September 29, 2025 • 38 mins
Did you know that your brain is most likely in survival mode? And, if it is in survival mode, there are only 3 ways you respond? Our guest today is Dr. Eugene Choi, shares with us some neuroscience about behavior within ourselves and others.
TODAY'S WIN-WIN:
Our brains naturally have a fear of uncertainty, so help your prospective franchisees and customers gain clarity.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- Schedule your free franchise consultation with Big Sky Franchise Team: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.
- You can visit our guest's website at:
- Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop:
- https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/
- Connect with our guest on social:
- www.instagram.com/eugenekchoi
- https://www.tiktok.com/@eugenekchoi?lang=en
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekchoi/
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Dr. Eugene K. Choi is a Transformational Mindset Coach on a mission to transform leaders, businesses, and communities. He teaches executive leaders how to achieve and sustain peak performance in high-stress, high-stakes and high-change environments. Dr. Eugene created a unique, science-backed process that teaches leaders how to activate their executive brain to dramatically improve results and increase clarity and focus in challenging and unpredictable situations. He has a background in clinical pharmacy, neuroscience and business coaching and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and executives optimize their mindset, reduce toxic stress, and lead with more impact. Dr. Eugene's expertise in audience growth has also resulted in him generating over 11 million views on his online articles and over 30 million views on his short films. His experience and expertise in both strategy and psychology have proven critical in helping clients produce tangible results in both business and in life.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.
The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any business decisions. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host, Big Sky Franchise Team, or our affiliates. Additionally, this podcast may feature sponsors or advertisers, but any mention of products or services does not constitute an endorsement. Please do your own research before making any purchasing or business decisions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
TomDuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast,
where each week we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, Tom Dufour, CEOof Big Sky franchise team.
And as we open today, I'mwondering if you know that your
brain is most likely in survivalmode.
(00:21):
When it's in survival mode, andthis is for all of us, there
are only three ways in which werespond.
And we'll get to those in theinterview today.
Well, our guest today is Dr.
Eugene Choi, and he shares withus some neuroscience about
behavior within ourselves andothers.
Now, Dr.
Choi is a transformationalmindset coach on a mission to
(00:42):
transform leaders, businesses,and communities.
He teaches executive leadershow to achieve and sustain peak
performance in high stress, highstakes, and high change
environments.
Dr.
Choi also has created a ton ofviral content and work,
generating over 11 million viewson his online articles and over
(01:04):
30 million views on his shortfilms.
His experience and expertise inboth strategy and psychology
have proven critical in helpinghis clients produce tangible
results in both business and inlife.
You're going to love thisinterview, so let's go ahead and
jump right into it.
Dr. Eugene Choi (01:18):
My name is Dr.
Eugene K.
Choi.
I am founder of NeurohackingSchool.
It's a company that helpspeople achieve a higher level of
peak performance despitehowever much adversity or high
pressure, high-stakes situationsyou might be in.
And that's what I've beendoing.
I'm a former clinicalpharmacist, turned viral
filmmaker now, turnedentrepreneur.
TomDuFore (01:38):
Fantastic.
When I saw your informationcome across my desk in terms of
what you're doing, I said, we'vegot to have Dr.
Eugene on the show.
I just think what you're doingis fantastic for this higher
level mental performance.
And so I'd love for you just toreally give us a starting point
to build from, to talk aboutwhy you're doing what you're
(02:01):
doing and how you've seen ithelping people.
Dr. Eugene Choi (02:03):
Yeah.
So I've had the fortunateopportunity of coaching hundreds
and hundreds of business ownersnow.
And one of the things that I'venoticed is majority of the
time, the issue with thebusiness owner actually wasn't
strategy.
They already knew the strategy.
In fact, they've probablyresearched the heck out of it.
They've heard it from multiplepeople.
But for whatever reason,they're not executing on these
(02:25):
strategies that can help themget the results that they're
looking for.
So that's when I found out oh,part of this is also psychology,
mindset, the way that they'rethinking about things.
And that's where the resistancecomes from.
So that's kind of what led downmy path of studying how the
brain works, the neuroscience.
I have a background as aclinical pharmacist.
I used to practice for manyyears.
(02:46):
So it helps me understand thescience behind things.
And I just started learningabout that and realized, whoa,
if people just understand someof the basics of this, it can be
transformative from for themwhere they actually execute on
these things that will help themget the results.
TomDuFore (03:02):
So as you started to go down this journey of
investigating and researching,and now you've worked with
hundreds of clients or coachedwith folks over the years, what
is it that you're seeing, orwhat did you maybe find?
Dr. Eugene Choi (03:15):
Yeah, they just work a lot better.
That phrase, work smarter, notharder, that tends to happen a
lot as well.
The results are really amazingto see.
I mean, there's practicalresults where I've had a client
who was only making 40K a yearin their business from that to
breaking the seven figure inrevenue in a span of three
years.
Some other people who are like,I can never charge a high
(03:36):
ticket price for their offer.
And they come back that weekendgoing, whoa, I just closed four
sales for a $15,000 package perperson.
So there's that aspect to it,but then there's also the
feeling aspect to it.
There's a lot of times we'reemotionally feeling very
stressed, strung out, burnt out.
They just feel a lot better aswell, both mentally and
(03:57):
physically.
TomDuFore (03:58):
How is neuroscience used to help create some of
these permanent andtransformative types of
behaviors that you're able tohelp people through?
Dr. Eugene Choi (04:07):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So basically, what I did was Icreated a framework because I
realized a lot of this stuff cansound complicated to people.
So one of the things I learnedfrom my filmmaking days, which I
was fortunate to work with acouple of people, we created
viral content together thatreached millions of people, that
kind of opened my eyes to ittaught me about marketing
without learning aboutmarketing.
How do you create somethingviral, which is basically how do
(04:30):
you create something thatpeople like so much they want to
share it with other people?
And those people share it withother people.
So it brought the same type ofthought process to my mind of
how do I take this content ofbrain science and make it easier
to understand?
And hopefully it's easy enoughto understand that other people
can share it with other people.
So I've created a frameworkthat I bring people through and
(04:51):
they work with me privately, butI teach them basic concepts
that once you understand it andyou can see it, it should create
some immediate shifts for youthe more you practice
implementing some of thesethings you learn.
The first and foremost thing toknow about your brain, it's
really simple.
It's this your brain can onlyoperate in one of two states at
any given time.
It's one or the other.
It can't be both at the sametime.
(05:12):
It's what I call either itoperates in what's called a
survival state or an executivestate.
So the thing to know about howa survival state works is it's
the part of your brain thatturns on when you feel
threatened in any way.
So if you feel threatened, yourbrain will try to protect you.
But when it's in that mode, itcannot think.
So you enter into this modewhere you're reacting without
(05:33):
thinking.
Imagine you're walking down apath, you see a snake on the
side of the path, you're notgoing to sit there and start
thinking, huh, what am I seeinghere?
Your body will immediatelyreact and jump away from the
snake.
So the problem with this whenit comes to business growth is
your brain's not thinking.
So you're often reactingwithout thinking, which prevents
you from experiencing theseresults that you want to see.
If we compare that to what Icall an executive state, this is
(05:55):
the part of your brain where alot of higher functions turn on.
We're talking critical thinkingskills, your creativity, your
problem-solving skills, yourempathy, your ability to
actually connect with someone.
And the list goes on out of allthese amazing things that it's
capable of.
That's what an executive stateis.
So here's the big aha moment Ihad.
It's kind of shocking.
(06:16):
Turns out research shows thatfor a majority of our adult
lives, some even some researcheven suggests it's for 70% of
our adult lives, that we're notin the executive state where
your brain's higher functionsare on.
In fact, you're in a survivalstate.
So for a majority of our adultlife, our brain's critical
thinking skills, our creativity,our ability to solve problems
(06:36):
are not being accessed.
So the question is why?
Why are we in a survival statefor majority of our adult lives?
Especially if survival state isonly meant for life-threatening
situations, like a hungry tigerabout to eat you, someone's
about to hurt you.
It's only meant for those, butwhy are we in this mode for
majority of our adult lives?
It's because of emotionalsurvival.
So it turns out emotional paincan be just as painful as
(06:58):
physical pain based on the waythe brain processes information.
So, what does this mean?
We have to think about howoften, every day, do we feel
feelings that are uncomfortable?
Stress, anxiety, frustration,depression, anger.
All of these types of feelingsthat don't feel that comfortable
actually kind of tricks yourbrain into thinking your life's
(07:20):
in danger.
So boom, your ability to solveproblems, your ability to think,
it's shutting off.
So if we can understand this,that number one is can we see
that?
That you know what?
Yeah, you're right.
A majority of my life of my dayis I don't feel that great.
I feel stressed, I feelanxious, I feel frustrated.
(07:40):
And because of that, you're notaccessing these parts of your
brain that you need.
That's the first thing.
If people can understand that,then we can move on to the next
thing that help you kind ofunderstand what I can do about
this.
TomDuFore (07:52):
That makes a lot of sense.
How can you use thatinformation?
I know about it, but what can Ireally do about it?
Is there anything I can doabout that?
If I'm at 70%, can I reducethat to 50%?
Dr. Eugene Choi (08:05):
That's a great question.
So, yes, you can do somethingabout it.
And the first step is all aboutawareness.
So, awareness is what gives usthe power to change something we
want to change.
So, what do I mean by this?
Imagine you have a piece ofbroccoli stuck between your
teeth.
Do you have the power to removethat piece of broccoli unless
it comes into your awareness?
Someone either has to point itout to you or you might see it
(08:27):
in the mirror and you becomeaware of it.
Now I'm aware of it, I canchange it.
So here's this interestingpart.
Many of us are not aware ofwhat our own survival state
actually looks like.
So this is step one is we needto become good at becoming aware
of what this actually lookslike.
