Planet Em

Neuroscience Shows Your Identity Is Your Destiny In This Life

25 min
Apr 13, 20266 days ago
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Summary

The episode explores how neuroscience demonstrates that identity shapes destiny, explaining the brain's predictive processing model and how shifting one's self-concept can automatically change behaviors, emotions, and life outcomes. The host shares practical tools including meditation, visualization, and intentional identity adoption to help listeners close the gap between their current self and their desired future self.

Insights
  • The brain uses predictive processing based on past identity models to motivate decisions before conscious awareness, making identity shifts more effective than willpower or motivation alone
  • Actions must align with stated identity to build self-trust and confidence; misalignment between words and behaviors creates cognitive dissonance and erodes belief in oneself
  • Feeling states precede manifestation—activating the emotions of your desired identity accelerates reality alignment and attracts corresponding opportunities
  • Identity shifting can produce immediate results (overnight changes) or gradual transformation depending on the depth of the identity change and consistency of aligned actions
  • The default mode network (ego network) holds self-concept and can be quieted through meditation, hypnosis, or psychedelic-assisted therapy to enable identity restructuring
Trends
Growing mainstream interest in neuroscience-backed personal development and self-concept psychologyShift from goal-setting (to-do lists) toward identity-based behavior change (to-be lists) in coaching and self-helpIntegration of neuroscience language (predictive processing, default mode network) into wellness and coaching vernacularPsychedelic-assisted therapy gaining credibility for addiction and psychiatric treatment through identity and ego dissolutionEmphasis on feeling states and emotional activation as primary drivers of manifestation and behavioral changeIdentity-based coaching and quantum leaping concepts gaining traction as alternatives to traditional motivation-based approachesJournaling and morning pages becoming standard tools in identity work and intention-setting practices
People
Em
Host sharing personal experiences with identity shifting, coaching thousands through the process, and recently comple...
Quotes
"Your brain doesn't just construct your entire experience of reality. It actually predicts it."
EmEarly in episode
"The only reason we don't have the things that we want is because we're not the version of ourselves that has the things that we want."
EmMid-episode
"Your life changing becomes automatic when you change the model of who you are, when you rewrite that script."
EmCore message section
"Identity shifting is the neuroscience of quantum leaping."
EmConclusion section
"When you close the gap between who you are right now and the version of you who has what you want, you close the gap between where you are and where they are."
EmLate episode
Full Transcript
neuroscience shows that your identity is your destiny in this life. And I will tell you the neuroscience behind why and how you can shift your identity to completely change your reality. And I am very excited about this video because I have used the power of identity shifting to shift my reality overnight. I have coached thousands of people through identity shifting and this process of how to do it and all the different components involved in identity shifting. I've helped people break lifelong bad habits, exit lifelong cycles. I've helped people get sober. I have helped people level up in their finances and make way more money than they had before in one week. Do not discount the power of identity shifting. Do not discount it. It will work for you over time and it will also work in the moment immediately. My reality overnight identity shifting. If you find yourself setting goals like I'm going to start going to the gym and then two weeks later you fall off and you just lose motivation and you're like, oh, I just don't know why I set these goals and I just keep falling off. If you find it difficult to make decisions, maybe you're in the heat of the moment and you just don't know what you should do. If you find yourself procrastinating on tasks, you procrastinate the process, the things that you know you should be doing because let's be honest, there are things we all know we should be doing what we're not doing them. If you find yourself stalling, procrastinating, you find yourself falling off just not having the motivation, you find the difficult to make decisions, whatever the case may be, an identity shift will help you and that will tell you the neuroscience behind why. Your brain doesn't just construct your entire experience of reality. It actually predicts it. Your brain is constantly predicting and assuming what comes next. Your brain actually does something called predictive processing. It's not just taking in information and constructing your reality based on the information that's out there. No, it doesn't just do that. Your brain uses this model. It built this model based on your past of who you are. It has your entire life story and it holds this ego or this self-concept. It uses this model to predict your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, to predict what's going to come next in your life. All of this determines, of course, how you feel, your energy, your choices. They have shown in studies that brain activity, that represents a choice that you're about to make, happens before you're even consciously aware of the choice that you're going to make. Let me give you an example. Let's say I am really hungry and I open up the fridge. I have a sweet tooth on this type of person that I'm going to open that fridge and if there's that sweet treat, I'm going to grab that sweet treat. That's always who I've been. But I