What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Sam Powell, Zach Elliott, Tom Schweizer, Dennis LaRue, and Michelle King.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
147 Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: Mind Management, Real Results
We trace why mind management matters now, how the Neurocycle works, and what the research says about stress, habits, and biological aging. Heavy science meets practical steps, with identity, autonomy, and small daily actions at the center.
• stress as a warning signal you should not ignore
• mind management as legacy for kids and teams
• well-being reframed as being well through identity
• 21 days to wire, 63 days to automate habits
• directed neuroplasticity replacing reactive patterns
• measurable change in cortisol, inflammation, and scans
• telomere protection and implications for aging
• moving from bystander to first responder in life
• career autonomy through internal rewiring, not just job changes
• practical next steps and accountability through community
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Welcome to What's on Your Bookshelf, a life and leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our shelves. With your host, Denise Russo and Sam Powell.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of What's on Your Bookshelf. This is our Life and Leadership podcast where we're living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. The book that we're reading together is called Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess by Dr. Caroline Leaf. My name is Denise Russo. My co-host and friend is Sam Powell. Sam, it's so good to be here with you today.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it's so nice to be here. And I had uh this this book is um, I don't know. It feels like the whole beginning of this book is just one giant tease to like this magical solution because she's just building us up and building us up into like, what are all the consequences of not cleaning up your mental mess? And it's like it feels heavy and dark, but it's things that like I really want solutions to. And so I don't know, like maybe people will feel the same way as they're sort of traveling through this with us, but I do think it builds this urgency of like cleaning up like how we think, how we, you know, approach things, because it's just so vitally important to our life. And this chapter that we're gonna talk about today is chapter three, which is why the neurocycle is the solution to cleaning up your mental mess. And this is where she starts to touch on what's some of the data and the research that they did. Because again, like this book is research-backed. Um, and she really starts to get into that. And next week will be even deeper because it's called the research. Um, but this is sort of that teaser part of it, but it feels like it's just this whoo, like there's there are real life consequences to having your mind really messy and cluttered. And before we help on camera, we were talking about some of that, what that looks like for us in real life. And I don't know, it's an it's an interesting space. It's a good time of year, I think, to be thinking about this. And this, I think this is the chapter that people will really find interesting because I find I found this really interesting because it's talking about some of the results.
SPEAKER_01:This chapter is just as tough as the first two chapters were because it really does set the stage to smack you in the face about the reality of the impacts that stress has on your life. And so in the beginning of this chapter, she has a quote from Madame Curie, which says, Nothing in life is to be feared, it's only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we we may fear less. And I added in in the margins that it includes understanding things like mortality or why bad things happen to good people. And so whether you are somebody dealing with something personally or professionally, I like what you were saying, Sam, that now is the time of the year when most people are thinking about decluttering or setting a fast or going through an exercise regimen of some sort. She says that these are simple mind management tools because it's about addressing and getting rid of things that are right in our face as warning signals. And so if we think of a warning signal, like have you ever gone driving somewhere and you're about to approach the intersection and a train is getting ready to come? And so first you see the arm come down and you hear it go ding, ding, ding, ding, and you know you have to slow down. Yeah, some people might barge through because they want to they want to try to beat that warning signal, but a warning signal signal is intended to keep you safe and keep you alive. And this is saying that the warning signals that we see in our lives, like anxiety or depression, toxic thinking, inability to concentrate, irritability, exhaustion, and burnout, they can overtake you. They are the train that will slam into you if you don't have the tools that slow you down to help you understand how to manage the way your mind is feeding into your brain.