March 30, 2026 • 23 mins
John Graham is a 3x USA Memory Champion, a Grandmaster of Memory, Entrepreneur, and mentors High Performers (including a World Record holder and National Memory Champion). He overcame daily panic attacks and decades of anxiety by using unconventional methods to release suppressed emotions and release the control conditioning of his mind. He mentors high achievers and helps them release their anxiety & panic attacks. John's website: https://johnmichaelgraham.com/ Memory John: https://memoryjohn.com/ If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to https://ratethispodcast.com/successgrid Join AI Marketers Club: https://www.successgridacademy.com/3a30d0c6
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Stale.
I am excited to introduce you to a series of
conversations with some of the most successful and sparing individuals
from various industries.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
My aim is to.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Dive into their stories behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest, habits, mindsets,
and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each hypishode of
the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest who
will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced, and
the ressons they have learned along the way. I would
also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to leadership
(00:34):
and personal development.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Whether you are inspiring.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Entrepreneur, a seasoned business profession, or just someone looking to
improve your life, the Success Great Podcast is for you.
My goal is to bring you valuable insights and inspiration
that will help you achieve your own success in business
and life. So get ready to learn and be inspired.
The Success Great Podcast starts now. In this episode of
(00:59):
the success a Great Podcast, I'm joined with John Graham
to talk about the root and solution for anxiety. He
John is a three times USA Memory Champions, a Grand
Master of Memory, and entrepreneur and mentors high performance, including
all the code holder and National Memory Champion. He overcame
daily panic attacks and decades of anxiety by using unconventional
(01:24):
methods to release suppressed emotions and release the control conditioning
of his mind. He mentorsiety, achieves and helps them release
the anxiety and panic attacks for good. John, Welcome to
this episode of the Success Great Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I was saying, I'm happy to be here, happy to
share and die in.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Awesome, awesome to have here with me. So but first
of all, because this is the Success Great Podcast, and
I would say, you are three times Memory Champion, and
you help other people also with their big human potential
to achieve more. What the success means to you and
what do you see other people have certain conceptions around success.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That's a really big question. I used to believe so
about our success was all about like attainment and just
reaching the peak of something, right, lots of money, lots
of fame, a pedestal, an achievement and award. You know,
I've got three trophies behind me. That and a lot
of people's minds is success. But when I started achieving
those things to saying and getting to the top and
(02:19):
winning trophies. I realized I wasn't fully fulfilled. I always
wanted more, and so bad definition of success really faltered
and failed for me. I had to figure out why
I wasn't feeling fulfilled on the inside. So success to
me is learning how to feel fulfilled on the inside,
and that's an internal drive, that's an internal attainment that
(02:40):
you can't achieve using your external world.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So speak of success and yourself had I would say
maybe issues with anxiety and panic attacks, which is not
something you in humor, should take slightly. It's big issues
and we should solve them. So do you think that
in gen we as a humans, when we are looking
to achieve more in our business or in our lives
(03:05):
and start thinking about everything that could happen that could
not the things that could not happen, think that we're
afraid of things that we're not afraid of. All these
things are the root of anxiety or do you think
that from your experience there are different things more than
what the eye would see.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I would say, yeah, it goes way deeper than that,
and that's it's labeled as mental health, as you know,
so people try to treat it with the mind mentally
you know, back in twenty nineteen, I was training for
the World Championships, and I was I would wake up
really excited to train because I wanted to be in
the top ten of the world, but I couldn't train
(03:46):
because I had so much brain fog. Like mentally, I
was just exhausted at ten in the morning and I
was like a short circuited. I couldn't I had no energy,
no clarity to train, and so I thought, Okay, I
just need some supplement. I just need to go for
a walk and clear my mind. And none of that worked.
And you know, tried all the meditations, tried all the therapies
(04:08):
and the rewiring and the reframing and the limiting belief stuff,
and none of that worked. And only to realize the
real root of anxiety brain fog overwhelm all of that.
It's it's an emotional root issue. The reason we experience
these things is because we have massive amounts of suppressed
emotions stored in our nervous system. So when I learned that,
(04:32):
I was stopped treating it with my mind. It was
through force and all these tactics, and I learned how
to release the suppressed emotions that were limiting me and
causing these things. Let me get this.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So you have these kind of the idea, and you
had these kind of anxiety attecks while you were doing
it's say, or being a us A Memory champion or
before that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I started noticing back. I noticed like I would freeze up.
