In this episode, Dr. Alex explores the power of “Aha moments” in personal and professional growth. She explains that these moments aren’t universally effective and must be integrated thoughtfully for lasting change. Dr. Alex discusses how our unique brain wiring and experiences shape how we perceive these insights and highlights the importance of curiosity, tailored coaching, role modeling, and continuous learning in fostering personal transformation.
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In this episode, Dr. Alex explores the power of “Aha moments” in personal and professional growth. She explains that these moments aren’t universally effective and must be integrated thoughtfully for lasting change. Dr. Alex discusses how our unique brain wiring and experiences shape how we perceive these insights and highlights the importance of curiosity, tailored coaching, role modeling, and continuous learning in fostering personal transformation.
Connect with us:
Follow us on IG: @becomingzesty
Find us on FB: https://www.facebook.com/BecomingZesty
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH7BeLa1-OVdq4-0IpxMePw
Visit us at https://becomingzesty.com/
Join us for a 2 Day In-Person Transformation Experience & Workshop: https://becomingzesty.com/habit-transformation-accelerator/
Transcript:
Dr.Alex Golden:
Hello, hello. Dr Alex, here. Welcome to the podcast. Or if you’re tuning in on YouTube, hello, I’m so glad that you’re here to watch the video as well. And if you didn’t realize we had a YouTube channel and you’re checking in on any podcast app, just know there’s a whole video associated with each episode, and you can absolutely check that out at becoming underscore score zesty on YouTube. That’s our channel, and then we also have a bunch of shorts there. So if you want to learn and also just sort of do this scroll, but make it educational, we got you so welcome. Welcome. So glad that you’re here, and today we’re going to talk about the best way to have an Aha. And having an AHA when it comes to the transformation or the chain space like coaching, is really, really huge, because essentially, everyone is really, really kind of obsessed with having an aha, right getting to the AHA, having a breakthrough. And you know, a lot of the stuff in coaching have been labeled like breakthrough calls or a breakthrough process, or, you know, it all sort of implies that getting to the AHA is really, really helpful. And I don’t disagree on that one. I gotta say, essentially, it’s kind of like the movie Inception, right? And that’s a parallel to coaching, is that if coaching could be done like, like written in a book, you could share concepts with people, and then they would have an aha, and then they would accept that idea, and then they would start to think it, and as they thought it, then it would become a habitual thought, like as in, those neurons would get used to wiring together and firing together, and now you have a habitual thought. So if that was how transformation happened, and it happened every single time that way across every single person, across every single situation. Well, then, you know, we would be having a discussion about the utility of that and how to use it, and how to get the most of it, and all that really amazing stuff. The whole kicker, though, is that not every AHA works like that, right? Sometimes you’re like, I really want to have that aha, like, I am good enough. And you might get to moments where you feel your wholeness, your acceptance of your flaws, all that. But then doesn’t sort of life happen. And then next thing you know, it’s two weeks later, and you’re like, oh, I don’t feel that great about myself today. So the whole thing about ahas is only is that they’re only about as good as the landing and the tangibility of that landing process, like basically, can you integrate it enough into the fabric of you, enough to act that way, move that way, think that way for the next foreseeable future, till you change it. So right? I would, well, I don’t disagree that the Ha is really important. Moreover, it’s the actual living out and the landing of that Aha, as in, I have accepted it into myself. And actions, behaviors, things that someone could actually see outflow flow from them, right? What my home looks like if you open my journal and read it, what that would the thoughts there and the feelings that I’m describing, all of that then would be cohesive. So that’s really what we’re talking about. So how do you do that in the best way possible. Well, for one, we have to first understand how the physical brain works and how that sets up our mind as we go, right? So our physical brain is just this mushy, actual thing that has neurons and other types of tissues, and there’s electrical impulses there, and they those electrical impulses move, and parts of the brain line up. That’s all that physical apparatus, the vehicle. And then we have our mind, that there’s the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, and essentially our physical brain then projects the mind and the mental body as we understand it then. And so for a lot of a lot of years in medicine and in science, we