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I love that she frames this. And I highlighted this because it, I think for you and I we both have kids, right? But she says that mind management is both a matter of how we want to live today and how we want our children to live in the future. And I think that it really speaks to that discourse of like wanting to break like trauma cycles, like family, you know, systemic issues that we just general, like generational trauma, like generational patterns that we pass on and you taking control of your life, right? To me, this is all about like self-leadership of you and your life is something that makes an impact on today for you, tomorrow for you, but tomorrow for like the next generation, whether that's your kids, whether that's the people who come after you, you know, whatever that looks like in your life. But I like I think that that really hit me from the beginning of like the tone of this chapter of like, yeah, I want that for my kids because I do have kids, right? I but I want that for like, I think my legacy too, of like I I worked on me, I showed up in the best version of who I could be. And I think about like it's the uh four agreements. Like, I want to create the best heaven that I can for myself and for, you know, and in between you and I, right? And mind management is really what it's about, is sort of the argument that she's making. And I think that like coming off of where we came off of and coming into a new year and and coming into this, I think it's a great, it's just a great moment. And you know, you said that this is the time of year where people are, you know, setting intentions and you know, like at the beginning of a a year, but you know, I think about this a little bit differently of this is in North America, this is still the winter, right? And we think of a lot of like spring cleaning, right? And as we get to like the spring, um uh, you know, like the the springtime like revival and new growth and all that sort of stuff. And to me, this is like that perfect moment to really understand what's going on and plant the seeds of what then can become a real revival as the world turns. I had read something at the end of the year, like the winter is a terrible time to set new balls, like it's a terrible time for New Year's resolution. I keep thinking about that of like maybe this is that moment to like slow down, understand, figure out how you're going to clean up so that when the world turns back to light and to um growth and revival and spring cleaning and all of that, like you're ready for it.
SPEAKER_01:I love how you describe that. There I highlighted this one word in this first part of the chapter, Sam, that we take for granted, which it was she was talking about well-being. It's a common word. We hear it even like there's well-being initiatives at work. And she breaks it apart though, in the way that she wrote it on the page where she put a dash between well and being, it's it's on page 62. And I highlighted that particular piece because it struck me that she's talking about how what she's offering in this book that we haven't yet disclosed, which is the cycle, that this is about your physical and mental well-being. But when you put the dash between the two words and you really look at the word, like really look at it, and it says, well being, we are always being, we're being something. And this is about your wellness, your well-being, not your bad being, your sick being, your poor being. This is being well. And so it really struck me that that I want to be somebody like remember in um atomic habits when he talked about how if you want to be somebody that you need to show up that certain way. I want to be somebody that is known as well, and I want to be well, and so well-being is how we get there is through this five-step process that she goes on to say is about the science of specifically how we form thoughts in our mind. Now, you and I spent about an hour and a half talking to each other before we pushed record today, and it was a very healing and healthy conversation for me because I want my thoughts in my mind to be well. And I also know that there is science behind all of this. And if we can get the understanding of it, then we can also take more control over the way we're thinking about things that either have happened in the past or haven't yet happened in the future, and really be in today.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. And I think that you know, we know of coming off of a year of how to manage our problems and the conflicts and the things like that. Like life happens, and and you're like you said, you're always being something, and being is complex and conflicting, and you know, there's just going to be, it's just going to be messy, but then it's this mental mind management, as she calls it, that really, and she says, rewires and regenerates the neural pathways and creates new habits. It's something you have control over. And so while life becomes messy, if we can lead ourselves to wellness, to being this active version, like right, being is an active thing, be well, then we can really, and that's where this chapter goes, is we can change our overall health, right? This is this is not like some woo-woo, here's five steps to change your life based on, you know, like my personal life experience. No, this is how to change your life based on clinical research, on trials, on measurements, on seeing how the shift in mental management changes. Like, I mean, we we'll get into it here, like down to your blood, your DNA, your hormone levels. Like, I mean, you're seeing tangible real results from mind management that leads to being well. And I like that, like you said, like, yeah, that's that's kind of incredible. And it feels amazing to me that that's a real thing that we can tap into. And I don't know, it makes me feel like I have superpowers. It's again, it reminds me of like four agreements, where like he talked about our words being the magic that exists in the world. This feels like magic. And it's like if I can think and speak in a way that you know is directed, self-directed, self-led, I can literally create magical like things in my life.
