from this video series that he created for educational purposes for people to view and share. I learned so much from this series that connected the dots for me with trauma and the brain, while inspiring our episode #52[ii] on "Igniting Your Personal Leadership to Build Resiliency.” Watch this interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/ixOZFwTAtCQ Learn more about The Neurosequential Network here https://www.neurosequential.com/ See past Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast Episodes here. https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On This Episode You Will Learn: ✔︎ What drew Steve Graner to work with The Neurosequential Network, and how he used his background in sports to create the Neurosequential Model for Education. ✔︎ What Dr. Perry learned from writing a book with his good friend, Oprah Winfrey. ✔︎ Why we must all understand our genes and past to understand why we behave the way that we do. ✔︎ Dr. Perry's vision to help others in many sectors like sports, education, caregiving, and supervision to become "brain-aware" ✔︎ What we should all know about the brain and how to regulate, relate and reason with others at home and in our workplaces. ✔︎ What is the power differential and why it is so important for our students in the classroom and our workplaces--especially if you are in a position of leadership. Last summer, I reached out to American psychiatrist, Dr. Bruce Perry, who is currently the senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas and an adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, with the hopes he could come on the podcast and help us to dive deeper with an understanding of how traumatic events impact the brain. I was specifically concerned with the impacts of the Pandemic generationally, because one of his trainings explained the research from families from the Katrina Disaster in 2005 showed how the offspring of those families exposed to this level of stress response had an increase of substance abuse issues. I thought about the Pandemic and how I was hearing about the increase in depression, anxiety and substance use increasing, and wondered if Dr. Perry could provide some ideas on how to reduce the impact that the Pandemic was having on the world, our future generations, educational systems and he let me know that he would come on the podcast, as soon as his next book that he was writing was complete. I understood, as writing a book takes intense focus, so I went back to work, and knew we would have a conversation in the future. This spring, I watched the release of that book he was writing and realized it was with Oprah Winfrey called What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing[iii], and knew that when the timing felt right, I would reach out, to have that discussion on this new book that I knew would answer all of the questions I had. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or in the

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #166 with Chris Gargano, who is now in his sixth year with the New York Jets as vice president, executive producer where he oversees JETS 360, which is responsible for all Jets produced content – including video production, social media and editorial – with a goal of providing football fans an all-access pass to unique, engaging, quality content over a variety of platforms. Chris has also just started his fourth year teaching leading leadership at NYU, which is what led him to this podcast. Watch this interview on YouTube here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM1i-YEAIzA Follow the New York Jets here https://www.newyorkjets.com/video/jets360-live Follow Chris Gargano: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-gargano/ On This Episode You Will Learn: ✔︎ How Chris knew that a career in sports broadcasting was the right path for him, right from childhood. ✔︎ How an injury caused him to pivot towards broadcasting, and then later, pivoted towards lifelong learning again. ✔︎ What led Chris to our podcast for his leadership students at NYU. ✔︎ The characteristics of a championship head coach, and team. ✔︎ How he prioritizes a work/life balance with a busy schedule. ✔︎ The future of leadership--building self-awareness in our future generations. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or in the corporate environment. I first met Chris Gargano just a couple of weeks ago when we connected on LinkedIn and his background immediately caught my attention aside from the fact he works for the New York Jets. I will let Chris tell you his story, with the hopes that it will inspire you to reach new heights and I can tell you that from someone who has led some of the best “teams behind the teams” that he will empower you to take a closer look at how he sees top performers reach those high ranks, and it all begins with the topic of leadership. Let’s meet Chris Gargano, and see if we can leverage his life story, to push us closer to where we are all going. Welcome Chris Gargano! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy season that has just begun, and I know there is never a slow time with your work, so thank you for taking the time to be here today. Chris, before I get to the questions I have for you, I mention in the show notes that you run JETS 360 that’s responsible for all JETS related content, and as someone who also produces content, without a production team like you have over there, I wonder if you can give us any tips for what you do to catch people’s attention with the graphics/videos/content that you create to connect you’re your fans? I was sorry to see the results of your game on Sunday but know that mindset is a huge part of the game here, and I know you are going to give us some new ways of looking at life and how you deal with wins/losses through the lens of someone behind the scenes of the top performers you get to work with every day. I’m looking forward to what we can all learn from your experiences. Q1: Chris, can you take us back to where your vision for your career began, when you were a student in the classroom, before your college days, before you had this incredible opportunity to work in broadcasting and media production with teams like the NY Jets and the previous teams you worked with (Oakland Raiders and San Francisco Giants) was there any defining moment that you can recall when you thought “aha” this is what I am meant to do? Q2: What happened to t

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #167 on “The Neuroscience of Learning” that was inspired with an upcoming interview with cognitive neuroscience researcher John Harmon, who will take us through how learning happens in the brain as well as understanding what happens when performing a task (like throwing a football) while under stress. In Today’s Brain Fact Friday, You Will Learn: ✔︎ The two most important ingredients required for learning and how they relate to your brain. ✔︎ Why being a know-it-all will get you nowhere when it comes to teaching and learning. ✔︎ How to use self-reflection to become more self-aware of your own learning process. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. This week, while preparing for our upcoming interviews, I had the opportunity to stop and think before writing this week’s Brain Fact Friday. Sometimes life is so busy, that we miss this opportunity to reflect on where we began, and where we are going, and just peddle forward without this reflection, missing some powerful moments of learning. Whatever it is that you are working on, take a minute to look back to where you started. It will help you to see how far you have come, and give you boost that I’m sure you could use at this moment. This will create momentum to help propel you forward, while increasing your own self-confidence with this self-reflection. This is actually a question in Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Planner[i] that was written based on the world’s largest study of high performers and how they increase productivity and win. When looking at where we started with this podcast, June 2019, I thought back to some of the earlier episodes and remember before I was 100% comfortable with this topic, I would spend a lot of time preparing for interviews, reading EVERY book the person had written and carefully crafting their questions. Looking back now, I know it was because I wanted to be prepared, but I also didn’t want to appear like I didn’t know what I was talking about. Listening to these old episodes is another story, and not easy to do because we can easily pick up many areas that needed to be improved, (content as well as technical) but we must all start somewhere, and progress happens when we do. We can all benefit from looking back to day 1 of whatever we are working on- what can you LEARN from this? Once you have looked at where you began, look at where you are now, so I fast-forwarded to episode #144 that was recorded this past summer with Tom Beakbane,[ii] on “How to Understand Everything” and episode #146 with expert in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and neurotechnology, Dr. Howard Rankin, Ph.D.[iii] on “How Not to Think” I started to realize that it was ok that I didn’t understand everything and saying so was freeing. I stopped reading every single book written by the person to be interviewed and stuck to their most recent and relevant book. While being prepared is important to me, I still practice interview questions, but stopped overdoing it, and think that this new awareness made me more relaxed with this whole process. Self-awareness goes a long way and anything we can learn to help us to improve is something we should take note of. I wonder if anything stuck out for you when looking back at where you first began to where you are now? With this new awareness, I was finally comfortable enough to invite someone on the podcast whose work in this new field of neuroscience still puzzles me. It’s not like I could even explain what he does with his work, without reading his BIO but John Harmon said it best himself while preparing for his int