I noticed I would be like a deer in the
headlights when I would compete, and it got worse. So
to answer your question, I had a panic attack at
the twenty nineteen World Championship. So that was right after
my first championship in twenty eighteen. So between my first
(05:16):
and my second and third I was having lots of
panic attacks. And then the fact and how I performed
it in fact, and how I trained, how I showed
up in the world, So it was right in the
middle of all of that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
How did you approach this? Like a lot of people
when we talk about this, you have you thought about
maybe taking a walk, maybe taking some medication or whatever.
And I'm sure that when we think about medigation, we
should have some kind of prescription for that in general.
So how did you find the way through to solve
(05:48):
your anxiety? Did you through or do meditations? Did you
do certain exercises as of sports, because when we talk
about you also being a memory champion, it is about
that you are working your brain. It's like the brain
is I would say, like the muscles. When you train
the muscles, are they get bigger? And also when you
train your brain it gets I don't know, maybe not bigger,
(06:10):
but I think there are a lot of scientific studies
that the brain keeps generating more. It's says cells or
brain cells that grow more and more. I think the
more that we learn more, I guess. So how did
that go?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, you're very much right. I very much activated the
right side of my brain when I learn memory techniques, harmonizing, creativity, visualization,
things like that. When the left brain that's how I memorize.
But as far as anxiety, right, I realized I tried
all the meditations, I tried all the self care relaxing things,
the supplements, and that doesn't get to the root of
(06:46):
the anxiety because again, it's a mental issue, or it's
an emotional root issue. The mental certainly gets inflame, but
it's deeper than that. Right, So what I realized was
number one when I was having brain fog, was that
the only way to move through the brain fog. Was
to have a fully relaxed and regulated nervous system. Because
(07:07):
when you have anxiety, extremely tense, like you're uptight, your
shoulders are tight, you got tension headaches, you're straining, You're
always on the go, You're always active, always like switched on.
Like think of like a light switch. Your nervous system
is always switched on. You're always in de do do think, think, think, go, go,
go mode. But it needs to be shut off to regulate.
(07:29):
So I had to learn how to fully let go
of the muscles and the deep, deep tensions in my
body to relax and regulate, and then the brain start.
The brain fog started to go away, so I thought,
oh good, I'm in the clear, but it kept coming back.
So I had I realized a couple of years later
that I had all of these suppressed emotions inside of
(07:50):
me that were activating. You know, like anytime you get
frustrated or annoyed or feel anxious, right, it's not because
of the stimulus and the world. Like let's say you
get an email that you don't like wright or an
email that frustrates you. You're worried about so you're starting
to think ahead. The email that you're ruminating on has
(08:11):
nothing to do with your anxiety. It poked something inside
of you, an emotion from the past provoked that was
not processed. So what I realized is basically, who's saying
every single thing in our life, every moment that was
uncomfortable in the past, that we didn't fully process and
we pushed away, all of that is still inside of us, unprocessed, suppressed,
(08:36):
and it activates. It causes the anxieties. The dreads is
the internal, the heart palpitations, the brain fogs, and you know,
it affects the physical. So any mental or body technique
like working out doesn't get to the root of it.
The only thing that can do this is an emotional release.
So when I learned that, I said, number one, how
do I release this stuff? Like? Where is this in
(08:57):
my body? And how do I release it? So on
top of having a regulated nervous system and relaxed I
had to learn number one, there's two things here. Number One,
I had to learn how to release emotions, negative emotions
as they were happening. Because here's the thing with meditation
and therapy, like, yeah, you can meditate for thirty minutes
(09:19):
a day, or have a therapy session for thirty minutes,
maybe you have a release, maybe you're calm and good,
But then you enter the world and you snap right
back into your old conditioning and patterns, and you keep
piling on all of these emotions throughout the day and
suppressing them. So I had to learn, while I'm feeling anxious,
while I'm having that email that annoys me, how do
(09:39):
I release and process that emotion out while it's happening,
so I can release the steam as it's happening through
my day. And then the second thing is there's I
realize there's boulders inside of us. These are things from
the past that really really affected us in our childhood
or in adulthood. You know, heartbreaks, betrayals, anything like that
(10:01):
can really store inside of us and affect us cause anxiety.
So I had to learn how do I how do
you access those without using therapy methods like using the
mind to dig in the past, because digging the past
will only strengthen those neural pathways and make them worse.
