Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where
we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five
Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders
and experts who will share not just their expertise,
but the milestone moments that have reshaped
their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in
the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome
to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business
and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick, your host.
And today, my special guest is Dr. Heath. Dr.
Heath is a dual PhD. neuropsychologist, and forensic
psychologist with over 30 years of experience
as the chief clinician at Civil Psych LLC. As
a self -described neuromechanic and cognitive
toolbox expert, he specializes in translating
complex brain science into practical tools for
entrepreneurs. innovators, and business leaders.
And whether he's resolving relationship kerfuffles
or coaching leaders to reprogram their mental
operating systems, he blends science, shoe leather
practicality, and a dash of wit to turn complex
psychological challenges into actionable insights
and life -changing game plans. Welcome to the
show, Dr. Heath. Well, it's great to see you,
Sheila. How are you today? Well, after that intro,
that was quite complex. Let's think 101. Tell
us a little bit about what that means. What do
you do and how did you get to doing what you
do today? Gosh, you know, how I got to where
I am is really kind of an extended story, but
I guess to... really boil it down to its bare
bones is I wanted to figure out why my family
was the way my family was, why they couldn't
get along, and how I could kind of understand
their behavior, you know, why they did what they
did. And I first thought that in college I would
be a systems analyst for computer systems. This
is way back in the infancy of, you know, home
computers in the early 80s. But then I was introduced
to human behavior in the social environment.
So we had HB and SC1 and HB and SC2. And the
guy that taught HB and SC1, the professor that
taught it, Michael Cumnock, was a bit of kind
of a younger version of Sigmund Freud. And maybe
a combo of Sigmund Freud and David Leary or Ram
Dass, you know, one of these hippie -like guys.
Michael wears sandals to all his classes. And
I thought, wow. And he had this big beard, really
dark beard with just a sprinkling of gray hair.
And he was so laid back. And I thought, man,
that guy has it all together. How do you get
to be like that guy? And it turns out, you know,
I mean, HBNSC is about human behavior, as it
says in the social environment. It was a social
work course for the social work track. And so
really early on, I declared a major in social
work first. But with that, you have to take some
psychology courses. So I fell in love also with
another really miniature female version of Sigmund
Freud. If you've ever seen the movie The Incredibles,
the tailor, the fashion designer, the little
bitty lady, the fashion designer. Well, that
was Dr. Ann Rhodes. And I just loved her. And
I became a proctor for her courses. I became
a director of the psychology lab, declared a
major in psychology. And I was just, you know,
a lot of kids are addicted to drugs. I was addicted
to just learning new things. You know, I didn't
even have to know what I was going to do with
those things. I just, you know, grew up that
way. I was, I grew up kind of by myself. Because
my dad was working a lot, because we lost my
mother when we were younger. And so I really
kind of viewed my bedroom as the bat cave and
stayed in there reading books all day. And so
I just really loved learning and fell in love
with the study, you know, the majesty, the mystery
of what makes us tick psychologically. Then I
wrapped up four undergrad degrees. I added a
degree in speech, added a degree in religion
and philosophy because I'm a believer and I just
love the theology aspect of that. By the way,
one of my department heads in philosophy also
taught religion and theology courses. I kid you
not, Dr. Robert K. Holier. Yeah, Dr. Holier,
my religion professor, H -O -L -Y -E -R. And
then I went on and got a master's in social work,
got a master's in psychology. And then I got
a dual Ph .D., Ph .D. in neuropsychology, which
is really the study of brain based behavior,
how the brain drives behavior, studying all those
wiring patterns, shape decision making and habits.