So that's what I teach.
This is the first thing that Iteach to clients, or when I'm up
(08:48):
on a stage teaching, this isthe first thing I teach is we
need to know what survival statelooks like in our daily lives.
So your brain, when it's insurvival state, remember it's
reacting without thinking.
You're doing it withoutthinking about it.
You just do it.
It can only do one of threethings.
Your brain only has threeoptions when it feels threatened
in some way, and you enter intosurvival state fight, flight,
or freeze.
(09:08):
So, for people who are familiarwith what that phrase means, it
means it's those are the threeoptions that your brain tries to
execute on to try to survivefrom an actual life-threatening
situation.
So, in a physicallylife-threatening situation, it's
really easy to understand andknow what this looks like.
You might pick up a weapon tofight, because if you're in
danger, you're going to pick upa weapon to try to fight to stay
(09:28):
alive.
You're going to run for yourlife and run away in flight, or
you play dead and freeze.
So, possums are great at doingthis because their predators
actually like to eat their foodalive.
So, possums play dead, theydon't get killed.
Humans have done this too.
If you ever see those warmovies where there's like a pile
of dead bodies and you see theenemy coming, you kind of play
dead so that you don't getkilled by the enemy.
So now that's easy to spot.
(09:50):
What becomes harder to spot iswhat does emotional survival
look like?
What are we doing when we'restressed, when we're anxious,
when we're worried, when we'refrustrated, when we're doubting?
That's the thing to spot.
So, what does an emotionalfight response look like?
It could be imagine someonesays something, it hurts your
feelings, and now you're arguingwith them, you're fighting
back.
So your brain in that moment isactually viewing that person as
(10:11):
a threat and you're ready toattack them.
Usually it happens verbally,hopefully not physically.
Unfortunately, it can happenphysically, right?
But you're verbally attackingthis person in the fight mode.
The worst part is if you'redoing it to someone you love,
because your brain gottriggered, you're not thinking
anymore, you're actually yourbrain is actually attacking that
person because you're feelingemotionally threatened.
Some people who are in fightmode, it could be physical
(10:34):
fights as well.
Or if you ever see road ragehappen, that's a fight response.
Because I feel a certain waywhen you cut me off and now I'm
trying to cut you back off.
And you see what I'm saying?
That's a fight response.
Uh, flight response can bethings like procrastination.
Why do we procrastinate?
It's because the thing Iprobably should be doing right
(10:55):
now, there's some sort of fearand security around it.
What if I do this now?
I look stupid.
What if I do this now and I'mright, I get judged?
Or sometimes it's physicallyavoiding someone.
It could be an ex, I don'tknow, your in-laws if you don't
like your in-laws, or whoeverpeople that you might not want
to be around, a boss, acolleague.
So you physically avoid them.
One funny story I like to shareabout that is when we're in a
(11:16):
flight response, remember,you're not thinking, you're just
reacting without thinking.
I used to take the subway tohigh school in New York City
where I grew up, and my friendand I are heading to the subway
station.
You see one of these Koreanladies with a bunch of those
pamphlets, and she's clearlytrying to promote something,
which is promote her church,trying to convince you to go to
her church.
And my friend and I immediatelyfeel that reaction of, like, oh
God, like we just want to getto school.
(11:37):
We're not wanting this wholespiel about, you know, going to
her church.
But we see her approaching usbecause my friend and I are both
Korean as well.
So she sees that we're Asianand she walks over and she says
to us in Korean, Hangukbuniseyo, which means, are you
Korean?
And remember, your brain's notthinking in flight mode in
survival.
My friend looks at her andresponds, Anya, which means no,
(11:57):
but he just responded to her inKorean when she's asking her,
Are you Korean?
So our brain can make verystupid mistakes when we're in
survival for that reason, right?
And I we've all experiencedstuff like this, right?
Where we kind of make a sillymistake.
And freeze mode is when whathappens when you feel like put
on the spot.
Your brain can't think anymore.
(12:18):
Someone just called on you inthe meeting and you didn't
expect it.
Or people who get caught in alie, your body freezes up
because it's their brain going,quick, pretend to not exist so
that this person stopsinterrogating you.
So if we can see what fight,flight, freeze looks like,
you're giving your brain theability to snap out of survival
so that you can access thesehigher functions of your brain.
So now it's important to getreally good at this, though,
(12:41):
because it gets very subtle.
There's a lot of things peoplearen't aware of that where it
gets deeper.
So, what do I mean by this?
What's a deeper fight responsepeople might not notice?
The need to prove yourself.
Why do you fight to proveyourself unless you already view
yourself as not so great of aperson?
Unless you already have somesort of insecurity about
(13:02):
yourself or self-doubt.
Why do you need to proveyourself?
The need to be right all thetime.
You ever meet those people?
The people who always have tobe right?
Why are people like that?
It's because usually at somepoint in their life they might
have gotten shamed, blamed,rejected, or embarrassed for
being wrong about something.
So they fight because thatemotional pain didn't feel good.
(13:22):
So they fight to be right allthe time.
Or the people who just overlyinterrupt you.
Ever meet those types ofpeople?
That's a fight response too.
Overworking can be a fightresponse.
People who work too hard to tryto prove themselves, for
example.
You know, I had a client ofmine and he had this aha moment
where we're going over thisfight, flight, freeze response
because the rabbit hole goesdeep of what they look like,
(13:44):
what it looks like.
And he had this aha moment, andhe's this this is a guy in his
60s, very successful, had themulti-million dollar business,
the beautiful home, thebeautiful family, everything.
And he was wondering why am Istill so anxious and stressed
all the time in my 60s, eventhough I have everything that I
thought I wanted.
And he says, Aha moment going,Oh my God, I spent my whole life
(14:05):
fighting.
And I'm like, What do you mean?
I spent my whole life fightingto prove to people that I'm
better than my older brother.
So his older brother was an NFLfootball player, and he was
sharing a memory with me thatwhen he was in high school, his
football coach said to him,Don't even bother, you're never
gonna be as good as yourbrother.
And that pain causes us tofight reactively.
So, how do we fight?
(14:25):
We try to accomplish more, getmore status, and even though you
get it, you don't feel ashappy.
So the fight mode, a lot of thepeople think you need your
fight mode because it's what'sproductive, right?
But I found that it alwaysleads to a lack of fulfillment
and it always leads to burnout100% of the time.
Because if you're just in thatfight mode working, working
over, working, over, working,you're bound to get burnt out at
(14:47):
some time.
And one of the signs thatyou're doing this is you might
accomplish something, doesn'tfeel that great.
And you just move on to thenext thing.
That's usually a sign thatwe're in a chronic fight
response, if that makes sense.
And another client of me arguedwith me, and I think this is
what a lot of successfulbusiness owners struggle with,
actually, is they're great atfighting, they're great at doing
(15:08):
stuff, they're great atexecuting, producing results,
but something's behind thescenes where it's starting to
fall apart.
You're feeling burnt out,you're feeling anxious, you're
feeling stressed, and it's notgoing away.
So another client of me wasarguing with me.
He's like, No, you need thisfight response.
And he was bringing up a reallygood point because you're
sharing a story about how he hitrock bottom.
(15:29):
His second wife was leaving himbecause she was cheating on
him.
His first wife cheated on himtoo, which is why she left him.
Still, the judge ordered thathe pay over $2,000 a month in
child support.
He had a couple of kids.
Went broke.
His son was asking him, Dad,can I have some ice cream?
He had no money.
So he's scanging for coinsthroughout his house.
Go to one of those Coinstarmonies and, you know, those coin
(15:49):
machines that you put them on.
And that machine takes moneyfrom you too, right?
Because they charge a fee.
And he ended up with onlyenough money to buy his son ice
cream.
He couldn't even have enoughmoney for his own ice cream.
And he realized he was tellingme that was the moment I needed
to fight.
I needed survival.
Where I was every day, I neededto put my shoulders up and my
head down and I had to bashthrough whatever concrete wall
is in front of me after concretewall after concrete wall.
(16:11):
And he's like, you needsurvival at those times.
And I was like, you know,that's a very fair argument.
But what if this is not whatyou should, I'm not saying you
should have done this, couldhave done this.
Like, this is just a thoughtexercise.
What if, because you'vedeveloped the ability to
activate your executive statemore often, even if it's for a
moment, you have the ability toput your shoulders down for a
(16:32):
moment, put your head up.
And what you might see is thoseconcrete walls that you thought
you had to bash through wereonly three feet wide.
What I mean by this, it meanswhat if there were other
options, better options, fasteroptions that could have gotten
you the same result that yougot.
Because in the world of thatsaying, work smarter, not
harder, when we're in the fightmode, we're just working harder,
(16:53):
not smarter.
We just keep spinning throughthe same loop.
One of the main reasons thishappens is when your brain is in
survival, it develops tunnelvision.
So imagine a hungry tiger walksinto the room.
Are you gonna look anywhereelse except where that tiger is?
So when we're stressed out andwe're in this tunnel vision,
there might be a better option,such as franchising, right?
There might be a smarteroption, but your brain just
(17:15):
doesn't see it in the momentbecause of the stress, and you
develop this tunnel vision.
So this is why it's soimportant to be able to be
aware (17:20):
am I in a fight mode?
Flight mode, where it gets moresubtle, is things like when we
numb ourselves.
So there's no judgment aroundany of this.
We all do it, we all numbourselves at times to emotional
pain.
It's important to be aware ofit, not judge it.
By the way, judging someone canbe a fight response.
It's usually because we areinsecure about ourselves.
This is why a lot of peoplegossip and say negative things
(17:41):
about other people.
It's I'm insecure about me.
Maybe if I put that persondown, it will help me feel
better about myself in some way.
So it's important not to judge.
Numbing ourselves in flightresponse can be things like
overindulging in things liketelevision, food, right?
