The Better Self Show: Recent Episodes
Jorge Alonso
A podcast about neuroscience, philosophy and self development to help you to become a better version of yourself with insights, tools and life experiences.
Welcome back to a new episode of The Better Self Show!
This is again one of those episodes that I share with you a recurring failure which is that I have not recorded for a few months so it feels that I'm starting over one more time. I come back with new ideas and with better audio quality as I got a new microphone to record.
In this episode you will hear about what is my current situation with this podcast and the ideas I have for the next 3 months on how to move forward with the project and with my life. I hope you enjoy :)
A dream digital job For the last few years and specially the last few months I've been in this journey of creating content in the form of a podcast, a long lasting dream, and I have come to some conclusions so far.
While looking at some videos, reading articles and browsing through social media it occurred to me that there are so many people out there (like me) whose dream is to have a sort of 'digital' job.
You know the 'clichés'... turn your passion to your career, escape from the 9-5 job, be your own boss, travel anywhere while working, create passive income, become a digital nomad... Yes, I am sure that you have heard of those terms before if you want to be an entrepreneur.
I also have that dream but the journey is far more complicated than it seems at the beginning, and one more time I 'failed' and I am back doing content again.
It is easy to see all those who are successful in having their own digital business but hard to notice all of those who have failed along the way in trying...
It takes time to build a brand and all the people who have successfully done so have also started from the lonely beginning like me.
So my intention is to share this journey with you so maybe you can get inspired to do the same, maybe you can come back to this content if I ever become successful with this business or maybe you can witness one more person trying and not getting it.
What skills have I learned The past 9 months have changed my life in many good ways. I got the opportunity to participate in a volunteering program (European Solidarity Corps) funded by the European Union as an IT assistant for an NGO called GEN Europe. Also I got the opportunity to live in a thriving ecovillage while doing the work that I may becoming part of depending on how everything goes after 3 months.
In this time I messed around with creating and documenting websites to the point that I now feel comfortable to do a website for another person.
I also published this podcast with all the editing and producing that goes behind the scenes. And lastly I helped GEN Europe with creating their own podcast called Community: The Ecovillage Podcast to help to spread the word around ecovillages and sustainable lifestyle (which is wonderful!).
So now I am at the point where I have no income and have to pay rent and all that stuff. I have at least 3 months
Welcome to the last episode of the year! Today I bring a topic I believe can give you some food for thought as the number game is something that affect us in everyday life and we can get advantage of specially if you are a content creator or thinking about it.
The idea of the number game is not original of course, but it is an idea that occurred to me when I was talking with a friend and sharing about the podcast. I told him that I had 14 episodes recorded and he was really impressed by the number. Even admiring my work without checking it out… So I started to think on the effect a number can have in different things.
It is not quite the same to say that I am doing a podcast and I have several episodes than putting an specific number in front of it. It somehow shows the amount of work you have putted into a project.
The same happens to me when I see other content creators like podcasters and I see a number in front of the episodes… 1, 10, 50, 1000… Putting a number in front of things has a lot of advantages!
What is the number game? Imagine 2 persons who have a podcast. Person A has 10 episodes and person B has 100 episodes. Just because one has more episodes than the other it does not necessarily mean that one podcast its better than the other. The only thing it means is that one person has more experience than the other and perhaps in consequence it may be better.
The point is that numbers help to have a preconceived image of something that we may not know of. An ability that is really important in the evolution of the brain but we can talk about this in another episode.
In essence, what I call the number game is to put numbers in front of anything and see how it feels or how it can affect inner and outer perception.
The numbers on the outside Personally before I watch a movie or read a new book, I go to different review sites to check their ‘numbers’. How many reviews, how many starts, how many comments… and then I make a decision of whether it is worth my time to watch or read that book.
And this happens to many other situations in life… Like when going to a new city searching for an apartment or a restaurant, or buying something online. We are in constant influence by the numbers things have even though we have not really tried that product. Like it happened with the podcast. In a way we are guided by the numbers and then we make the ‘informed’ decision of investing into something.