We have blind spots in our relationships. If
you're an innovator, entrepreneur, business person,
CEO, CTO, even at that level, you have blind
spots in your thinking. And in neuropsychology,
we use tests to really measure how people think,
how they solve problems, how they make choices,
and especially under pressure. And then the forensic
psychology is think of that in a courtroom. And
so how that works out day to day with me is I'll
get a referral in possibly a personal injury
case. And you can do measurements between how
the person was before the injury or accident,
where they should have been based on their trajectory
earlier in life, like in high school or college
or whatever. And where they should, you know,
I mean, where they should be. And then the difference
in that, the difference of where they are after
the injury and where they wind up is, you know,
there's a dollar amount that can be attached
to that. I spend most of my time doing return
to duty assessments for people who, you know,
they were naughty and they took a drug they really,
you know, weren't supposed to take. And you can't
be flying an airplane or driving a train or a
boat on the river pushing. you know, barges or
working in the pipeline industry, anything covered
by the U .S. Department of Transportation if
you take in a naughty drug. So that's kind of
how I got to where I am. And I like to break
down brain science in a practical way where people
can kind of understand it. And the shoe leather
psychology thing came from my dad. My dad would
always talk about, you know, putting some shoe
leather on things, getting out there, getting
active with it. And so I try to break, you know,
complex psychological concepts down to a shoe
leather level. Well, you did great just now because
I understood everything. Oh, thank you. Fantastic.
So as a neuropsychologist and a forensic psychologist,
how does that unique background shape your approach
to solving the leadership challenges of entrepreneurs
and innovators and high achievers? Well, that's
a great question. The problem is even really,
really smart people, they know what they think,
but they don't know why they think it. OK, so
keep that in mind. They don't know how they arrived
at that way of thinking. So if you don't have
some idea of where a thought process started,
you're not going to be able to use thought processes
to get you where you want to be. Because in many
ways, our thought processes are like maps that
we're creating on the fly. And we're creating
those maps on the fly from what you might consider
as a pyramid of consciousness. So if you think
of a pyramid, and I actually have a picture of
it, I'll try to pull it up and show you if you
guys are going to watch this live. I made it
with AI, and AI and I worked together for a long
time to kind of come up with this because I'm
not an artist. But you can think of it as a kind
of a pyramid -shaped stack of pancakes. And so
in this pyramid -shaped stack of pancakes, of
course, the largest plateau is at the very bottom.
But the larger the plateau, the more it's going
to be off of your radar. It's really more or
less a reservoir that your consciousness pulls
from. But also in that reservoir, some of those
thought processes leach and seep up to the top
into our conscious awareness. And this is why
I'll just take, you know, a far example, you
know, from psychopathology of post -traumatic
stress disorder. I've had soldiers who would
be driving down the road and run their car into
a ditch. There's no other cars around, no catastrophe,
no accidents. But what is there is a cardboard
box. Now, what would you guys do if you saw a
cardboard boxing room? You're probably going
to just run over the box. Well, why wouldn't
a soldier who has been in country in Afghanistan
or Iraq or somewhere else, you know, Somalia,
wherever. Not want to run over a cardboard box.
Well, in the moment, they don't know because
their subconscious has taken over. The part of
their subconscious that is on autopilot has taken
over and their subconscious is saying danger,
danger, danger. Now, they don't know that it's
their subconscious saying danger, danger, danger.
They just have fear. But fear is like your smoke
alarm. But it would be like being on autopilot
every time your smoke alarm went out. You, you
know, ran outside and called the fire department.
So this running in the ditch instead of over
the cardboard box is on autopilot because their
survival in a war -torn country depended on it.
Because what could it be? It could be an IED.
So in the moment, they're not thinking IED. They're
just hearing the alarm bell go off. It's IED.
And they take action. Sorry, what's IED? An improvised
explosive device. Okay. It's a cobbled together
with car parts and whatever you can find at Radio
Shack. I'm making that up. There's whatever you
can find, you know, electronic stores and making
something that goes boom and kills people like
American soldiers and British soldiers. French
soldiers and people that were fighting the Australian
soldiers, Canadian soldiers. And so the improvised
explosive device, so they did not see a box.
They saw an improvised explosive device. Now,
was there really an improvised explosive device
on the road in Main Street, America? No. I mean,
you know, not usually. A very small percentage
of the time, I've never even heard of an ID in
the States in a really long time. But since they
were habituated to looking at it that way, and
I was looking up a picture of the subconscious
to show your guests that may be watching on camera,
a really pretty picture here that looks just
like this. Let me see if I can make sure that's
on camera. And so this is your subconscious.