Alcohol, sex, drugs, to thepoint of addiction.
It's to numb this feeling Idon't want to feel.
The problem with that, again,is you're not accessing the
higher functions of your brain.
(18:03):
Subtle freeze responses is whenyou hear some traumatic news,
like some shocking news, yourbody freezes up.
When you hear somethingshocking, you didn't expect.
This is also why I found outthat I don't think there's such
a thing as laziness.
Someone might label a person aslazy, but something's going on
in their brain that's probably achronic freeze response.
We can't make decisions.
(18:23):
It's usually because of somesort of emotional pain that's
been happening a long time,whether it's from their own
upbringing or whatever the casemay be.
But if you can spot thesefight-flight freeze responses
that happen in everyday life,it's usually easier to spot it
in other people.
It's like, oh, there's thatperson procrastinating, there's
that person not taking action,that there's that person that
has anger issues.
(18:44):
But the big challenge is canyou spot it in yourself?
Because we all have it.
And the better you get atspotting this, I can guarantee
like it's going to be atransformative experience.
And that's just the beginningof the conversation.
But we need to be able to spotthis first.
TomDuFore (18:58):
One thing it made me think about we work with
entrepreneurs, help themfranchise their business.
And so someone takes that step.
They pass through, I'm sure,some of this fight, fight freeze
kind of mode.
They get through the survivalmindset to take that step at
some way moving through it.
And then it makes me thinkabout them selling a franchise
(19:18):
and for franchise ours that arein the business of selling
franchises.
Well, that prospectivefranchise buyer probably has a
lot of fear coming along withthis purchase.
So maybe it's not you goingthrough that, but maybe it's a
customer.
In this case, maybe it's apotential franchisee going
through.
What are some things that youmight maybe suggest or maybe
(19:41):
could help that prospectivefranchisee come through that
process or help them understandwhat they're looking to get into
here?
Dr. Eugene Choi (19:48):
That's a great question.
So your brain naturally justdoesn't like uncertainty.
It's actually what kept us allphysically alive all of these
generations.
It's because our prehistoricbrains don't like uncertainty
because if you go into uncertainterritory back when we lived in
caves, you might get killed bya wild animal.
So this is why our brainsnaturally have a fear of
(20:11):
uncertainty.
So if you're the franchisorabout to sell someone to a
franchisee that's veryinterested in purchasing,
anything that you can help themhave that sense of clarity will
help them move forward.
So there's a saying that inmarketing world where it says,
if you confuse, you lose.
What that means, if you confusesomeone, you've lost the sale.
(20:32):
So it's it's like thatexperience of if you've ever
gone to like a fine diningrestaurant where they have
really fancy food, and you knowhow they have each dish there
and it lists all the ingredientsout.
And like imagine you're like,oh, this food looks good.
And then there's this oneingredient, you're like, I don't
know what that is.
Does that make you go, oh, Iwant to try this now?
It actually causes aversion.
So anything you can do to helpa person have full clarity,
(20:55):
like, hey, look, this is exactlythe step-by-step process.
It's a four-month process.
Here's what, here's a documentfor you that you can look at it
week by week of what to expect.
Like any sort of clarity youcan provide for that person
you're making a sale, likethat's potentially interested in
purchasing with you, that's thebest way to get their brain out
of survival.
Because if they're in survival,they're either gonna fight with
(21:16):
you and argue with you andnitpick on every little thing
because they don't trust you,they're gonna flee from you,
which is avoid you, ghost you,not purchase with you, or
they're gonna freeze.
They're just not in a mode.
I can't make a decision rightnow.
I'm too overwhelmed, I'm tooscared, I'm too nervous.
So, as the franchisor, it'sgood to pay attention to.
Is this person I'm dealing withright now in a fight mode,
(21:37):
flight mode, or freeze mode?
And the more that you can seethat, now you can know what to
do to help them with that.
TomDuFore (21:44):
You had mentioned about your framework and some
process and things that you takepeople through.
How can people learn more aboutthat or get in touch with you
or learn a little bit more aboutwhat you're doing?
Dr. Eugene Choi (21:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, my work, what I teach isthat's just step one is the
fight flight freeze response.
The where the value reallycomes in, where it becomes even
more deeply transformational, isit turns out your brain, by the
time you're about 35 years old,90 to 95% of the brain goes
subconscious.
So, what do I mean by that?
It's on autopilot.
So, for a lot of us, oursurvival state is on autopilot,
(22:14):
which is why every day, if youever have that experience, I
know what's good for me, but Idon't feel like I'm doing it, so
I'm not gonna do it.
I know I should work out to getmy body healthier, but I don't
feel like it.
So I'm just gonna stay home.
So it's because your brain goesinto this autopilot mode.
It's for efficiency purposes,actually.
This is why you don't go downthe stairs going, I'm gonna put
my left foot forward, my rightfoot.
You don't think that for eachstep, you just do it without
(22:35):
thinking.
So the skill that we want todevelop is how do we change that
autopilot that's not servingus, right?
Creating good, just like youcreate good systems to the in
order for a franchise to worksuccessfully, the systems need
to work well, right?
What most people don't realizeis our brain runs these systems
as well.
So it's a habit of thinking,feeling, and acting.
(22:58):
We think 70,000 thoughts a day,90 to 95% of those thoughts are
the same thoughts as the daybefore.
Majority of those thoughts arenegative thoughts about
ourselves, which causes moresurvival state.
Same thing with the feelings,your body can get used to a
feeling.
If your body's used to thechemical feeling of anger, it's
what it wants, it craves it likea drug addict.
You might not feel angry oneday and your brain goes, Hey, I
(23:19):
need that anger.
Can you give me my dose of thatchemical of anger?
Because our feelings arechemicals.
And your brain might thinkabout something that's it's
stressed about and you're going,Oh, I'm so pissed off.
Well, your body's your brain'sgoing, I'm so pissed off.
Your body's going, ooh, thatfeels so good.
Right.
And your body gets used to afeeling, and that becomes a
habit as well.
And then because of thesefeelings, we might react without
thinking on a daily basis.
We procrastinate all the fivelife response we talked about.
(23:41):
What I teach now is how do youchange that autopilot?
Right.
There's a lot of things thatyou can do to change that
autopilot, but that's what Istarted my community for.
It's called NeurohackingSchool.
So this is an online communitywhere it has all the, it has my
course and we meet once a monthonline to talk about it, with
answer any questions.
And I also have theNeurohacking Podcast.
(24:02):
So that's a free podcast thatpeople can listen to to learn
more about how do you changethis autopilot?
Because a lot of our autopilotworks against us, doesn't it?
That's what bad habits are.
So that's the name of the gameis if we can get really good at
at least seeing what five flightfreeze looks like, that makes
you ready to learn about well,how do I actually change these
habits that I keep doing eachday?
TomDuFore (24:24):
Well, Dr.
Eugene, this is a great time inthe show, and we make a little
transition.
We ask every guest the samefour questions before they go.
And the first question we askis, have you had a miss or two
on your journey and somethingyou learned from it?
Dr. Eugene Choi (24:36):
I was actually transitioned careers quite a few
times now.
So I started off as apharmacist when I went into the
working world.
After three years, I quit toactually make films online.
Uh, I was working with aYouTube channel.
They got pretty big.
Now they're it's called JubileeMedia.
They went from pretty much zeroto 10 million followers across
YouTube.
So I was working with them whenthey were starting off, and we
(24:59):
made multiple, multiple piecesof short films that went viral.
I think the biggest project Iwork on got 23 million views
online.
And the miss was after doingall of that, I still ran out of
money because we're all livingoff our savings.
YouTube, just to give you aframe of reference, YouTube, you
need to be every video you makeneeds to be making millions of
(25:19):
views for you to make decentmoney.
So, for example, one project Iworked on with uh the first
Asian American basketballplayer, Jeremy Lynn.
We did a film for him, gotthree million views on it, 5K.
That's all it paid off.
And we were a team of likeseven people, right?
And we're all just living offour savings.
That money went back to thecompany.
Ran out of money, and it taughtme a lot.
Like the miss here was yeah,like all of the financial aspect
(25:44):
of things, the business aspectof things, I didn't know any of
that.
So there are times, the thing Ilearned from that is there are
times where passion itself, thefeeling of passion itself, also
needs to be paired withcompetency.
There are certain things thatit's good to become competent
in, like basic businessfoundations, sales, marketing,
(26:05):
how it works at the least, sothat you can combine the two and
then produce more value foryour audience.
Yeah, that was the miss for me.
It's like I've run out of moneymultiple times because of that
reason.
TomDuFore (26:16):
Let's look on the other side.
Let's talk about a make or ahighlight, a winner or two you'd
like to share.
Dr. Eugene Choi (26:22):
It actually stems from the same story.
It's the concept of leverage.
How do you make the most use ofyour time?
I think out of all thebusinesses I've coached, so this
is the big aha moment for methat comes to mind now.
Is I did these pieces ofcontent that went viral.
We're talking like it generatedmillions of views.
There are plenty of businessowners who would kill for that
(26:42):
type of exposure.
So that experience helped meleverage that, where whoa, like
I know how this works.
So I did that with my writing.
And one year, my one article Iwrote generated seven millions
of view, seven million views.
And at the time, I was gettingmentored by a CEO of a big
business, and I was a businesscoach for that.
(27:03):
They hired me as to be one oftheir business coaches.
I originally hired them to bemy business coach.
And they hired me becausethey're like, whoa, in a year,
you got a million views on yourwork.
How are you doing this?
You know, all of uh there's alot of businesses that are
struggling, getting moreexposure for their business.
I'm like, I don't know, I justlearned it from my filmmaking
days and now I'm just doing itfor my writing.
And then one year my articlewent viral, 7 million views on
(27:25):
it.