just set a new goal last week that I'm going to be on my health and fitness journey. That's what I'm going to do, but I haven't shifted my identity. Which is most people don't. Most people don't shift their identities. I open up the fridge and I haven't done my identity shift and guess what my brain's going to do? It's going to motivate me to go for that sweet treat, not the salad that's sitting right next to it. Why? Because it motivates us to make decisions based on the model it has of who we are, based on our identity, based on our ego. If you're waking up in the morning and you're trying to get on this grind of going to the gym in the mornings or you're trying to get on this wave of having a solid morning routine, but you wake up in the morning and you find yourself just unmotivated and tired and you're like, oh, I don't know why. Well, it's because your brain is using the past model. It's built of who you are to motivate you to make different decisions than the decisions you know you should be making to get you toward your goals. Life becomes a lot easier when you shift your identity to match the version of you who has what you want. Now, the problem is this. Most people have to-do lists. Most people do not have a to-be list. Do you have a very clear description of who the version of you is that has it all? Who the version of you is that has achieved your goal? Do you know who that is? Do you know what their habits are like, what their energy is like, what their mindset is like? Most people walk around their day-to-day lives trying to build up the discipline or the motivation or get the energy to go and do the things they know they need to do to work toward their goals without realizing that if you were to just shift your identity, your brain would naturally motivate you to do the things you know you need to do. Let's take this one step further. I want to talk about the default mode network. The default mode network is a network in your brain. It's very appropriately named the default mode network because it's active when you aren't consciously doing anything. It's active when you're just defaulting, right? When you're not being the conscious creator that you are. It's not all that. I don't want to paint it out to be this terrible thing. It's really not. It's active when we are imagining things and what our minds are wandering and so it can be a beautiful thing. If your default mode network is overactive, that's when we can start to be overthinking things and stuff like that. But the point here is that the default mode network, it is kind of active when we are defaulting back to our old ways. Now, the default mode network is also the network that holds the story of who you are. It's sort of known as the ego network, right? So it holds your identity. It holds the story of who you are. Now, the cool thing is that psychedelics, for example, may have been shown to turn down activity in the default mode network. We also know that psychedelics help to enhance sense of oneness. They help to kind of drop that ego. They help to make you feel one with everything, one with this tree, with nature, with all of it, right? And it's beautiful, right? It's really good. Psychedelic assisted therapies are turning out to be very helpful when it comes to things like addiction or psychiatric illnesses and all sorts of things. Okay, different conditions. Why do we think that is? Well, it quiets the default mode network and it allows you to really shift your perspective on life, shift your self-concept, your identity. And when you shift your identity, when you shift this model of who you are, it becomes really easy to shift your reality. It's not even you that's doing it. Your brain starts building a different reality for you. Now, there are ways to quiet the default mode network without psychedelics so that we can actually start to shift our identity, shift our self-concept, and shift the behavior's thought, emotions, and choices that our brain is automatically sort of motivating us to think, do, have, feel. Meditation is an extremely powerful way to quiet the default mode network. Meditation gives you superpowers. Meditation is good for so many different things. It strengthens the prefrontal cortex, which enhances your ability to focus and control your impulse. I mean, the prefrontal cortex is the boss. It's the CEO of your brain. Strengthening the prefrontal cortex allows you to be the CEO of your life. And so meditation is great for many things. It also taps you into the divine life force energy that you are. Meditation also helps to quiet the default mode network. It helps you to tap into that sense of oneness so that you can, well, it shifts your perspective on yourself. It shifts your perspective on reality, and that shifts your reality. I actually really like to do the work of writing in sort of new beliefs or new mindset or setting intentions or kind of writing out kind of who I'm being called to become after I meditate because it's after you've quieted the default mode network. And so for this reason, actually hypnosis is really beneficial for identity shifting, for shifting your reality because hypnosis also has been shown to quiet activity in the default mode network. There are many different ways to quiet activity in the default mode network. Those are two ways, meditation and hypnosis. But I want to move on to real life tools that you can use to actually shift your identity because you can quiet the default mode network all day long, but if you're not intentionally rewiring, then you're just going to stay the way that you are. And I would love for you to be shifting your identity along with me and experiencing these results. I have taught our long masterclasses on identity shifting alone and the entire process. We could flush this out and talk about it for hours. And I have before on my free masterclasses that I hold, you can check out actually in the link in description, which I highly