How do you access those emotions and release them without
(10:21):
going through the mind. And that was the journey that
I took, and it took me about I went from
having daily I mean multiple panic attacks a day to
no panic attacks, no anxiety after about two months of
doing this, after spending twenty plus years of my life
(10:42):
living with anxiety on and off. So it was a
pretty dramatic turnaround once I got to the root of it.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Because when I see, for example, your story, when we
see them on the other side, you a member the champion.
I'm not a doctor, but from the outlook of things
like are talking about, for example, past bad things that
happen to human being and you are being, for example,
a memory champion, that means that you have a lot
(11:10):
of memory in your brain. So adding all that up
is not going to erase the past. I would assume
maybe it will add more things to it. So your
brain is I don't know, overwhelmed with stuff. Maybe I'm
not sure about this world, but it could be maybe
this is how I would see it personally. So with
(11:33):
that thing, did you think you being a three times
now a memory champion also helped you in a way
to remove let's say, maybe some of the past things
that happened, or do you think that also keeping let's
say studying or memorizing things and being in that place
now is not really the issue. It's actually about the
(11:56):
emotion that you mentioned. Only a really.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Good question because a lot of people assume I have
like a natural ability to remember everything, right, and that's
actually not the case. I don't have a natural photographic
memory or anything like that. I learned techniques about ten
years ago, so even after I was in school, So
all of this is technique and training. But to answer
your question, yeah, emotion plays a very critical role in memory.
(12:20):
So when I'm learning to memorize lists of numbers or
words or names or things for competition, I'm using emotion
and feel, not just like the boring part of our brain.
People think memorizing is boring, but it's really activating the
right side, the creative side, making a juicy emotional and
feeling it and to remember massive amounts of information. So
(12:40):
that ability, for me, I think it helped me learn
to access the pass and the feeling. Because if I
can memorize lots of information, I can also forget lots
of information. So like just like Michael Jordan made probably
more shots than almost anyone in NBA history, he also
missed more shots than everyone the same realm, I I
(13:01):
can memorize way more than anyone in the world. But
I can also I also have the skill to forget
more than anyone in the world because of the amount
that I memorize and let go. So I think it's
very valid that I know how to access normal emotions,
normal memories and release them from the past.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
How focus it self plays a role a new being
memory champion? Also does it play a role in you
thinking and your when you were like having an anxiety
and panic attacks? Did that did you keep your self
your mind thinking or focusing on these kind of bad things?
(13:41):
And this is do you think one of the things
that are like you mentioned here, you could anmoralize something
new and also could have the ability to raise Let's see,
so now could you also have this ability to have
something new on your brain and have ability to focus
on it and also to have the focus to move
the things which also could be good to fool you
(14:04):
in Jindla?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
There, I see the yeah, the question. So let's do
it before and after when I first started training to
hack my brain learn memory techniques, right, everyone teaches oh,
block out your distractions to focus right, Well, that causes
a lot of issues. That causes a lot of suppression.
So for if I'm conditioning myself to focus to block
(14:26):
out internal noise and voice in my head and heart
palpitations and excitement, what I'm doing is suppressing, like I'm
pushing things away. Internally, I'm actually working harder to focus
because inside my mind, I'm almost like doing this, like
pushing things away as I'm trying to focus, and that
causes a lot of mental effort. So now what I do,
(14:47):
what I teach people is to it's actually very counterintuitive
in order to like when I'm on stage where I
was in front of four hundred million people in China,
like memorizing I didn't block out distractions. I don't block
out distractions anymore when I focus. What I mean by
that is I actually train. When I'm training, I will
(15:09):
I'll put loud things in my ear, like a loud podcasts.
I'll do twenty push ups. I'll get up and I'll
start training. So my heart's racing. I got noise in
my ear. I don't want to do it, but I
still push through. So like I'm allowing everything in to
wash over me, the noise, the feeling, the sensation of
(15:30):
my heart, the breath, the voice in my head all
of it. I'm not pushing anything away, so internally I'm
not doing anything. I'm just letting it wash over me.
Because when you do that and when you let it go,
you're allowing stuff to process through the way a human
is supposed to process things, all right, So I train
people not to push things away, but to allow everything in.
(15:52):
Because when you allow everything in, thoughts and feelings and
emotions they process through and they out, they release out.
But when you fight them because is like with anxiety,
for example, that's why stuff keeps coming back and you're
haunted by thoughts is because you keep pushing it away.