How to take advantage of the numbers? Playing with the numbers in daily life can also bring great advantages. In fact you could put a number in front of anything and see how it feels… How many times you do exercise in a week? Meditation? How many projects did you finish this month? How many books? How many episodes? How many articles?
The only number you can control is the number of things you do
I can control how many episodes I create, but I can’t control how many views, likes, comments, shares or reviews they will have. And it goes the same for many other parts of life. I can control how many times I can exercise in a week but I can’t control how I will perform each time I exercise (time, weight, repetitions…)
A little neuroscience behind numbers Using numbers are a way of increasing dopamine. If you don’t remember about dopamine you can go back to the episode where I give an introduction to the neurochemicals of the brain. It is in fact easy to generate dopamine with numbers and I can give you my personal experience with this podcast.
At the time I recorded this episode I thought back to the first episode or the 10th. Because I haven’t recorded in a while I was feeling very lazy and demotivated, but when I looked back at how I felt the first or 10th time I recorded I felt much better because of all the work I’ve putted behind this project and it made me want to keep moving forward. To put down one more episode.
To go further, I even believe that the number game also boosts serotonin because looking back at the beginning makes
Welcome to episode 13 of The Better Self Show! Today we are going to talk about Philosophy vs Science and how to apply these topics into daily life.
First I want to be clear with you. The title of the episode may be a bit of a clickbait because it is not about the long time debate of philosophy vs science but more about what we can learn and how these topics affect us into daily life.
Philosophy definition In order to understand this episode you may want a refresh on the definition of philosophy. The word comes from the greek, philo which means love and sophia which means wisdom. So philosophy can be defined by the love for knowledge. And you may guess by now that in some way or another we all love knowledge! So in essence are we all philosophers? Maybe we can talk about this in another episode if you wish, just contact me if you would like to learn more about it.
But we are not here to talk about what does philosophy, science or mathematics mean... Or if philosophy came before science and all that stuff...
I want to bring you a reflection on the struggle that we live everyday between the philosophical part of life and the scientific one.
Philosophy wants to question and answer long time thoughts that concern to all beings like what is the meaning of life, does God exist, or what is the purpose of life.
On the other hand, science can prove with data, facts and statistics that can be 'certain' about different life situations specially related to the physical world.
The need for 'real' facts or truths I believe that nowadays in society you may often find yourself looking for real facts, or absolute truths about life, and that is great! But don't forget about the free thinking and questioning that philosophy allow us to do even questioning things that have been 'proven' scientifically.
From the previous episode, thanks to the power of imagination we saw how things can be 'real' for our bodies even if they are not scientifically proven or are not present in the physical world.
When talking about life there are many things that are abstract and hard to prove... how can you prove life? imagination? feelings? life purpose? Relations?
For some strange reason I feel that there is a need in life to have certainties about the world. And not just certainties but the truth about life. We want facts and we want the truth! And my friend... the truth is a topic that has been studied for a long time in philosophy and I believe it is quite difficult to get universal truths in life.
You can say that there are absolute truths in life. In my experience, most of them come from mathematics and even science. 1+1=2 may be truth in all places of earth... or the sum of the angles of a triangle is always 180º.
But the truth within ourselves is a little harder to find.
Freedom of speech and Galileo Galilei There is a very famous philosopher that you may know if you ever heard about utilitarianism or utilitarian
Welcome to episode 12 of The Better Self Show! For today we will talk about a very important topic for life that I discovered when I started studying neuroscience, which is the power of imagination.
Whether consciously or unconsciously we are using imagination all the time. Foreseeing what could happen in the future, thinking about anything that happened in the past, dreaming, putting ourselves in different situations with imagination...
It is good to remember, in case you haven't heard the podcast, how powerful the brain is. You know, everything happens in the brain. When you move a finger it is because your brain sends a signal to your body to move it. When you breath or when your heart beats are also signals from the brain even if we do them unconsciously.
The power of imagination in neuroscience Imagination is very powerful because it can produce close to the same sensations as in 'real life situations'. It also generates neurotransmitters and other 'chemicals' that can make us feel as if we were living that certain situation.