recommend you do. Like I said, when I've taught these masterclasses, I get so many DMs on social media from people telling me I've got a DM from people saying that they finally got a job after two years of searching for a very specific job they wanted. They literally got their dream job. I had someone DM me seven different things that they manifested within a week. People tell me that they get promotions right after attending these classes. I'm telling you when you shift your identity, it can happen very quickly. So with that being said, I do just want to point out before we run into these tools how to use them because every single time I have a new goal for myself, every time I have a new dream, a new goal, a new thing that I want to accomplish, maybe even a new habit that I want to have. It doesn't even have to be at like a physical goal. It can be mental, it can be spiritual, it can be energetic, whatever it is. Every single time I identify some area of my life where I want to be doing something different, I ask myself, who is the version of me who does this? And I think the biggest way that I've identity shifted maybe in the past six months to 10 months was when I decided that I wanted to write a book. I actually had to identity shift for this even thing that you're watching me do literally right now, this long form content. And I was journaling about it this morning because when I first started creating long form content, this what you're watching right now, or let's say before I first started, it was a goal, it was a dream, like, oh, I want to create long form content. I want to have a podcast. I procrastinated for so long. Every single time I would plan to film a long form episode or whatever it was, I would all of a sudden get this idea, oh, I should go film an Instagram video, oh, I need to go do laundry, clean the dishes, everything else was more important all of a sudden, everything else was more urgent all of a sudden. And I kept procrastinating starting to film this. And I was like, why am I procrastinating? And actually, when I sat down and asked myself like, why am I procrastinating, I was like, oh, because it's not a part of who I am filming long form content. Like, yes, I saw myself as this content creator from the short form perspective, like a minute and a minute and a half videos or what I usually create. And so this was outside of the model of who I am, this type of content, creating this type of content was not really a part of who I am. And so my brain, what's it going to do, right? Your brain uses the model of who you are to predict your default way of being. And so I was just fighting against my brain to get started. And as soon as I shifted my identity, I also had to wire in that doing this was safe and familiar and normal, because you'll also procrastinate things if your brain is trying to protect you from something you're subconsciously afraid of. And a lot of times we're subconsciously afraid of success. We're subconsciously afraid of the exact thing we say we want, not when sneaky, because you won't even realize it. But it happened again, when I decided that I wanted to write a book, and I signed my first book deal, I again, look, why is it so difficult to get myself to write this book? Every single time I had planned to write the book, again, other things would pop up that would be more important than writing. I just found myself procrastinating and it was just this uphill battle all over again. And another time I needed to shift my identity. And this time it was really easy, like shifting my identity to write my book was very simple. All I had to do was tell my was literally identify as an author. It was like, Oh yeah, I'm an author, period. That's it. This doesn't have to be a super complicated thing. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more because there are kind of two sides to this, right? So there are these big dreams, these next levels that we're going to need to shift our identities on deeper levels. But then there are also tasks, like for example, writing my book, that it actually can be very simple. We can shift our identity in as simple of a way as just simply identifying as an author. I just decided that I was an author. I'm a best selling author. I'm an author. And over time, right, of identifying as this author, right, I was like, Oh yeah, I'm an author, what would an author do? An author would write an author prioritizes writing, because we don't just prioritize our schedule, right? We schedule our priorities. So I prioritize writing and I scheduled writing, I made it a daily habit. I was writing all the time. It made a huge difference immediately, simply just deciding to identify as an author. We tend to forget the power that we have in our brains that you might be listening to me give this example, and you're like, Oh, that's so simple. It's done. Like there's no way. But it's, it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be complicated at all. You can just choose to identify as the version of you who has what you want. And it will blow your mind how fast your life will change your behavior, your emotions, your thoughts, the reality your brain constructs for you. It'll blow your mind how much easier it is all of a sudden. I actually identity shifted very recently, because I finished writing my book. And I was like, Okay, well, what's this next level? Like, what are we doing now? What's the priority now? And the other day, my fiance, he came in and I forget what we were even talking about. But I told, I just casually was like, Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm a new person. I'm a brand new version of myself. And he laughed. But we both knew that I was being dead serious. Because I, I speak like that I speak words into reality, I speak into existence what I want, what and who I want to be. I wanted to shift my behaviors. I went from writing every single day, the book is done. What do I do