The Most Powerful Word in the World
The Amplified Impact Podcast
May 3rd, 2023
Today, we’re gonna dive into the most powerful and the worst word in the world.
And let me tell you, these words can make or break your journey towards greatness.
But before we get into all that, we need to understand how our brain learns and encodes information. It’s pretty fascinating stuff, actually.
We’ve got billions and trillions of neurons in our brain that light up every time we have a thought or react to stimuli.
These little guys create neuronal pathways that help us learn and remember things. And the more we have a particular thought…the more efficient and effective these pathways become.
Think about it like this: the first time you meet someone named David, your brain creates a new pathway to remember his name. And the more you meet him or other people with the same name, the easier it becomes to recall that pathway.
It’s like going to a friend’s house in a new neighborhood. The first time it might be a bit tricky…but the more you visit, the more efficient and automatic the route becomes.
And that’s why repetition is key when it comes to learning new things.
The words we use when we speak to ourselves and others matter a lot, and understanding the neurobiology behind it can help us use these words to our advantage.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“The most powerful word ever is the word yet.” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino [00:00:00]:
What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. Today we’re going to talk about the most powerful word in the world. We’re also going to talk about the the worst word or the word that you have to cut out of your vocabulary if you have any hopes of reaching for your greatness and grasping the cloak of the ghost of your potential. I don’t know what that means. That sounded kind of cool and literary in my head. What’s that mean, to grab the cloak of greatness? I don’t know. Use your imagination. But we’re going to talk about those two words, the most powerful word and the worst word.
Anthony Vicino [00:00:33]:
But before we do that, before we can understand why they’re so powerful, why they’re so negative, we need to understand first how we learn or how the brain learns or how the brain encodes information. Because by underlying the underlying neurobiology, you’re going to have a better sense for why the words we use when we speak to ourselves and to others, why they matter so much. So let’s start off with how we actually learn. This is pretty cool. Inside your brain, you have billions and trillions I don’t know it’s more than two things called neurons. These little cells inside your brain, they blink whenever you have a thought, whenever something occurs, whenever there’s a stimuli that you’re reacting to, these little neurons in your brain just light up. And the way that you learn, the way that you think, the way that you formulate consciousness, is these neurons. They fire in a chain, and a specific chain of neurons firing is going to dredge up a particular memory.
Anthony Vicino [00:01:33]:
If it’s a different chain of neurons firing, it’s going to be a different memory. And so these are called neuronal pathways. And this is important because as you’re going through life, your brain is constantly creating these neuronal pathways as you learn new things. This is called plasticity. Your brain has the ability to change these neuronal pathways, to alter them, like a construction crew going out and digging up this road and then putting in a new road or creating a bypass around it. Right. Your brain can do this all throughout life, but it becomes more difficult as you get older because these pathways become more and more ingrained. Now, the very first time you have a particular thought, like, maybe I meet you for the first time, and you tell me your name, and you say, my name is David.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:24]:
Okay, cool. Nice to meet you, David. As my brain takes in this information, it’s going to start creating a new pathway, and it’s going to probably create a pathway based off of some familiar previous event. So if I know other David’s or if I’ve met other people at the particular venue that we’re meeting for the first time, or maybe you’re a redhead. So I’m like creating pathways that are linked with other redheads in my brain. So the neuronal pathways tend to piggyback on each other. But the first time that I have this thought, oh, this ginger at this restaurant named David, this is the very first time I’ve ever had this thought. And so what’s going to happen is the neurons are firing, but they don’t exactly know where each other are or what’s the most efficient route between them.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:12]:
And the way that I like to think about this is if you my friend, David, if I’ve known you for many years, and I visit you, like, once a week at your house in a particular neighborhood of the city that I’m very familiar with. Well, I know how to get to you very efficiently because I’ve made that trip hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. However, if you move now to a new area of town, even if I’m very familiar with the town, but I’ve never been to your particular location, well, I can triangulate to your neighborhood pretty quickly, pretty efficiently, probably not going to take too many wrong turns. But then to actually dial into your specific location might take me a little bit of doing right now. The next time I go to find you, I know the general neighborhood and I know more specifically where you are, so I can probably triangulate to you even more quickly. And the more I visit you, the quicker the trip gets each time until I land on the most efficient and effective route to get to you, regardless of where I am in the city. Okay? And that’s pretty much what’s happening inside your brain when you have a thought. The more you have that thought, the easier it becomes to specifically pinpoint the location of that neuronal pathway.
Anthony Vicino [00:04:18]:
And so it becomes easier and easier to have that thought in the future. And if you’ve ever tried to learn a foreign language, you’re probably familiar with how difficult it was to learn the vocabulary, because the only way to get the vocabulary into your brain is just through repetition. We call this muscle memory, right? Like the more you just memorize and you do the thing, the more it becomes automatic. But it’s very difficult in the future. It takes a lot of cognitive exertion until it gets to the point of being something that’s easily reproduced because it’s so familiar. Well, your brain, as you’re having the thought more frequently, like the first time you ever thought of the word table in German was very, very difficult. But by the millionth time, it’s very, very simple. The reason it gets simpler is because your brain, in an attempt to conserve energy, says, oh, you’re having this thought quite a lot like you’re using the word table in German, like every day now you must live in Germany, right? And so your brain starts to codify this and say, this is an important thought.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:18]:
We need to make this more easily accessible because your brain consumes a ton of energies considering how small. It is. It’s very calorically consumptive. And so it wants to make recurring thoughts efficient because it says if you’re having this thought a lot, it must be important. Now, it doesn’t necessarily say, like, knowing the word for table in German is probably not a super important thought in the grand scheme of things, but because you’re thinking it so frequently, your brain interprets that as being important. And that’s going to be a really critical nuance to understand a little bit later when we get to the most powerful word. And the least powerful word is that your brain doesn’t really have a way of contextually saying this is actually an important thought. It’s just saying you’re having the thought a lot, therefore it’s important.