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #165 on “The Neuroscience of Leadership: Using Your Brain to Lead Others More Effectively” that was inspired by a conversation I had on the phone with our next guest, whose interview will be recorded today, and released over the weekend. You will need to tune into our next episode to hear who he is, but I can say that he is with his 6th season with the NY Jets (football) and his 4th year teaching leadership at NYU which led him to our podcast. When speaking with him, he mentioned had found our episode #68[i] “The Neuroscience of Personal Change with Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” when he was looking for ideas for his leadership class at NYU and liked how we had added the brain science to Covey’s best-seller that has sold more than 25 million copies since its first publication. When we hung up, I thought about the fact that Covey’s book impacted so many people around the world, but since it was first published in 1989 he was missing something critical to our next generation of leaders: an understanding of the Leading Brain, which let me to think about our good friend Friederike Fabritius all the way back to EPISODE #27[ii] who wrote The Leading Brain: Neuroscience Hacks to Work Smarter, Better, Happier for this week’s Brain Fact Friday. In Today’s Brain Fact Friday, You Will Learn: ✔︎ Why Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is WRONG when it comes to Neuroscience. ✔︎ What IS the Neuroscience of Leadership? ✔︎ The Best Ways to Lead with the Brain in Mind in our Schools and Workplaces. ✔︎ How to Reach Peak Performance or Flow with our Work. ✔︎ What Too Much, or Too Little Stress Does to the Brain. For those who are new here, I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision for this podcast is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, and take the fear out of this new field of educational neuroscience. My hope is that this podcast will bridge the gap between the science, theory, and application of these ideas for improved results in your life. Our next few interviews coming up are exciting for me, as they all demonstrate just how important and timely this understanding of the brain is for all of us to learn and apply whether we are a teacher in the classroom or using these ideas in a corporate environment, as an employee, or CEO in a leadership role, an understanding of how our brain works is critical these days. With each episode we release, connections are made to past episodes and the learning builds just like we were taking a course together. If you are new here, go back through the episodes and see if there are ones that catch your eye. Take notes and think about how you could best apply the strategies suggested in each episode. I promise you this will be life changing when we begin to live our lives with our brain in mind. For this Week’s Brain Fact Friday, I’m going back to the first lesson I saw on The Leading Brain, by Friederike Fabritius that was published on YouTube Dec.11th, 2016[iii] where she explains why an understanding of the brain is important for a group of business leaders. She begins her presentation by quizzing the group to see what they know about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs[iv] to see what they can remember about this model that is “a motivational theory in psychology comprising of a five-tier model of human needs”[v] that begins with the need of food, water, sex, and sleep. Once these needs are met, we desire safety (and you can think about how important it is for our students to feel safe in our schools, or employees in the workplaces-without this safety, learning or n

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #164 that ties back into our interview released this week, episode #163 with Dr. Dan Hill on “Facial Coding: How to Read the Emotions in Others” since there was so much he explained in that interview that I think is important for all of us to think about, and dig deeper with, whether we are using these ideas in our schools, sports environments or workplaces. For those who are new here, I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. My vision for this podcast is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear from someone who has found this information to be important and useful in their life. Thank you for the feedback. We can all use motivation at times. If you take a quick look through our episodes that began in June 2019, you will notice this podcast draws many high-level guests who have spearheaded the understanding of how our brains works, tied to social and emotional learning (in our schools or sports environments) or emotional intelligence (as it’s called in our workplaces) to help us to all improve our results. This has always been the goal of the podcast that was originally going to be a course for an educational publisher, until a turn of events caused me to decide to release my best work with the hopes it would help those who are looking to implement the most current brain research into their work. This is just the beginning of the vision I have but can clearly see that this is a topic that holds an international interest, so I will continue to create content to help us to all understand and implement this research in the new field of educational neuroscience. In Today’s Brain Fact Friday, You Will Learn: ✔︎ The Top Emotions Dr. Hill Looks for when using his Facial Coding System to Read Others. ✔︎ How to Apply Facial Coding in Your Classroom, Workplace or Sports Teams. ✔︎ What We Should All Know, Understand and Look for With Other People’s Emotions. Which Leads us to This Week’s Brain Fact Friday: After editing and re-listening to Dr. Dan Hill, from episode #163, I had 2 major takeaways. THE PIVOT: The first takeaway I had was that Dr. Hill pioneered a successful career using facial coding, when he had to pivot his career focus in his early years. Many of us listening would recognize and understand this pivot, as we have done it in our own careers ourselves. Back in my early days as a teacher (I was trained by the Raptor’s Coach as a Level 1 Technical Coach) and the pivot is something you never forget. If you remember it on a basketball court, it’s a hard turn, where you stop and shift directions quickly and suddenly, turning your back to your original direction. This is exactly what Dr. Hill had to with his career and reminded me of mine. I had to learn how the brain works in 2014 when an educator sat me down and gave me the most valuable feedback I have ever received, and I know that the pandemic caused many of my friends and colleagues to also make some sort of shift with their work. Have you ever had to make a pivot? Last week I heard from someone I am working on bringing on the podcast who works in the field of professional sports, with a well-known sports team that I hear about daily, since it’s my husband’s favorite team and this person also made a noticeable pivot in their career towards leadership when he recognized that lifelong learning was his ticket for future success, bringing him to this podcast to see what else he could learn. We connected on LinkedIn, and when we spoke on the phone,

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #163 with Dr. Dan Hill, Ph.D. an internationally recognized expert on the role of emotions in politics, business, sports and pop culture, who has spoken to audiences in over 25 countries. There are two currencies in life, he says, “There’s dollars and emotions.” For over 20 years now, Dan has specialized in the latter – often in terms of business applications, and often by analyzing facial expressions because he asserts “the most valuable 25 square inches of visual territory on earth runs from the eyebrows to the mouth.” There, people best reveal and communicate the affective responses that so often drive their behavior, whether in the marketplace, the workplace, their personal lives, or in realms like politics, and sports. Watch the interview on YouTube here.https://youtu.be/fT_SNrZM6rA Learn more about Dr. Dan Hill https://www.sensorylogic.com/ See past Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast Episodes https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ Back story 0-6:10 Interview with Dan Hill 6:10-1:10:25 In Today's Episode, you will learn: ✔︎ How to use facial coding to improve your results in your personal and professional life. ✔︎ Examples of how Dr. Hill used this skill in professional sports and in the classroom. ✔︎ The origins of facial coding beginning with Leonardo da Vinci, Darwin, Duchenne and Dr. Ekman. ✔︎ How Dr. Hill discovered this tool and how he has used it to build a successful career. ✔︎ Theory of Mind and Facial Coding--what emotion he stays away from. ✔︎ Our future leaders--What emotions will make them successful. If you want to be more successful in life, happier in your marriage, be an expert at handling your kids, a better manager at work, a more effective coach in sports, a better hiring manager, close more sales, or negotiate a better deal for yourself, an understanding of how to read someone else’s facial expressions is imperative. To capture and quantify emotions, Dan pioneered the use of facial coding (the analysis of facial expressions) in market research starting in 1998 and his company, Sensory Logic, Inc[i]., has done work for over half of the world’s top 100 consumer oriented, B2C companies. Dan has received seven U.S. patents related to facial coding and is also a certified Facial Action Coding System (FACS) practitioner[ii], which is a popular course, offered by someone I have studied in depth, Paul Ekman[iii] who’s a well-known psychologist and co-discoverer of micro expressions. Dr. Ekman was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine[iv] in 2009, has worked with many government agencies, domestic and abroad and has compiled over 50 years of his research to create comprehensive training tools to read the hidden emotions of those around you and believes we can all improve our ability to do this, with training[v] and Dan Hill has this training. IMAGE SOURCE: The New York Times November 18, 2014 https://nyti.ms/3nCE7co I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or parent working in the corporate space. Our guest for this week’s podcast, Dan Hill, whose latest books consist of Famous Faces Decoded: A Guidebook for Reading Others;[vi] Two Cheers for Democracy: How Emotions Drive Leadership Style[vii]; and First Blush: People’s Intuitive Reactions to Famous Art[viii] will help us to take a deep dive into understanding why we need to be able to read the emotions in others. His earlier, busin

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #162 with Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University, Dr. Anna Lembke.[i] Visit the episode website here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pu82wZRZwo Watch the interview with visuals on YouTube here. Backstory and Introduction 0-13:00 minutes Interview with Dr. Lembke 13:00-49:45 Follow Dr. Lembke https://profiles.stanford.edu/anna-lembke To See Past Episodes of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ In Today's Episode, you will learn:✔︎ About the addictive nature of social media, as well as why people become addicted to certain behaviors and substances. ✔︎About her 30 Day Dopamine Fast: An 8 step process that she suggests to help us to reset our brains if we have had a surplus of dopamine in our brain due to over-indulgence that helps many people "kick their bad habits" to the curb. ✔︎ What is happening in the brain when we experience withdrawals when we try to stop a habit or behavior and how to overcome this uncomfortable feeling for increased happiness, mental health and awareness. ✔︎What exactly is the pleasure/pain balance and why we should all be able to recognize when we are getting too much of a good thing. ✔︎How to return to whatever it is that you enjoyed in moderation. You may have seen her in the Netflix Documentary The Social Dilemma [ii] where she discusses the addictive nature of social media, explaining that it taps into “our basic biological imperative to connect with other people—that directly affects the release of dopamine and the reward pathway” (32:35 The Social Dilemma) and she warns us that “there’s no doubt that a vehicle like social media which optimizes this connection between people is going to have the potential for addiction.” Dr. Lembke is more concerned with our children and her children (who appear in the documentary with her) and on today’s podcast, she will arm us with the knowledge that she shares with her own children daily. Her book Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked and Why It’s So Hard to Stop[iii] (2016) is a good overview of what addiction is, and the dangers of prescription drugs. Her NEW book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence[iv] that was just released last month, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain…and what to do about it. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or parent working in the corporate space. This week’s interview with Dr. Anna Lembke on her NEW book Dopamine Nation is based on true stories of her patients falling prey to addiction and finding their way out again with stories that many of us might find to be shocking, but she explains that “they are just extreme versions of what we are all capable of.” (Dopamine Nation) When reading this book, or listening to this interview, I encourage you to think about your own life, your behaviors and what you might be running from since we are all running from something and like we have mentioned many times before on the podcast, awareness is the key to making any behavior change that can have a lasting impact on our productivity and results. My hope is that we can all take an honest look and find places where we might be leaking energy, to close those gaps, and redirect that energy towards our goals. We covered the topic of addictio

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #161 with 2 returning guests, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey from EPISODE #77[i] from last August 2020 on “Developing and Delivering High Quality Distance Learning for Students” that became our most watched YouTube interview and we also have the co-author of their new book that we are diving into today, How Learning Works, John Almarode. Watch this video on YouTube. To Learn More About How Learning Works https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/how-learning-works/book279410#description To Learn More About Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey https://fisherandfrey.com/ To See Past Episodes of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments so this podcast was created to share ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or parent working in the corporate space. Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Almarode Background and Short Bio: Just to view our speakers for today, our returning guests Doug and Nancy are also both teacher leaders at Health Sciences High & Middle College[ii], an award-winning open-enrollment public school in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego that they co-founded in 2007. For over 2 decades, they have dedicated their work to the knowledge and skills teachers and school leaders need to help students attain their goals. Their shared interests include instructional design, curriculum development, and professional learning. Doug and Nancy have co-authored numerous articles and books on literacy, and leadership that I’ve included links to in the show notes, including: This is Balanced Literacy,[iii] The Teacher Clarity Playbook, PLC+,[iv] All Learning is Social & Emotional,[v] The Teacher Credibility and Collective Efficacy Playbook,[vi] and most recently The Distance Learning Playbook[vii] with co-author John Hattie[viii]. Dr. John Almarode has worked with schools, classrooms, and teachers all over the world. John began his career teaching mathematics and science in Augusta County to a wide range of students. Since then, he has presented locally, nationally, and internationally on the application of the science of learning to the classroom, school, and home environments. He has worked with hundreds of school districts and thousands of teachers. In addition to his time in PreK – 12 schools and classrooms, he is an Associate Professor and Executive Director of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education at James Madison University. When you view some of the teacher resources and videos on the Companion Website, you will meet John in the Intro and Purpose Behind this new Playbook. I’m excited to welcome back University Professors Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey, with John Almarode, to dive deeper into their new book, How Learning Works: A Playbook[ix] that unpacks the science of how students learn and translates that knowledge into promising principles or practices that can be implemented in the classroom or utilized by students on their own learning journey. Designed to help educators create learning experiences that better align with how learning works, each module in this playbook is grounded in research and features prompts, tools, practice exercises, and discussion strategies that help teachers to Describe what is meant by learning in the local context of your classroom, including identifying any barriers to learning. Adapt promising principles and practices to meet the specific needs of