I made in a weekend what thecompany was contracting me with,
paid me for the whole year.
So it got me thinking a lotabout like, how do you create
these moments?
How do you build, look at theright information, create the
right skills so that you canleverage your time the best?
So ever since then, that's whyI'm a huge component of like if
you're starting a business, workfrom the top down.
(27:47):
What's the most expensive thingthat the highest price item you
think you can offer thatprovides value for the problem
you solve?
If you can get a few of those,it's a lot easier than trying to
find 10x, 100x of those peoplepaying for a fraction of the
cost, like a $10 product.
You know what I mean?
So that was a huge win for mebecause I was fortunate enough
because I learned those skillsduring those days when I got
(28:08):
mentored, how to do sales,marketing, all that.
Yeah, my first package is outthe gate when I started my
business for a higher ticketitem.
And it got me thinking a lotabout that, right?
So that was a huge win, whichled to a lot of the bigger wins,
right?
Like getting into corporatenow.
And you know, that they payfive figures for like a
60-minute talk, a 90-minutetalk.
(28:28):
And that's average.
That's actually pretty averagefor a corporate company that
brings in a keynote speaker, forexample.
So it just that was a huge win.
It was just like learning,like, wow, you can leverage your
time a lot better.
But then from a heartperspective, it's just like,
whoa, it's nice to know thatyou're capable of these things
you didn't think you werecapable of before.
(28:48):
Because prior to that, youmight not have believed that it
was possible for you, if thatmakes sense.
Right.
So that was a big win for me.
Yeah.
TomDuFore (28:56):
Let's talk about a multiplier that you've used to
multiply yourself personally,professionally, or any of the
organizations you've run.
Dr. Eugene Choi (29:04):
Yeah.
So that's the main multiplieris through my content.
So I tell people all the time,it's like if you find yourself
saying the same thing over andover again or teaching the same
thing over and over again, whyare you spending your time doing
that when you can record itonce and multiply it?
In the marketing world, there'sa phrase called the rule of
seven.
(29:24):
It takes someone up to seventimes being exposed to your
brand, your name, who you are,before they even remember you or
even decide to trust you ornot.
It's evolved so much.
It's not the rule of sevenanymore.
It's the rule of seven hours.
It's even harder to winsomeone's trust these days.
It takes about seven hours ofthem interacting with you to
decide do I like this person?
Do I trust this person?
(29:45):
So then if you want amultiplier, it's great to record
content as an example.
Because who has the time tospend seven hours with every new
person you meet, especially ifyou network a lot?
So if you can multiply yourselfby creating.
Recorded content or systems,creating good systems in your
business that can be replicable,that's a great multiplier.
(30:07):
The way I did it was throughcontent marketing, right?
One piece of content, 7 millionviews.
Another piece of content, 23million views.
But I'm not I'm not doing it 23million times.
I did it one time and 23million people saw it.
And Dr.
Eugene, the final question weask every guest is what does
success mean to you?
Success means to me, especiallyof now.
(30:29):
I have three little children,right?
They're little toddlers.
Success means to me being ableto have that autonomy and
freedom of choice and beingdeeply connected with my family
and the people I serve, andbeing able to cultivate a safe
space.
That's always been my mission.
From a neuroscienceperspective, that's because
that's when your brain performsat it at its best, when it feels
(30:49):
safe.
It's not feeling threatened,not feeling worried, not feeling
anxious.
And yeah, that success to me isbeing able to be have that
autonomy over my time and alsocultivating safe spaces wherever
I go, whether that be with aclient, my family, my friends.
TomDuFore (31:05):
As we bring this to a close, is there anything you
were hoping to share or getacross that you haven't had a
chance to yet?
Dr. Eugene Choi (31:11):
If I look behind the scenes of like, what
is it really getting in people'sway from this bigger success,
this bigger opportunity forthem?
And it actually stems down tothis one question.
There was this leader thatasked this really powerful
question.
This leader was being askedabout relationships, about
romantic really.
How do I find the perfectpartner?
As if there's such a thing as aperfect partner out there that
(31:32):
you can hold responsible foryour happiness, which doesn't
exist.
It's a security survival state,security policy, like an
insurance policy people create.
Maybe if I find someone I canhold responsible, then at least
I have someone to blame when I'mnot happy.
So it doesn't exist.
So this leader asked thispowerful question Would you go
out with yourself?
And I remember this was such apowerful question because my
first reaction was, no, Iwouldn't.
(31:53):
It's easy to spot things youdon't like about yourself, be
negative, be self-doubtful, andall that kind of stuff.
But the bigger aha moment I hadwas, do I actually have a
healthy relationship withmyself?
Because if I don't, I'm gonnabe transactional in my
relationships.
I'm gonna use other people.
And unfortunately, I'm notproud of it, but I've used my
family for that reason.
(32:14):
How do I know this?
I might claim that I'm sendingmy kids to the best, we're you
know, sending them to a niceschool or whatever.
I buy all these things for thembecause I love them.
But if I don't have a healthy,loving relationship with myself,
I'm not doing it for them.
I'm doing it for me.
Maybe if I do these things formy kids, I will feel better
about myself.
I will feel less stressed, Iwill feel more happy.
Maybe if I do these nice thingsfor my wife, claiming it's
(32:36):
because I love her, I willfinally feel better.
I'm using them to feel betterabout myself.
How do I know this is true?
It comes out in an argument.
What do I say?
Well, I do this and this foryou.
Why don't you do that and thatfor me?
Why did I keep track of thosethings?
Usually when we don't have astrong, healthy, supportive
relationship with ourselves,it's what's preventing us from
(32:58):
performing at a higher level.
And we enter into a lot oftransactional relationships.
Who likes transactionalrelationships?
Nobody.
I do this for you, you do thisfor me, or it's just business.
Business is very personal too,especially when you're talking
about bigger deals, biggerthings that you're working on
together that make big impact.
So that's what I realize is ifwe get good at developing better
(33:21):
relationships with ourselves,and that all starts with looking
at our inner environment.
Because when you're insurvival, it focuses on the
outside.
Because if you go to a darkforest, for example, you hear a
scary noise, where do you focus?
Your brain will focus on theoutside, going, where's the
sound?
Where's this noise?
The problem is when we feelemotional survival, your brain
does the same thing, going,where's this pain coming from?
It must be from the outside.
It's because of thisrelationship, it's because I
(33:43):
don't have this much money yet.
It's because of thiscircumstance.
The most courageous thing wecan do is look inwards and see
what's there.
And the better we get atlooking at that, being aware of
it, having a better relationshipwith ourselves.
Honestly, that's the keyingredient I've seen when people
skyrocket their success.
They're working smarter, notharder, but they're also feeling
better.
They're more connected with thepeople around them.
(34:05):
People enjoy being around them.
Yeah, I think that's what comesto mind of like, that's what it
all came down to for me is ifyou get into a better
relationship with yourself,because it takes courage to do
that.
No one likes looking inwardsbecause there's all this junk
that you don't like.
That's why we don't do it.
It's like that feeling ofimagine you go on a spending
spree and the credit card billcomes in the mail.
(34:25):
You don't want to open it.
That's what personaldevelopment feels like,
honestly.
It feels so uncomfortable, butit takes a lot of courage to do
that.
And it requires a commitment toyour own growth.
And that's what I noticedbehind the scenes is people who
don't blame others, they takefull responsibility for their
growth.
This is on me, my thoughts, myfeelings, and my actions.
It's because of me.
And I'm willing to takeownership over it.
(34:46):
So we don't do that unless wehave a healthier relationship
with ourselves.
So that's, I don't know, that'swhat came to mind when you just
asked that question, becausethat's what was most
transformative in my life was tocommit to my growth and take
responsibility for it,regardless of what circumstances
outside of me are happening.
TomDuFore (35:04):
Dr.
Eugene, thank you so much for afantastic interview.
And let's go ahead and jumpinto today's three key
takeaways.
Takeaway number one is thatyour brain can only operate in
either a survival state or anexecutive state.
I found that interesting, andthat for most people, about 70%
of the time today, our brainsare in this survival state.
(35:28):
And so takeaway number two iswhen our brain is in this
survival state, we respond inone of three ways.
We respond with fight, flight,or freeze.
And what I found reallyinteresting about this, because
most of you have probably heardthe fight, flight, or freeze
from a physical standpoint.
But I thought it was veryinteresting how he applied it to
(35:50):
the emotional standpoint.
And the first step to helpsupport you in figuring this out
and how you respond is throughawareness and oftentimes
noticing in others.
Takeaway number three is inmarketing, it is no longer the
rule of seven, which was sevenimpressions or seven touches in
(36:11):
marketing with a customer, aprospective customer.
It's now the rule of sevenhours.
The customer wants to spendseven hours with you before
they're looking to make adecision.
I thought that was great.
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
So today's win-win is uhthinking about Dr.
(36:36):
Choi's interview and reallystarting to think of it from a
franchise perspective and afranchise sales perspective.
And I thought it wasinteresting when we we spoke a
little bit about that.
And he said our brainsnaturally have a fear of
uncertainty.
And he quoted Donald Miller,who says, if you confuse, you
(36:56):
lose.
So thinking about how you canapply that to your franchise
sales structure or engagementwith your franchise prospects,
being clear, helping themunderstand the process, trying
to eliminate ambiguity will behelpful.
And I really liked when he wasat that session and he talked
about how at one point he was atthis leadership program, and
(37:20):
someone in the audience hadasked about how you find the
perfect wife or something tothat effect.
And the response back from thepresenter was, would you go out
with yourself?
And it really made me thinkabout applying that in this case
to the franchise salesperspective.
Now, my experience in workingwith franchisors is that most
(37:41):
founders would not necessarilybuy their own franchise because
they're entrepreneurs andthey're creative and going out
that way.