now? Well, I'm a new person now, whatever my new priorities are, and that's who I am. So the bottom line here really is that if you want to shift your reality, you must shift your identity, you must, because your brain uses the model of who you are to construct your entire experience of reality. And if the model of you who you are stays the same, you're going to be battling against your brain to change your life. But when you change the model of who you are, your life changes automatically. That is the entire point that I'm trying to make here. Your life changing becomes automatic when you change the model of who you are, when you rewrite that script. So let's talk about this on a deeper level, because we've got one takeaway so far, which is that you could very simply just ask yourself, what is this thing that I'm trying to accomplish if I am wanting to be more healthy, more fit, if I am wanting to be an author, be a creator, be a singer, be whatever it is, you can literally just identify as that. But I want to take this a little bit deeper now, because your identity is more than just the labels that you use to describe yourself. Your brain doesn't just listen to your thoughts, it listens to who you're being. And this is where I think a lot of people get stuck, because you can do the affirmations and visualize and identify and speak out all you want. But if your actions do not match the identity of who it is you're trying to embody, what do you think your brain is going to believe? Your actions are your words, because I don't know about you. But I would believe somebody's actions more than I believe. Somebody was constantly telling me that they were going to do something and then they always did the opposite. What are you going to believe, right? We trust people's actions more than we trust, believe their words. That's just how we do things intuitively, right? That's how our brain does things with us. Your brain does not just listen to your thoughts, it listens to who you're being. So if you're going to shift your identity and start telling yourself, I am an author, well, you better start acting like one real quick. It'll believe your words at first, right? But if you say one thing and do another, this is when you're going to start having this, like, you're going to start contradicting yourself, then you're going to be losing self-trust, and this is when confidence starts to fall and you start to not feel good about yourself. So we don't want to be doing that. We want our actions to match our words. And there is a sort of a method that I like to use to really clearly identify, okay, who is this version of me? Who is the version of me that I'm wanting to become? And I think that this is going to be the most powerful thing that you will take from this video. And I really think, I really, really hope that you go and do this exercise and when you do it, it will change your life. I promise you, I really, really want you and I would love for you to sit down and ask yourself, who is the version of me who has it all? Who is the version of me who has it all? The version of you that is living your dream life. And maybe you can visualize this as well. I actually like to take my clients that I coached through this exercise through a guided visualization that I've created. And I ask similar questions to these. Visualize yourself, you know, having it all, achieving your dreams, everything that you've ever wanted. Who is that version of you? See them. See that version of you. In your mind, see them, describe them. The version of you who is living your dream life, the best and your most favorite version of you, get very clear. And there are a few different categories that I like to have my clients kind of describe about this version of themselves. And I'm going to list them for you right now. So the first is the mindset. What is the mindset of the version of you who has it all? The version of you who has it all that is living your dream, achieve the goal that you want to achieve. What is their mindset like? How do they think? How do they think about themselves? And how do they think about the world, other people on that note of mindset? What do they believe in? What do they believe about themselves and about the world? What do they believe about their goals? What is their energy like? How do they carry themselves? What's their energy like? I've noticed a lot of the times not to plant seeds. You guys don't have to take this at all. But I've noticed a lot of the times that when I do this exercise, not to plant seeds, you don't have to do this at all. But I've noticed that when I do this, I see myself twirling in a field. And it's so random. And I just wanted to give that example to say there are no right or wrong answers to this exercise at all. But I see myself twirling in a field. And what is that? What is that energy? That's free, free. She's free. She's expansive. She's having fun. She radiates love and joy. And so when you see this version of you, who are they? What is their energy like? What is the energy that radiates from them? The version of me that has it all, she's a little more unhinged. She's kind of just saying whatever it is that she wants to say, however she feels. She's unfiltered more. She speaks her mind. She's confident. I've noticed that when I do this exercise with people, one of the most common answers that I get is confident. Like, like, oh, like that version of me is way more confident. What are their habits like? What are their habits? What does that version of you do every day? And if we're being so honest, be so honest with yourself, what does that version of you do every day? They're probably better at time management if we're being so for real. Maybe they spend more time in nature. And I don't want this to be all about like work. It doesn't have to be. And I give that example of nature because that's something that comes up for me when I visualize this version of me. Like that