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #160 with Chrissy Barth, MS, RDN, RYT, an integrative and functional sports registered dietician and mind-body expert in the field of nutrition who is passionate about teaching others about optimal health and performance by taking the confusion out of nutrition. Episode website. Watch this interview on YouTube here. Learn more about Chrissy Barth https://livebreathenutrition.com/ Past Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast Episodes https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. I first met Chrissy Barth a couple of weeks ago, when she was asked to speak at our daughter’s gym, to help a team of aspiring gymnasts, improve their nutrition, and be sure they are fueling their bodies efficiently. I was blown away with her presentation, as I always have in the back of my head, what else can I learn to help my family and others when it comes to the Top 5 Health Staples that we have been talking about on this podcast, so I immediately asked Chrissy to join us. A bit more about Chrissy—she is the founder and CEO of Live Breathe Nutrition, LLC and Nutrition Lifestyle Education – nutrition coaching and consulting practices in Phoenix, Arizona where she serves as a nutrition consultant to sports teams, spas, behavioral health programs, medical and training facilities, corporations, and local and national media outlets serving as a media spokesperson. Chrissy is also a Lecturer at Arizona State University where she teaches sports nutrition, complementary health care, human nutrition and entrepreneurship and serves as a mentor to many aspiring future RDs. Chrissy has received many awards but the single highest mark of achievement as a dietitian she has received recognition as Arizona’s Young Dietitian of the Year. Chrissy enjoys giving back to her community and volunteers her time educating youth athletes on the benefits of sports nutrition. Let’s meet Chrissy Barth and sharpen our saw with regards to high performance fuel! Welcome Chrissy! Thank you so much for speaking with me today—I know it’s busy times with back to school and sports in full swing. Intro Q: So I picked up in your presentation the other Friday night where we first met that you worked in MLB. Did you consult with the AZ Diamondbacks or was it another team? I wonder, besides the comment you made about all the Red Bull drinks on the bench, what did you learn from working with a pro sports team? Q1: I picked up so much from your “High Performance Fuel Presentation” and wanted to give our listeners an overview of this presentation, since this is one of the Top 5 health staples that we are focused on with the podcast. And who doesn’t want to learn the tips you would offer to a pro sports team! Can you share what you think are the 6 Keys to Optimal Performance and for those who have athletes in their home, what do you think is crucial for the athlete to be aware of with regards to using food as fuel? Q2: This next question is powerful because you know you can learn something and what’s the point if you don’t implement it in your life to reap the rewards. This next question is where my 2 girls (ages 11 and 9) who were in your presentation the other night, payed attention and implemented what you taught them. I was so proud of them, because nutrition is an area that we have some weaknesses in. Can you break down what should be on an athlete’s plate? What was powerful about what you taught us was that now, on training days, my girls show me their meal plates and break down what you suggested they eat (grains/carbs vs fruits/veggies vs le

Welcome back, to a BONUS Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning episode that I want to dedicate to YOU, the listener. It took this podcast a bit over 2 years to hit the 100k download milestone, and like any goal we have (whether a sales goal or something you want to do, it might seem so far off, you wonder how you’ll ever get there). If you are reading these notes on iTunes, click here to see all images. In February of this year, when we hit the 50k mark, it wasn’t hard to project the download numbers and guess when we would hit this milestone, but it still seemed like a moonshot goal, difficult to imagine, and August (when we projected, we would hit this goal) seemed so far away. Do you know what I mean? Do you have something you are working on where the gap from you are now and where you are going seems like an impossible goal? Even when you have the belief? Even when the evidence is there? I could hear how the episodes were helping people around the world thanks to the messages you sent me, but a part of me had just an ounce of disbelief, and I thought “is this really happening?” wondering if the momentum would continue to build. But the numbers never lie. They kept going up, and each month, we would surpass our monthly goal target. This weekend, while away with the family in Long Beach, CA, I look out of the window and can see the Legendary Queen Mary Ship[i] in the port as I watch our statistics graph project upwards (see image in the show notes) as we break records with our monthly downloads since launching, and surpass the 100k download mark, with the next milestone on our list to hit 1 million downloads which seems much more difficult but yet not impossible as we break this down into smaller targets. The Queen Mary ship is a symbolic metaphor to look at this weekend as “This iconic ship is now a floating museum, and tourist attraction.”[ii] Sadly, the hotel is currently closed but my husband had an opportunity to stay on the ship on one of his work trips, and he took me on a tour on FaceTime, where I asked him to show me all of the rooms that had mystery and intrigue surrounding them. If you are like me, and love a good ghost story, look up the history of The Queen Mary that was named one of the “Top 10 most haunted places on earth”[iii] and look up the story of Stateroom 340B. The scariest thing we noticed was that there was no room 340B. Where it should have been, it was boarded up and no longer accessible for the public, unless things have changed, but we might not ever know this, as we mentioned this spooky hotel is currently closed to the public due to COVID-19. The Queen Mary's Stateroom 340B was boarded up. The Queen Mary Hotel Rooms, just no 340B Stateroom. Andrea Samadi standing in front of the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. This retired British ocean liner sailed on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 from Southampton, a port city on England’s south coast, just 2 hours from where I lived in England before my parents immigrated to Canada. On the Queen Mary Ship’s website, I saw a quote written by King George V that made me think about anything new that goes out into the world. When you’re create something out of nothing, like The Queen Mary before it was named, was known only as “Hull #534”[iv] which was the yard number where it was being built. Whatever it is that you are creating, the hope is that it makes an impact within your local community, rippling that impact throughout your state, country, nation, and eventually throughout the world. Listen to this quote and think about whatever it is that you are creating and I hope it energizes you, like it did for me. "Today we come to the happy task of sending on her way the stateliest ship now in being. It has been the nation’s will that she should be completed, and today we can send her forth no longer a number on the books, but a ship with a name in the world, alive with beauty, energy and strength! May her life among great