I first learned about the power of imagination when I did a course on neuroscience. The 'teacher' or doctor who was working at a hospital in Seville told us a case study she did in her hospital. But first I must tell you that this story comes from my memory, I don't exactly remember all details or have all facts on my hands. So you are free to believe it or not :)
A case study She told us that there was a man who had an accident and his leg got severely damaged, so they had to cut it. When he went to rehab they tried a different approach using neuroscience, meditation, hypnosis and imagination as well as tracking the different muscle movements and brain signals.
So they would invite him to enter a 'state of imagination' bringing different situations, for example. Imagine you are in the jungle and you suddenly see a tiger and you run from it as far as possible... Or imagine that you are running a marathon and when you see the finish line you start running faster... And many other of those 'imaginative' situations.
After the study they found out that using imagination could be as powerful as living the 'real life situations'. When he was thinking we has running the marathon, the sensors in his legs showed a great deal of activity. And the same with the other activities probing that using the power of imagination can be as strong as reality sometimes.
When I learned about this example I went crazy because it made a lot of sense to me, and with years it becomes even more clear nowadays. If you've listened to the show you may know how passionate I am about imagination and about the placebo, which I hope to talk about it soon!
Imagination and visualization for entrepreneurs If you are into the world of 'entrepreneurs' and have heard or read a couple of them you may have heard about the concept of visualization and how some of them use it on a daily basis. Well, after the case study above it becomes clear that doing this technique can be very powerful.
It is as simple as imagining yourself in the fu
In this episode you will hear about how the outer world can affect the inner world at all times. I was inspired to talk about this because I had this sentence in my head for some years now, 'the outer world is a reflection of your inner world'.
Right before doing the episode I search for this sentence on the internet and funny enough (to me) it was a sentence I read in one of the first self development books that I read some years ago called, "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" by T Harv Ecker.
It is sort of funny to me because of how some things that you read or you hear many years ago can stay inside and we may not even remember where they came from.. Part of the Why of The Better Self Show is to bring you these sort of ideas that you hear and you may remember for sometime after...
The outer world There is a tendency in thinking on the outer world all the time. Weather, politics, economics, neighbors... It may be easier than actually sharing the things that we have inside. The good thing about this is that sometimes the 'outer' things can bring you insights about your 'inside'.
I can give you a personal example. I am from Gran Canaria, one of the Canary Islands. There when I was on the late teens I realized that before going to study in the USA I found myself complaining all the time about the island.. The island sucks, it is small, there is not much going on here, always the same people, always the same landscape and so on...
With time I discovered that these sort of thoughts happened to a lot of people, and to my surprise they still do nowadays. But the most crazy thing to me it was that when I traveled to the States or to other places I found people with the same sort of thoughts. In that time I discovered the sentence, "wherever you go there you are".
What I learned is that life doesn't suck because of the place you live in. Live sucks independently of where you live. Your inner world is a reflection of the outer world. In this case if you see the place you live in as a bad place, and complain a lot about it.. how is your inside looking then?
Complaining about others Complaining is engrained in our everyday lives, and if you wish I can talk about the neuroscience behind complaining on another episode, just let me know. In the episode I share a personal story where I found myself complaining about a friend's behavior and how I found that whatever I was complaining about I had it in my inner self.
Whenever you are complaining about another person or place, try to see how much of that complain is reflected upon your inner self
Another example. You may have heard me in the show complaining about the guru's of the internet, the happy hippie life coaches or the online marketing experts of the internet. Yes I am no saint here, I may just know that I know nothing.
Welcome to episode 10 of The Better Self Show!! It is incredible for me that I got to this point so let's celebrate for this episode and hopefully many more to come! And thank you so much for the support you have been given me throughout this journey
Today to celebrate we are going to talk about a philosophical topic that occurred to me sometime ago which is appealing to ignorance. If you have been following the podcast you probably know by now that I really like Socrates and this episode is inspired in him.
One of the most famous quotes of Socrates says, "the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" to which I refer in a sense as appealing to ignorance. It is also the first step in the maieutic or Socratic method.
