733: Break your predictive behavior to ignite your brain - with Jared Cooney Harvath

A key to a great story plot or comedy routine is to take people along a predictive path and then disrupt it. Our human nature loves this because it ignites pleasurable feelings in our brain, in our mind. A master of communication who led us through some of the ways to leverage prediction is Jared Cooney Harvath, our main guest in episode 731. This is our Habits show and in the mental spoke, Jared shared a common tactic he uses is to break his own predictive patterns so as to foster new programming for his brain. What a simple and effective tactic. We generally want to find a routine we like and take the ease of sticking to it. In some regards this is good, as our mind can be on autopilot and freed up for other thinking and tasks. But if we completely routinize our lives we can become stagnant and complacent. I once had a friend dealing with OCD who was charged by her therapist to drive a different way home each day from work. She about blew a gasket not taking her tried and true, routine path, but it helped do the trick...to wake her mind up to other possibilities. This and the other spokes of Jared’s habits, in this show. You can find Jared’s book, "Stop Talking, Start Influencing: 12 Messages from Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick" on Amazon or wherever you buy books! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices