”Beyond Our 5 Senses: Understanding and Using the Six Higher Faculties of Our Mind”

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning

Welcome back to Season 10 of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning (that’s finally being taught in our schools today) and emotional intelligence training (used in our modern workplaces) for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren’t taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience. I’m Andrea Samadi, an author, and an educator with a passion for learning and launched this podcast 5 years ago with the goal of bringing ALL the leading experts together (in one place) to uncover the most current research that would back up how the brain learns best, taking us ALL to new, and often unimaginable heights.

For today’s episode #294, we are going back to the basics, with the Fundamentals of Understanding How Our Mind Works, that started for me with Bob Proctor’s Youth Mentor Program, that I was the Executive Director with, until the program dissolved with the Sept 11th, 2001 tragedy. This weekend I reviewed ALL of these cassette tapes, and when I got to the last one, the tape broke. I didn’t want to miss anything that might be important that I could share with you here, so I watched a YouTube video on “how to fix a broken cassette tape” and what do you know, it worked! Times really are different than the days we used to carry these cassette tapes around, with our Sony Walkmans, but what came through loud and clear to me, was that the messages and lessons we were teaching those teens were timeless, and it all began with an understanding of our mind, how it works, and how to use it. The program consisted of 6 SERIES: SERIES 1, The Fundamentals (you can see these tapes in the image in the show notes). SERIES 2 went into the importance of your attitude, SERIES 3, Your Self-Image, SERIES 4- How to Set and Achieve Goals, SERIES 5- The Laws of the Universe and how to use these laws for your health and relationships and SERIES 6 reviewed all lessons, with the goal that the teens would experience PRAXIS, or they integrated their beliefs with their behaviors.

It was strange for me to hear some of these tapes that were recorded back in early 2001, using conference calls, but what was interesting to me, was hearing the teens explaining exactly HOW these timeless principles were helping them.

Teens would call into a conference call line, from around the world, and meet with Bob Proctor monthly, to review these lessons, and how they were applying them. Nothing made him happier than to hear someone applying what he had dedicated his life teaching, and I know it surprised him that the teens seemed to pick these concepts up quickly. This makes sense to me now that we know how neuroplasticity works, as it’s much easier for a young person to learn something new, because their brains are more plastic, and they also have less habits to overcome.

I listened to one call, and there was a young guy named Greg who shared how he used visualization to go from the last place on his golf team to be the 3rd highest on his team. I wondered why he picked the 3rd highest, and not first on his team, but anyway, that was his goal, and he achieved it. We asked him “what exactly did you do when you were visualizing?” and he said “he put himself at the 5th hole on the golf course, then pictured himself hitting the club, feeling the wind on his face, and imagined where the ball would land.” His vision was clear and specific, and listening to him talking was something else. He was confidently telling the others how he achieved his goal. Greg had mastered TAPE 2 of the Fundamentals thinking in pictures, TAPE 3, using his conscious mind and his senses (to set his goal, he even showed us how he felt it), he used TAPE 4 when he threw his goal into his subconscious mind, and TAPE 6, Greg was able to review exactly what he had done, inspiring others on this call.

No wonder these kids caught my attention. There’s nothing like hearing how young people, from countries around the world, were helping each other to create exciting lives. If you look at the date on the cassette tape, it was just months before September 11th, 2001, and the program would dissolve before SERIES 4, 5 and 6 were even created, but I hope that sharing these ideas with you, will help someone, somewhere in the world, to implement these ideas in your own life.

So for today’s episode, #294, we will cover TAPE 5 and dive into “Going Beyond Our 5 Senses: Understanding and Using the 6 Faculties of Our Mind.”

We will cover:

✔What are the 6 Faculties of the Mind, and How Do They Relate to Going Beyond Our 5 Senses?

✔Where Napoleon Hill talks about these 6 Faculties in his best-selling Think and Grow Rich Book.

✔Where neuroscience fits into our understanding of these Faculties, to help us to understand our inside world, and how physicist Albert Einstein used these faculties.

✔A starting point for all of us to DEVELOP and PRACTICE using our own 6 Faculties of the Mind, giving us an edge as we are working on our 2023 goals.

If I were to ask you, can you name the higher faculties in your mind, I’m pretty sure that maybe on 2/100 could list them off. This is something else that blows my mind, as I clearly remember being taught all about our 5 senses in school, tasting salt and sugar, and writing about these senses, what we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch, that allow us to make sense of our outside world. But what about our inside world?

If we can learn to understand, fully develop and then use our higher faculties, we will experience life at higher levels, than just living through the 5 senses alone, that we saw on our last episode #293[i] with David Eagleman’s work, there’s much more than our human eyes can see.