To me, it made me think, okay,let's walk a mile in someone
else's shoes.
Let's walk a mile in thatfranchise prospect's shoes to
help provide context to thedecisions you're making in the
franchise sales and franchisemarketing process.
(38:03):
And I thought that was a greatwin because if you're pursuing
and approaching it in that way,it's going to be a win for you
and a win for the prospect togain the clarity and make the
process easy for them to make adecision to decide to go with
the franchise or not.
And so that's the episodetoday, folks.
Please make sure you subscribeto our podcast and give us a
(38:24):
review.
And remember, if you or anyoneyou know might be ready to
franchise their business or taketheir franchise company to the
next level, please connect withus at BigSkyFranchise Team.com
where you can schedule a free,no obligation consultation with
myself or one of our teammembers.
Thanks for tuning in, and welook forward to having you back
next week.
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast,
where each week we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, Tom Dufour, CEOof Big Sky franchise team.
And as we open today, I'mwondering if you know that your
brain is most likely in survivalmode.
(00:21):
When it's in survival mode, andthis is for all of us, there
are only three ways in which werespond.
And we'll get to those in theinterview today.
Well, our guest today is Dr.
Eugene Choi, and he shares withus some neuroscience about
behavior within ourselves andothers.
Now, Dr.
Choi is a transformationalmindset coach on a mission to
(00:42):
transform leaders, businesses,and communities.
He teaches executive leadershow to achieve and sustain peak
performance in high stress, highstakes, and high change
environments.
Dr.
Choi also has created a ton ofviral content and work,
generating over 11 million viewson his online articles and over
(01:04):
30 million views on his shortfilms.
His experience and expertise inboth strategy and psychology
have proven critical in helpinghis clients produce tangible
results in both business and inlife.
You're going to love thisinterview, so let's go ahead and
jump right into it.
Dr. Eugene Choi (01:18):
My name is Dr.
Eugene K.
Choi.
I am founder of NeurohackingSchool.
It's a company that helpspeople achieve a higher level of
peak performance despitehowever much adversity or high
pressure, high-stakes situationsyou might be in.
And that's what I've beendoing.
I'm a former clinicalpharmacist, turned viral
filmmaker now, turnedentrepreneur.
TomDuFore (01:38):
Fantastic.
When I saw your informationcome across my desk in terms of
what you're doing, I said, we'vegot to have Dr.
Eugene on the show.
I just think what you're doingis fantastic for this higher
level mental performance.
And so I'd love for you just toreally give us a starting point
to build from, to talk aboutwhy you're doing what you're
(02:01):
doing and how you've seen ithelping people.
Dr. Eugene Choi (02:03):
Yeah.
So I've had the fortunateopportunity of coaching hundreds
and hundreds of business ownersnow.
And one of the things that I'venoticed is majority of the
time, the issue with thebusiness owner actually wasn't
strategy.
They already knew the strategy.
In fact, they've probablyresearched the heck out of it.
They've heard it from multiplepeople.
But for whatever reason,they're not executing on these
(02:25):
strategies that can help themget the results that they're
looking for.
So that's when I found out oh,part of this is also psychology,
mindset, the way that they'rethinking about things.
And that's where the resistancecomes from.
So that's kind of what led downmy path of studying how the
brain works, the neuroscience.
I have a background as aclinical pharmacist.
I used to practice for manyyears.
(02:46):
So it helps me understand thescience behind things.
And I just started learningabout that and realized, whoa,
if people just understand someof the basics of this, it can be
transformative from for themwhere they actually execute on
these things that will help themget the results.
TomDuFore (03:02):
So as you started to go down this journey of
investigating and researching,and now you've worked with
hundreds of clients or coachedwith folks over the years, what
is it that you're seeing, orwhat did you maybe find?
Dr. Eugene Choi (03:15):
Yeah, they just work a lot better.
That phrase, work smarter, notharder, that tends to happen a
lot as well.
The results are really amazingto see.
I mean, there's practicalresults where I've had a client
who was only making 40K a yearin their business from that to
breaking the seven figure inrevenue in a span of three
years.
Some other people who are like,I can never charge a high
(03:36):
ticket price for their offer.
And they come back that weekendgoing, whoa, I just closed four
sales for a $15,000 package perperson.
So there's that aspect to it,but then there's also the
feeling aspect to it.
There's a lot of times we'reemotionally feeling very
stressed, strung out, burnt out.
They just feel a lot better aswell, both mentally and
(03:57):
physically.
TomDuFore (03:58):
How is neuroscience used to help create some of
these permanent andtransformative types of
behaviors that you're able tohelp people through?
Dr. Eugene Choi (04:07):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So basically, what I did was Icreated a framework because I
realized a lot of this stuff cansound complicated to people.
So one of the things I learnedfrom my filmmaking days, which I
was fortunate to work with acouple of people, we created
viral content together thatreached millions of people, that
kind of opened my eyes to ittaught me about marketing
without learning aboutmarketing.
How do you create somethingviral, which is basically how do
(04:30):
you create something thatpeople like so much they want to
share it with other people?
And those people share it withother people.
So it brought the same type ofthought process to my mind of
how do I take this content ofbrain science and make it easier
to understand?
And hopefully it's easy enoughto understand that other people
can share it with other people.
So I've created a frameworkthat I bring people through and
(04:51):
they work with me privately, butI teach them basic concepts
that once you understand it andyou can see it, it should create
some immediate shifts for youthe more you practice
implementing some of thesethings you learn.
The first and foremost thing toknow about your brain, it's
really simple.
It's this your brain can onlyoperate in one of two states at
any given time.
It's one or the other.
It can't be both at the sametime.
(05:12):
It's what I call either itoperates in what's called a
survival state or an executivestate.
So the thing to know about howa survival state works is it's
the part of your brain thatturns on when you feel
threatened in any way.
So if you feel threatened, yourbrain will try to protect you.
But when it's in that mode, itcannot think.
So you enter into this modewhere you're reacting without
(05:33):
thinking.
Imagine you're walking down apath, you see a snake on the
side of the path, you're notgoing to sit there and start
thinking, huh, what am I seeinghere?
Your body will immediatelyreact and jump away from the
snake.
So the problem with this whenit comes to business growth is
your brain's not thinking.
So you're often reactingwithout thinking, which prevents
you from experiencing theseresults that you want to see.
If we compare that to what Icall an executive state, this is
(05:55):
the part of your brain where alot of higher functions turn on.
We're talking critical thinkingskills, your creativity, your
problem-solving skills, yourempathy, your ability to
actually connect with someone.
And the list goes on out of allthese amazing things that it's
capable of.
That's what an executive stateis.
So here's the big aha moment Ihad.
It's kind of shocking.
(06:16):
Turns out research shows thatfor a majority of our adult
lives, some even some researcheven suggests it's for 70% of
our adult lives, that we're notin the executive state where
your brain's higher functionsare on.
In fact, you're in a survivalstate.
So for a majority of our adultlife, our brain's critical
thinking skills, our creativity,our ability to solve problems
(06:36):
are not being accessed.
So the question is why?
Why are we in a survival statefor majority of our adult lives?
Especially if survival state isonly meant for life-threatening
situations, like a hungry tigerabout to eat you, someone's
about to hurt you.
It's only meant for those, butwhy are we in this mode for
majority of our adult lives?
It's because of emotionalsurvival.
So it turns out emotional paincan be just as painful as
(06:58):
physical pain based on the waythe brain processes information.
So, what does this mean?
We have to think about howoften, every day, do we feel
feelings that are uncomfortable?
Stress, anxiety, frustration,depression, anger.
All of these types of feelingsthat don't feel that comfortable
actually kind of tricks yourbrain into thinking your life's
(07:20):
in danger.
So boom, your ability to solveproblems, your ability to think,
it's shutting off.
So if we can understand this,that number one is can we see
that?
That you know what?
Yeah, you're right.
A majority of my life of my dayis I don't feel that great.
I feel stressed, I feelanxious, I feel frustrated.
(07:40):
And because of that, you're notaccessing these parts of your
brain that you need.
That's the first thing.
If people can understand that,then we can move on to the next
thing that help you kind ofunderstand what I can do about
this.
TomDuFore (07:52):
That makes a lot of sense.
How can you use thatinformation?
I know about it, but what can Ireally do about it?
Is there anything I can doabout that?
If I'm at 70%, can I reducethat to 50%?
Dr. Eugene Choi (08:05):
That's a great question.
So, yes, you can do somethingabout it.
And the first step is all aboutawareness.
So, awareness is what gives usthe power to change something we
want to change.
So, what do I mean by this?
Imagine you have a piece ofbroccoli stuck between your
teeth.
Do you have the power to removethat piece of broccoli unless
it comes into your awareness?
Someone either has to point itout to you or you might see it
(08:27):
in the mirror and you becomeaware of it.
Now I'm aware of it, I canchange it.
So here's this interestingpart.
Many of us are not aware ofwhat our own survival state
actually looks like.
So this is step one is we needto become good at becoming aware
of what this actually lookslike.
So that's what I teach.
This is the first thing that Iteach to clients, or when I'm up
(08:48):
on a stage teaching, this isthe first thing I teach is we
need to know what survival statelooks like in our daily lives.
So your brain, when it's insurvival state, remember it's
reacting without thinking.
You're doing it withoutthinking about it.
You just do it.
It can only do one of threethings.
Your brain only has threeoptions when it feels threatened
in some way, and you enter intosurvival state fight, flight,
or freeze.
(09:08):
So, for people who are familiarwith what that phrase means, it
means it's those are the threeoptions that your brain tries to
execute on to try to survivefrom an actual life-threatening
situation.
So, in a physicallylife-threatening situation, it's
really easy to understand andknow what this looks like.
You might pick up a weapon tofight, because if you're in
danger, you're going to pick upa weapon to try to fight to stay
(09:28):
alive.