You're not allowing it to process through. Well, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So like we are or we should like lit things
process in our brains in order for us to solve
these issues, because if we are keeping blocking them outside,
we would actually focus on them, like if someone if
we are like wanting not if we don't like something
(16:34):
about ourselves and we keep focusing on it, we will
also keep having that thing. We should focus on the
other side and us embrace that thing so we can
have a process or proceed to more different things. Like
having us process these things will actually help us not
blocking them away.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
So if you have an extreme case of self doubt,
when you're like you feel a lot of apathy, or
you're procrastinating right and you're in your head, you're just
you're feeling horrible instead of trying to feel better, like
listen to a podcast or go for a walk or
work out. There's nothing wrong with those things, by the way,
but if you do that, you're bypassing and shoving the
stuff back down. So like people think, oh, if I
(17:18):
focus on it, I'm going to bring in more into
my life and manifest more. And that couldn't be further
from the truth. Because it's a suppressed emotion. It needs
to be seen for you to be released. Then you expand.
I tell people all the time, the suppressed stuff, the
nasty stuff in you that keeps counting you those that's
the juice that you want. That's how you expand. If
(17:40):
you fully experience that, you almost get new information and
new intelligence that processes and washes over your DNA and
you're being to up level your life because you start
seeing things clearer, you start taking bigger actions because you
will let that process through. So if anyone's experiencing this,
I'd recommend to fully relax your body, to let that
(18:03):
feeling do whatever it wants to do and to and
to do that with no mental effort. Don't do anything
with your mind, but let it be. And if you
do that more and more and you're devoted to that
which is this is what I teach people how to
do this, it will release. And when this suppressed emotion releases,
it releases forever and you expand.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
That's a great idea because when we expand, we can
take in more. I guess this is the general idea
of things.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Your capacity expands so very much.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah, we when we take more onto things, certain things
might be rised by itself at a certain point or
a certain stitch, for example. So this could be a
good way actually to accept things, not to keep blocking
things away. So, John, what would you say the worst
(18:52):
advice that you have ever received in regard to say,
solving your issue with text anxiety or I'm amity champion
three times?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Man, I don't know the worst advice is. But I'm
just going to take a stand here and like, if
you're suffering from anxiety and panic, it's not a mental
health issue, it's an emotional root issue. So the advice
of to try to calm down when you're having these
things is really bad advice because, and I know this
(19:25):
is controversial, but we want to be able to experience
that feeling in order for it to release. So if
you're trying to calm down, you're bypassing all of it
and you're suppressing it further. You're essentially kicking the can
down the road to experience, and it's going to get
louder and louder and louder. So any type of mental
therapy to dig in your past, or any type of
(19:47):
meditation to calm yourself down is not accessing that energy.
So in essence, that's why people continue to have anxiety
and continue to take pills, is because they don't know.
And they I didn't know either, You know that this
was the route. So I would say this is an
emotional surpressed issue and all the mental techniques and even
the physical like working out, will not get to the
(20:10):
depths of where you need to go with it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
We definitely all have certain issues that we work with with,
whether we have children or as even adults. There for absolutely,
for sure be certain circumstances or certain accidents or certain
encounters I would say maybe that we always have in
(20:34):
the back foreheads. I would say, so it's important to
try to solve these things because when we talk about
anxiety and panic attacks, it's something that affixes the human
I think, maybe you can't sleep well multiple things, So
I would say, for example, you need to sleep well.
(20:55):
So it's important issues to solve. And what you're mentioning
here is a new perspective into things, because it could
be like it like for example, walking or meditation could
be like some kind of from like a temporary maybe
solution to it, because it's eventually doing certain things or
(21:17):
activity in regards to let's say maybe try to forget
or put it in a layer below. But putting it
in a layer below the surface is also it is
also there. It's not the solution for it. So that's
very important.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah. Yeah, any type of anytime you push things away
or fight it, it's you're keeping it inside of you.
So the only way the only way through anxiety and
panic and overwhelmings is through it experiencing it fully so
it can release for good.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Well, that's awesome, John. We should also as business also
as interpreneal end of day, try to find solution for
the problems that people have, which as you did, you
have the Let's say, I would say, you've been through
it yourself for some time and you have done certain
(22:11):
things like achieve being a memory champion for three times,
which is something that is I would say, that's a
great thing to have and do, and it's not easy.
Not everyone can put certain let's say maybe goals to achieve.
This is one of the important thing things for us
(22:33):
as humans to do. And yeah, you did it, and
you got yourself out of the place that you would
say bad to yourself, and you didn't want to have
it anymore.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You didn't want to have.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Anxiety, panic attacks, these type of things that are hindering
could hinder your success in whatever endeavor that you are pursuing.