And all of this information saying IED, bomb,
bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb is not at the top. It's
at the bottom. Well, let's talk about something
else is at the bottom. Have you walked anywhere
today? Well, do you remember how you walked?
Did you start out with your right foot or your
left foot? How long a step did you take? See,
none of that is in your conscious awareness.
It is recessed down to the very base. of that
pyramid of consciousness, which includes conscious
awareness, okay? These are things that are in
the spotlight of our awareness. You know you're
hearing the sound of my voice. If you're looking
at me on camera, you know that you're seeing
me on camera, okay? All these things are in the
spotlight. And then you have things that are
either at the periphery of the spotlight or just
off. outside of the spotlight, but you could
become easily aware of those. Like, are you wearing
shoes or not? When's the last time you thought
about your shoes? You may know that, you may
not know that. So there are things that you could
easily become aware of, and that's what I call
the subconscious. But then there's things, and
this is where it gets really spooky, Sheila.
There's things that... Even I would be hard pressed
to come up with. And here's one and we call it
source amnesia, such as what are the names? Name
an ocean. Name an ocean. OK, now tell me who
told you that? Who taught you that that is the
name of that ocean? You probably don't know.
And you don't know because your brain has put
that on autopilot or. It never stored that as
information, but let's just say that it did store
it and you can work really hard, think about
it for a day or two and come up with it. Well,
that's what I call the unconscious. So three
basic levels across the pyramid of consciousness,
the unconscious, that's off the stage. The subconscious
at the periphery of the spotlight and conscious
awareness, you know that we're doing a podcast
here. You may know if we're wearing glasses or
not. Sometimes that kind of goes back and forth
in and out of the spotlight. So a lot of my work
is helping people understand how their brain
works. Literally, if you think of it in terms
of being a diesel mechanic, it's like coming
to a Votek for diesel mechanics, except for we're
doing neuro mechanics so that you could work
on not your own diesel engine, but you could
work on. the mechanics of your own brain, which
really puts you deeper in the mix of how you
think. You can decide what to think. You can
decide what type of thinking points your life
in the proper direction. And so I teach people
the neural mechanics of how their brain works
and how they can apply that to whatever career,
relationship, pursuit. solving a problem they
might have had for decades or their whole life.
Interesting. So you have over 30 years of experience
coaching executives and entrepreneurs. What pattern
of thinking have you found that most consistently
holds back brilliant business leaders? Probably,
to throw you a bit of a curveball, I think that
the biggest thing that hold really smart people
back is their realization that they're really
smart people. And how does that work? Well, because
the more you do a thing, the faster the brain
gets at it. The more you do a thing, the more
the brain recesses it down through those different
levels of consciousness, which means that you're
really less aware of it. And then you don't have
to pay attention to it. You can just do it. Well,
that opens the door to a psychological phenomenon
called over assimilation. Over assimilation is
taking a tool that has worked well for you in
situation one, two, three, 33, 337, situation
number 3 ,769. And since you've done it so much,
you think it's going to work well for you. In
situation 4 ,000. But maybe not. Maybe not. So
the more you do a thing, the faster you get at
it. But it's really amazing to me that even though
that can be a very deeply coded process and a
very automatic process, that it can also be a
very shallow process. not realizing that this
tool may not be, and when I say tool, I'm talking
about a thought process, that the way I'm thinking
about this may not work that well in this particular
situation. And so the brain really, and Tversky
and Kahneman called it system one, system two
thinking. So system one thinking is really, really
fast, but it's really, really shallow. I'll give
an example of two different processes in the
brain. It's not exactly a location. It's more
of a process. One is called ventral flow, and
ventral just means bottom. And the other is dorsal
flow. So you can think of the dorsal fin of a
shark or a dolphin. So dorsal's on top, ventral's
on bottom. So there's a process, and I'm pointing
right over my right ear, loops through here.
uh, from the temporal lobe, uh, up. And that
is, uh, what is very slow, but it's very deep.
It's like, Hey, this is not just a human I'm
looking at on the screen. This is Sheila. And,
Oh, I know, I know some things about Sheila.