You're going to run for yourlife and run away in flight, or
you play dead and freeze.
So, possums are great at doingthis because their predators
actually like to eat their foodalive.
So, possums play dead, theydon't get killed.
Humans have done this too.
If you ever see those warmovies where there's like a pile
of dead bodies and you see theenemy coming, you kind of play
dead so that you don't getkilled by the enemy.
So now that's easy to spot.
(09:50):
What becomes harder to spot iswhat does emotional survival
look like?
What are we doing when we'restressed, when we're anxious,
when we're worried, when we'refrustrated, when we're doubting?
That's the thing to spot.
So, what does an emotionalfight response look like?
It could be imagine someonesays something, it hurts your
feelings, and now you're arguingwith them, you're fighting
back.
So your brain in that moment isactually viewing that person as
(10:11):
a threat and you're ready toattack them.
Usually it happens verbally,hopefully not physically.
Unfortunately, it can happenphysically, right?
But you're verbally attackingthis person in the fight mode.
The worst part is if you'redoing it to someone you love,
because your brain gottriggered, you're not thinking
anymore, you're actually yourbrain is actually attacking that
person because you're feelingemotionally threatened.
Some people who are in fightmode, it could be physical
(10:34):
fights as well.
Or if you ever see road ragehappen, that's a fight response.
Because I feel a certain waywhen you cut me off and now I'm
trying to cut you back off.
And you see what I'm saying?
That's a fight response.
Uh, flight response can bethings like procrastination.
Why do we procrastinate?
It's because the thing Iprobably should be doing right
(10:55):
now, there's some sort of fearand security around it.
What if I do this now?
I look stupid.
What if I do this now and I'mright, I get judged?
Or sometimes it's physicallyavoiding someone.
It could be an ex, I don'tknow, your in-laws if you don't
like your in-laws, or whoeverpeople that you might not want
to be around, a boss, acolleague.
So you physically avoid them.
One funny story I like to shareabout that is when we're in a
(11:16):
flight response, remember,you're not thinking, you're just
reacting without thinking.
I used to take the subway tohigh school in New York City
where I grew up, and my friendand I are heading to the subway
station.
You see one of these Koreanladies with a bunch of those
pamphlets, and she's clearlytrying to promote something,
which is promote her church,trying to convince you to go to
her church.
And my friend and I immediatelyfeel that reaction of, like, oh
God, like we just want to getto school.
(11:37):
We're not wanting this wholespiel about, you know, going to
her church.
But we see her approaching usbecause my friend and I are both
Korean as well.
So she sees that we're Asianand she walks over and she says
to us in Korean, Hangukbuniseyo, which means, are you
Korean?
And remember, your brain's notthinking in flight mode in
survival.
My friend looks at her andresponds, Anya, which means no,
(11:57):
but he just responded to her inKorean when she's asking her,
Are you Korean?
So our brain can make verystupid mistakes when we're in
survival for that reason, right?
And I we've all experiencedstuff like this, right?
Where we kind of make a sillymistake.
And freeze mode is when whathappens when you feel like put
on the spot.
Your brain can't think anymore.
(12:18):
Someone just called on you inthe meeting and you didn't
expect it.
Or people who get caught in alie, your body freezes up
because it's their brain going,quick, pretend to not exist so
that this person stopsinterrogating you.
So if we can see what fight,flight, freeze looks like,
you're giving your brain theability to snap out of survival
so that you can access thesehigher functions of your brain.
So now it's important to getreally good at this, though,
(12:41):
because it gets very subtle.
There's a lot of things peoplearen't aware of that where it
gets deeper.
So, what do I mean by this?
What's a deeper fight responsepeople might not notice?
The need to prove yourself.
Why do you fight to proveyourself unless you already view
yourself as not so great of aperson?
Unless you already have somesort of insecurity about
(13:02):
yourself or self-doubt.
Why do you need to proveyourself?
The need to be right all thetime.
You ever meet those people?
The people who always have tobe right?
Why are people like that?
It's because usually at somepoint in their life they might
have gotten shamed, blamed,rejected, or embarrassed for
being wrong about something.
So they fight because thatemotional pain didn't feel good.
(13:22):
So they fight to be right allthe time.
Or the people who just overlyinterrupt you.
Ever meet those types ofpeople?
That's a fight response too.
Overworking can be a fightresponse.
People who work too hard to tryto prove themselves, for
example.
You know, I had a client ofmine and he had this aha moment
where we're going over thisfight, flight, freeze response
because the rabbit hole goesdeep of what they look like,
(13:44):
what it looks like.
And he had this aha moment, andhe's this this is a guy in his
60s, very successful, had themulti-million dollar business,
the beautiful home, thebeautiful family, everything.
And he was wondering why am Istill so anxious and stressed
all the time in my 60s, eventhough I have everything that I
thought I wanted.
And he says, Aha moment going,Oh my God, I spent my whole life
(14:05):
fighting.
And I'm like, What do you mean?
I spent my whole life fightingto prove to people that I'm
better than my older brother.
So his older brother was an NFLfootball player, and he was
sharing a memory with me thatwhen he was in high school, his
football coach said to him,Don't even bother, you're never
gonna be as good as yourbrother.
And that pain causes us tofight reactively.
So, how do we fight?
(14:25):
We try to accomplish more, getmore status, and even though you
get it, you don't feel ashappy.
So the fight mode, a lot of thepeople think you need your
fight mode because it's what'sproductive, right?
But I found that it alwaysleads to a lack of fulfillment
and it always leads to burnout100% of the time.
Because if you're just in thatfight mode working, working
over, working, over, working,you're bound to get burnt out at
(14:47):
some time.
And one of the signs thatyou're doing this is you might
accomplish something, doesn'tfeel that great.
And you just move on to thenext thing.
That's usually a sign thatwe're in a chronic fight
response, if that makes sense.
And another client of me arguedwith me, and I think this is
what a lot of successfulbusiness owners struggle with,
actually, is they're great atfighting, they're great at doing
(15:08):
stuff, they're great atexecuting, producing results,
but something's behind thescenes where it's starting to
fall apart.
You're feeling burnt out,you're feeling anxious, you're
feeling stressed, and it's notgoing away.
So another client of me wasarguing with me.
He's like, No, you need thisfight response.
And he was bringing up a reallygood point because you're
sharing a story about how he hitrock bottom.
(15:29):
His second wife was leaving himbecause she was cheating on
him.
His first wife cheated on himtoo, which is why she left him.
Still, the judge ordered thathe pay over $2,000 a month in
child support.
He had a couple of kids.
Went broke.
His son was asking him, Dad,can I have some ice cream?
He had no money.
So he's scanging for coinsthroughout his house.
Go to one of those Coinstarmonies and, you know, those coin
(15:49):
machines that you put them on.
And that machine takes moneyfrom you too, right?
Because they charge a fee.
And he ended up with onlyenough money to buy his son ice
cream.
He couldn't even have enoughmoney for his own ice cream.
And he realized he was tellingme that was the moment I needed
to fight.
I needed survival.
Where I was every day, I neededto put my shoulders up and my
head down and I had to bashthrough whatever concrete wall
is in front of me after concretewall after concrete wall.
(16:11):
And he's like, you needsurvival at those times.
And I was like, you know,that's a very fair argument.
But what if this is not whatyou should, I'm not saying you
should have done this, couldhave done this.
Like, this is just a thoughtexercise.
What if, because you'vedeveloped the ability to
activate your executive statemore often, even if it's for a
moment, you have the ability toput your shoulders down for a
(16:32):
moment, put your head up.
And what you might see is thoseconcrete walls that you thought
you had to bash through wereonly three feet wide.
What I mean by this, it meanswhat if there were other
options, better options, fasteroptions that could have gotten
you the same result that yougot.
Because in the world of thatsaying, work smarter, not
harder, when we're in the fightmode, we're just working harder,
(16:53):
not smarter.
We just keep spinning throughthe same loop.
One of the main reasons thishappens is when your brain is in
survival, it develops tunnelvision.
So imagine a hungry tiger walksinto the room.
Are you gonna look anywhereelse except where that tiger is?
So when we're stressed out andwe're in this tunnel vision,
there might be a better option,such as franchising, right?
There might be a smarteroption, but your brain just
(17:15):
doesn't see it in the momentbecause of the stress, and you
develop this tunnel vision.
So this is why it's soimportant to be able to be
aware (17:20):
am I in a fight mode?
Flight mode, where it gets moresubtle, is things like when we
numb ourselves.
So there's no judgment aroundany of this.
We all do it, we all numbourselves at times to emotional
pain.
It's important to be aware ofit, not judge it.
By the way, judging someone canbe a fight response.
It's usually because we areinsecure about ourselves.
This is why a lot of peoplegossip and say negative things
(17:41):
about other people.
It's I'm insecure about me.
Maybe if I put that persondown, it will help me feel
better about myself in some way.
So it's important not to judge.
Numbing ourselves in flightresponse can be things like
overindulging in things liketelevision, food, right?
Alcohol, sex, drugs, to thepoint of addiction.
It's to numb this feeling Idon't want to feel.
The problem with that, again,is you're not accessing the
higher functions of your brain.
(18:03):
Subtle freeze responses is whenyou hear some traumatic news,
like some shocking news, yourbody freezes up.
When you hear somethingshocking, you didn't expect.
This is also why I found outthat I don't think there's such
a thing as laziness.
Someone might label a person aslazy, but something's going on
in their brain that's probably achronic freeze response.
We can't make decisions.
(18:23):
It's usually because of somesort of emotional pain that's
been happening a long time,whether it's from their own
upbringing or whatever the casemay be.
But if you can spot thesefight-flight freeze responses
that happen in everyday life,it's usually easier to spot it
in other people.