So thank you John for joining me for this episode
of the Success Great podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Thank you for saying it was pleasure to go deep
with you on this. Thanks for asking the questions.
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Stale.
I am excited to introduce you to a series of
conversations with some of the most successful and sparing individuals
from various industries.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
My aim is to.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Dive into their stories behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest, habits, mindsets,
and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each hypishode of
the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest who
will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced, and
the ressons they have learned along the way. I would
also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to leadership
(00:34):
and personal development.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Whether you are inspiring.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Entrepreneur, a seasoned business profession, or just someone looking to
improve your life, the Success Great Podcast is for you.
My goal is to bring you valuable insights and inspiration
that will help you achieve your own success in business
and life. So get ready to learn and be inspired.
The Success Great Podcast starts now. In this episode of
(00:59):
the success a Great Podcast, I'm joined with John Graham
to talk about the root and solution for anxiety. He
John is a three times USA Memory Champions, a Grand
Master of Memory, and entrepreneur and mentors high performance, including
all the code holder and National Memory Champion. He overcame
daily panic attacks and decades of anxiety by using unconventional
(01:24):
methods to release suppressed emotions and release the control conditioning
of his mind. He mentorsiety, achieves and helps them release
the anxiety and panic attacks for good. John, Welcome to
this episode of the Success Great Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I was saying, I'm happy to be here, happy to
share and die in.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Awesome, awesome to have here with me. So but first
of all, because this is the Success Great Podcast, and
I would say, you are three times Memory Champion, and
you help other people also with their big human potential
to achieve more. What the success means to you and
what do you see other people have certain conceptions around success.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That's a really big question. I used to believe so
about our success was all about like attainment and just
reaching the peak of something, right, lots of money, lots
of fame, a pedestal, an achievement and award. You know,
I've got three trophies behind me. That and a lot
of people's minds is success. But when I started achieving
those things to saying and getting to the top and
(02:19):
winning trophies. I realized I wasn't fully fulfilled. I always
wanted more, and so bad definition of success really faltered
and failed for me. I had to figure out why
I wasn't feeling fulfilled on the inside. So success to
me is learning how to feel fulfilled on the inside,
and that's an internal drive, that's an internal attainment that
(02:40):
you can't achieve using your external world.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So speak of success and yourself had I would say
maybe issues with anxiety and panic attacks, which is not
something you in humor, should take slightly. It's big issues
and we should solve them. So do you think that
in gen we as a humans, when we are looking
to achieve more in our business or in our lives
(03:05):
and start thinking about everything that could happen that could
not the things that could not happen, think that we're
afraid of things that we're not afraid of. All these
things are the root of anxiety or do you think
that from your experience there are different things more than
what the eye would see.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I would say, yeah, it goes way deeper than that,
and that's it's labeled as mental health, as you know,
so people try to treat it with the mind mentally
you know, back in twenty nineteen, I was training for
the World Championships, and I was I would wake up
really excited to train because I wanted to be in
the top ten of the world, but I couldn't train
(03:46):
because I had so much brain fog. Like mentally, I
was just exhausted at ten in the morning and I
was like a short circuited. I couldn't I had no energy,
no clarity to train, and so I thought, Okay, I
just need some supplement. I just need to go for
a walk and clear my mind. And none of that worked.
And you know, tried all the meditations, tried all the therapies
(04:08):
and the rewiring and the reframing and the limiting belief stuff,
and none of that worked. And only to realize the
real root of anxiety brain fog overwhelm all of that.
It's it's an emotional root issue. The reason we experience
these things is because we have massive amounts of suppressed
emotions stored in our nervous system. So when I learned that,
(04:32):
I was stopped treating it with my mind. It was
through force and all these tactics, and I learned how
to release the suppressed emotions that were limiting me and
causing these things. Let me get this.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So you have these kind of the idea, and you
had these kind of anxiety attecks while you were doing
it's say, or being a us A Memory champion or
before that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I started noticing back. I noticed like I would freeze up.
I noticed I would be like a deer in the
headlights when I would compete, and it got worse. So
to answer your question, I had a panic attack at
the twenty nineteen World Championship. So that was right after
my first championship in twenty eighteen. So between my first
(05:16):
and my second and third I was having lots of
panic attacks. And then the fact and how I performed
it in fact, and how I trained, how I showed
up in the world, So it was right in the
middle of all of that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
How did you approach this? Like a lot of people
when we talk about this, you have you thought about
maybe taking a walk, maybe taking some medication or whatever.
