How to Manifest Your Future

 

'Mind Magic’ author Dr. James Doty explains the scientific research on how to train our brain to achieve our goals. We've all heard the phrase "Manifest Your Destiny" when it comes to wanting that new promotion, figuring out a new career path or just trying to achieve that long-term goal. It turns out that the act of manifestation is not merely pseudoscience—it actually has a body of research in neuroscience to back it up. Dr. James Doty has been exploring this topic throughout his career; and offers scientific research as well as tools on how to manifest your goals in his new book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything.

Paul Rand: We’ve all heard the phrase manifest your destiny. Over the centuries, society has embraced these kinds of ideas, from the law of attraction to the secret to drawing vision boards. Well, it’s a belief that there are external powers, if you will, in the universe, and that if you emit your own positive energy, then that will result in positive energy coming back to you, and this started in, I think, the first and second century with hermetic philosophy, and then ultimately, to the th century, where we had Napoleon Hill, this idea of think and grow rich, and followed by The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

James Doty: This idea of manifestation has been taken out of the realm of woo-woo and pseudoscience and has been examined with an immense amount of data and references behind it. I think if you look at what is written there, the logic of it makes complete sense, and frankly, is irrefutable.

Paul Rand: Doty isn’t just an author. He’s also a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University, where he’s the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, and he has used his deep knowledge of the inner biology of our brains to show where manifestation and neuroscience connect.

James Doty: And these networks work in conjunction, if you will, to manifest. The key is, how do you get access to the various brain, or cognitive brain, networks that allow you to maximally manifest?

Paul Rand: If you can understand the biology of that process, you can understand how to make it work for you. But it’s not as simple as just closing your eyes and hoping your wish will come true.

James Doty: There’s some people who read about manifestation, they go, I expected this to happen exactly as I envisioned it. It didn’t happen. Or, it didn’t happen at all. Well, there are no guarantees here. What we’re talking about are what are the mechanisms and the actions I have to take to maximize my ability to manifest? But there are other external circumstances that impact, and it may be that you are not aware of certain things that are impeding your progress, or there are other larger things that are having an effect. So, we’re talking about how do we maximize our ability. It’s not, I guarantee this will happen to you.

Paul Rand: Doty’s journey to study the neuroscience of manifestation began with a serendipitous moment, but growing up as a kid in poverty in Lancaster, California, he couldn’t quite see beyond the unfortunate circumstances he was living in.

James Doty: I did not realize my childhood was like living in a war zone. And what happens to so many children is, as they grow up, they get post-traumatic stress disorder. In those environments that are chaotic and unpredictable, what happens to all of us is that we never know what’s going to happen. As a result, our muscles are always tense, ready to react. And if you’re always in that position, it’s hard to attend and be present. And of course, attention and being present are necessary to learn and to achieve.

Now, I was fortunate in that at a young age, strangely enough, I ended up walking into a magic shop, and what happened was I met a person who really changed the trajectory of my life. Turned out that she was the owner’s mother. She actually knew nothing about magic. But the interesting part of our conversation was that she knew a lot about people. She started asking me some questions, which frankly, because of my own insecurity and shame, I generally did not talk about. And after a few minutes, she said to me, “I really like you. I’m here for another six weeks, and I think I can teach you something that can really help you.” What she ultimately taught me was what would now be termed a mindfulness practice. One of the first things she did was to teach me a relaxation technique, and then a technique to be present, or attend, and the other interesting aspect was she made me understand that the negative dialogue in my head was not truth.

I was not really that self-aware. I mean, to be bluntly frank with you, I showed up because, one, I had nothing else to do, and two, she was nice, and three, she was feeding me chocolate chip cookies. So, those were the high motivators. And then of course, she talked about a technique of visualization, or manifestation.

Paul Rand: That moment in the magic shop would lead Doty on a path to becoming a leading neurosurgeon and an expert on the biological processes that define how our brains work. Years later, he would be surprised to find that there are actually neuro-scientific explanations for how manifestation works. They revolve around the interplay between the conscious networks in our brains and the unconscious ones.

James Doty: We have a conscious present, which actually responds to our external world.

Paul Rand: This is managed by the central, or executive, control network of our brains.