But first let's talk about the opposite, appealing to expertise or wisdom.
Nowadays on the internet, especially in the oversaturated world of 'coaching' or 'online marketing' you may find hundreds of experts and gurus telling you about their magic formula for sales, happiness or any topic whatsoever. Most of them are appealing to wisdom or expertise.
In Spain we have a meme, the brother in law or the 'cuñao' meme. It makes fun of that person who sits at the dinner table or in any situation and seems to know everything about any topic. You probably found many of them throughout your life.
I'm sure that you're not one of those... but probably sometimes in life you may have positioned yourself as an expert and that can be a double edged sword because it can be easy to trust and believe at first someone that seems to be an expert in a topic.
For example, if you go to the doctor because you have a headache or any other health issue, then you may believe what they say that it is at first. But just because someone is a doctor it doesn't necessarily means that they know everything on their field.
Back in Socrates time, those experts or gurus could be called the sophist. But we'll talk more about them in another episode.
Appealing to ignorance is the key Part of the purpose of this podcast is for you to make up your own mind about things, and that I believe will bring you closer to a better version of yourself, you know, to train the brain muscle a bit.
When someone appeals to expertise people may believe that person but he may be wrong. However, if you appeal to ignorance and you say that you know nothing about something then you're never gonna be wrong, because you are already saying that you are wrong :)
It exonerates you from any mistake you may do so that you can freely philosophize about any topic. Then the other person is the responsible for making their own mind and believing your or not.
Empowering other people A direct consequence of appealing to ignorance is that you are making people responsible for checking with themselves if they wish to believe whatever you're saying. In a way it feels like giving the power or the responsibility to the others and by doing that you're definitely helping them.
But just saying that you know nothing and freely talking about anything is not the trick here. The trick is to actually believe that you know less that you do, that you can make mistakes and that whatever you're saying is not the absolute truth about the world.
Anyways I hope that you have a listen to the episode and that it brings you value in any shape or form. For me if the episode makes you think than I can't ask for nothing else as with thinking you are already working on a better version of yourself.
So thank you so much for being there one more time, for celebrating the episode 10 with me. And if you wish to help me going in this adventure it would be great if you could support the show
In this episode we will have an introduction to what are neuronal connections or neuronal pathways. It is a very important topic as throughout the podcast I will be making reference to this all the time since it is present in everyday life and is also one of the most important things I learned about neuroscience and the brain.
The first time I learned about neuronal connections (and neuroscience) was when I did a course on neuroscience about 4 years ago. So a big part of what I will share today comes from there, but also from what I've learned with books, philosophizing about the topic and my filter (you can hear about the concept of the filter by the end of the why of the better self show episode).
In today's episode I share with you the intention, the reasoning and the why of The Better Self Show. And on the second part of the episode I also talk about why you should also share your knowledge on the internet as I do.
At the time I recorded the episode it brought me a lot of fire inside because I'm very passionate about the topics I talk about so I apologize in advance if I sound overwhelming and for the language.
So what is the reason behind The Better Self Show? Even though the name may sound a bit pushy it has a beautiful motive behind it. You have probably heard me talking about ancient Greek philosophers, like Socrates or Plato, and in a way the name has to do with them.
Plato or Socrates talked about virtue quite a bit in their work, and some of the stoics philosophers like Marco Aurelio or Seneca did as well. But did not just talk about virtue in itself, they also talked about 'how to live a virtuous life' or a 'good life'.
In the end, one of the main point they share in different words is that to live a good life one has to become a better version of himself. Whether it is through virtue, self consciousness, happiness or whatever it may be. The point is to find a better version of yourself with all the tools that you can acquire throughout life.
And the point is not to be better than others all the time and grow competition. The point is to grow within one's self with consciousness and knowledge so that little by little we can live a better life.
That is why I called this podcast The Better Self Show, because in a way my intention is to share with you the things that I have learned in my journey, that have made me a better version of myself, so that you can also have those tools I learned about if they can help you in any way.
Why you should also share your knowledge... On the second part I share with you how you should also use the internet to share your knowledge to the world so that we can all make it a better place.