And I'm sure that when we think about medigation, we
should have some kind of prescription for that in general.
So how did you find the way through to solve
(05:48):
your anxiety? Did you through or do meditations? Did you
do certain exercises as of sports, because when we talk
about you also being a memory champion, it is about
that you are working your brain. It's like the brain
is I would say, like the muscles. When you train
the muscles, are they get bigger? And also when you
train your brain it gets I don't know, maybe not bigger,
(06:10):
but I think there are a lot of scientific studies
that the brain keeps generating more. It's says cells or
brain cells that grow more and more. I think the
more that we learn more, I guess. So how did
that go?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, you're very much right. I very much activated the
right side of my brain when I learn memory techniques, harmonizing, creativity, visualization,
things like that. When the left brain that's how I memorize.
But as far as anxiety, right, I realized I tried
all the meditations, I tried all the self care relaxing things,
the supplements, and that doesn't get to the root of
(06:46):
the anxiety because again, it's a mental issue, or it's
an emotional root issue. The mental certainly gets inflame, but
it's deeper than that. Right, So what I realized was
number one when I was having brain fog, was that
the only way to move through the brain fog. Was
to have a fully relaxed and regulated nervous system. Because
(07:07):
when you have anxiety, extremely tense, like you're uptight, your
shoulders are tight, you got tension headaches, you're straining, You're
always on the go, You're always active, always like switched on.
Like think of like a light switch. Your nervous system
is always switched on. You're always in de do do think, think, think, go, go,
go mode. But it needs to be shut off to regulate.
(07:29):
So I had to learn how to fully let go
of the muscles and the deep, deep tensions in my
body to relax and regulate, and then the brain start.
The brain fog started to go away, so I thought,
oh good, I'm in the clear, but it kept coming back.
So I had I realized a couple of years later
that I had all of these suppressed emotions inside of
(07:50):
me that were activating. You know, like anytime you get
frustrated or annoyed or feel anxious, right, it's not because
of the stimulus and the world. Like let's say you
get an email that you don't like wright or an
email that frustrates you. You're worried about so you're starting
to think ahead. The email that you're ruminating on has
(08:11):
nothing to do with your anxiety. It poked something inside
of you, an emotion from the past provoked that was
not processed. So what I realized is basically, who's saying
every single thing in our life, every moment that was
uncomfortable in the past, that we didn't fully process and
we pushed away, all of that is still inside of us, unprocessed, suppressed,
(08:36):
and it activates. It causes the anxieties. The dreads is
the internal, the heart palpitations, the brain fogs, and you know,
it affects the physical. So any mental or body technique
like working out doesn't get to the root of it.
The only thing that can do this is an emotional release.
So when I learned that, I said, number one, how
do I release this stuff? Like? Where is this in
(08:57):
my body? And how do I release it? So on
top of having a regulated nervous system and relaxed I
had to learn number one, there's two things here. Number One,
I had to learn how to release emotions, negative emotions
as they were happening. Because here's the thing with meditation
and therapy, like, yeah, you can meditate for thirty minutes
(09:19):
a day, or have a therapy session for thirty minutes,
maybe you have a release, maybe you're calm and good,
But then you enter the world and you snap right
back into your old conditioning and patterns, and you keep
piling on all of these emotions throughout the day and
suppressing them. So I had to learn, while I'm feeling anxious,
while I'm having that email that annoys me, how do
(09:39):
I release and process that emotion out while it's happening,
so I can release the steam as it's happening through
my day. And then the second thing is there's I
realize there's boulders inside of us. These are things from
the past that really really affected us in our childhood
or in adulthood. You know, heartbreaks, betrayals, anything like that
(10:01):
can really store inside of us and affect us cause anxiety.
So I had to learn how do I how do
you access those without using therapy methods like using the
mind to dig in the past, because digging the past
will only strengthen those neural pathways and make them worse.
How do you access those emotions and release them without
(10:21):
going through the mind. And that was the journey that
I took, and it took me about I went from
having daily I mean multiple panic attacks a day to
no panic attacks, no anxiety after about two months of
doing this, after spending twenty plus years of my life
(10:42):
living with anxiety on and off. So it was a
pretty dramatic turnaround once I got to the root of it.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Because when I see, for example, your story, when we
see them on the other side, you a member the champion.