SPEAKER_01:Like, I don't know, it just feels so empowering to me. So when you talk about self-directed and self-led or self-centeredness in a good way, she brings it up as empowerment that if you're empowered to do these things, then you're going to have more success as you walk through the cycle. And she did some research. And in this large body of research that was conducted, she talks about how when you are more self-regulated in your mind management, you're more in control of your life, you have better mental health, you're not a bystander to your life, but now you're a first responder to the decisions that you make in your life. And so you were mentioning the four agreements, and I really loved that book, but I also really loved last year, The Obstacle is the way. And she ends this part of the chapter talking about how when you get control over the things you're thinking about, you start seeing challenges as barriers, challenges and barriers as opportunities, and you have more overall life satisfaction. That was the whole premise of the obstacle is the way book, which was really about looking at the things that are happening in through and around you all as opportunities, not as obstacles. And this neurocycle five-step process is the pathway to this magic or to this empowerment or to this self-awareness state.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And I see I highlighted a lot of this section of the chapter too, because I see this a lot when people come to me for career, because the thing that they that really is foundational to because people come to me when they want to change. They need a new job, they need a whole career pivot, they want something different from point A where they are and to get to a new point B. And the thing that is always underlying that is that they want to feel more in control of their life, and they're gonna use their career as a big lever for that because we spend so much time in our career. And she says that, you know, people going, you know, using this process and really taking control of their life, you know, of their uh management is that they were set on a pathway to empowerment through the study results that they identified. And this was all achieved by increasing their autonomy and feeling of control. Feeling more self-regulated and in control of life leads to better mental health because you're no longer just that first responder, right? It's not the reactive life that you're talking about, right? And like again, I see this in careers all the time of people having this reactive career. I followed the playbook, I followed the rules, I did all of the things that led me to this point. But now it feels like the system, the company, these external factors are in charge of my life. And I want to be autonomous, I want to have the control in that space. And so, like to me, it, and it really does come down to a lot of the times how people are feeling about the situation, because the conversation I end up having with people is you know, if you want to change how you feel about something, you either change the situation itself, right? Get out, go somewhere else, make a big change, or you change your relationship to the situation, how you think about it, right? Which is then how you feel about it. And I've seen so many people change their situation because that feels like the easier thing to do, right? Like I'm gonna move from this space to this space, but they don't touch the second part of it. They don't change their relationship to it, the way that they think about it, the way they're managing their mind and their emotions around this. And so they'll end up in the same situation in a different place, right? Same circus, different clowns, over and over and over again. And they wonder why this change didn't have the effect that they wanted it to. And it's because they missed the critical step of the internal work that it takes to get there.