Napoleon Hill talks about these higher faculties in chapter 5 of his best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich when he says:

Just as we have 5 senses that help us to experience the outside world, we also have non-physical, creative faculties that help us to experience our inner world. When I first learned about these faculties, I got really excited. Look how Napoleon Hill describes our imagination. He says:

When you start to use your imagination, like Greg did with his golf game, changing your results, and entire future, with this skill, I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t get as excited as I do, and wonder how you can use this “marvelous, inconceivably powerful force” in YOUR life.

When I started to see that science could explain some of these ideas that might seem kind of spiritual in nature, or my friend Greg Link[ii], who worked with Dr. Stephen Covey would say “woo woo” it just helped me to have more confidence as I continue to develop and use these faculties. They started to become my superpower, and what’s interesting that I was reminded of when I listened to those teens talking about how they used these faculties to improve their relationships, get better grades, or like Greg’s story, where he used these ideas to improve his results in sports that helped get him into the College he wanted to attend, we ALL have the ability to use, and develop these faculties for outstanding results, or a razor’s edge advantage in our own lives.

Before diving into our 6 Higher Faculties (Our Reason, Intuition, Perception, Our Will, Memory and Imagination” let's see what science has to say about our higher faculties.

What Does the Research Say About Our Higher Faculties?

We know that many visionaries have used their intuition and dreams to create life-changing ideas, but Albert Einstein would say something profound about one of these faculties. He said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

I know that Stanford Professor Dr. Andrew Huberman has covered what happens in the brain during visualization on his podcast on “How to Learn Skills Faster”[iii] and he talks about 3 components of learning any new skill:

Sensory Perception: Where you are perceiving what you are doing using your 5 senses. Movement: That involves our CPGS (central pattern generators) located in our spinal cord and generates repetitive movements like walking, and running etc. When we are really good at something, this part of the brain controls our movement. Proprioception: That he says is like a 6th sense, or knowing where your limbs are in relation to our body.

I’m always looking to see if the research could possibly support the results I’ve seen working over and over again over the years, and while Dr. Huberman goes deep into the way our brain works while acquiring a new skill, and what part of the brain is active when we become really good at a new skill, to me, he also explains that when learning a new skill, we can use our 5 senses, and our outside world, (called sensory perception) and that we can also look outside of ourselves, with what he called proprioception. He also explains what part of the brain becomes active with visualization, and I think the key is that with practice, we move from using our upper motor neurons in our brain to a whole new area he called the Central Pattern Generators, when the skill becomes highly developed.

I thought about Greg talking about his golf swing that he practiced using visualization, until he had mastered the skill enough to take his results to new heights, going from last place to 3rd from the top. Over time, he began using a different part of his brain for playing golf. This practice he was doing, would change his future, and put him in the College of his choice. I wish I had kept in touch with all of the teens from this program, I only follow the original 12, but I would bet that Greg continued to use this skill for the rest of his life for improved results in College and into his career.

Then I looked at another episode that Dr. Huberman did with Rick Ruben, an American record executive, on “How to Access Creativity”[iv] and I did cover some of Dr. Huberman’s research on PART 4 of The Silva Method[v], but I thought it was fitting that Rick Rubin, while discussing the creative process with Dr. Huberman, says that It’s important to “pay attention to physical sensations in your body in your creative pursuits.” And neuroscientist Antonio Damasio actually coined this term to be called “interoception.”

So, I know I’m not too far off from what the research says as we cover the 6 Faculties of our Mind, and how to develop them for a razor’s edge advantage.

REASON: We talked about our ability to think, and reason on our last episode #293[vi] which is a skill that can help us to understand things on a deeper level. We have the incredible ability to THINK, and then we can decide if we like an idea, and accept it, or we can reject an idea. We use this ability to put our thoughts together, and create ideas.

HOW TO DEVELOP THIS FACULTY:

Have you ever participated in brainstorming sessions or Think Tanks with others? Mastermind sessions like this allows each person to use this faculty. You write down ideas on idea maps, and discuss the pros and cons of whatever ideas are thrown out. Meetings like this are highly creative, and new advancements in business often begin this way, when two or more minds get together, and the thinking/reasoning faculty is exercised.

INTUITION: This faculty I could spend a year talking about. This is where we learn how to read the energy we feel around us. We can all do this—pick up the “vibe” of another person, just by feeling their energy. Remember Anotnio Damasio called this Interoception, or learning to listen to what we feel from within our body. With practice, we can learn to trust what we feel and become confident with using this tool.

HOW TO DEVELOP THIS FACULTY:

The best way I have seen is to ask for feedback when you think and feel something about someone. When you can see you are on the right track, you’ll gain confidence with this skill, and keep learning to use it.