I'm not a doctor, but from the outlook of things
like are talking about, for example, past bad things that
happen to human being and you are being, for example,
a memory champion, that means that you have a lot
(11:10):
of memory in your brain. So adding all that up
is not going to erase the past. I would assume
maybe it will add more things to it. So your
brain is I don't know, overwhelmed with stuff. Maybe I'm
not sure about this world, but it could be maybe
this is how I would see it personally. So with
(11:33):
that thing, did you think you being a three times
now a memory champion also helped you in a way
to remove let's say, maybe some of the past things
that happened, or do you think that also keeping let's
say studying or memorizing things and being in that place
now is not really the issue. It's actually about the
(11:56):
emotion that you mentioned. Only a really.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Good question because a lot of people assume I have
like a natural ability to remember everything, right, and that's
actually not the case. I don't have a natural photographic
memory or anything like that. I learned techniques about ten
years ago, so even after I was in school, So
all of this is technique and training. But to answer
your question, yeah, emotion plays a very critical role in memory.
(12:20):
So when I'm learning to memorize lists of numbers or
words or names or things for competition, I'm using emotion
and feel, not just like the boring part of our brain.
People think memorizing is boring, but it's really activating the
right side, the creative side, making a juicy emotional and
feeling it and to remember massive amounts of information. So
(12:40):
that ability, for me, I think it helped me learn
to access the pass and the feeling. Because if I
can memorize lots of information, I can also forget lots
of information. So like just like Michael Jordan made probably
more shots than almost anyone in NBA history, he also
missed more shots than everyone the same realm, I I
(13:01):
can memorize way more than anyone in the world. But
I can also I also have the skill to forget
more than anyone in the world because of the amount
that I memorize and let go. So I think it's
very valid that I know how to access normal emotions,
normal memories and release them from the past.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
How focus it self plays a role a new being
memory champion? Also does it play a role in you
thinking and your when you were like having an anxiety
and panic attacks? Did that did you keep your self
your mind thinking or focusing on these kind of bad things?
(13:41):
And this is do you think one of the things
that are like you mentioned here, you could anmoralize something
new and also could have the ability to raise Let's see,
so now could you also have this ability to have
something new on your brain and have ability to focus
on it and also to have the focus to move
the things which also could be good to fool you
(14:04):
in Jindla?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
There, I see the yeah, the question. So let's do
it before and after when I first started training to
hack my brain learn memory techniques, right, everyone teaches oh,
block out your distractions to focus right, Well, that causes
a lot of issues. That causes a lot of suppression.
So for if I'm conditioning myself to focus to block
(14:26):
out internal noise and voice in my head and heart
palpitations and excitement, what I'm doing is suppressing, like I'm
pushing things away. Internally, I'm actually working harder to focus
because inside my mind, I'm almost like doing this, like
pushing things away as I'm trying to focus, and that
causes a lot of mental effort. So now what I do,
(14:47):
what I teach people is to it's actually very counterintuitive
in order to like when I'm on stage where I
was in front of four hundred million people in China,
like memorizing I didn't block out distractions. I don't block
out distractions anymore when I focus. What I mean by
that is I actually train. When I'm training, I will
(15:09):
I'll put loud things in my ear, like a loud podcasts.
I'll do twenty push ups. I'll get up and I'll
start training. So my heart's racing. I got noise in
my ear. I don't want to do it, but I
still push through. So like I'm allowing everything in to
wash over me, the noise, the feeling, the sensation of
(15:30):
my heart, the breath, the voice in my head all
of it. I'm not pushing anything away, so internally I'm
not doing anything. I'm just letting it wash over me.
Because when you do that and when you let it go,
you're allowing stuff to process through the way a human
is supposed to process things, all right, So I train
people not to push things away, but to allow everything in.
(15:52):
Because when you allow everything in, thoughts and feelings and
emotions they process through and they out, they release out.
But when you fight them because is like with anxiety,
for example, that's why stuff keeps coming back and you're
haunted by thoughts is because you keep pushing it away.