James Doty: We have access to that. Then, we have a subconscious, which we have some access to.

Paul Rand: The subconscious is managed by the salience network, the attention network, and the default mode network.

James Doty: So, these are cognitive brain networks, which means they’re not necessarily discrete parts of the brain, but are combinations of areas in the brain that are activated with certain thoughts or events.

Paul Rand: At the end of the day, manifesting is really about using your conscious networks to place your desires and goals in the unconscious ones.

James Doty: As an example, one of the problems with the law of attraction oftentimes is that, oh, it didn’t happen, it’s your fault. You did not put the positive energy out there. What we’re talking about is how the brain works, which is the controller of everything, in terms of us. There isn’t some magic in the universe that’s going to fix their lives. But in terms of how do I maximize the possibilities, it’s using what’s outlined in the book. It’s not looking for some magical being outside of yourself to fix everything for you.

Paul Rand: I think you’ve given a big picture, but very practically speaking, it’s almost learning how to activate or deactivate the four major networks that are in our brain. And I wonder, you started really talking about the one that’s probably been researched the most, which is default mode network.

James Doty: So, the default mode network is made up of a couple different areas in the brain, primarily the prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate, and the parietal lobules. But they are associated with what we call mind wondering.

Paul Rand: So, you said in some ways, it’s like a narrator within us, or even kind of like our inner critic. Is that right?

James Doty: It certainly can be related to your inner critic, but it also defines who you are. And while you’re mind wondering and you’re thinking of narratives about yourself, positive narratives about yourself or what you want to achieve, that is where these things originate. The challenge is, how do you get them from this default mode network to these other task-positive networks, which actually activate, if you want to call it, the mechanisms to manifest your intentions?

Paul Rand: Okay. So, that’s where you started getting into the salience network.

James Doty: Correct. This monitors sort of your internal and external stimuli, but it also works to demand your attention on an intention. And then in some ways, what the salience network does, if you want to use an analogy, is it acts as a bloodhound. As an example, I’m sure you’ve been to a party or some event which is very noisy. Well, if you hear your name used, what happens? You immediately turn to it.

And the reason is that your identity is very, very deeply embedded into who you are. In some ways, this is how we embed our intention into our subconscious, to have that same power to result in the salience network being attuned, as a bloodhound, to events that are around you that can help you manifest your intention. As an example, and I’ll give two. One is, as a neurosurgeon, I’ll tell a patient that they have a particular diagnosis, and invariably, the patient will go, “I have never heard of that before.” I’ll see them six weeks later and they’ll go, “It’s the most amazing thing. I’ve seen five people who have the exact same thing. I had never heard of it before.”

And this is the nature of what we call synchronicity. Because you’re now attuned, it is embedded, you are reactive to anything around. As an example, a few months ago, I was in a coffee shop, and there’s a particular project I’m working on related to mental health. You know, it’s very noisy, and yet, above all this chatter, I heard two people talking who used words that were very related to what I was interested in. And I went over and started talking to them, and it turned out we’re working on the same thing, and now we’re partners working on this together.

This is how it works, right? That intention was embedded. The salience network looked around for opportunities, was highly attuned to the wording or phraseology or that intention, and then as a result, my executive control network kicked in and actually was the action component of this manifestation. And in some ways, this is like the driver of the car. You can’t drive the car unless you know where you’re going. It’s great to have an idea, but unless you have somebody in charge making it happen, it’s not going to happen.

Paul Rand: Folks may have heard about this, because there was an experiment done with the salience network, which was the invisible gorilla test. Can you highlight that for me?

James Doty: Sure. It’s really quite fascinating, and I have to tell you, I failed it, as do most people. And what happened is that there is a scenario where you’re shown a film. And there are people in black jerseys and white jerseys, and you are asked to, as an example, say, how many times did the black jersey people have control of the ball versus the white jersey people? And amazingly, there is a person dressed as a gorilla who walks through the scene, through the middle of the basketball game, and amazingly, only % or less actually ever see the gorilla.

This shows you how, when your attention is focused on something, you miss a lot of other stuff. Now, it’s great that you’re getting the thing you’re focused on. Not so great if it’s a real gorilla.