PERCEPTION: David Eagleman talks about this faculty in his book, The Brain, and wow, can his work really bend your mind. Just search for the word “perception” in his book, and you’ll see 26 times that he gives an example of how our brain tricks us in many different ways, and “our brains constantly pull information from the environment and use it to steer our behavior” (Page 86, The Brain) and reminds us of Freuds work that our mind works like an iceberg, “the majority of it is hidden from our awareness.” (Page 86, The Brain). With this in mind, when we perceive something, remember we are seeing it from our point of view, with our senses that we know are limited.

HOW TO DEVELOP THIS FACULTY:

Try seeing things from someone else’s point of view, and see if this changes your perception of a situation. We did talk about this strategy in depth on a recent interview #289[vii] with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne who reminded us to look at situations from 3 points of view. Our own, from the other person’s shoes, and then look at the entire situation as if you were looking at all points of view from above. This will help you to see that your point of view, isn’t the only possible route, and will help to develop and improve empathy with this practice.

YOUR WILL: This is another of my favorite faculties. This one gives you the ability to concentrate. While sitting down to write this episode, I’ve gotten up from my desk a few times, but I’m determined to finish writing this, so I can record and release this today. That’s the will at work. You can also use the will to hold a thought on the screen of your mind, or choose thoughts of success, over thoughts of failure. If you have a highly evolved will, you’ll lock into doing something, block out all distractions, and accomplish what you set out to do.

HOW TO DEVELOP THIS FACULTY:

Developing the will takes practice. Meditation can strengthen your will, but so can staring at a candle flame until you and the flame become one. I tried this activity in my late 20s, and remember it was a few hours of staring at this candle flame, before I was able to block out the distractions of the outside world, and the flame extended towards me. This faculty, like the others, takes time and practice, but once you’ve developed this faculty, you’ll know you have the ability to sit, focus, and do anything.

MEMORY: We’ve covered memory on many episodes, but my favorite was with Chris Farrow, who is a two-time Guiness World Record Holder for most decks of playing cards memorized, from EP #149.[viii] This is another faculty that requires practice, and most of us don’t practice this skill. A highly developed memory can be valuable in all types of work, and most people who have a highly developed memory share they use certain strategies to remember things, usually by association, and even by ridiculous association, to really make memories stick.

HOW TO DEVELOP THIS FACULTY:

Chris Farrow had memory programs through his website www.FarrowMemory.com and when I was listening to those old youht mentoring tapes, Bob suggested a memory program through Nightingale Conant[ix]. Whatever method you use to improve your memory, it begins with a system or strategy. Names are sometimes difficult for me, especially on the hiking trails, when I meet someone I see often. I try to associate the person’s name with someone I know already, who they might remind me of, to make their name stick.

IMAGINATION: I’ve saved my favorite faculty to cover last. This faculty, when developed, gives you incredible creative power. Remember that Napoleon Hill said it to be “the most marvelous, miraculous, inconceivably powerful force the world has ever known” and Albert Einstein said imagination is “more important than knowledge.” This is where the power comes in, and honestly, if I hadn’t have seen all the people, who over the years, used their imagination faculty to create what many would say to be impossible, and then go out and accomplish exactly what they had imagined, I’m not sure I’d believe it all myself.

HOW TO DEVELOP THIS FACULTY:

This is what the Think and Grow Rich[x] book study was all about, as well as learning to visualize with The Silva Method. The important thing to note here is that you must be careful what you wish for. Remember Greg, with the teens, he wished to be the 3rd best on his team, and that’s exactly what he achieved. Why not go for the top, if I swear to you, I believe it to be possible?

Here’s how I did this recently.

At the start of 2023, when setting my goals, I put them all in written form, and made sure they stretched me. Remember, if you listened to the interview with Brian Proctor, if your goal doesn’t stretch you, there won’t be any inspiration in it. The end of January, I was starting a new corporate position, going back to sales, and working for someone else, something I hadn't done in 10 years. Selling my own programs into schools, there was pressure, but if I didn’t make a sale, I didn’t have a sales manager asking me to explain my pipeline. It was a new experience, and I wrote down that I wanted to be a LEADER in sales, in my division.

Then the work began. I would read that goal out loud every morning, and many mornings, it felt weird, especially when I saw I was LAST on my team. But like Greg proved, even someone who is last, can do things a certain way, and become FIRST. It took me 6 months, and a series of sales has now led me to be the leader of my division. I honestly didn’t believe it to be possible until maybe the 4th or 5th month.

It began when I took my imagination, and just started to dream. That was just one of the goals I wrote down at the start of the year. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get exactly what you dreamed of.

There’s no limits to our creative ability and I’ve just proved it. I always believed this to be possible, especially for others, but doing something yourself, gives you an incredible amount of belief.

I hope whatever it is that YOU want, that you’ve imagined on the screen of your mind, that you GET IT, and then I hope that you’ll show others the way forward. All great inventions are created in two places: the mind of the inventor, and then in the world, when they create their vision.