She runs five milestones, LLC, and she builds
websites. See all this information that I know
about Sheila. is not fast, okay? So the other
system is the dorsal flow system, which is really,
really fast, but really, really shallow. Here's
what a shark does. A shark will look at something
in the water that is long and dark and think
that it's food. And it may be food. It could
be a dolphin, you know, or a porpoise or something.
But it may be Sheila on a surfboard. Sheila's
shaking her head for you guys that are listening
on audio. She's not into this example. Because
I live by the beach and you're hitting one of
my biggest fears is seeing a huge animal in the
water. Yeah, yeah. But it would take a bite out
of Sheila, not because it likes the taste of
Sheila, but because it only has a dorsal flow
process, which is simply light or dark. When
you throw in color. it becomes a slower process.
Think of your 4K TV, which runs much slower than
a black and white TV because there's so many
colors. We want 5 million colors on our TV, but
that takes up a lot of processing power. It's
the same way with a shark. And it's also the
same way with people. So back to our entrepreneurs,
they will look at things and think they can use
a fast, shallow process and solve a problem.
And sometimes they can. But this may be a new
problem. This may be a different animal altogether.
It may be a different Sheila altogether, a different
surfer altogether, a different wave of life or
wave of business altogether. And they need to
stop, breathe, and think. SBT, stop, breathe,
think, stop, breathe, think, stop, breathe, think.
Think at a deeper level, but deeper level thinking
requires slower thinking. And so the thing that
I do with folks and the thing that I find that
sabotages them the most is confusing situations
that require fast, shallow thinking. There's
lots of those. Or situations that require slower,
deeper thinking. Sharks only have a dorsal flow
process because they're just always looking for
food. And if it looks like a dolphin, swims like
a dolphin, shaped like a dolphin, I'm going to
take a bite of it and it's surfboard, even though
it may be Sheila. I didn't like that example.
If we were to go back, we'd have to use a different
example. So can you share a simple habit that
can help leaders, individuals improve themselves?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have a lot of them, but
I would say learn to breathe. You know, most
people don't know how to breathe. I remember
one of my favorite, one of my favorite movies
based on some of my favorite books. The series
of books was called, of all things, The Destroyer.
You know, it sounds much more terrible than it
really is. It's really a comedy action series
where the master of Sinanju. which doesn't exist.
It's made up, right? Sinanju, the world's most
deadly martial art, but it's made up. And Chun
is the reigning master, C -H -I -U, and you can
look this up. They made a movie out of it back
in 84, something like that, called Remo Williams,
The Adventure Begins. And Chun was teaching Remo
how to breathe. But he couldn't get it. So Yun
kept, you know, whacking him with his ruler or
whatever, which doesn't help. You know, don't
do that. Teach him how to breathe. Well, most
people realize that they go through the day and
what really could be classified as a oxygen debt.
An oxygen debt. I mean, it really works the same
way with hydration. I'm drinking some orange
flavored sugar free Skittle drink packet mix
here. And I drink, I start drinking that at 2
.30 in the morning. I drink one when I get up
to go to the bathroom at 2 .30 a .m., go back
to bed. I wake up at 4 .30, drink another one,
get out of bed, start my day. And so by, you
know, eight or nine o 'clock, I've had half a
gallon of water. So let me just take that example
first. Imagine going through your day and you're
not dehydrated, but you're sub hydrated. but
you're subhydrated for decades. Think of the
little by little effects of the influence of
being subhydrated for decades. Think of how it
works with skin cancer. You don't walk out into
the sun and get skin cancer in a day. It has
a cumulative effect. With dehydration, I believe
it has a cumulative effect suboptimally hydrated
for decades, but also I think it has a cumulative
effect of your brain being suboptimally oxygenated
for decades. So back to the tip. I call it three
-minute mindset reset or three -minute mind reset,
whatever you want to call it, just do it. And
then for your first minute, focus on just your
breathing. I mean, sit and, you know, maybe look
at a cloud or look at a flower or look at a candle
or you can look at a wall and just focus on your
breathing. Minute number one. Minute number two.
Just focus on breathing while you're writing
a sentence. Just some positive, affirmative,
life affirming sentence for minute number two.