Paul Rand: If all we had to do was pay attention to our salience network to figure out what to invest our time and energy in, we would probably be better off. But unfortunately, in today’s world, the odds are stacked against us, with tons and tons of distractions.

James Doty: We do have a tendency to look for that positive hit, if you will.

Because we’re all looking for it, these hits of dopamine. And in fact, sadly, certain social media companies, they actually hire neuroscientists or psychologists to create the situations that will give you a dopamine release, and it becomes very addictive and it distracts you, because if you’re, some people call it doom-scrolling on your phone all the time, you’re not present. It has a lot of negative consequences, because to live in this world, and to live a satisfying life, you have to be present. Because we know that depth of social connections is what makes our physiology work at its best, and in fact, depth of connections, deep relationships, these actually are associated with not only health, mental and physical, but an increase in our longevity.

Paul Rand: And so, the idea is really, how do you start training yourself to find and listen to those other, more subtle things that may not naturally be jumping out at you? But you have to pay attention.

James Doty: Absolutely. You actually have to put time and effort in, like any exercise or sport that you want to achieve mastery of. You start out fumbling, if you will, and over time, it becomes just a natural process that you don’t think about anymore.

Paul Rand: So, how do we get our brain into a state where our subconscious networks are open to having our intentions embedded by our conscious networks? It all comes down to one important nerve.

James Doty: These are affected by something called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in our body, and a key part of something you’re probably familiar with: your two nervous systems.

One is the sympathetic nervous system, which is commonly associated with what we call the flight, fight, or freeze response. And then we have the parasympathetic nervous system, which is commonly called the rest and digest system, and this system actually, really, is where we should be living.

Paul Rand: And you started off talking about the whole idea about the sympathetic nervous system as you mentioned, which is the whole fight or flight response. Can you give us a little bit more detail? Most people are probably familiar with that, but you can give us a little bit more detail about how that developed and how it works.

James Doty: The reality is that the sympathetic nervous system is a protectant mechanism, which responds when we feel threatened, when we feel disgusted. And as a result, it has a lot of control how we react to events or stimuli. Typically, if you stimulate that system, several things happen physiologically. One is, of course, your heart rate goes up, because you’re releasing norepinephrine, epinephrine, as well as cortisol. It affects your immune system, even. It depresses it. It actually results in the expression of inflammatory proteins, and it shifts the blood supply into your muscular system from your digestive tract, so that you can potentially run. Your pupils dilate, and as a result, you’re prepared for action. And if it is activated, it’s transient. It occurs, and then you go back to your baseline engagement of your parasympathetic nervous system.

The problem is, of course, unlike when we were on the savanna in Africa , years ago and there was a lion, and you see him in the grass, then you prepare to flee, we don’t have that so much in the modern world. Unfortunately, in the modern world, we are very distracted, and this, for many people, activates continuous stimulation of our sympathetic nervous system.

Paul Rand: Our brains didn’t evolve with the modern world in mind, meaning that your brain can’t differentiate a lack of likes on Instagram or your friend not texting you back versus spotting a lion in the grass.

James Doty: Well, this actually is interesting, because it relates to how we are a species that is highly attuned to the negative. And the reason that is is if you look at evolution, and we’re talking about the sympathetic nervous system and being on the savanna in Africa, if you don’t attend to potentially negative situations, the lion in the grass, you may not survive.

So, what happens so often, and what is the origin of negative self-talk, is actually this negativity bias. In fact, this is why you don’t see programs on TV that promote positivity. Right?

You don’t see the thing saying, “Oh, the world’s great, the economy’s doing as good as it is.” It’s five people were shot. Da-da-da-da-da. Because you turn to negative things that potentially are a threat to your existence.

Versus, if things are hunky-dory, you’re just relaxed, you don’t really care.

Paul Rand: But you talk about the idea that in the sympathetic system, it actually could get in the way of helping us manifest what we’re trying to get to.

James Doty: We were designed not to engage our sympathetic nervous system as a species, but if you look at our evolution as a species, we were designed to engage our parasympathetic nervous system. So, it is the system that, as an example, when we care, and I’m sure you’ve probably heard the Dalai Lama say something along the lines, if you want to make others happy, be compassionate, if you wish to be happy, be compassionate. And the idea is that, unlike the sympathetic nervous system, which shuts down this part of your brain called the executive control area, which has access to experiences and memories, it limits your possibilities, because you are trying to survive. You’re not thinking about the different ways you can do something. You’re thinking about, what’s the quickest way I can get out of here?

