Brain Fact Friday: Review of Greg Link’s Book Challenge ”Using Neuroscience to Create Our Legacy”

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

On this episode we will cover:

✔ Brain Fact: DID YOU KNOW THAT "95% of the decisions we make take place in our subconscious mind?" (Deane Alban).

✔ A review of EP #207 with Greg Link with his tips to INTENTIONALLY create a legacy, reading a book a week. 

✔ Applying the 7 Levels of Awareness to our Daily Life to Be INTENTIONAL With the Life We Create.

✔REMINDER: To see and recognize the "spirit" in everyone. 

What does this mean to you? On today’s episode we will be diving into this quote…to see how much of our life we really do have control over. At the end of this episode I hope to show that with being intentional about every action we are taking, that we don’t leave anything up to chance, and that we can in fact, create an exciting life, and future, without relying on chance or luck, and there’s magic in the creation process, that illuminates the fact that there’s much more to who we are. I am not just my name, Andrea Samadi (or the human being you see), there’s a spiritual side to me, and there’s a spiritual side to you. Do you see it? Do you see the spiritual side in others? Once you see it, you won’t be able to see anything else, and I hope we can all begin to see the “spirit” in each other.

Welcome back to The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast where we bridge the gap between theory and practice, with strategies, tools and ideas we can all use immediately, applied to the most current brain research to heighten productivity in our schools, sports environments and modern workplaces. I’m Andrea Samadi, (and I hope by now you see I’m more than just my name, and that you know the “why” behind this podcast without me saying it each week.

With that in mind, for this week’s Brain Fact Friday, I want to go back to EP #207[i] with my dear friend Greg Link, the cofounder of CoveyLink who worked directly with Dr. Stephen Covey for many years, with our episode on “Unleashing Greatness with Neuroscience, SEL, Trust and the 7 Habits.”  On this episode, Greg opened up with the quote I read at the start of this episode, from his back porch in Sedona, Arizona, reminding me just how much the 7 Habits connected to the brain, social and emotional learning and to this magical thing we call life. It was an extraordinary opportunity to speak with Greg on this day, as he hadn’t spoken publicly for almost a decade, since I saw him last, and when I got the prompting to ask him to come on the podcast, there was no way I was going to ignore it, or worry about whether he would say no, or not.

Just a reminder, for those who haven’t listened to episode #207 (go back and check it out—here’s the link to the YouTube interview[ii]) but I met Greg Link when I worked in the motivational speaking industry, when he was brought to help some of the speakers to gain more traction, and solve some of their problems with his experiences. Greg had recently skyrocketed Dr. Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book that sold over 40 million copies since its first publication, and many leaders in the industry were looking to learn from his success. On this episode, Greg gave us a running list of the books that influenced his life, and urged us to do the same to leave a powerful legacy behind.

As we are now in the final weeks of Q3 in 2022, I’ve focused the past few Brain Fact Fridays on Building a Stronger 2.0 version of ourselves, so we can all get a running start to 2023, and when I was interviewing Greg Link, I knew it was going to be an epic interview that I would refer back to often. I just didn’t know how powerful it was going to be at the time, but looking back now, connecting the dots backwards, after just a few months, this episode now has over 1100 downloads. I knew after we recorded that episode that I’d need to do a follow up and be sure to highlight his Legacy Building Activity.

With that in mind, for this week’s Brain Fact Friday, I want to take a closer look at HOW exactly we take control of our life, how do we build a stronger 2.0 version of ourselves in pursuit of whatever it is we are doing, and leave a meaningful legacy for others to learn from?

How do we do this when we know from this week’s Brain Fact that “95% of our decisions take place in our subconscious mind?” (Deane Alban)[iii]

• How can we be sure that we create the future that we want, and help others to do the same, and leave a meaningful legacy, when most of our decisions are made subconsciously?

To build a stronger, 2.0 version of ourselves, intentionally, I’m going to follow Greg Link’s advice from our interview, and keep learning, reading and shaping who I am, since “learning is an active process (where me must learn to access it) at the right moment and apply it in real world contexts.” (Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Professor of Education, Psychology and Neuroscience) who joined us on EP #100.[iv]

When we can see the power that each of us holds, (our spiritual side) we should ALL be capable of doing whatever it is that we want to do, by putting our minds to work, rolling up our sleeves, and intentionally creating something out of nothing with time and effort.

In our interview, Greg suggested that in order to leave a legacy that you are proud of, why not document the books you read, or the people you have studied, that took you to where you are today. His suggestion was so powerful, that I immediately contacted Julie Porter, a good friend of Horacio Sanchez, our 3rd time returning guest from EP #111[v] and asked if she could create a graphic of Greg’s book list, with the top lessons he’s learned in his career, to inspire others to do the same. You can review the image in the show notes, and I’ve also put a link to it in the resource section if you want to print a copy.