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #159 with Dr. Michael A. Rousell, PhD[i] a teacher, psychologist, and professor emeritus at Southern Oregon University who has studied how random events transform us. After studying formative events, which are moments that define us, or strongly influence us, for over three decades, Michael Rousell discovered that most of them took place during a spark of surprise and serve as a mechanism to instantly change our beliefs. Watch the interview on YouTube here. Learn more about Michael Rousell and The Power of Surprise Book (coming out Sept.15) I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. In today’s episode, we will speak with Michael Rousell about his new book, The Power of Surprise: How Your Brain Secretly Changes Your Beliefs.[ii] Michael will show us how surprising events produce invisible influence because they open a window to spontaneous belief change with no warning or conscious awareness. You’ll see how a seemingly minor feature of surprise can be devised to strategically enrich someone’s life (personally or in the workplace) and create positive mindsets, for students or employees while maximizing your influence for those in leadership roles. You can dive deeper into The Power of Surprise by watching Michael’s TED TALK.[iii] 30% DISCOUNT ON The Power of Surprise BOOK https://rowman.com/ use CODE RLFANDF30 (by Sept. 30, 2021) Here’s what people are saying about Michael Rousell’s new book: “Fascinating read chock full of lots of truly novel information and ideas. A must-read for anyone interested in enriching their lives and finding new ways to expand their mind.”—Andrew Newberg, MD, best-selling author of Why We Believe What We Believe. “A fascinating book. The Power of Surprise shows what most of us miss about moments that change us.”—Jonah Berger, New York Times best-selling author of 3 Books, The Catalyst, Contagious, and Invisible Influence In today’s episode you will learn: What happens in the brain when we experience surprise? Why random events transform us, and how they secretly change our beliefs. How to use this understanding of surprise at the brain level to enrich/transform someone else’s life dramatically and instantly (in the workplace or classroom environment). As you are listening to this episode I encourage you to think about where surprise has shown up in your life. Has someone ever said something to you that caught your attention, and made you think? What did you do with this new information? Did you use it? Did that moment change or transform you in some way, like Jonah Berger’s testimonial offered or did you just dismiss it, never to think about it again? And finally, have you ever wondered “what just happened there?” I hope that we can dive a bit deeper and see if we can uncover some meaning behind the element of surprise in your life and offer you a framework to intentionally impact those around you, on a deeper level, with the Power of Surprise. Let’s meet Michael Rousell. Welcome Michael, it’s wonderful to see you again--thank you so much for speaking with me today. We set this interview up months ago, and August seemed so far away at the time! Doesn’t time fly! Q1: I know that if we all think about it, we can come up with a time in our life where we experienced a surprise that had a profound impact on us, but most of us don’t think that deeply about something like this. We plan surprise parties, love surprise gifts, but what makes a surprise so special? Q2: What drew your attention to study the impact that surprise has on someone’s life and belief system? Was there an experience that surprised and chan

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #158 with a return of our popular guest, expert in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and neurotechnology, Dr. Howard Rankin from episodes #146[i] and #152[ii] with Grant Renier, who started his venture into ‘Intuitive Rationality’[iii] 30 years before Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman published his groundbreaking book, Thinking, Fast and Slow[iv] creating a company that uses Intuitive General Intelligence (a knock off term like Artificial Intelligence) to predict near and future events, while taking into account the fundamentals of human behavior. So basically, he has created a predictive technology that can peer into the future of sports predictions, health and medicine. Watch the interview on YouTube here. Learn more about Grant Renier and Dr. Howard Rankin's artificial intelligence system https://intualityai.com/ See past episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ In Today's Episode, you will learn:✔︎ How to Improve Our Strategic Decision-Making Process with the Most Common Cognitive Biases in Mind. ✔︎ How Grant's AI System (that can be used by anyone) can predict sports wins, medicine and financial markets. ✔︎ How Howard and Grant wrote their book, Intuitive Rationality to explain the future of decision-making, through the lens of Artificial Intelligence. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. Dr. Rankin and Grant Renier will discuss their new book, Intuitive Rationality, that brings to light the fact that humans are not entirely rational but instead are influenced by several factors in arriving at decisions, like subconscious and environmental processes, and a need for emotional comfort and ideological consistency. These are “heuristics” which are defined as “mental shortcuts” designed to reduce the energy involved in critical thinking and complex processing, showing that pure rationality is almost never practical or possible for human beings and that even the most seemingly rational conclusions are at best probabilities based on the currently known data, which would almost certainly change over time. While these notions are not new, they have appeared in a new context, the 21st century where technology is prevalent and social connection has never been greater. These contemporary processes mean that the various ways that people think have never been more important. Understanding cognitive biases is now critical for anyone in being more aware and efficient in not just their own thinking but also that of others. I know that local police departments now train their employees on cognitive bias, so officers are aware of how their thinking impacts their decision-making on the job, and cognitive bias is an important concept for educators to think about in the classroom, as well in any workplace environment for that matter. Which biases and heuristics are programmed into Intuitive Rationality and how are they incorporated? This new book and our interview will answer these questions, as well as demonstrating the proven success of such a system that is a new direction in artificial intelligence logic. Grant and Howard will introduce this fascinating and paradoxical[v] connection between Intuition and Rationality to help us better understand the strategic decision-making process, to understand how and why we make the decisions that we do, how our world is defined by them, and show how this new approach to artificial intelligence can shift its development to a more human behavior-based logic, leading to a new field of AI-Intuitive General Intelligence. I like the sounds of this! Who doesn’t want to figure out new ways to impro

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and episode #157 on a topic that I think we should be aware of: Digital Addictions: Do You Know What’s Happening to Your Brain When You are Using Certain Apps on Your Smartphone, or Using Your Smartphone at All? EXCITING UPDATE: Stay tuned (early September) for an exclusive interview with Dr. Anna Lembke, Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine who inspired this episode. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. This week’s Brain Fact Friday kind of snuck its way into my schedule, as I wasn’t planning on writing this topic and think there are many other podcasts that cover the subject of addiction[i] more thoroughly than I ever could, but it all started last Friday night when I was out at dinner with my husband and our two friends that we met on the hiking trails, Scott and Ruth. Scott, a business consultant who travels for his work, was home for a change, so we met up at a local restaurant and chatted about life, and what was on our minds that day. The conversation took a turn towards our phones, that we never have out at the table, and social media, and how addictive some of the apps are for the human brain. Scott mentioned he rarely uses social media, and I think I said something along the lines of “That’s really smart” remembering the Netflix Documentary Social Dilemma[ii] that scared the living daylights out of me. I wrote this down (on my phone) while watching the movie that “Magicians were like the first neuroscientists” What do magicians and neuroscientists have in common? Both are concerned with how the brain works. In magic, people try to fool the brain and in neuroscience, they are trying to understand the brain and this documentary will show you how the creators of technology apps have designed their software to trick or fool the human brain, just like magic, into addiction. When we can use an understanding of neuroscience, or how our brains work in these situations, we can take a powerful stance towards being in control, instead of being controlled by these apps. I was blown away when I heard one of the app developers in this movie, say that he had to develop a code to break his addiction to Reddit. I don’t use Reddit, but completely understood what he was saying. The next morning, we hit the hiking trails as usual, and we ran into Scott and Ruth along the way. Scott told me that he saw an article in the newspaper that might interest me about our conversation last night, and he had put it on the windshield of my car. “Sounds good” I said, forgetting what we were even talking about the night before, and then at the end of the hike, sure enough, he had pinned The Wall Street Journal on my windshield with an article called “Digital Addictions Are Drowning Us in Dopamine[iii]” by Dr. Anna Lembke (who also appeared in the Netflix Documentary Social Dilemma) with a headline that would catch anyone’s attention these days “Rising rates of depression and anxiety in wealthy countries like the US may be the results of our brains getting hooked on the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure.” I read the article written by Dr. Lembke, a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University and saw that this article was an essay from her forthcoming book (coming out next week-August 24th) called Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence[iv] that was about a young patient of hers who came to her with debilitating anxiety and depression and what was interesting is that instead of prescribing him antidepressants like she would have done 20 years ago, she uncovered that