The parasympathetic system is quite the opposite. One, you have access to prior memories and experiences. You have a much more open and generous attitude. So, as a result, we have a genetic imperative to care, and we are rewarded by the release of different neurotransmitters, and of course, one which the audience, I’m sure, knows is oxytocin, or your bonding or love or affiliative hormone, and others. And when that is released, or those hormones are released, this has a positive effect, and then it stimulates your pleasure and reward centuries.

This also has a very positive effect on your physiology. Your cardiac functions improve. Your heart rate variability is increased, which may seem paradoxical, and your blood pressure’s lower, your immune system is boosted, your cortisol levels are decreased, the release of epinephrine and norepinephrine are decreased, and you’re open to connecting. And when you connect, again, your physiology works its best. And so, when you have the mindset and look through the lens of how can I be of service, in terms of manifesting, that is a much, much more powerful aspect, because all your cognitive brain networks work at their best when you’re actually looking through the lens of how we were developed and evolved as a species, which is to care for others.

Paul Rand: And so, it really matters what we’re trying to manifest in our lives, in order to maximize our brain’s potential, something Doty learned when he was a kid in the magic shop.

James Doty: As a kid, I had little, if any, self-awareness. So, when she asked me to visualize what I wanted, it was through a narrow lens. And that lens was the societal definitions of success, which typically are associated with power, position, and money. As an example, she asked me to make a list, and I put I wanted a mansion. I wanted a Porsche. I wanted a Rolex watch. I wanted to be a doctor. Now, I did manifest every one of those things. I had, theoretically, everything. I got into medical school, I got to become a neurosurgeon, I was a professor at Stanford, I had run a successful medical device company. I had a penthouse on the top of a building in San Francisco. I had a home overlooking Newport Bay. I had a villa in Florence.

And what’s fascinating, though, about that is I was never more miserable in my entire life than when I was in that situation. And what’s fascinating is all of my friends are telling me how they would love to be in my position, yet I just was so unhappy, and I had the realization that here I climbed every one of these mountains to achieve something with this lightning focus, yet at the top of the mountain, I was expecting something to fill me, or this emptiness I felt. And I realized that, you know, expecting to be happy because of external affirmation, it doesn’t work. When you are looking through the lens of I, I, I want, you are often blinded to other events that are occurring. Because of activation of your sympathetic nervous system, these cognitive brain networks are not working as well as they could.

Paul Rand: Especially the central executive network.

James Doty: When the sympathetic nervous system is activated, that area of our brain shuts down, because it limits your choices. You don’t have access to prior experience and memories. When it is engaged, when you have stimulated your parasympathetic nervous system, then this gives you a lot more choices, and you can have a lot more options in terms of the decisions you make. Unless you have a calm mind, are relaxed, and are present, then you’re going to be distracted. And those distractions decrease the probability of you manifesting your intention.

Paul Rand: You talk about when all these things are working together, you call it the green zone. But if you say, if somebody’s in the green zone, and everything’s working with the networks that we’ve talked about, this is what’s actually going on, and how it’s helping them manifest.

James Doty: As an example, I mean, even baggage that you carry with you from childhood, of which you may not be aware, oftentimes act as blocks to you manifesting. And this is why some people say, well, I tried this, but it's just not happening. Well, if you have this baggage that you're carrying that tells you it's not possible, I can't do it. This results in limitation of your beliefs. The green zones is when you've taken the steps to engage all of your cognitive networks to work at their best. When that happens, of course, the green light, if you will, says everything is working. We've created the maximal ability to have things manifest.

Paul Rand: By now you've taken in all of this information, but you're probably wondering if you had to take the very first step to manifest my goals. Where would I begin?

James Doty: So the first thing is to have a serious analysis of yourself. And as I said, if so many people are wrapped up in what I want versus what I need and what is best for me, and I think clarifying that is also important. This gets to the issue of limited beliefs, because people don't understand that they have immense agency, and that agency is their ability to change their minds. You have power within yourself to change things, and if it's done correctly, you can maximize that possibility.