REVIEW AND CONCLUSION:

To review and conclude this lesson, I hope that you’ll go back and review EPISODE 291[xi] on “Unleashing the Power of Our Subconscious Mind” then EPISODE #293 on “Our Conscious Mind and Five Senses” which will prepare you for this final episode on “Going Beyond Our 5 Senses: Understanding and Using the 6 Faculties of Our Mind.”

Reminder, today we covered:

✔What are the 6 Faculties of the Mind, and How Do They Relate to Going Beyond Our 5 Senses? (The 5 senses help us to see the outside world, and our 6 Faculties help us to strengthen our inner world).

✔Where Napoleon Hill talks about these 6 Faculties in his best-selling Think and Grow Rich Book.

✔Where neuroscience fits into our understanding of these Faculties, to help us to understand our inside world, and how physicist Albert Einstein used these faculties (he said that imagination was more important than knowledge)!

✔A starting point for all of us to DEVELOP and PRACTICE using our own 6 Faculties of the Mind, giving us an edge as we are working on our 2023 goals.

I hope you have found the past few episodes to be helpful for using your mind to think, and create the goals that you’d like for yourself (and others) in 2023 and beyond.

I’ve included a link to worksheets that I created for students on these 6 faculties in he resource section of the show notes. These are old lessons, but like I said with the cassette tapes, the content is still applicable over 20 years later. Feel free to download these lessons and use them as you would like.

Coming up next:

We have Mike Bordick, who had a 14 year MLB career and is now looking at neuroscience and youth! Futurist and Behavioral Scientist Chris Marshall who will prepare us for the uncertainty of tomorrow.

A fascinating interview with Dr. Wallace J Nichols on his book and movement Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do.

I’ll see you next weekend!

FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI:

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi

Website https://www.achieveit360.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com

Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697

Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/

RESOURCES:

Worksheets on the 6 Faculties of the Mind

https://bit.ly/3rke3qB

Think and Grow Rich Book Study with Andrea Samadi

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #190 PART 1 “Making 2022 Your Best Year Ever” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/think-and-grow-rich-book-review-part-1-how-to-make-2022-your-best-year-ever/

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #191 PART 2 on “Thinking Differently and Choosing Faith Over Fear” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/think-and-grow-rich-book-review-part-2-how-to-make-2022-your-best-year-ever-by-thinking-differently-and-choosing-faith-over-fear/

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #193 PART 3 on “Putting Our Goals on Autopilot with Autosuggestion and Our Imagination” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/think-and-grow-rich-book-review-part-3-using-autosuggestion-and-your-imagination-to-put-your-goals-on-autopilot/

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #194 PART 4 on “Perfecting the Skills of Organized Planning, Decision-Making, and Persistence” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/think-and-grow-rich-book-review-part-4-on-perfecting-the-skills-of-organized-planning-decision-making-and-persistence/

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #195 PART 5 [xxviii] on “The Power of the Mastermind, Taking the Mystery Out of Sex Transmutation, and Linking ALL Parts of the Mind” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/think-and-grow-rich-book-review-part-5-on-the-power-of-the-mastermind-taking-the-mystery-out-of-sex-transmutation-and-linking-all-parts-of-our-mind/

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #196 PART 6 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/the-neuroscience-behind-the-15-success-principles-of-napoleon-hill-s-classic-boo-think-and-grow-rich/

The Silva Mind Control Method

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #261 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/a-deep-dive-with-andrea-samadi-into-applying-the-silva-method-for-improved-intuition-creativity-and-focus-part-1/

REFERENCES:

[i] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #293 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-on-our-conscious-mind-and-the-five-senses/

[ii]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #207 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/co-founder-of-coveylink-greg-link-on-unleashing-greatness-with-neuroscience-sel-trust-and-the-7-habits/ (207)

[iii] How to Learn Skills Faster EPISODE #22 Dr. Andrew Huberman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ0IBzCjEPk

[iv] How to Access Your Creativity Dr. Andrew Huberman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycOBZZeVeAc

[v]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #261 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/the-neuroscience-behind-the-silva-method-improving-creativity-and-innovation-in-our-schools-sports-and-modern-workplaces/ (261)

[vi] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #293 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-on-our-conscious-mind-and-the-five-senses/

[vii]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #289 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/maiysha-clairborne-md-on-what-holds-us-back-getting-to-the-root-of-our-doubts-fears-and-beliefs/

[viii]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #149 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/2-time-guinness-world-record-holder-dave-farrow-on-focus-fatigue-and-memory-hacks-for-students-and-the-workplace/

[ix] https://www.nightingale.com/quantum-memory-power.html[xi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #291 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-on-unleashing-the-power-of-our-subconscious-mind/ (291)