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and episode #156 that takes us back to the Top 5 health staples that we introduced at the end of 2020[i] when I was asked to speak at Podbean’s Wellness Week[ii] with Dr. Carolyn Leaf. I’ve listed a reminder to these 5 health staples in the show notes and think it’s important to revisit them using the principle of “spaced repetition” since “where our attention goes, energy flows” (James Redfield) with the idea that as we move in the direction of our goals this next year, that we do so with our physical and mental health in mind. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. Medical Disclaimer: Just a reminder—I would consider myself a researcher, sharing preventative and supplemental ideas and strategies related to the most current research on the brain, health and wellness education. In addition to studying directly with Mark Robert Waldman, a leading neuroscience researcher and expert on communication learning and the brain, I spend my evenings, weekends and spare time making connections with our past speakers, so that I can share these ideas to help bring more awareness to the advancements made in this fast moving field. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have about your health and remember that you should never disregard medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you learn through this podcast. Back to our episode—You may have noticed the shift towards health and wellbeing at the end of 2020 as we were a good year into the Pandemic, and who wasn’t looking for ways to improve their mental and physical health to improve cognition, productivity, and results. When I look at the top 5 health staples, I know that some of them I can put a check next to, and say “making progress here” and some areas I know I have completely forgotten about, and if these 5 health staples are important for future brain health, mental health and Alzheimer’s prevention, I know it’s important to keep learning as much as possible to further optimize these areas. As I am researching and learning, I will share anything important and relevant on our future Brain Fact Friday episodes. This week I wanted to focus on Health Staple #4 “Optimizing our Microbiome” because I still have questions myself about best practices in this area and making a stronger case for the gut-brain connection as we figure out the best ways to fix, repair and rebuild our body so that we can be the best possible versions of ourselves. To do this, I wanted to share some key findings from Jonathan Otto’s recent documentary Autoimmune Answers[iii] with some ideas that he brings to light to help everyone understand that strengthening our immune system is the key to disease prevention and health, and how understanding Autoimmune Diseases (like Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis or Type 1 Diabetes) all begins with an understanding of the gut-brain connection. We all know the toll that the Pandemic took on our mental health, and I was reminded today with a post on Instagram from Amen Clinics[iv] that “suicide hotlines have seen a significant increase in calls due to (the) Coronavirus” and that “we must continue navigating the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.” I think back to my interview with Dr. Carolyn Leaf[v] who I hosted Podbean’s Wellness week with last December, and her most recent book that we covered on a bonus episode this past March reminds us that we must “Clean Up Our Mental Mess” since “unmanaged toxic stress puts our body into low-

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for episode #155 with Adam Tyner from the Thomas Fordham Institute[i] (an organization that promotes educational excellence for every child in America via quality research, analysis, and commentary) on his newly released report How to Sell SEL: Parents and the Politics of Social and Emotional Learning. Watch this interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/BWe04ByXOpk Access the Online Report here https://sel.fordhaminstitute.org/ Access past episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On this episode, you will learn: The TOP 5 Findings from Adam Tyner's NEW REPORT "Parents and the Politics of Social-Emotional Learning" I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. We do this by covering the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning (for schools) and emotional intelligence training (in the workplace). Our podcast provides tools, resources and ideas for parents, teachers, and employees to improve well-being, achievement and productivity using simple neuroscience as it relates to our cognitive (the skills our brain uses to think, read, remember, pay attention), social and interpersonal relationships (with ourselves and others) and emotional learning (where we recognize and manage our emotions, demonstrate empathy and cope with frustration and stress). This past week, as I was researching and learning new ideas for upcoming episodes, I saw a notification come through my phone from Twitter that caught my attention. It was from Victoria McDougald, from the Fordham Institute in Washington DC and she let me know that they were about to release a new report that explores how parents view SEL and how they want it taught in schools. We have all seen how the mental-health challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic have made it more urgent to better support students’ social and emotional learning needs while also advancing their academic learning, so I put down what I was doing and wrote her back immediately. This topic is urgent, timely and important. Every day I see emails about trainings in our schools to support our students SEL needs and the challenges we have all faced are not going away, they are changing and persisting in a way I don’t think any of us imagined. The challenge that I have seen from the very beginning of watching SEL being implemented in schools across the US (starting in 2014 with just 8 States to our present day where all 50 States have some sort of SEL implementation plan) is that educators saw the importance of SEL, but didn’t know where to begin, they weren’t sure which program to use, how to integrate the SEL competencies into the curriculum. Following many of the early SEL webinars, I noticed this was a common theme. This is why we launched The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast in June 2019 to gather ideas, strategies and best practices for those interested in learning more about this topic, with easy-to-understand implementation strategies and ideas for our schools and workplaces. The topics we cover on this podcast were going to be an Introduction to SEL Course with a well-known educational publisher, but when this direction changed, I decided to put this content out into the world, for free, to help support educators and those in the workplace. I had no idea that this podcast would gain a global following, going into 153 countries and approaching 100,000 downloads (over 8K downloads/month) as we noticed that educators and those in the workplace were looking for new ways to sharpen their saw—with these skills that are not new, but are newly important. If this is how educators were feeling