Paul Rand: The next step is to engage your parasympathetic nervous system or your state of calm, to set the stage for what you would do next.

James Doty: Creating the environment that makes you calm and happy, if you will, which is to be centered, which is to think through the lens of being, of service and of positivity. Making a list of what you wish to manifest. Reading that list aloud. Closing your eyes and imagining your a person receiving that. All of those things result in something, and through repetition, because we know what wires together fires together. Right? So when we repeat things, this is strengthening neural pathways for us to manifest these things.

Paul Rand: Once we do that, then we have to let go of attachments and expectations.

James Doty: Attachment is a great source of suffering for many people. And it's suffering because if you're attached to a goal and the goal doesn't happen for you, you're unhappy. So you have to let go of your expectations. And that's not to say you don't try to have it happen. If it doesn't happen, though, you accept that with equanimity. Now, I'm not sort of dismissing aspects of rewards in life for working hard, but for me, if all of that stuff goes away tomorrow, it does not affect my level of happiness or who I am. And I think that's the crux of the matter, because so many people are tied up in that identity of things. If that is the thing you're tying your success to, you're not going to be happy.

Paul Rand: Last but not least, going back to the center that Doctor Doty runs at Stanford. The real center of happiness comes from the act of altruism.

James Doty: The most important thing is what we call eudaimonia happiness. This is where things are deep and long lasting, and this comes from being of service to others. This defines if you want to say, our success as a species, because so many people say, I can't do this or I can't do that. And they look at the world and they see all of these problems, every one of us, every day, no matter our circumstance, has the power to improve the lives of at least one other person. And if that is your focus, that action in and of itself will put you in the mindset and the mind frame to actually help you manifest your intentions.

Paul Rand: Doty isn't just all talk when it comes to altruism. Shortly after the dot com crash, he lost nearly everything except for stock in the biotech company he founded. He could have held on to it for a rainy day and rebuilt what he lost, but instead he gave it all away - millions of it in fact, Doty has built a center around this idea of giving.

James Doty: And we're talking about the center where I study compassion, fundamentally, what I am sharing with you is my understanding in the sense how if you change your perception of how you see yourself in the world, you realize that you are meant as a human being to be of service, to care for others, to connect with others. That not only helps others, it helps yourself, and it gives you the strongest power that there is to change your life, to have a life that you want to have.

interview podcast on May 1, 2024 at uchicago.edu above

and an interview @melrobbins on YouTube on October 24, 2024 below

MR: How would you have somebody who's listening, who is really struggling and never has achieved any sort of riches, truly grasp the power of what is available to them... to use these tools of separating from your past story and identifying what you want to believe about yourself, and then writing it and believing it and repeating it and trying to open up your heart and live in this heart mode what is available to you?

Doty: I started from very humble beginnings, but the fundamental aspect of the story is it really doesn't matter where you're at. It only matters what you believe. When you have negative self-talk and you create limiting belief systems, it is a prison you're creating for yourself. The first step is to understand that

circumstances can be very horrible – you may not be able to feed your family.

I truly acknowledge that because I know what it's like to be hungry, but regardless, you have possibilities when you're able to interrupt your negative belief system, when you're able to look through the lens of possibilities. Because when you are negative, when you say “it's not possible”, “the world is against me”, “everybody hates me”, fundamentally you're changing your physiology... and as you probably know we have oscillations or vibrations that come from our bodies and one of the greatest ones is from your heart... if you have this negative self-talk, if you create this negativity that goes out, the bio electrical energy that comes from your heart extends three to five feet outside your body.

I'm sure you've met people who as soon as you meet them, you go “I do not like that person all”. All of us have the ability to become the person who is instantly liked by all, or the latter. It's how you look at the world, and when you change how you look at the world from an attitude of negativity, because you know your situation is difficult, to an attitude where you appreciate all the amazing possibilities around you... when I changed how I looked at the world, the world changed how it looked at me. People reached out to me because I was open to it. I was appreciative. I was thankful. I didn't sit there and say the world hates me, nobody's going to do anything. That energy changes when you change how you

look at the world, and the energy you're talking about is the ability to move yourself from a fear mode absolutely into a heart mode.