And then for minute number three, I would engage
in a bit of a spiritual practice. You can call
it prayer. You can call it connecting with your
creator about the breathing and what you just
wrote. So step number one is breathe. Step number
two is write. Step number three for me, I'm a
believer, is prayer. Connecting with something
greater than myself. And doing that just once
a day. And you guys can Google him if you don't
know who that was. He's basically the world -wide
father of mindfulness. He founded a village in
France called Plum Village. His original country
was Vietnam. He was great friends with Martin
Luther King, and they consulted with each other.
And Ty, as his friends called him, T -H -A -Y,
Ty, passed away here a couple years ago. But
he said, I'll live on through my teachings. But
in the village he founded, Plum Village, they
have a bell that goes off every hour and people
take 60 seconds and just focus on breathing.
One of the best things you can do is start your
day with breathing. Remind yourself to breathe
during the day and finish your day with mindful
breathing because the thing that fuels your brain
is oxygen. And most people don't give themselves
enough time. And after you do it for a while.
then yeah, that becomes subliminated where it
does become very automatic. Typically, though,
most executives are in such of a rush, rush rat
chase that they don't realize how shallow or
how much of their life they spend with shallow
breathing. So mindful breathing, mindful journaling,
and mindful connecting with something greater
than yourself. And for me, that's my creator.
Well, thank you. You called it the three -minute
reset. Three -minute reset. Easy peasy. Yeah,
no, I like that. That one I can do. I can pick
up really easily. Yeah, breathe, write, pray.
Breathe, write, pray. So you have a community
in school. where you're always sharing these
kind of insights with others and you're building
a community. If you want to tell us a little
bit about what that's all about and then what
is your next milestone? Well, thanks. Yeah, you
guys come join my community. It's a free membership
for the time being. If you join now. It will
be free for you forever. It will not always be
free. It'll soon be a paid community. But we're
picking up steam and offering it for the time
being for people to come in and contribute, ask
your questions, share your struggles, join in
with some crowd -sourced wisdom. And it is at
school .com forward slash mindset. School is
spelled S -K -O -O -L. School .com forward slash
mindset. We have new... down -to -earth, shoe
-leather psychological guidance each and every
day of the week, seven days a week. We have two
live streams a week, both of which Sheila's been
on. The first one is Monday Mindset Mojo, 7 a
.m. Elvis Presley time. For those who don't know,
that is Memphis, Tennessee time, U .S. Central
Standard time, 7 a .m. till 8 .30 a .m. It is
recorded. You can go back and watch it later.
It is a video live stream with a panel of experts
in their area of life, betterment, life improvement.
And then on Fridays, I have executive espresso,
which is a live stream conversation with somebody
at the intersection of mindset. entrepreneurship,
and innovation. And that's a short form. That's
only 18, 20 minutes, something like that, executive
express. So we try to get in, get out, have a
quick triple shot conversation, as I call it.
But all this is through the Mindset Masterclass.
And so hop over there to school .com forward
slash mindset, S -K -O -O -L .com forward slash
mindset and join the community. And the next
thing that I am building is a memoir and some
courses. I'm about to put out a course to help
people who struggle with anxiety and panic. It
is called Shark School for People, a deep dive
into overcoming sabotaging thoughts about anxiety
and real life strategies that I have personally
applied because. I used to have very frequent
episodes of panic. I call those EOPs, episodes
of panic. And I successfully use those that I
just, maybe one of them will start up, but it
never goes anywhere, you know, because I've learned
these strategies. So you guys come over to Mindset
Masterclass, the course. will be put up in Mindset
Masterclass. I'll also offer it through my account
on X at the click of a button. And there's different
levels of the course. You can get the basic five
-day email course. And then there's a deluxe
level. And then if you want to go another step,
a premium level that includes one -on -one time
with me and a mastermind on this Shark Psychology
for People. And so that's what I'm working on
next. Well, I love it. And I'm going to go ahead
and do a feed drop, which is when we take your
episodes so that they can also tune in here.
And I'll leave all of the URLs in the description
so that you follow and find Dr. Heath. Thank
you so much for joining me today. Thank you for
having me. Thank you for listening, guys. And
thank you all for tuning in to another episode
of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership.
Until next time.