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for episode #154 with someone who travels globally presenting about something we all need to learn how to experience in today’s world--- author of 6 books and the co-creator of the Portal Film/book experience, where he teaches about the power in the stillness and the science behind the stillness—Tom Cronin, also known as The King of Calm.[i] Watch this interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/veUZ-C5REl4 Learn more about Tom Cronin here https://www.tomcronin.com/ See past episodes of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On this episode, you will learn: ✔︎ How Tom Cronin, from Australia, overcame a nervous breakdown by starting a meditation practice, inspiring him to share his story others with The Portal Film and Book. ✔︎ A Deep Dive into the Top 4 Meditation Styles (Concentration, Contemplation, Chanting and Transcendental). ✔︎ Tom’s thoughts on The Plane of Possibility and How to Create Something Out of Nothing. ✔︎ Why meditation is an important and timely topic to change the world during these high-stress and anxiety times. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. Our guest this week, Tom Cronin[ii] spent 26 years in finance, as one of Sydney Australia’s leading bond and swap brokers. He discovered meditation in the early stages of his career when anxiety and chaos he was experiencing due to stress and poor lifestyle choices led him to a breakdown. He came across meditation, and it completely transformed his life—both personally and professionally. Today Tom is passionate about reducing stress and chaos in people’s lives and his mission is to inspire 7 billion people to meditate daily through his Stillness Project that aims to transform and teach people the power of stillness and calm through the power of deep meditation and coaching. His work in transformational leadership and cultivating inner peace takes him around the world as a speaker, presenting keynotes, hosting retreats and teaching. Tom has appeared on national TV, and featured in Vogue, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, Business Review and many other media outlets. When I first was introduced to Tom Cronin, and looked up his work with The Stillness Project, I knew he was someone I needed to speak with and immediately recognized how important and powerful his mission is. Especially in today’s times. We have featured some speakers on the podcast who have explained meditation, and how to begin, with episode #25[iii] with Mick Neustadt on “How Meditation and Mindfulness Changes Your Life” and episode #28[iv] with Dr. Daniel J Siegel took us a bit deeper with his episode on “Mindsight: The Basis for Social and Emotional Intelligence.” I’m excited to dive even deeper into the power of meditation, exploring what we can all expect with our practice, and where and how to begin, at a time when we could all use stillness, calm and peace in our lives. “When life is built on the stillness of being, it becomes an effortless flow.” –Tom Cronin Let’s meet Tom Cronin! Welcome Tom Cronin, thank you for meeting with me today—all the way from Australia! It’s incredible to speak directly with The King of Calm-just what I need today. INTRO: Tom, before we get to the questions to dive deeper into The Stillness Project, and your Movie and Book The Portal, can you share what even brought you to start looking at meditation in the first place? Especially since it’s been challenging times for many people all over the world, and times where stress is at an all-time high, along with anxiety and depression. Can you share what happened to you tha

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for episode #153 with Mark Herschberg[i], the author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. Watch this interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/ifPsPNT36WE Learn more about Mark Herschberg and his Career Toolkit Book here https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com/ See past episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, sports, and the workplace with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. Our guest for this week, Mark Herschberg, who has spent his career identifying and studying the skill gap that exists for what he calls firm skills, including networking, negotiating, communicating, leading, and career planning. We tend to think of many of these as situational skills, but Herschberg says they are really life skills — none of which are formally taught in school. We have been talking about these skills since the launch of this podcast 2 years ago. We call them social and emotional skills as they are known in our schools emotional intelligence skills in the workplace. I’m extremely interested in speaking to Mark about the gaps that he sees with these skills since a recent survey that I saw and mention often showed that 58% of employers say college graduates aren’t adequately prepared for today’s workforce, and those employers noted a particular gap in social and emotional skills. Students who learn to master these important skills will get ahead faster with less effort and frustration than those who lack these skills. We have spoken a lot about the social and interpersonal skills, emotional and cognitive skills where there is a clear gap on this podcast. These skills do translate into the workplace to help students prepare for life after high school, into college, career and beyond. Just to recap, there are five distinct components of Emotional Intelligence that are important in the workplace: Self-awareness: This is important in the workplace because you need to know yourself first before you can help others with your product or service. Self-regulation: There will be many times in the day where you will be tested and to be able to manage your emotions under pressure is very important. Internal (or intrinsic) motivation: What is motivating you to get up and serve each day? Empathy: is an important skill to have to connect with others. You must be able to see the world through someone else’s eyes. Social skills: are important from ordering your lunch in a restaurant, to picking up your rental car and dealing with the front desk employees in the hotel you are staying at. If students do not learn these skills at an early age, they will struggle with their life and future career. Whatever model or SEL competency a school uses, whether it’s the Casel 5 competencies[ii] that we have modelled our work after, or something similar that Renee Adams explained in EPISODE #151[iii] with the Goleman Emotional Intelligence Training Model, the idea is that we prepare our next generation of students to thrive in this ever-changing world and that we as adults are modelling these skills. Before we meet Mark, I want to share a bit more about the work he has been doing the past few decades, as there is always so much more to someone than meets the eye with the books they write, or their career path. Mark is the author of The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. Educated at MIT, Mark has spent his career launching and fixing new ventures at startups, Fortune 500s, and academia. He’s developed new software languages, online marketplaces, new authentication systems, and tracked criminals and terrorists on the dark web. I must ask him something

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, episode #152 with a special episode with expert in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, Dr. Howard Rankin who will interview me for a change of pace. Watch the interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/Sh7_HAGzkhQ See past episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ A review of 3/6 Social and Emotional Learning Competencies ✔︎ Andrea’s Background and Where it All Began ✔︎ How She Started Working with Educational Neuroscience ✔︎ How Her Level Up Programs Were Chosen by AZ Department of Education ✔︎ How to Use an Understanding of the Brain to Impact Behavior ✔︎ How to Use Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace I'm Andrea Samadi, author and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, sports, and the workplace with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately, for improved results. This week, with the 2021 Olympics[i] in full swing, some of the headlines have caught my attention, specifically the story of gymnast Simone Biles, since both of my girls are in competitive gymnastics, with a rigorous training schedule. Assistant Superintendent Greg Wolcott, from Chicago, who has appeared on our podcast twice so far with EPISODE #7[ii] on “Building Relationships in Today’s Classrooms” and again for EPISODE #64[iii] on “Making Connections with Neuroscience and Social and Emotional Learning” pointed out that Biles used "self-awareness, self-management and responsible decision-making to look after her personal well-being" proving that these skills are not just important, but crucial to develop in our children, for future success. As I was preparing to release my interview with Dr. Rankin, I thought it would be important to review these 3 Social and Emotional Learning Competencies and reflect on them to see where we are with them in our personal and professional life. These competencies are the backbone to what we cover on this podcast, with our goals to connect these competencies to the most current neuroscience research, hence the name of our podcast, “Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning.” Review of Three Important Social and Emotional Learning Competencies: If we think about how these competencies played out for Simone Biles, I’m sure we could all agree that we use these important competencies on a day-to-day basis. It’s not just our students who must think about making responsible decisions, it’s all of us, every day, as we juggle life’s many obstacles like our work, family and all of the changes that come our way in our personal and professional lives. For today’s episode, we will look at the three competencies that Greg Wolcott pointed out she used and see if we can think about them in our daily life. Are you self-aware? How about your self-management? Are you in control of your emotions and behaviors? Do you make responsible decisions? SELF-AWARENESS: We released this episode #2[iv] in July 2019 and this episode gained immediate interest since to “know thyself” is the most substantial achievement we can have in our lifetime. “The major value in life is not what you get. It’s what you become.” (Jim Rohn, American author, speaker and entrepreneur). So, let’s take a deeper look. What is self-awareness, why do we need it, and how can we get more of it? Self-awareness is “the ability to see ourselves clearly, understand who we are, how others see us and how we fit into the world.”[v] When we have self-awareness, we have a power within ourselves because there is a comfort in knowing who exactly we are and where we fit into the larger world around us. Research shows that “people who are more self-aware have stronger relationships, are more creative, competent are better communicators and perform better at work.” Do you kn