MR: There's a lot of research and science that you write about and how being in that heart mode where you're coming from a place of service, where you are actively manifesting and visualizing positive beliefs about yourself - I am good, I am worthy, I am loved... what are the things that you say that help you drop into heart mode?

Doty: This may sound strange, but fundamentally the world we create is one we create! It is a delusion that we have created for ourselves, and that delusion can either be one of the “world hates me, everybody hates me, the world is against me” versus saying “wow, look at the sunshine, look at all these amazing people around me, look at the possibilities”. I'm not saying this out of some trope that is not true. It is true when you change how you look at yourself.

If you want to manifest, there's several techniques that I can you walk us through. One of the first things you have to do though is find a place a calm, a place where you can shift from being in fear mode to the heart mode, where you're not distracted, where it's not noisy, where you're not taking caffeinated

beverages or using mind altering substances, where you can simply be present. Then you can begin a breathing exercise. The very nature of that breathing exercise, and this is a mindfulness practice, gets you into the heart mode and you start seeing the world through a different lens. Then you start talking about what have I already manifested and you sit there with that and you love yourself in the sense of saying “yes that happened”, but number one, and this is oftentimes the case with children, they look at, say, “it's my fault, it's not your fault”. You're okay and you're also okay no matter what's happened in the past. All of us deserve a second chance, and sometimes a third chance. Most people are loving, kind people inside and they have been battered by the forces often times that make them think that's not the case - that they don't deserve love. Everybody deserves love. Everybody deserves dignity. And so when you can sit in that quiet space and reflect on this and then think about what it is you truly want, what would make you happy, most people, if they actually sit there and do it, realize the false narrative of getting more stuff when what they really want is just security for their family; they want food on the table; they want shelter.

One of the biggest things that causes suffering is attachment, and craving. It's wonderful to have goals, It's wonderful to utilize these techniques to manifest, but sometimes things don't manifest and it's not necessarily because you did anything wrong or the gods are looking down at you badly. Sometimes your subconscious may know that what you want may not be good for you, and it doesn't allow that to happen. The other is that things don't happen always

exactly as we visualized them. They may approximate what we want but often times they're not exactly what we tried to manifest. I have things I've been

trying to manifest for years, and I firmly believe they will manifest, but you have to be patient, you have to do the work, you have to do the exercises, and all of that is okay... because I'm not attached to the outcome. That is a critical thing. Yes, I want it to happen... absolutely, Should it happen?... absolutely; will it happen?... maybe, maybe not; and it's more likely that it will... yes, because you are training your mind using these techniques and putting yourself in a heart mode to make it happen.

MR: You wrote in your book your brain can't tell the difference between what is real and what is vividly imagined.

Doty: By focusing on the feeling of success, you train your brain to expect it absolutely. And when you activate your subconscious (and I'm sure you probably experienced this if you're at a party and it's very noisy, somebody says your name you immediately turn, even in the middle of all this noise, you are attuned to your name because it's deeply embedded in you. The same is true, and this is the nature of synchronicities and coincidences because your subconscious is always searching for what is salient.

MR:I want to expand on the power of learning how to be in the heart mode and this dispositional optimism, the belief that things can get better - the hope and the optimism that things will turn out, and feeling grateful for that... because when you're in the heart mode you've talked a lot about how we are naturally wired to be in that mode – calm, connected, open to service, open-hearted - can you explain the emotions that you feel when you're in the heart mode... like gratitude, compassion, love? How do those emotions communicate to your brain and accelerate or make it stronger. When you're in heart mode how do positive emotions like gratitude and compassion and love create the ability to manifest or rewire your mind?

Doty: These types of positive belief systems make your physiology work at its best - both your brain and your peripheral physiology. When all your cognitive brain networks function at their best, that is the greatest likelihood for you to manifest your intention. There's a lot of work that has been done on gratitude - showing that simply sitting down and writing three things you're grateful for changes everything - it changes how you view the world, how you look not from the lens of what I don't have, but how grateful you are.