really couldn’t actually figure out was the mind in the same location as the physical brain. And generally speaking, I mean, it kind of depends on who you talk to, from the scientist, but generally speaking, most people agree that the mind is not where the physical brain is, but that they are interconnected. The physical brain informs the mind and expresses it, and the mind then feeds back onto the physical brain. And so when we are growing up, this how it works is that we don’t first learn our world through words. There are words, but what we pick up as infants are the actual physical senses, what we see, what it felt like, what it smelled like, what it tasted like, all of that kind of stuff. And so the actual physical brain, the neural nets that are then created that describe a newborn’s world, our world as a newborn, is set, is set with those that form of communication, the language, is the stuff, the physical stuff that you saw, felt touched all that, and then only later do we have enough similar experiences where you felt the same way you saw the same thing. You right, if you feel your little tummy rumbling, and then you it makes you cry, and water is coming out your eyeballs, right? And then you see that every time that happens, a figure that’s shaped like mom shows up or doesn’t. Then that sequence of events, the pattern of what we saw, heard, felt, and the order in which we saw, heard and felt it. Then that gets called a word. So you said, Oh, I’m I was hungry, and mom came and got me to feed me. So then we began to learn a bunch of different things about that, right? A we have hunger. We know that food solves hunger. We know mom is the bearer of the food, until we can figure out how to, you know, get it to ourselves. And so all of each individual small thing then creates a neural net, and then we begin to apply a name to it, like I’m hungry and I got fed, and that’s the story that you hear on the outside. And so you can really quickly see that just because I assigned the word love to how my mom or dad or brother or, you know, people around me acted does not necessarily mean that we would all agree that their actions were loving, as in, I could recognize that as love, and then later have that, ha, like my personal story of that wasn’t a healthy form of love, right? So just because we have a name for it does not mean that we’re all calling the external reality of that accurately, like we’re not potentially naming things, because I’ve also had a lot of experience in working with people where is where, like anger wasn’t allowed in their house, so when they feel a certain set of sensations in their body, their brain is has that labeled frustration, right? But like, if your partner cheats on you, you’re not probably frustrated. It’s probably more valid to be angry or to be livid or to be in a rage, or whatever you know appropriately seems to match with the situation. It trusting that the emotional compass is there for a reason. Generally speaking, it wouldn’t be appropriate to say if someone blatantly disregarded your boundaries, a mild frustration feeling is not necessarily what we all describe as the appropriate response. And so you can very quickly. See, just because some we we both call it love, or we’re both calling it anger, does not mean that we have the same neural net set up as in. We could have had vastly, vastly different experiences, but we decided to label that neural net. This is how this experience is interpreted. This is how I explain this is what family looks like, and all the rules and emotional things that go into a family, all of that then is unified. So that’s the whole thing about an Aha. Is that an AHA really lands within a very personalized neural net. And so sometimes coaches or leaders from the outside will say, I had this really helpful AHA based on my experiences, and we want to then facilitate our the people that we’re leading, or people that we’re coaching, to have a similar one. And that’s where sometimes we go wrong, and this is really common when leadership for the kids in the house, right? If you’re a parent, it’s so often be like I had this understanding from my parents. And here, if I do this, this is the HA that I had. But my question for you is, do they have the same neural net set up? Because if you are not like your parents, then that lesson, that Aha inducing activity, whatever it is that you’re like, oh, let’s do this, and then they’ll understand XYZ. If that wasn’t similar, the AHA, may not land the same as in. Or let’s take it to business. Let’s say you’re a business coach. You’re like, in my own business, I did XYZ, and it worked great. But if the reason for the person not doing XYZ is not the same as yours, then they might hear you out. They might say, consciously, I so agree with you. What you’re saying is absolutely true. Yes, that absolutely if I did that, that would work, yep. Oh, if I was like this, then that would be true, and then they leave, and nothing really changes, and nothing happens. And I think that’s where we as the leaders, we have to keep in mind what’s actually occurring. Like what are the mechanisms by which we are using to