SPEAKER_01:This is about managing your mind so you can change your brain. It isn't just about changing your mind, it's not an elusive thing, it's not a mystical thing. She goes into some really specific detail about the wave frequencies in our brain, the way your brain is structured. I thought it was super fascinating. I've been studying the brain a lot in regards to what my mom is experiencing getting older and the way an older person's brain changes and the malleability of that piece in our body. And after she goes through some of the very, I would say, more deep conversation around the different frequencies and the way your brain is set up, she says, going back to atomic habits again as one of the key, like the we're just so lucky, Sam, aren't we? That we just really had good books that came to. We say every time it's a coincidence, but no, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I think it's something more. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's she says, new thoughts and new habits are evidence of neuroplasticity. And so that's the growing health to our brain, which we talked about, I think it was last week or the week before, around what does neuroplasticity look like? It's it's you changing your brain. And this is when she talks about the point where I told you the only thing I remembered from her speech when I first ever saw her, was the most poignant piece she made was that most people think it takes 21 days to change your brain or to create a habit, but it doesn't. You could you could create a habit in 21 days, but it's not sustainable, it's not it's not at the uh unconscious or subconscious level of of repeated behavior. It takes 63 days. So now she goes into the whole detail about that, which is the main thing that I remembered from when I actually heard her speak the first time, and that this is about how it takes time to learn and form the new habits. And I go back and even think about I don't know why that there's some core memories I have from certain episodes, but the one core memory that I have from atomic habits was your two stories, your brushing your teeth and flossing story, and you're walking, you're getting dressed to exercise story. And it was all going back to that idea of I want to be known as a person that is healthy. And so I just got up and I got dressed, and that's where you started. And that's the the 21 days. The 21 days is you got up and you got dressed, but the 63 days is you got up, you got dressed, you got on the treadmiller, went to the gym, and now every day that's part of your teeth brushing regimen. It's just a common thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And and it's um, you know, like this is called the term for it is directed neuroplasticity, right? And so we again we tend to think like you can't teach an old dog new tricks, right? Like this whole book is like absolutely not true, like a hundred percent not true, because your brain is changeable. And so when you think about like how the brain is structured and how it works, it's neuropathways, right? It's like this piece is like this little dot is connected to this little dot. And so what she's saying, and this this was so interesting about the habits, because I highlighted this all up and I was like, oh my gosh, atomic habits, like this makes sense. Because in atomic habits, James Clear says, you there is no time frame, really, right? Like he doesn't lean on any of this data to really, really nail down like how long does something take? Because that's all the question, right? If I'm doing this work, when am I gonna see results? When is a habit actually gonna form? And you know, he he basically says that a habit is something you have to do forever, like you have to perpetually keep it up for all eternity, essentially, which is not untrue whatsoever. But I think that this talks more about like how the brain is structured. And so, like, you have to think about it, I think. And this is like you one have to understand what habits are, right? Which again kind of goes back to the whole point of this book is that like your brain is changeable. And so habits are the things you are doing automatically, right? Like it's the automatic. Movement. It's the thing you're doing before you even realize it. It's snacking on the chips before you even realized you opened the bag. And you did it because of this neuropathway that's like when I walk into the kitchen, I go and I open the cupboard. And when I open the cupboard, I look at the chips. And when I see the chips, I know I want chips. And so then I trigger that and I eat the chips. And you've done those 10 steps before you even have a conscious thought about it. And that's what a habit is at the end of the day. A habit isn't something that's like, oh, I have a schedule that I maintain. It's no, I've moved it. I automatically am doing the things. And so what she says is like that 21 day mark is where the bridge exists. Like the new neural network, new neural networks are being formed by the brain by day 21. So it's you're having to do something repeatedly so that the bridge is now under construction, right? Like they're building a huge new bridge for um part of like the turnpike high, turnpike highway by me. And they're building it next to the bridge you go over now, which like as I'm watching this bridge being built makes me very terrified about the bridge that I'm currently on. Like, don't like it whatsoever. But at some point, right, that bridge will be connected. Right now it's not connected. There's a huge gap. You're gonna wrinkle right into the river. At some point, that bridge will connect. And so it's like by day 21, the bridge connects to where it's there. But like cars aren't directed onto it naturally, right? It's not the automatic thing, it's not the pathway that like exists that we're taking, right? It's kind of shut down. And so it's like once it opens, it'd be like having two bridges open next to each other. And it's like, I could take this one or I could take this one. I'm probably gonna default to what I always take because that's just what we do. But the new bridge exists by 21 days. But then what she's talking about is by 63 days, that's when you've built enough of like I've traveled the new bridge, the new bridge, the new bridge, the new bridge, that like you automatically go to the left versus the right, right? You automatically do this other thing versus what it is. And so, like when you think about what that means, is that like one, it takes a lot more time than you think it does for real change to become habitual, like that automatic response. But there's so much power in that to me, right? Like it's the fact that I can by myself build a bridge, right? That takes me somewhere different, somewhere better, somewhere to that new identity that I want to have. I just have to one do the actions that build the connection, right? Start to piece it together to where the path exists now, right? And this isn't like theoretically the path exists. This is in the way your brain actually physically works. A physical new bridge is built in your mind after 21 days, about right, like nothing's ever gonna be exact. But then if I keep on it and I keep taking that bridge that I built, and it's all gonna feel probably pretty painful while you're doing this whole process. Like, right? It's it's work. But once it's there, it could be an automatic thing that you do, right? Like you can get to this life that like the things that you want and the habits that you want to have, where it's like I don't reach for the chips. I actually instead of opening the cupboard, I now open the refrigerator and I grab some celery instead because that's that's what I want to be doing with my life. You can create the celery bridge. And it doesn't take that long. Like two months is nothing in the grand scheme of life, right? Like, great. And so it's like that that level of autonomy and control is really cool to me. Like, just really, really neat. Like, I do, I don't know, I spent a whole lot of time thinking about this, obviously, in these bridges and things, but like it's just crazy that this is like actual legitimate physical wiring, essentially, that you're building.