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for episode #151 with certified Goleman Emotional Intelligence coach, Renée Adams. Watch the interview on YouTube.https://youtu.be/aavQGiAAXo8 Download 3 FREE EQ Guides from Renee's website FREE EQ Guides https://hoppypoppie.com/guide-sign-up/ See past episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ Why Renee sees the importance of teaching EI to young children and their parents as critical work. ✔︎ What are the Emotional Intelligence Competencies that the Goleman Training focuses on. ✔︎ What's missing from today's corporate environments? ✔︎ EI strategies that parents can use immediately to reduce stress while at the same time supporting your child at home or in the classroom. Renée Adams[i] is a children’s book author, writing books that teach children and parents foundational Emotional Intelligence skills, including being able to identify and name their emotions. We have seen the importance of this skill that started with our interview #28[ii] with Dr. Daniel Siegel who talks about the importance of naming an emotion to tame it[iii] and then again with the Founding Director of Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, Marc Brackett on episode #22[iv] with his book, Permission to Feel. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, sports, and the workplace with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. When I was introduced to Renée Adams, I saw her background as a Certified Goleman Emotional Intelligence[v] coach, I immediately contacted her to see if I could pick her brain on many questions that I am asked myself in the area of Emotional Intelligence. Why not ask an expert when I have the chance. Let’s meet Renée Adams. Welcome Renée, thank you for coming on the podcast today to speak with me. Are you still located in Bolder, CO? I almost considered moving to CO from Toronto in the late 1990s, since it was the Columbine tragedy that caused me to move to the US back then. I picked AZ because I really struggled with the altitude in CO. Q1: I did watch some of your other podcasts to learn more about why you started this work centered around Emotional Intelligence, and I will link these episodes in the show notes, but did wonder at what point in your career did you see the importance of teaching Emotional Intelligence to children and parents? Where was the missing link? Q2: I cover 6 social and emotional competencies on this podcast (Mindset, Decision-Making, Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Regulated Learning/Self-Management, and Relationship Skills) as they closely mirror www.casel.org’s SEL competencies. Can you explain the competencies that were important in your Goleman Certification Program, and maybe how you would teach them to a parent or child? (Self-awareness, self-management, others awareness, relationship management). Q3: When I first launched this podcast, I interviewed my husband on episode #1 on “The Importance of Setting Up an SEL Program in Your School, or Emotional Intelligence Training Program in Your Workplace.”[vi] And it’s funny thinking about it now because he had just got home from traveling and I handed him a list of questions and said “Can you answer these and speak into the mic?” It was a memorable launch to the podcast. Why do you think it’s so important to teach these skills at an early age and what skills do you think are missing from today’s corporate environments? Q4: So growing up, we didn’t talk about our emotions in my home. If I ever cried at all, my Dad would yell at me because he hated to see emotion. And I’m the type that wears my emotions on my sleeve. I couldn’t hide them, not even when I knew I’d get a kick in the behind if I ever

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for episode #150 with Scott Flansburg[i] who Regis Philbin called “The Human Calculator[ii]” because he can mentally count faster than a calculator. Watch this interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/aa8mbxvYqrc Learn more about Scott Flansburg's online programs here. https://scottflansburg.com/a/andrea See past episodes here. https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/ On this episode you will learn:✔︎ How someone with incredible math abilities has started the National Counting Bee to share his talents with students around the country. ✔︎ 2 NEW WAYS to look at numeracy and math that will change your mindset forever. ✔︎ How Scott Flansburg got into the Guinness World Book of Records for his unique mathematical abilities and what his brain scans revealed about his brain. ✔︎ Scott's vision for the future and how he plans to change the way ALL 3rd graders approach math in the future. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, sports, and the workplace with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. I do want to thank the listeners who have sent me messages through social media about how you are using these podcast episodes in your personal and professional lives. We are approaching our goal of hitting 200 episodes and 100,000 downloads and couldn’t do this without listeners, or high-quality guests. Back to this episode. After being introduced to Howard Berg[iii], who holds the Guinness World record for speed reading, I was introduced to Dave Farrow[iv], a two-time Guinness World Record holder for correctly memorizing and recalling the exact order of 59 decks of shuffled playing cards. I began to see that extraordinary results are possible, when regular people, like you and me, do certain things in a certain way. I look forward to sharing Scott Flansburg’s story, to see what strategies we can learn and implement to help us all improve our numeracy skills. Yes, he does hold the Guinness World Record for the fastest mental calculation after adding the same number to itself more times in 15 seconds, even faster than anyone could do with a calculator. I’ve heard of the importance of developing strong numeracy skills twice already, from past guests. On episode #138,[v] Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Dr. Daniel Ansari, affirmed that research shows that students with weak numeracy skills are more likely to default on their mortgage payments in the future, and on episode #146[vi] Dr. Howard Rankin, an expert in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience who spoke on the topic of “How Not to Think” agreed that low numeracy skills are a noticeable problem in the US, and that many people have no idea on the concept of “compounding interest.” Let’s see what we can learn from Scott Flansburg. But first, here’s a bit more about him. Since about 1990 Scott Flansburg has regularly given lectures and presentations at schools. He has been a presenter at organizations such as NASA, IBM, The Smithsonian Institution, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the Mental Calculation World Cup. The latter described Flansburg as “more an auditory than a visual [mental] calculator”. One of Flansburg’s “personal missions” is to use education to elevate math confidence and self-esteem in adults and children. He says “Why has it become so socially acceptable to be bad at math?,” and reminds us that “If you were illiterate, you wouldn’t say that on TV, but you can say that you are bad at math. We have to change the attitude.” He believes students should become proficient with calculation methods rather than relying on table memorization. Scott is the creator of The Counting Bee™[vii], an annual STEM compet