role model, to impart change, to help lead transformation, all that stuff, then essentially, can feel, if we don’t keep it in mind, it’ll feel really baffling. They’re like, why aren’t they getting it like, am I not explaining it well, am I not like, maybe I’m not getting them into it enough. Maybe I haven’t used the right words. Maybe I need more Bob XYZ, and then I’ll be better at it. And the whole thing is that we’re just those aren’t the right questions. The right question is, how, if, if what I had in ahava, and how I’m describing it is not landing it is not actually eliciting the change that we are discussing in the person saying they want. Then in that case, I have to consider is maybe the neural net different, right? Like, as in, if I have a bike and you can add on an attachment, and it’s going to go fast, you know me as a helpful person, I’m gonna walk around and be like, Who wants to go faster? And if they raise your hand and be like, cool, I can stick this attachment on your bike, but what if I get there and they don’t have the same kind of bike I got, but I can, as a leader, try to force their bike to be like mine and make the attachment work. Or my other option is to send back and say, Huh, maybe the attachment has to be modified. Then to work for this bike, it’s maybe it’s not the bike’s problem. The attachment doesn’t fit the bike. Is how the bike is. So that’s exactly that same process happening is that if I have a tool to help someone have an aha, maybe it’s not the person that’s not having the AHA. Maybe it’s the mechanism by which I am saying, Does my tool match up? To the neural net they have, and the understanding of life and the way that life works that matches up to them right in asking that question, now I can say, oh, okay, maybe this is not right. It’s just the the usability of that tool won’t be that helpful until I get it absolutely right on how they see the world. So for that, it’s actually a really easy fix, because coaches are always like, Oh no, I’m doing stuff wrong. What’s going on and and so when we certify people, it’s really reassuring to remember all you’re really doing in that case is being curious is just a process. The answer is, really, can you ask more questions to begin to understand what their life was like? What what happened? Where are they getting these interpretations? What about their childhood, or what about their life, informs that what has happened to it? How can you ask questions to better data? Mine what’s happening with this neural net? So that when I am helping, I am really, really saying. I’m looking at what is in front of me. It is so easy in life and in coaching and transformation. Mark to say, like, here, this should work. It’s like, here’s a situation I know generally, especially if you’ve been doing in a while, it’s really, really easy. Or maybe if you’re totally new, and you’ve been listening to people who have been doing it a while. They’re like, they say this, this should work. Let’s do a thing. And it’s really easy to actually miss what is really in front of you. Your brain will sort of apply a little bit of a filter of what you want them to be like. And it is not always totally accurate. Curiosity is what unmesses it up. Basically, it’s the fix every time, no matter how you got in there, maybe you’re in a hurry, maybe you just wanted it to be a certain way. Maybe you’re like, oh, it happened to me, so I got this. But if you get in there and something is not in getting integrated, and someone’s behavior or is not being changed as based on how they want to change, then oftentimes that’s the whole hold up, right? That’s actually the whole question of, Am I making sure I understand how this works, and now with that understanding, picking the best resource, the best tool, and pressing at the most high yield leverage point to encourage that transformation and to facilitate it in the way that feels best To the person undergoing it so often. I think when part of the negativity of this process is that the coach or the leader is looking at them like, Okay, I said this stuff, and you should be having the AHA. And I think even in the best of scenarios, the person sitting there going, I want to have that aha, like, I want to know what you’re saying. I want to I want to really believe what you’re saying and get the benefit of it and really live it. But if they’re not, they’re they’re just not. And the coach can want them to do it, and they can want to do it, and we can all and and the thing is that brain isn’t really caring about those feelings that’s not the priority. There’s just something where that neural net is not believing, it’s not buying it doesn’t match up enough to what is actually happening in the interpretation and so curiosity, curiosity, curiosity, that’s always going to be the protective thing for us in life and in coaching and leadership, with our partners, with our family members, with our team members, with the people who work under us, the people that the clients that work with us, the people that just swing past our social media accounts, right? Really, the the focus is on them getting help. And so when we have any questions