First thing every morning, I wake up and I sit at the side of the bed and I do a breathing exercise. The very nature of that breathing exercise shifts me into the parasympathetic nervous system. And what is the breathing exercise? It's just slowly breathing in through the nose, holding it for four seconds, slowly letting it out, and I do this for a minute or two. You can sit, you can lay down... there's nothing that is prescriptive. This is where people get lost about mindfulness practices. They somehow think you have to sit like a Buddha and do this, and they get all anxious about it. There's no reason to be anxious at all. Just find a place where you feel comfortable and then go through this breathing exercise of

slowly breathing in for four to six seconds, holding it for four to six seconds, slowly letting it out through the mouth, and then that shifts me into the parasympathetic nervous system, or strengthens where I'm already at. Then I think of the joy and awe of being in this world, and I just sit with that for a minute or two, and then literally I just go through that and that centers me for the day. If I'm centered looking through that lens, then that actually creates the environment for me to manifest... because I am in the right mindset - I'm calm, I'm thoughtful, I'm thinking about others, I'm not self-focused. The very nature of that allows me to manifest.

I was going to mention that all of us have goals, all of us have intentions, and you

can prioritize them from ones that are mildly important, moderately important, incredibly important... and then you focus on them. What I will do is I will again write them down... whatever the top three are, and then I'll go through the exact same exercise I mentioned, which is to write them down - to repeat it silently - to repeat it aloud - to see it happening - over and over and over again. All of those things strengthen the power and put you in the right mindset to have the greatest likelihood of you manifesting your intention.

MR: Thank you for describing that. How does the habit that you just said activate

your brain's ability to help you act on those goals?

Doty: Well I used a key term, which is authentic. What makes somebody authentic? When they let their mask down, when they're able to show their emotions and how they feel about things. The very nature of that puts you in the right mental state where you don't feel you have to hide yourself, where you don't feel that you have to put on a show for everybody about how successful you are. You're just feeling comfortable with who you are and accept yourself. The hardest part for so many people is accepting themselves as they are - not be lost in how they want to be or lost in what could have been, and this is also a thing that distracts you from the energy you have to change things. Because if you spend all of your time on the past and a future that hasn't happened, lamenting, then you can never be present to actually make things happen. This is the key - you have to be present - you have to be authentic – you have to understand your past - and you have to understand that when you want something to manifest it is a future intention, but it's not something to get lost in - it's something simply to sit with instead of be pathologically focused on.

As an example, I'm sure you've seen people who have sacrificed everything to get to the top of the mountain; to stand there by themselves. Well, what was the purpose of that? Our purpose in life is connection - it's not to so be focused that you don't have any connections and you're walking alone. It's to connect with people. Many, many of the aspects of what we're talking about are the journey with others, not necessarily standing by yourself.

MR: You've given me a huge epiphany because I've always thought about the science of manifesting as something that is tied to what's going to happen and in listening to you I had this huge epiphany where I thought oh wait a minute, it's all about this daily practice of sitting in the present and dropping into the heart mode, and the starting line is acceptance of self, compassion, gratitude, and love

towards self... doing a daily reset of the present moment. From there I can decide what I want to believe, I can decide when I align with the wiring of my body and my soul, I can decide what I want to believe, I can decide what's important to me, and practicing these tools, both of dropping into heart mode of being present with self, of tapping into this wiring for service and compassion and love; when you start there and you're repeating the things that you want and why you want

these things from your heart... anything is possible. Basically you've just unlocked the key to the prison that most people have created for themselves. People create a prison for themselves... by this negative self-talk every time they make a negative statement... it's as if they're laying down a brick to build a prison and the walls get higher, and it gets darker, yet all of us have the key in our pocket, which you just described, to let yourself out of the prison that you created... and I think this recognition is what's really, really critically important. It's not woo woo, it's not looking to the universe to save you, it's understanding your own self-agency and not believing that there's something out there now.

Doty: What I would say to everyone listening is regardless of your circumstance, regardless of your situation, each of us has the ability to improve the life of at least one person every day... and whether it's a hug, whether it's saying hello, whether it's sharing a meal, whatever it is, when you can actually look through the world through that lens.. how can I help at least one person every day... that is a habit that puts you in the mindset to not only be of service and to help others but it also helps you and it helps you because it then gives you the power actually to see the world through a different lens and then be able to manifest whatever your intention is. That is the power of our humanity and it all relates fundamentally to connecting with another with an open heart.