SPEAKER_01:I love your analogy of the bridge because my suspicion when you were telling the story is you said you were you're worried when you see the other bridge being built and you see this big gap. But how many times have you driven over the old bridge and never thought twice? Or have you ever driven somewhere, Sam? And you get to wherever you're going and you think to yourself, I don't really. Because it's all a sub at the subconscious rote level, right? Right.
SPEAKER_02:You didn't think like you're like, I got I think about this all the time, but I go pick up my daughter from daycare. It's like I don't remember this drive because I take it so often. It's like every day back and forth. And yeah, it's like you just don't remember that you even did it.
SPEAKER_01:So she talks about that, where she says that your conscious mind lags behind your non-conscious mind by at least 10 seconds in the scientific tests that were done, meaning that the brain that you don't really control in this the way you would imagine you control it, it's operating faster, further, and up more ahead than the rest of your thinking. And so the whole point of this part of her chapter, she's talking about how if you have unmanaged toxic stress, what that does to your blood in your body, which then turns into diseases. And they did a whole test with blood work on people. And what they were finding is the impacts of unmanaged stress in people's life elevated their cortisol. They had all kinds of other risk issues for different health issues, like cardiovascular problems, immune system disorders, neurological issues, including dementia. And so she ends that part like almost with a well, but there's good news because in the trial they did, all the subjects that manage their toxic stress using this five-step cycle that we'll get into in a future episode, they improved their cortisol levels significantly and their homocysteine. So it it proved her theory. So when you have the hypothesis and then you go out to prove the hypothesis, it proved it through the research and the studies, including looking at people's brain scans and their actual blood in their bodies.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I thought there was really they even went and like they part of the study tested DNA and the um the like they're they're called the telomer length, but it's the TL level. So like on your DNA, your little like X chromosome looking thing, like he double he like situation, like on the ends of that are this telomer length thing. And I've read about that before because that's part of like where aging comes into play, right? Like over time, and as we get older, the length, the telomer length, the TL gets shorter or and becomes frayed. And the analogy she uses like the end of a shoelace. You have those little plastic caps on a shoelace that keep your shoelace nice. And think about when those breaks, like it starts to fray, and then your shoelaces are like they're they're you know, they're none good after a while. And so your DNA is like that. And your DNA is like replicating as cells are replicating and things like that. But as that, as those end caps shorten, the uh the likelihood of your DNA getting affected and not replicating as well. Like this is the process of aging, essentially, right? And so what she's saying is like toxic stress not only shows up in your in levels of like hormones and different things in your blood itself, which is what you were just talking about, it also makes it down to your cellular DNA level of like you speed up your aging process. And like the thing that I was like, oh my gosh, is she said that you know you can measure like your biological age based on like this, you know, like the this length, the TL and um of your DNA. And the people who were in the control group, right, who didn't go through her process, didn't do whatever, right? Like their biological age, like they biologically got older based on like this, the length of the end caps here on the DNA. But the people who were managing their mental mess, right, going through her process, their biological age stayed the same, right? They actually like stopped the aging process of their cells. Like this is all measured, controlled studies, like this is legitimate research. Like that to me, like that was crazy. Like, because I expected the blood stuff. I expected stress levels. Like, I get stress, I can, I can literally feel it in my body. And so, like, for that to affect your blood and like