You ever buy a car and suddenly notice all the other ones on the road?

I think back to when I was riding with my friend in his bright blue Jeep. I noticed he waved to every Jeep owner that we passed. They all waved back.

I asked my Jeep friend, “What’s up with the rubber duckies on the dashboards?” (IYKYK)

He explained it as a sort of camaraderie. An identity. A “we see the world similarly.” And he never noticed just how many “Jeep people” were out there until he became one.

That’s your brain algorithm in action.

And here’s what’s REALLY going on…

There’s a highly efficient part of your brain stem called the “Reticular Activating System.” It’s only about two inches long and about the width of an ink pen… But it’s largely responsible for how you see the world around you.

How you belong.

How you identify.

And what you engage with is what it seeks to find more of, to confirm, to prove true…

Just like all your social media feeds, you can think of the “Reticular Activating System” as your brain’s natural algorithm.

It observes your attention, your engagement, your reactions, and it learns how to navigate you through the world “safely.” Very effectively and efficiently, in fact.

It helped you learn how to talk. And tie your shoes. Without you even consciously realizing it.

But it also filters out anything that doesn’t confirm what it thinks it already knows… (like I said, it’s efficient AF).

Like, isn’t it funny how there’s only assholes on the road sometimes?

Or how “there’s no good ones left to date”?

Or that moment your brain seems to spit out a million fearful reasons to confirm why you can’t go after those things in life that you want?

The Reticular Activating System is also exactly why you stay in “I want to” mode rather than feeling the follow-through satisfaction of “I’ve done it.”

You can kind of think of it like an overzealous DJ that takes your requests (whether you meant to request them or not) and blares the same tired songs on repeat until you forget that other tracks even exist.

Like those annoying “I can’t” or “I shouldn’t” songs that pop up every time you try to make a change. Even when you really, really want it.

But here’s why that same “brain algorithm” is actually awesome, too…

It starts to work FOR you when you start to intentionally feed it better “clicks.”

But that’s not just what you tell it through the things you say to yourself (hello, affirmations). It learns from the other stuff that runs in the background of your life, too. Like the kinds of movies you watch. The podcasts you listen to. The stuff you read online. The things other people around you echo.

It’s the environment you surround yourself with, the things in the world you choose to engage with. And your “brain algorithm” learns when you “click” with your attention.

And that attention? It turns into the things you think. The stuff you start to believe. The way you behave as a result.

And it all solidifies into your sense of belonging. Your sense of identity.

And because you’re still here, reading this, your “brain algorithm” is already scanning your life for proof: in your thoughts, your choices, and the way you see the world.

And simply as a result of becoming aware of your own brain algorithm, for the next few days, without even trying to do it consciously…

You’re going to start to notice exactly what you’ve been “clicking” on (not just online but in your day-to-day real life too).

And if you notice there’s some stuff in there that you want to change?

Start to tune into something different.

Over and over again.

And if all you’re finding in the world is evil… might I suggest you start looking for something worth finding?

This is how you re-train your brain to work for you instead of against you.

So that you don’t miss out on those opportunities that life is constantly presenting to you.

So that you can stop bracing for bad news and start spotting the possibilities that were there all along.

You know, the ones you couldn’t even see before because your brain was filtering them out.

That’s exactly how I went from letting negative thoughts and self-doubt completely hijack my decisions to completely turning my life around.

And you too are already beginning to change your entire life, starting right now.

And if you want some help with that...