Hasn't it happened to you that a random day you were browsing through the internet and you stumbled upon a piece of content, a post, a video, or a podcast, that brought you so much value that you still remember about it?
The internet is a very powerful place to learn about each other and to bring value to so many people that in a way we ought to share what we know with the world in order to make it a better place little by little.
Even though one may think that if you are no expert in a certain topic, then you shouldn't talk about it. Well that can be called the impostor syndrome, and you should definitely share what you know because your knowledge is unique.
Anyways this became sort of a motivational episode in the end, and I'm happy to share those ideas that I've been having in mind for a long time.
I hope that you got value from the episode in any way, and if you have any comment or feedback please don't hesitate to get in touch with me! I'd love to hear from you :)
And if you enjoyed the episodes and you want to see more, see how you can support the show so that I can keep producing more content like this.
Thank you for listening and I hope to see you in the next episode, ciao!
In today's episode of The Better Self Show I bring you a bit of a philosophical topic, the state of nature, that I think it is very interesting to know about and to consider when thinking about life topics whichever they may be.
The first thing of course is to give some context and definition of the state of nature.
So for this natural state you can think about the human beings in prehistorical times. When we used to be very close to nature many thousands of years ago. Sleeping in caves, moving around from one place to another in search for food, water and shelter.
In that state we were very different from now and we have evolved, but not as much as one may think from a biological perspective. Especially when taking into account the rate at which technology has evolved en the last few hundred years and how biology and genes take a longer time.
Think about the importance of doing exercise in our lives. There is a lot of scientific evidence of the benefits of doing some form of exercise, and I'm going to assume that you know about it. The point here is that in the state of nature, or when societies were not so evolved, we needed to do a lot more exercise on a daily basis to move around, get food, water, shelter and all that since car, planes and so on did not exist.
So this is just an example of how we can understand some of our needs from the state of nature's perspective that could also be applied to any other areas in life.
Another clear one is food. There is a lot of 'shitty' food in the supermarkets, with chemicals and all that. (I also eat some bad stuff from time to time, less now, but I do. Not perfect, you know!)
And then there are organic foods free from chemicals and pesticides etc... Now think about how "good food" for us is almost the same food that our ancestors used to it, closer to the state of nature. You get the point.
When talking about the state of nature, I MUST (morally and ethically) bring one of my favorites, Jean Jack Rousseau, the french philosopher. His book, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality is one of the sources where I learned the most about this topic. If you want, or maybe if I get inspired, I may record one episode about the book.
Anyways, I hope that you learned a new cool topic from this episode that you can apply to your life. And maybe you can even think about what is the state of nature for you and how it affects you? Tell me in a comment if you wish to share.
Thank you so much for listening to the episode and remember that you can support the podcast to help me keep going with it :)
In today's episode of The Better Self Show I bring a bit of a crazy idea I got sometime ago which helps to understand how physics can play into creating new habits with the help of this metaphor I thought of.
You may understand the episode better if you listen, but if not just bare with me.
Isaac Newton formulated some important laws of motion. The first one says that an object will remain at rest or in constant acceleration unless a force acts upon it. The second one that the force necessary to move an object is directly proportional to the object's mass... Or something like that!
And the most important part is that there is friction when trying to move objects. For our case, kinetic friction (when the object is moving) and static friction (when the object is at rest).
Now with the theory out of the way... When trying to create or incorporate a new habit into your life you can see how these forces may relate to the process. Let's say that you want to start doing exercise as a new habit.
When an object is at rest, due to kinetic friction, it needs a lot of force to move. And when the object is in motion it needs less and less force with greater velocity.
When you try to do exercise for the first time, you will need a lot of force to start creating the habit due to static friction, and when you have been doing exercise for like a week, 2 weeks and so on.. the more you do it the less force you need to perform that activity.
And let's say that you have been doing exercise for sometime but that you suddenly stop for a week or two. When you get back at the new habit, you may also need to exert some force but not as great as before because you have 'muscle' memory, or your body and brain remember that you were already doing exercise before even though you stopped for a bit.