all of that over time made a lot of sense to me and like felt more like a validation of thoughts. But like this to me was like, oh my gosh, like you're I you know, because we think of DNA as like stagnant, right? Like I am designed a certain way, and that just like we talk about like it's in my DNA, therefore unchangeable. But I think as we're learning more about the science of DNA, is like it's it's not not changeable, like it's not stagnant completely the way that we think of DNA. And this is like at your cells as they're replicating, right? Because our body's replacing itself constantly at the cellular level. The toxic chronic stress that we carry unconsciously is literally killing us, is literally aging us in ways like, and I mean, how many pictures have you seen of presidents of the US before and after presidency? It's that toxic chronic stress that they go under four years, and it's physically aging your cells. And this study is showing that, like, by taking control of how you manage your mind, you can actually keep yourself young. And then she goes on to say you can actually like kind of reverse it, like which is crazy. Like again, magic feels like magic, scientific magic.
SPEAKER_01:You know, as we get ready to close out the episode for today, she sums it up by saying the bottom line is this our life experiences are reflected in our biology. And then she says, true change takes time and effort. This is not a magic pill when it comes to our thinking. Working on something like identifying different issues that we have going on in our life is an ongoing lifestyle lifestyle, which goes back to what you were saying about James Clear saying it really isn't 63 days. She's saying scientifically it takes 63 days. And then, but she does say this is an ongoing lifestyle change that you need. And so next week we're gonna go a little bit deeper still into the the research. She says that toxic stress and anxiety can be reduced by as much as 81% just by following the the neurocycle. So I'm looking forward to talking with you next week, Sam, because that's not an insignificant percent.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's not insignificant at all. And um, yeah, that like this is if you are interested in the medical field at all, if you're interested in like research at all, if you're interested in like how our bodies function and work, like you should pick up a copy of this book because this was fascinating to read. It's a little hard to sit down and read this stuff, and she actually starts the next chapter of like it's the research and it's hard to read, but it's fascinating. And I think at the end of the day, lends to that self-empowerment that really, you know, really, really comes along with this. And um, there's a part of this that we didn't talk about, and I think I might write about it on our Substack this week because it to me hit to the point of coaching about our identity and our conscious thoughts about ourselves and how it relates to these changes. So if you're following along on our Substack, do for sure. Um, if you're if you're not, go follow. But if you do, like check it out because Denise and I are playing around with the writing. But I think for this week, I'm gonna write a little more about that because I think it's really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I'm looking forward to that. And what is our address again for people to find out there?
SPEAKER_02:What's on your bookshelf? So w o yb dot substack.com. So go check it out. You subscribe for free. You'll get emails when we release new episodes. The video is sitting there, we are playing around with video, and that's what we're playing around with it. So go check it out. That's uh it's a fun, I don't know, fun place to see our smiling faces.
SPEAKER_01:Exciting. Well, I'm really glad we had this conversation today. And as deep as this book is, it is going to shift into the practical side. So stick with us. We'll make sure that if you don't have a copy of the book that we'll have links about how to get the book, reach out to us, let us know that you're listening. You don't really help us if you're helpful. But we would love to know who you are. And if this is really impacting you or if you've shared it with others, please continue to share it with others. New episodes, thanks to Zach, come out every Wednesday. But for today, my name is Denise Russo, and on behalf of my friend Sam Powell, this has been another episode of What's on Your Bookshelf.