It's like, oh, there's thatperson procrastinating, there's
that person not taking action,that there's that person that
has anger issues.
(18:44):
But the big challenge is canyou spot it in yourself?
Because we all have it.
And the better you get atspotting this, I can guarantee
like it's going to be atransformative experience.
And that's just the beginningof the conversation.
But we need to be able to spotthis first.
TomDuFore (18:58):
One thing it made me think about we work with
entrepreneurs, help themfranchise their business.
And so someone takes that step.
They pass through, I'm sure,some of this fight, fight freeze
kind of mode.
They get through the survivalmindset to take that step at
some way moving through it.
And then it makes me thinkabout them selling a franchise
(19:18):
and for franchise ours that arein the business of selling
franchises.
Well, that prospectivefranchise buyer probably has a
lot of fear coming along withthis purchase.
So maybe it's not you goingthrough that, but maybe it's a
customer.
In this case, maybe it's apotential franchisee going
through.
What are some things that youmight maybe suggest or maybe
(19:41):
could help that prospectivefranchisee come through that
process or help them understandwhat they're looking to get into
here?
Dr. Eugene Choi (19:48):
That's a great question.
So your brain naturally justdoesn't like uncertainty.
It's actually what kept us allphysically alive all of these
generations.
It's because our prehistoricbrains don't like uncertainty
because if you go into uncertainterritory back when we lived in
caves, you might get killed bya wild animal.
So this is why our brainsnaturally have a fear of
(20:11):
uncertainty.
So if you're the franchisorabout to sell someone to a
franchisee that's veryinterested in purchasing,
anything that you can help themhave that sense of clarity will
help them move forward.
So there's a saying that inmarketing world where it says,
if you confuse, you lose.
What that means, if you confusesomeone, you've lost the sale.
(20:32):
So it's it's like thatexperience of if you've ever
gone to like a fine diningrestaurant where they have
really fancy food, and you knowhow they have each dish there
and it lists all the ingredientsout.
And like imagine you're like,oh, this food looks good.
And then there's this oneingredient, you're like, I don't
know what that is.
Does that make you go, oh, Iwant to try this now?
It actually causes aversion.
So anything you can do to helpa person have full clarity,
(20:55):
like, hey, look, this is exactlythe step-by-step process.
It's a four-month process.
Here's what, here's a documentfor you that you can look at it
week by week of what to expect.
Like any sort of clarity youcan provide for that person
you're making a sale, likethat's potentially interested in
purchasing with you, that's thebest way to get their brain out
of survival.
Because if they're in survival,they're either gonna fight with
(21:16):
you and argue with you andnitpick on every little thing
because they don't trust you,they're gonna flee from you,
which is avoid you, ghost you,not purchase with you, or
they're gonna freeze.
They're just not in a mode.
I can't make a decision rightnow.
I'm too overwhelmed, I'm tooscared, I'm too nervous.
So, as the franchisor, it'sgood to pay attention to.
Is this person I'm dealing withright now in a fight mode,
(21:37):
flight mode, or freeze mode?
And the more that you can seethat, now you can know what to
do to help them with that.
TomDuFore (21:44):
You had mentioned about your framework and some
process and things that you takepeople through.
How can people learn more aboutthat or get in touch with you
or learn a little bit more aboutwhat you're doing?
Dr. Eugene Choi (21:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, my work, what I teach isthat's just step one is the
fight flight freeze response.
The where the value reallycomes in, where it becomes even
more deeply transformational, isit turns out your brain, by the
time you're about 35 years old,90 to 95% of the brain goes
subconscious.
So, what do I mean by that?
It's on autopilot.
So, for a lot of us, oursurvival state is on autopilot,
(22:14):
which is why every day, if youever have that experience, I
know what's good for me, but Idon't feel like I'm doing it, so
I'm not gonna do it.
I know I should work out to getmy body healthier, but I don't
feel like it.
So I'm just gonna stay home.
So it's because your brain goesinto this autopilot mode.
It's for efficiency purposes,actually.
This is why you don't go downthe stairs going, I'm gonna put
my left foot forward, my rightfoot.
You don't think that for eachstep, you just do it without
(22:35):
thinking.
So the skill that we want todevelop is how do we change that
autopilot that's not servingus, right?
Creating good, just like youcreate good systems to the in
order for a franchise to worksuccessfully, the systems need
to work well, right?
What most people don't realizeis our brain runs these systems
as well.
So it's a habit of thinking,feeling, and acting.
(22:58):
We think 70,000 thoughts a day,90 to 95% of those thoughts are
the same thoughts as the daybefore.
Majority of those thoughts arenegative thoughts about
ourselves, which causes moresurvival state.
Same thing with the feelings,your body can get used to a
feeling.
If your body's used to thechemical feeling of anger, it's
what it wants, it craves it likea drug addict.
You might not feel angry oneday and your brain goes, Hey, I
(23:19):
need that anger.
Can you give me my dose of thatchemical of anger?
Because our feelings arechemicals.
And your brain might thinkabout something that's it's
stressed about and you're going,Oh, I'm so pissed off.
Well, your body's your brain'sgoing, I'm so pissed off.
Your body's going, ooh, thatfeels so good.
Right.
And your body gets used to afeeling, and that becomes a
habit as well.
And then because of thesefeelings, we might react without
thinking on a daily basis.
We procrastinate all the fivelife response we talked about.
(23:41):
What I teach now is how do youchange that autopilot?
Right.
There's a lot of things thatyou can do to change that
autopilot, but that's what Istarted my community for.
It's called NeurohackingSchool.
So this is an online communitywhere it has all the, it has my
course and we meet once a monthonline to talk about it, with
answer any questions.
And I also have theNeurohacking Podcast.
(24:02):
So that's a free podcast thatpeople can listen to to learn
more about how do you changethis autopilot?
Because a lot of our autopilotworks against us, doesn't it?
That's what bad habits are.
So that's the name of the gameis if we can get really good at
at least seeing what five flightfreeze looks like, that makes
you ready to learn about well,how do I actually change these
habits that I keep doing eachday?
TomDuFore (24:24):
Well, Dr.
Eugene, this is a great time inthe show, and we make a little
transition.
We ask every guest the samefour questions before they go.
And the first question we askis, have you had a miss or two
on your journey and somethingyou learned from it?
Dr. Eugene Choi (24:36):
I was actually transitioned careers quite a few
times now.
So I started off as apharmacist when I went into the
working world.
After three years, I quit toactually make films online.
Uh, I was working with aYouTube channel.
They got pretty big.
Now they're it's called JubileeMedia.
They went from pretty much zeroto 10 million followers across
YouTube.
So I was working with them whenthey were starting off, and we
(24:59):
made multiple, multiple piecesof short films that went viral.
I think the biggest project Iwork on got 23 million views
online.
And the miss was after doingall of that, I still ran out of
money because we're all livingoff our savings.
YouTube, just to give you aframe of reference, YouTube, you
need to be every video you makeneeds to be making millions of
(25:19):
views for you to make decentmoney.
So, for example, one project Iworked on with uh the first
Asian American basketballplayer, Jeremy Lynn.
We did a film for him, gotthree million views on it, 5K.
That's all it paid off.
And we were a team of likeseven people, right?
And we're all just living offour savings.
That money went back to thecompany.
Ran out of money, and it taughtme a lot.
Like the miss here was yeah,like all of the financial aspect
(25:44):
of things, the business aspectof things, I didn't know any of
that.
So there are times, the thing Ilearned from that is there are
times where passion itself, thefeeling of passion itself, also
needs to be paired withcompetency.
There are certain things thatit's good to become competent
in, like basic businessfoundations, sales, marketing,
(26:05):
how it works at the least, sothat you can combine the two and
then produce more value foryour audience.
Yeah, that was the miss for me.
It's like I've run out of moneymultiple times because of that
reason.
TomDuFore (26:16):
Let's look on the other side.
Let's talk about a make or ahighlight, a winner or two you'd
like to share.
Dr. Eugene Choi (26:22):
It actually stems from the same story.
It's the concept of leverage.
How do you make the most use ofyour time?
I think out of all thebusinesses I've coached, so this
is the big aha moment for methat comes to mind now.
Is I did these pieces ofcontent that went viral.
We're talking like it generatedmillions of views.
There are plenty of businessowners who would kill for that
(26:42):
type of exposure.
So that experience helped meleverage that, where whoa, like
I know how this works.
So I did that with my writing.
And one year, my one article Iwrote generated seven millions
of view, seven million views.
And at the time, I was gettingmentored by a CEO of a big
business, and I was a businesscoach for that.
(27:03):
They hired me as to be one oftheir business coaches.
I originally hired them to bemy business coach.
And they hired me becausethey're like, whoa, in a year,
you got a million views on yourwork.
How are you doing this?
You know, all of uh there's alot of businesses that are
struggling, getting moreexposure for their business.
I'm like, I don't know, I justlearned it from my filmmaking
days and now I'm just doing itfor my writing.
And then one year my articlewent viral, 7 million views on
(27:25):
it.
I made in a weekend what thecompany was contracting me with,
paid me for the whole year.
So it got me thinking a lotabout like, how do you create
these moments?
How do you build, look at theright information, create the
right skills so that you canleverage your time the best?
So ever since then, that's whyI'm a huge component of like if
you're starting a business, workfrom the top down.
(27:47):
What's the most expensive thingthat the highest price item you
think you can offer thatprovides value for the problem
you solve?
If you can get a few of those,it's a lot easier than trying to
find 10x, 100x of those peoplepaying for a fraction of the
cost, like a $10 product.
You know what I mean?
So that was a huge win for mebecause I was fortunate enough
because I learned those skillsduring those days when I got
(28:08):
mentored, how to do sales,marketing, all that.
Yeah, my first package is outthe gate when I started my
business for a higher ticketitem.
