🙏🏽 Science-Backed Gratitude Protocol to Change Your Brain

It’s Valentine’s week — which, if we can move past the capitalist cynicism, is a cool time to reflect on the power of the heart.

This week we’ve got:

¹ Science-Backed Gratitude Protocol that Changes Your Brain

• How it can uplevel your social life & ability as a creator

• 1-3 minutes, 1-3x per week

² Why CEOs Shouldn’t Drink Coffee

• And what to drink instead

³ How to Keep Your Heart Open

⁴ This & That: Perplexity AI Use Cases, Using GPT as a Reflective Coach, Ideating a $1MM Biz Idea

6 MINUTE READ

🙏🏽 Science-Backed Gratitude Protocol

Info distilled from Huberman’s Gratitude episode.

The Why: Change Your Brain (Prosocial Circuits)

We have two circuits in our brains — prosocial and defensive.

• Prosocial circuits are involved in connection & cooperation — they help us enhance our connection with others.

• Defensive circuits are designed to keep us safe.

This gratitude practice activates the prosocial circuit in the brain.

Why is it beneficial to maximize our prosocial circuits?

Three reasons come to mind:

• This state is conducive to openness — the feeling of being open to spark conversation with any stranger, opening doors to opportunities that would otherwise have remained closed. A friend, partner, or business collaborator.

• As creators, we’re building things of value to others. To do that, we need to empathize and be connected to others — to genuinely be in service of their demands and desires

• Less concern with competition and threat — more concern with creating valuable things for people

The Protocol: Stories of Humanity

• Find a resonant story of compassionate humanity

  • Option 1. Find a story that demonstrates compassionate humanity, that resonates with you – whether they are giving or receiving help; choose a book, podcast, movie, etc.

  • Option 2. Reflect and really think about a time in which you received thanks – write out what the struggle was, what the help was, and how it made you feel

• Take 1-3 Minutes, 1-3x per week, to reflect on this story. Sink into the space, embody the person that was giving or receiving thanks, and really feel it in your heart and body.

1-3 minutes, 1-3x per week, is all it takes to rewire the circuitry in the brain.

Huberman also mentions Kanna as a way to potentially boost the gratitude practice / prosocial networks in the brain

• Kanna is a plant extract used traditionally in South Africa for mood elevation, stress reduction, social cohesion, and focus

• Contains psychoactive alkaloids — mesembrine, mesembrenone, mesembrenol — that interact with the serotonin system

• Ka! Empathogenics is the best source for Kanna

  • Code ‘Human3’ for 10% off

Resources:

• The Grateful Gazette newsletter shares good news daily — this is a treasure trove of good stuff

• I used Perplexity to find a list of 10 stories of compassionate kindness — it’s kind of mid but there’s some decent ones in there

☕ Why CEO’s Shouldn’t Drink Coffee

Founder/CEO as Decision Maker

The role of Founder/CEO is largely a decision-maker — where to deploy capital, which freelancer/agency to hire, how to position, whether to pivot, etc.

I’ve found that caffeine, and coffee in particular, puts me in a poor space to make thoughtful decisions — it puts me into ‘send it’ mode.

The highly caffeinated state is far from the thoughtful approach I like to take with decision making that balances the use of mental models, checking cognitive biases, and using intuition.

It makes me more impulsive, and prone to less intuitive decision-making.

The boost from coffee is great for getting things done — especially things I face resistance towards (i.e. ops work, project management, marketing legwork).

In many cases the Founder/CEO is playing all roles, and in this case I find that batching this type work onto particular days works better, and can be paired with coffee. Ideally, there’s a COO handling the more operational, D2D role.

What to Drink Instead

About 5 years ago, I replaced coffee with Ceremonial Grade Cacao.

It’s different from powdered cacao — it’s 100% raw cacao (unprocessed) with the natural fats of the cacao butter still included. The cacao butter is a carrier fat for the medicinal properties of cacao — it’s crucial for the body to absorb the health benefits effectively.

I’ve found it to be the perfect replacement — focusing and motivating enough for getting work done, yet keeps me grounded, moving at a slow pace, and keeps my intuition online.

From a metaphysical perspective, cacao keeps me in my heart, whereas coffee keeps me in my head.

It contains two key active ingredients — theobromine and PEA.

• Theobromine is considered a natural stimulant, relaxant, and antidepressant. It stimulates the heart (many describe it as ‘heart-opening’, widens blood vessels, and may improve mood. It’s also been shown to be a cognitive booster.

• Phenylethylamine (PEA) works by increasing the effects of other neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. This action can lead to improved mood, energy levels, and cognitive functions

I use ORA Cacao’s mushroom blend — their sourcing and quality is A+. Blend 15 discs with hot water + coconut oil + cinnamon.

Note: you get 10% off with the link above and it is an affiliate link. I'm only sharing because I really use this stuff daily (I go through 5lbs per month 😂) . As always, to maintain the integrity of my recs, non-affiliate link at the bottom of the email.

If you do drink coffee, I highly recommend adding grass-fed butter to it, and taking 200mg L-Theanine with it.

• Butter to time-delay the absorption of the caffeine

• L-Theanine to initiate Alpha Brain waves to take the edge off.

Green tea is another good alternative, as it has naturally occuring L-Theanine.

this & that

🫡 Perplexity AI Use Cases

• I’ve been loving using Perplexity.ai — a GPT for knowledge & research. Some use cases / questions I’ve asked that it’s been great for below

• Find me gluten free dumplings in Austin (found 3 great spots)

• What’s the optimal dosage of methylene blue as a nootropic (gave me a nuanced answer with sources)

• In Ableton Session view, I want the next loop to start playing at the start of 4 bars instead of 1 bar. How do I do this? (answered this perfectly — try out for software tutorial questions)

• What are sustainable razor blade options?

💭 Ideate a $1MM Business Idea

• Noah Kagan’s framework for ideating a $1MM business idea was how I started my first startup. He’s just expanded upon his blog posts into a book — Million Dollar Weekend

• It details going through everything in your life that you use and do, Kickstarter, and other resources to work backwards: what can you create that would be an improvement that’s valuable enough for x amount of people to spend $x per month on? (based on your business goals)

• Then, how to test and validate the idea to get paying customers quickly

• First Class Founders has made an infographic on the book

🪞 Using GPT as a Reflective Coach

• Psychologist & Founder Coach Gena Gorlin has built a Reflective Coach GPT to walk you through her Self-Coaching Worksheet.

• This is intended to help you work through a challenging current situation, decision, or emotion that you could use some coaching through.

🤍 Don’t Close — How to Keep Your Heart Open

Finally, on this week of tuning into the heart, wanted to leave an excerpt from “The Untethered Soul” on the art of not contracting to anything in your life — creating space to be with all that occurs.

I’ve come back to this time and time again as the root of staying engaged with the present moment, not resisting reality by contracting.