version of me, if she's feeling free and glowing, like I'm seeing her twirling in a field, she spends time in nature. She's grounding herself. She's remembering that she's one with all that is and that there's so much more to life than just the rat race and the physical world. Nature is incredible and beautiful and will remind you of the magic that is. And it recharges me, regulates my nervous system. So again, what are their habits like? What are the things that they do every day? And there are so many different ways to figure this out. If it's not clear, I mean, you can reverse engineer it as well, right? If you've identified the feelings that this version of you has, the energy that this version of you has, if they're more confident, well, then you can say, all right, what are some habits that are going to make me feel that way more often? So there are plenty of ways to answer this question. Again, there are no right or wrong answers. And you don't want to make this more complicated than it has to be. And you don't have to do it all at once. I will say when you go through these kind of different pillars of the version of you who has it all and this, this identity that you're going to be shifting into, when you go through these different pillars, I mean, you can start with one. You don't have to do them all at once. And I think this is actually the way to get better results and be more consistent is if you kind of just start small and send it. But again, you can reverse engineer this. And so I think one of the greatest places to start is to identify like, how does this version of you feel? And if you're not sure how they feel, reverse engineer your goals. How do you believe you're achieving your goals will make you feel? I did this literally yesterday. There's a new thing that I want to be manifesting. And I sat in my morning pages, I journal every single morning, and I asked myself, what is it that I want? Easy, boom, write that down. What are the feelings that I believe that is going to bring me? Because we don't want the things that we want. We want the feelings. That's what we really want. We want to feel the way that we believe these things are going to make us feel. So I listed out the feelings. I was like, oh, this is going to make me feel XYZ. And then once I had listed those feelings, like, okay, all right, let me do two things. First, let me write out all the reasons why I already have to feel that way. And second, okay, what are some things that I can do more often to make me feel that way more often so that I can live in the feeling state of my desires? Because when you live in the feeling state of your desires, well, now you're tuned into the frequency of what it is that you want. And bam, it comes. And I'm telling you this, this happened just yesterday. I did this exercise yesterday morning, got clear on the feelings I wanted to feel, wrote out a whole bunch of reasons why I should already be feeling that way, activated the feelings within myself. Therefore, what did I do? I activated the feelings of the version of me who had what I wanted. I closed the gap. I shifted my identity. I started to feel the way that the version of me feels that had what I wanted. Within two hours, I received an email about a literal dream that I've had that I've wanted to do. And I can't share it yet because it hasn't happened yet, but I will. And it's so funny because I think literally just a few days ago, maybe a week ago, I was talking to my business partner and I had told him, oh yeah, that's going to happen for me soon. I just started saying, that's going to happen for me soon. And then it literally happened yesterday after I activated the feelings of my desires. When you close the gap between who you are right now and the version of you who has what you want, you close the gap between where you are and where they are. Something that I say all the time is that the only reason we don't have the things that we want is because we're not the version of ourselves that has the things that we want. As long as there's a gap between who you are and the version of you who has it, then there's going to be a gap between you and having it. And this is why I always say identity shifting is the neuroscience of quantum leaping. And if you go into the YouTube videos, I'm back in the day whenever I started on this journey, I would watch, like listen to hypnosis tracks of quantum leaping. And what I've realized now is that those videos are really self-concept shifting videos, like those hypnosis tracks. They were just affirmations that would help you to shift your self-concept into whatever it is. And those can be very helpful. But I think it's even more helpful when you identify who that version of you is. There are so many different ways to start to wire this into your brain through visualization, affirmations, hypnosis, meditation, shadow work. There are so many different ways that you can then go and do the work to close the gap between who you are and the version of you who has it all. But I don't want you to be in your head feeling like that's going to take so long because it doesn't have to. Because like I said, I have experienced shifts overnight. I have had clients and people that I've coached break lifelong cycles within two weeks of shifting their identity. I have people that have battled addiction, sober now, for the longest they've ever been sober, and they're going to stay that way because of shifting their identity. When you shift your identity, you shift your reality. I am so excited for you because this really is the key. This really will completely shift your life when you begin to shift your identity. I am sending you so much love. I believe in you. You got this. Get out there and shift your identity. Close the gap. I am so excited for you. You got this. I believe in you. Get out there, shift your identity, and watch your reality shift. Just watch. I'll see you next time. Bye everybody.