The thing that builds the most static friction, or the resistance to start a new activity is self sabotage. Which is the self talk that we all have inside in form of resistance towards starting a new thing.
The will power is like the force needed to move the object. The more will power you have, the easier it will be to get that habit going in less time and viceversa.
Lastly, consistency is what keeps the habit strong and reduces friction so the activity you want to perform takes little energy like being in auto-pilot mode.
And I'm not gonna go too crazy on these, if you are more interested you should listen to the episode :)
I hope that you enjoyed the episode, that it brought some value to your life and remember that you can support the podcast to help me to keep going with it.
Thank you so much!!
In today's episode I bring you a reflection of what is to be in a slump and how to get out of it.
To be in a slump is to be in a period where you are stuck with your life not being able to move forward with what you want to do. Whether it is to be doing something new, creating new habits, or getting rid of old ones. You know, like starting to go to the gym, eating better, being more productive in your free time, producing content...
In the audio I share with you my personal story of what has happened to me in this podcast journey and how I've got to be in a slump after I came back to the island that I'm from (Gran Canaria) after traveling and volunteering, where I recorded the first four episodes. With the intention of giving you an insight of what has been going on inside me so maybe that can help you as well.
Some of the ideas to get out of a slump is to connect with your purpose, whatever that is, and I explain how it can greatly help to have a purpose in order to get out of a slump. Also about the resistances and old habits that you may have that are keeping you in the comfort zone and away from achieving your current goals.
It's hard to give you a magic formula on how to overcome a situation like this, but I share with you some of the things that have worked for me. So I hope that I brought you value if you listened to the episode.
Here is the video that I referred to in the show. It's actually one of the most watched TED talks and it is soooo good!!!
Anyways, I hope that you enjoyed the episode, that it brought some value to your life and remember that you can support the podcast to help me to keep going with it.
Thank you so much!!
In today's episode of The Better Self Show you will hear an introduction to neuroscience and more specifically about the neurochemicals of the brain which are dopamine, serotonin, endorphin and oxytocin.
It is a little introduction to these neurotransmitters and hopefully in the future you can hear more about each of them and how they play a role in your daily life.
Neuroscience is a big topic and even though I'm not not an expert in the subject (nor in any topic) I'll share with you the knowledge and experience that I have. Maybe you will get some ideas or insights to your daily life about how these brain chemicals may be affecting your daily life.
In the end and like always you should get out of the episode whatever brings you value, and what doesn't then leave it. Make your own mind and if you have any comments, questions, feedback or concerns don't forget to get in contact with me, or leave a comment and I'll try to answer it in another episode.
Some references I made are to Pavlov's dog experiment.
And this are 2 of the books I've read or get inspired about neuroscience:
- Habits of a Happy Brain
- The Power of Habit
In further content I'll share more knowledge and references to the topic.
Hope that you enjoyed the episode, that it brought some value to your life and remember that you can support the podcast to help me to keep going with it.
Thank you so much!
Throughout life one may acquire a wide arrange of titles and certifications, school, university, languages, skills, driving license, professions... But what does it really mean to have one of those titles? Are they totally necessary? How much do they proof? Are they worth it?
Today in the Better Self Show, we'll analyze and philosophize about the meaning of having titles and certifications. In the episode you will find an extensive philosophical rant addressing some of the questions, thoughts and implications of having a title in our society.
Today you can learn about the famous impostor syndrome and how it may be stopping you from pursuing your goals.
In the episode I bring some of my life experiences showing how it has affected me in the past and in the present especially now that I am creating this podcast.
I also bring some other examples and metaphors to help you understand the concept in itself. The impostor syndrome will resonate with you as we all have experienced it in our lives in some way or another and I hope to bring you some insights on how to recognize it and how to overcome it.
Today I give the introduction of The Better Self Show. A podcast where we talk and philosophize about different life topics related with neuroscience, philosophy, coaching, psychology and self development in general. With the aim, the intention to give you insights, tools, ideas, tips, tricks and life experiences to help you to become a better version of yourself everyday one step at a time. You can find every episode at my website jorgeam.com