And it got me thinking a lotabout that, right?
So that was a huge win, whichled to a lot of the bigger wins,
right?
Like getting into corporatenow.
And you know, that they payfive figures for like a
60-minute talk, a 90-minutetalk.
(28:28):
And that's average.
That's actually pretty averagefor a corporate company that
brings in a keynote speaker, forexample.
So it just that was a huge win.
It was just like learning,like, wow, you can leverage your
time a lot better.
But then from a heartperspective, it's just like,
whoa, it's nice to know thatyou're capable of these things
you didn't think you werecapable of before.
(28:48):
Because prior to that, youmight not have believed that it
was possible for you, if thatmakes sense.
Right.
So that was a big win for me.
Yeah.
TomDuFore (28:56):
Let's talk about a multiplier that you've used to
multiply yourself personally,professionally, or any of the
organizations you've run.
Dr. Eugene Choi (29:04):
Yeah.
So that's the main multiplieris through my content.
So I tell people all the time,it's like if you find yourself
saying the same thing over andover again or teaching the same
thing over and over again, whyare you spending your time doing
that when you can record itonce and multiply it?
In the marketing world, there'sa phrase called the rule of
seven.
(29:24):
It takes someone up to seventimes being exposed to your
brand, your name, who you are,before they even remember you or
even decide to trust you ornot.
It's evolved so much.
It's not the rule of sevenanymore.
It's the rule of seven hours.
It's even harder to winsomeone's trust these days.
It takes about seven hours ofthem interacting with you to
decide do I like this person?
Do I trust this person?
(29:45):
So then if you want amultiplier, it's great to record
content as an example.
Because who has the time tospend seven hours with every new
person you meet, especially ifyou network a lot?
So if you can multiply yourselfby creating.
Recorded content or systems,creating good systems in your
business that can be replicable,that's a great multiplier.
(30:07):
The way I did it was throughcontent marketing, right?
One piece of content, 7 millionviews.
Another piece of content, 23million views.
But I'm not I'm not doing it 23million times.
I did it one time and 23million people saw it.
And Dr.
Eugene, the final question weask every guest is what does
success mean to you?
Success means to me, especiallyof now.
(30:29):
I have three little children,right?
They're little toddlers.
Success means to me being ableto have that autonomy and
freedom of choice and beingdeeply connected with my family
and the people I serve, andbeing able to cultivate a safe
space.
That's always been my mission.
From a neuroscienceperspective, that's because
that's when your brain performsat it at its best, when it feels
(30:49):
safe.
It's not feeling threatened,not feeling worried, not feeling
anxious.
And yeah, that success to me isbeing able to be have that
autonomy over my time and alsocultivating safe spaces wherever
I go, whether that be with aclient, my family, my friends.
TomDuFore (31:05):
As we bring this to a close, is there anything you
were hoping to share or getacross that you haven't had a
chance to yet?
Dr. Eugene Choi (31:11):
If I look behind the scenes of like, what
is it really getting in people'sway from this bigger success,
this bigger opportunity forthem?
And it actually stems down tothis one question.
There was this leader thatasked this really powerful
question.
This leader was being askedabout relationships, about
romantic really.
How do I find the perfectpartner?
As if there's such a thing as aperfect partner out there that
(31:32):
you can hold responsible foryour happiness, which doesn't
exist.
It's a security survival state,security policy, like an
insurance policy people create.
Maybe if I find someone I canhold responsible, then at least
I have someone to blame when I'mnot happy.
So it doesn't exist.
So this leader asked thispowerful question Would you go
out with yourself?
And I remember this was such apowerful question because my
first reaction was, no, Iwouldn't.
(31:53):
It's easy to spot things youdon't like about yourself, be
negative, be self-doubtful, andall that kind of stuff.
But the bigger aha moment I hadwas, do I actually have a
healthy relationship withmyself?
Because if I don't, I'm gonnabe transactional in my
relationships.
I'm gonna use other people.
And unfortunately, I'm notproud of it, but I've used my
family for that reason.
(32:14):
How do I know this?
I might claim that I'm sendingmy kids to the best, we're you
know, sending them to a niceschool or whatever.
I buy all these things for thembecause I love them.
But if I don't have a healthy,loving relationship with myself,
I'm not doing it for them.
I'm doing it for me.
Maybe if I do these things formy kids, I will feel better
about myself.
I will feel less stressed, Iwill feel more happy.
Maybe if I do these nice thingsfor my wife, claiming it's
(32:36):
because I love her, I willfinally feel better.
I'm using them to feel betterabout myself.
How do I know this is true?
It comes out in an argument.
What do I say?
Well, I do this and this foryou.
Why don't you do that and thatfor me?
Why did I keep track of thosethings?
Usually when we don't have astrong, healthy, supportive
relationship with ourselves,it's what's preventing us from
(32:58):
performing at a higher level.
And we enter into a lot oftransactional relationships.
Who likes transactionalrelationships?
Nobody.
I do this for you, you do thisfor me, or it's just business.
Business is very personal too,especially when you're talking
about bigger deals, biggerthings that you're working on
together that make big impact.
So that's what I realize is ifwe get good at developing better
(33:21):
relationships with ourselves,and that all starts with looking
at our inner environment.
Because when you're insurvival, it focuses on the
outside.
Because if you go to a darkforest, for example, you hear a
scary noise, where do you focus?
Your brain will focus on theoutside, going, where's the
sound?
Where's this noise?
The problem is when we feelemotional survival, your brain
does the same thing, going,where's this pain coming from?
It must be from the outside.
It's because of thisrelationship, it's because I
(33:43):
don't have this much money yet.
It's because of thiscircumstance.
The most courageous thing wecan do is look inwards and see
what's there.
And the better we get atlooking at that, being aware of
it, having a better relationshipwith ourselves.
Honestly, that's the keyingredient I've seen when people
skyrocket their success.
They're working smarter, notharder, but they're also feeling
better.
They're more connected with thepeople around them.
(34:05):
People enjoy being around them.
Yeah, I think that's what comesto mind of like, that's what it
all came down to for me is ifyou get into a better
relationship with yourself,because it takes courage to do
that.
No one likes looking inwardsbecause there's all this junk
that you don't like.
That's why we don't do it.
It's like that feeling ofimagine you go on a spending
spree and the credit card billcomes in the mail.
(34:25):
You don't want to open it.
That's what personaldevelopment feels like,
honestly.
It feels so uncomfortable, butit takes a lot of courage to do
that.
And it requires a commitment toyour own growth.
And that's what I noticedbehind the scenes is people who
don't blame others, they takefull responsibility for their
growth.
This is on me, my thoughts, myfeelings, and my actions.
It's because of me.
And I'm willing to takeownership over it.
(34:46):
So we don't do that unless wehave a healthier relationship
with ourselves.
So that's, I don't know, that'swhat came to mind when you just
asked that question, becausethat's what was most
transformative in my life was tocommit to my growth and take
responsibility for it,regardless of what circumstances
outside of me are happening.
TomDuFore (35:04):
Dr.
Eugene, thank you so much for afantastic interview.
And let's go ahead and jumpinto today's three key
takeaways.
Takeaway number one is thatyour brain can only operate in
either a survival state or anexecutive state.
I found that interesting, andthat for most people, about 70%
of the time today, our brainsare in this survival state.
(35:28):
And so takeaway number two iswhen our brain is in this
survival state, we respond inone of three ways.
We respond with fight, flight,or freeze.
And what I found reallyinteresting about this, because
most of you have probably heardthe fight, flight, or freeze
from a physical standpoint.
But I thought it was veryinteresting how he applied it to
(35:50):
the emotional standpoint.
And the first step to helpsupport you in figuring this out
and how you respond is throughawareness and oftentimes
noticing in others.
Takeaway number three is inmarketing, it is no longer the
rule of seven, which was sevenimpressions or seven touches in
(36:11):
marketing with a customer, aprospective customer.
It's now the rule of sevenhours.
The customer wants to spendseven hours with you before
they're looking to make adecision.
I thought that was great.
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
So today's win-win is uhthinking about Dr.
(36:36):
Choi's interview and reallystarting to think of it from a
franchise perspective and afranchise sales perspective.
And I thought it wasinteresting when we we spoke a
little bit about that.
And he said our brainsnaturally have a fear of
uncertainty.
And he quoted Donald Miller,who says, if you confuse, you
(36:56):
lose.
So thinking about how you canapply that to your franchise
sales structure or engagementwith your franchise prospects,
being clear, helping themunderstand the process, trying
to eliminate ambiguity will behelpful.
And I really liked when he wasat that session and he talked
about how at one point he was atthis leadership program, and
(37:20):
someone in the audience hadasked about how you find the
perfect wife or something tothat effect.
And the response back from thepresenter was, would you go out
with yourself?
And it really made me thinkabout applying that in this case
to the franchise salesperspective.
Now, my experience in workingwith franchisors is that most
(37:41):
founders would not necessarilybuy their own franchise because
they're entrepreneurs andthey're creative and going out
that way.
To me, it made me think, okay,let's walk a mile in someone
else's shoes.
Let's walk a mile in thatfranchise prospect's shoes to
help provide context to thedecisions you're making in the
franchise sales and franchisemarketing process.
(38:03):
And I thought that was a greatwin because if you're pursuing
and approaching it in that way,it's going to be a win for you
and a win for the prospect togain the clarity and make the
process easy for them to make adecision to decide to go with
the franchise or not.
And so that's the episodetoday, folks.
Please make sure you subscribeto our podcast and give us a
(38:24):
review.
And remember, if you or anyoneyou know might be ready to
franchise their business or taketheir franchise company to the
next level, please connect withus at BigSkyFranchise Team.com
where you can schedule a free,no obligation consultation with
myself or one of our teammembers.
Thanks for tuning in, and welook forward to having you back
next week.
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