You're not allowing it to process through. Well, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So like we are or we should like lit things
process in our brains in order for us to solve
these issues, because if we are keeping blocking them outside,
we would actually focus on them, like if someone if
we are like wanting not if we don't like something
(16:34):
about ourselves and we keep focusing on it, we will
also keep having that thing. We should focus on the
other side and us embrace that thing so we can
have a process or proceed to more different things. Like
having us process these things will actually help us not
blocking them away.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
So if you have an extreme case of self doubt,
when you're like you feel a lot of apathy, or
you're procrastinating right and you're in your head, you're just
you're feeling horrible instead of trying to feel better, like
listen to a podcast or go for a walk or
work out. There's nothing wrong with those things, by the way,
but if you do that, you're bypassing and shoving the
stuff back down. So like people think, oh, if I
(17:18):
focus on it, I'm going to bring in more into
my life and manifest more. And that couldn't be further
from the truth. Because it's a suppressed emotion. It needs
to be seen for you to be released. Then you expand.
I tell people all the time, the suppressed stuff, the
nasty stuff in you that keeps counting you those that's
the juice that you want. That's how you expand. If
(17:40):
you fully experience that, you almost get new information and
new intelligence that processes and washes over your DNA and
you're being to up level your life because you start
seeing things clearer, you start taking bigger actions because you
will let that process through. So if anyone's experiencing this,
I'd recommend to fully relax your body, to let that
(18:03):
feeling do whatever it wants to do and to and
to do that with no mental effort. Don't do anything
with your mind, but let it be. And if you
do that more and more and you're devoted to that
which is this is what I teach people how to
do this, it will release. And when this suppressed emotion releases,
it releases forever and you expand.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
That's a great idea because when we expand, we can
take in more. I guess this is the general idea
of things.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Your capacity expands so very much.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah, we when we take more onto things, certain things
might be rised by itself at a certain point or
a certain stitch, for example. So this could be a
good way actually to accept things, not to keep blocking
things away. So, John, what would you say the worst
(18:52):
advice that you have ever received in regard to say,
solving your issue with text anxiety or I'm amity champion
three times?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Man, I don't know the worst advice is. But I'm
just going to take a stand here and like, if
you're suffering from anxiety and panic, it's not a mental
health issue, it's an emotional root issue. So the advice
of to try to calm down when you're having these
things is really bad advice because, and I know this
(19:25):
is controversial, but we want to be able to experience
that feeling in order for it to release. So if
you're trying to calm down, you're bypassing all of it
and you're suppressing it further. You're essentially kicking the can
down the road to experience, and it's going to get
louder and louder and louder. So any type of mental
therapy to dig in your past, or any type of
(19:47):
meditation to calm yourself down is not accessing that energy.
So in essence, that's why people continue to have anxiety
and continue to take pills, is because they don't know.
And they I didn't know either, You know that this
was the route. So I would say this is an
emotional surpressed issue and all the mental techniques and even
the physical like working out, will not get to the
(20:10):
depths of where you need to go with it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
We definitely all have certain issues that we work with with,
whether we have children or as even adults. There for absolutely,
for sure be certain circumstances or certain accidents or certain
encounters I would say maybe that we always have in
(20:34):
the back foreheads. I would say, so it's important to
try to solve these things because when we talk about
anxiety and panic attacks, it's something that affixes the human
I think, maybe you can't sleep well multiple things, So
I would say, for example, you need to sleep well.
(20:55):
So it's important issues to solve. And what you're mentioning
here is a new perspective into things, because it could
be like it like for example, walking or meditation could
be like some kind of from like a temporary maybe
solution to it, because it's eventually doing certain things or
(21:17):
activity in regards to let's say maybe try to forget
or put it in a layer below. But putting it
in a layer below the surface is also it is
also there. It's not the solution for it. So that's
very important.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah. Yeah, any type of anytime you push things away
or fight it, it's you're keeping it inside of you.
So the only way the only way through anxiety and
panic and overwhelmings is through it experiencing it fully so
it can release for good.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Well, that's awesome, John. We should also as business also
as interpreneal end of day, try to find solution for
the problems that people have, which as you did, you
have the Let's say, I would say, you've been through
it yourself for some time and you have done certain
(22:11):
things like achieve being a memory champion for three times,
which is something that is I would say, that's a
great thing to have and do, and it's not easy.
Not everyone can put certain let's say maybe goals to achieve.
This is one of the important thing things for us
(22:33):
as humans to do. And yeah, you did it, and
you got yourself out of the place that you would
say bad to yourself, and you didn't want to have
it anymore.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You didn't want to have.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Anxiety, panic attacks, these type of things that are hindering
could hinder your success in whatever endeavor that you are pursuing.
So thank you John for joining me for this episode
of the Success Great podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Thank you for saying it was pleasure to go deep
with you on this. Thanks for asking the questions.
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