To Review Greg Link’s Interview Take-Aways:

He talked about:

• How “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience”
• He challenges us to all read a book a week and then ponder, contemplate, and connect the dots with what you are reading.
• This will inspire you and “people who are inspired are 52% more productive than those who are engaged.”
• This will help you to “Find your voice, and then help others to find theirs.” (8th Habit).
• We captured the 22 books that Greg mentioned inspired him on the graphic Julie created for us in the show notes, and he also listed other notable authors he’s learned from.
• Reminding us that “you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will connect in the future” with whatever it is you are doing.
• He talked about Jack Canfield’s idea of taking “inspired action” and to listen to those promtings as you never know where they will lead you. Have you ever had a gut feeling to reach out to someone, maybe someone you haven’t spoken to in years? I never ignore those promptings!
• Then he told us about Dr. Stephen Covey’s advice that “you’ve got to carry your own weather with you. You are bigger than your weather” which came from Greg’s story of how he almost didn’t go to work with Dr. Covey in the beginning because he would have to work in Utah, after he’s been enjoying the wonderful climate in San Diego, CA for some time. He ended up following Dr. Covey’s advice, and went back and forth between the two states to make this work.
• Finally, Greg talked about the many connections between the 7 Habits, SEL and neuroscience. They are there when you look for them.

REVIEW AND CONCLUSION: WITH THE 7 LEVELS OF AWARENESS

Greg Link built a powerful empire, that he credits to his wife Annie, who saw the vision before he did, and listened to the many promptings they both received. He documented his career for us to all learn from, with the books that inspired his path, and encouraged us to do the same.

So, if “95% of our decisions take place in our subconscious mind” I don’t know about you, but I want to be sure that I’m being intentional with the actions I’m creating, to push me forwards, rather than backwards.

To do this, I will continue with reading as close to a book a week as I can get, and share what I’m learning with you on this podcast. But there’s something else I think we can all do, to be intentional with our growth and this included being aware of the 7 LEVELS OF AWARENESS.

 

Are you aware of them? They are the 7 stages of consciousness in a person’s life, showing the progression from where we all start out (knowing nothing), to where we begin to express our own talents, abilities and individuality. We can either ignore our own special talents, (or our spirit) or we can with discipline, step out and become someone great, unique, inspirational (like Greg, or others I have studied and have show cased on this podcast).

These 7 stages of consciousness can be seen often expressed in music,[vi] psychology,[vii] or even the arts where you see the progression a person takes over the span of their lifetime, towards mastery, or internal wisdom/enlightenment.

To close out this week’s Brain Fact Friday, where we looked at how “95% of our decisions take place in our subconscious mind” (Deane Alban) I wanted to highlight the activity that Greg Link shared with us so that we don’t leave anything up to chance or luck. Keep moving confidently towards your goals, studying, learning and growing and think about where you are in the 7 Levels of Awareness.

The 7 Levels of Awareness: Where are you?

We all begin at the same place:

Survival at the bottom of Barrett’s chart, or the Animal level on the second chart I took from my notes from my days working in the seminar industry. Many people get stuck in this “non-thinking” state where they are not contributing to society. No one wants to be at this bottom level, so they aspire for more.

Each diagram shows how we can move up towards Mastery, where we step out into the world, with our unique talents, contributing something to society, with our knowledge.

It’s the middle steps where our transformation occurs. As we progress up these levels of awareness, as we aspire to be and do more with our lives, our relationships strengthen, along with our self-esteem, and we begin to express our individual talents and abilities, stepping away from the crowd. Once we take action towards our goals, discipline will keep us on track, along with time, effort, study and experience. Stay in the game….until you look up one day, and you realize you are doing the thing that existed only in your dreams. After a lot of experience, you’ve now hit the Mastery, or Sage level where you’ve acquired wisdom, and now, like Greg Link did with his book list, it’s up to us to share what we’ve learned with others, so that we can help others move past these lower levels of awareness, and intentionally create a life of contribution that they can look back on, at the end of their life, and be proud of.

We must control our own destiny, or someone else will!!

I hope this episode has got you thinking about how unique each of are (the spiritual side that we all have) along with how we can all further develop our unique talents and abilities by reading a book a week like Greg Link suggested and then compiling our list of 20 books to share, to create our legacy, and move up the 7 levels of awareness towards mastery where we will be living a purpose-filled life, contributing our special and unique talents and abilities with the world.

That seems to be the meaning of life to me…I’ll see you next week.

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:

Greg Link’s 22 Book List Graphic https://www.dropbox.com/s/62cw8ab2kt8ixof/Andrea_Samadi_091222%20%281%29.png?dl=0

Julie Porter on Twitter https://twitter.com/JuliePorterEC 

REFERENCES:

[i]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #207 with Greg Link on “Unleashing Greatness with Neuroscience, SEL, Trust and the 7 Habits.”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/co-founder-of-coveylink-greg-link-on-unleashing-greatness-with-neuroscience-sel-trust-and-the-7-habits/

[ii] Andrea Samadi Interviews Greg Link Published on YouTube April 1, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCRjLyCKE40

[iii] Deane Alban, 72 Amazing Human Brain Facts Based on the Latest Science https://sdbif.org/72-amazing-human-brain-facts-based-on-the-latest-science/

[iv]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #100 with Professor Mary Helen Immordion-Yang on “ The Neuroscience of Social and Emotional Learning”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/professor-mary-helen-immordino-yang-on-the-neuroscience-of-social-and-emotional-learning/

[v]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #111 with Horacio Sanchez on “Finding Solutions to the Poverty Problem”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/resiliency-expert-and-author-horacio-sanchez-on-finding-solutions-to-the-poverty-problem/

[vi] 7 Stages of Consciousness depicted in the 1976 Album L’Heptade https://www.discogs.com/release/1887068-Harmonium-Lheptade

[vii]Richard Barrett’s Seven Levels of Consciousness https://www.discogs.com/release/1887068-Harmonium-Lheptade