about it, when a question arises in my mind, that alone is my reminder for myself of, oh, right, I It’s my job to be curious. That’s really what my job is. Because I can look back I was kind of looking at the store, right? I can see behind me are rows and rows and rows of resources, and we’re always making more, right? So in terms of what my business plan is, that part’s already taken care of. I have a bunch of things that I know helps, and I’ve seen it work. For hundreds of 1000s of people. So that’s where I really have to remind myself it’s not that I won’t know what to do when I understand what’s happening if I apply the curiosity and the real answer comes tumbling out. I know I have my whole storefront, and I can reach into and utilize any one of those tools. And that does become the basis of some coaches. Some leaders don’t have enough of their storefront filled out. And that’s where we certify people. And we work closely with leaders and and we get them the resources and tools so that they are sure that they can handle all the things that are come that are going to come up in their life and in their business, and there’s a process to do that, and it’s not a mystery, and all that is easy, but really, more than anything, it’s sometimes people have good resources back here, and they won’t ask questions, because they almost act like they don’t have Good stuff, right? They’re like, I won’t ask the questions, because then what if I get into something that I don’t know? Well, first of all, if you are sure you have good resources, then you gotta ask yourself, Do I really think I don’t have them, or am I just nervous about using them? So that’s one, but two is that if the answer really is I’m not sure that I can handle some of this stuff, then a very, very easy and straightforward action step is to go to other leaders and get resource with the things that you’re missing. This is where so often people hold back on doing that kind of stuff, because they say, Oh, it says something about me that the that, you know, I can’t hang with the stuff I have now that it’s common, a lot of people get to that. I can see how I’ve been there too. But on some level, it was like, once I started just picking up resources and picking up resources and creating new ones. I was like, Oh, this is a never ending game. If I then tell myself a story that I was missing something, if I pick up something awesome, but I’m gonna never endingly pick up more and more awesome things, then at some point you have to wonder if it’s completely illogical and pointless to keep telling myself that, right? And so that’s where I just say there. There’s nothing wrong with having more resources, even if I have everything I need for me to live my life, every single resource I pick up can help somebody else. And what’s so cool about that is that in living that and trying that on, I got to actually see a lot of people started coming being like, I have this problem, and all of a sudden I really realized I don’t really relate to that problem personally, but I still have the resources for it. Like that actually did pan out exactly like my mind said, Right? Just because I pick it up, it could just be a cool thing. It’s like, you collect pebbles or a rock, and you’re walking, you pick up another rock. If your partner says to do you really need another rock? You’re like, of course, I don’t need one. I just like collecting them. And it’s the same thing. That’s kind of how I treat my resources is that, of course, it doesn’t say anything bad about me, because I just like picking them up. I don’t need a reason, bad, good or indifferent, to pick them up. So for me, that’s kind of where that thing is. If I don’t feel resourced, I don’t feel any type of way, because the answer is going to be get resourced, and then when I’m done getting resource that I’m gonna want other resources, and I’m gonna do it again, and I’m gonna do it again, and I’m gonna do it again until it’s time for me to go home. And once I got that then, then there was nothing that was gonna stop, stop me progressing and having anything that I wanted. And of course, as a leader, then what more powerful state can you get in as a leader than to say I trust and know I will have everything I want and I live like it. That’s the best role modeling we can possibly do, in my opinion. That’s why it’s my goal to get there, because if I can really live a joyful, happy life that’s fulfilling and has all the things that I want, then someone else, when they’re ready, inevitably, because people are always like this, are gonna go, if she can do it, I can do it. If she can have it, I can have it. And then what’s cool about this is going to come full circle to where we started, is that my role modeling then becomes a resource for that, the neural net they have, irrespective of whether we talked about it out loud or not. Isn’t that cool? It’s like it’s amazing, because. Turns out, talking about and having curiosity helps you become the person that you’re really proud of, and then in living as the person you’re really proud of, you get to help people, even when they’re not talking to you or not even admitting consciously that they have a problem, they just look over at you and their neural net goes, Oh, whatever I need to do, to reinterpret to be like that. Let’s do it. And then they have their own spontaneous Aha, just hanging out with you. And then you help someone, just by being yourself, doing something that you want to do out in the world. And then you go home, and you might not even know that you help someone become who they are going to be. I mean, that kind of stuff is so cool, like it is so powerful and it is so mind boggling that it is as helpful as it is, like there’s so many checks and balances that there are here that help all of us come up like everybody really, I understand now what people mean when they’re like this is a place where we come to experience that abundance and the wholeness and the healthiness and the fun and the joy and the adventure and the travel and the exploration and the Passion and the excitement and all of that, because that’s what it looks like, is that it’s a snowball that we start, and it, luckily, it doesn’t even matter where, at this point you start, just Curiosity will get you there. That’s the vehicle curiosity is going to be the vehicle you hop into to begin to ask, okay, how do I cultivate within me or within somebody else, a better Aha, by remembering to stay curious, to understand how they see the world, to understand their filters, their beliefs, their worldview, and begin to help them to role model and to lead in a way that truly takes the person in front of you, the real human, authentically in front of you, to help them get to where they need to go, even if that help looks like you just live in your most authentic life and your best life knowing that that ripple effect is happening anyways. And you might be sitting here asking, well, how will I know if they don’t say it out loud, how will you know that you help the world? What’s funny about that is, when you actually live out the process that I’m describing, you have to rely on not not just your mental body, right? Your mental body is kind of the understanding, but sometimes we have to really feel into the situations, and then we really kind of sense into the bigger picture, like using our spiritual body as we do that kind of stuff, you begin to bring those other aspects of you, all those superpowers that you have, the gifts back online, so you then begin to move with more of those gifts on board. And what’s cool about that is that because it’s a life then that’s lived with presence and awareness of you. What’s cool is that you’ll also start to pick up on more information from other people as well. So you’ll notice their behaviors. They might make a comment about something that could be interpreted one way, but if you pay attention, you’ll hear them describe literally the change that you’re helping them make. It might even just be a feeling or a knowing, a sense that you get that they were helped by your presence. And I think part of where you know we all want that we want to feel like we made a difference. And then oftentimes, you know, if we keep following the little chain, the mental Gremlins will be like, Well, if you really feel into how much you help them, you know, aren’t you being arrogant? Because all of a sudden that feeling of pride is just naturally there, because, you know, you know, just like, you know, like, you know you’re in love, you know that you actually helped, and that’s where the mental Gremlin sometimes can have a little feel they to go, Well, you know, are you being arrogant, realizing that you help, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, they’ll dump up, but that’s how you’ll discover that next layer. Okay, cool with that. What’s my neural net on being all that? Did I hear a lot of stuff growing up on, you know? Oh, those people made money. They think they’re too good for us now. Oh, okay, now maybe that’s in there. What am I going to do to unpack that? What do I want to do? Do to unravel that. How do I want to shine more of an awareness into some of those thoughts? And say, if I can line shine a light on it, then I can figure out what’s happening. First of all, but two, I can make it what I want instead, so you can really quickly see how this whole discussion sounds small, but the ripple effects that it starts on any given subject or change within us will then parlay us into the next success. So it’s like success begets success, which lands us on the next stair step, and then that gets us to the next stair and the next air. That’s really the process of positive transformation, of evolution in a way that you personally are proud of becoming. And that’s what we really want to have happen as much as possible out in the world. So I would love, love, love to have you take this out for a spin, to do this kind of thinking, or as Megan and I call it, noodle on it, and then come back and let us know. You can either find us on you can comment on the YouTube channel. You can shoot us an email support at becoming zesty.com you can find us on Instagram, all that good stuff, and let us know how that went for you. I’m sending you so much love, and we’ll catch you on the next episode.