Anthony Vicino [00:06:04]:
Okay? So you can start to understand a little bit that which thoughts you have, which words you use when you’re speaking to yourself matter a whole lot. Because if the words that you’re saying to yourself is, I suck and I’m no good, I can’t learn, I’m slower than the others, well, those thoughts are if you’re having those frequently, your brain is saying, this must be important because you’re having it so often. So let’s try and make this thought easier to have in the future, right? And so it’s like this negative spiral loop. But on the other hand, if you’re having positive thoughts, those thoughts become easier and easier to retrieve in the future. Now, the way that your brain makes it more easy to retrieve is through something called myelination or the myelin sheath. So think about this as like fiber optics for the brain. If you have the thought so many times throughout the day that you suck, then your brain is like, well, this must be very, very important, so let’s make this easier to retrieve. And so what it’ll do is it’ll lay down this fatty substance called myelin, and it will coat the neuronal pathway in myelin.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:00]:
And this is like this gray matter that your brain kind of looks like, right? And this is making the transmission of the electrical impulses between one neuron to the next exponentially faster. Okay? So think of it like instead of having just a cobblestone avenue connecting these neuronal pathways in the city of your mind, now we’ve ripped that all up and we’ve put it in like a super highway. So now it’s like super fast. You can get to your friend’s house on the other side of town really, really quickly. So that myelin sheath is very important because once a neuronal pathway becomes myelinated, it’s very hard to undo it. It’s not impossible. Remember, like, plasticity is a thing all throughout a human’s life, but just becomes more difficult because it becomes so deeply myelinated, so ingrained. So if you grew up in an environment where you were constantly being told you’re not good enough, and you started to internalize those thoughts and tell yourself that it’s a whole lifetime of ingraining, this thought into your brain, it could be very, very hard to turn that around, right? But it’s important to understand that that is not your voice.
Anthony Vicino [00:08:06]:
That is a voice of somebody else that’s been planted inside of you, right? Like, those thoughts about your worth and how good you are, those aren’t your thoughts. Like, no child on their own just thinks they suck. Everybody thinks that they’re awesome and they’re above average, right? And so when you have these negative thoughts versus just to recognize those are implanted from somebody else, those are not yours, you do not have to attend to them. Which leads us then to the worst word and the most negative. The word that you can’t afford to have in your vocabulary, if you have any aspiration of actually moving towards your greatness. And that word is the word can’t. To say I can’t do something for so many people is just a reflexive action before they’ve even objectively examined the accuracy of the statement. And that could be across all different spectrums.
Anthony Vicino [00:08:57]:
Like when we were in Antarctica, it was very interesting to me, the people, we had the opportunity to do a polar plunge jump into Antarctic waters where it’s incredibly cold. It’s something. And I was excited to do it. My brother was excited to do it, jamie was excited. But there were people in the group that said, I can’t do that. I don’t do that. And it was fascinating to me how there’s no reason for them to think that they can’t do it. It’s just a simple matter of stepping off of the Gangway and jump into the water.
Anthony Vicino [00:09:27]:
Like, if you can jump into 70 degree water, you can jump into freezing water, right? There’s no functional difference. Now you’re tied up to the boat, and so it’s very easy to get out. And so, objectively, you look at it and you’re like, no, you can do this. When you say you can’t do this, that’s just an inaccurate statement. You could not want to do this, right? And that would maybe be more accurate. But to say that you can’t do something is the most limiting language that you can possibly adopt. And I believe that if you want to move towards your best self, you don’t have room for limitations. You don’t have room for self limitations.
Anthony Vicino [00:10:08]:
At least the world is going to limit you enough. You don’t need to impose more onto yourself. And so the word can’t, I find to be the worst word possible. Now, instead of saying can’t do something, I find the most powerful word ever is the word yet, because I don’t like the affirmation culture that’s like, I am a millionaire, I am wealthy and rich and things come easy and I’m beautiful and I’m capable of doing anything. I don’t like that language because I think undergirding it all is this almost self delusion, this fake it till you make it. And I don’t like that because I think the only person you can fool a lot of people, but the most important person yourself, is not being fooled. And so I don’t like that. I like to take a more realistic approach to my capacity and say, I maybe can’t fly yet.
Anthony Vicino [00:11:10]:
Right? Yet is a powerful word because it opens and expands and it leaves open the door of opportunity and possibility and saying, just because I haven’t been able to do it in the past or in this moment, it’s not possible, doesn’t mean it’s not impossible in the future. And if I keep working and I keep striving for a solution, I will find it. I love the word yet. Like, I have not built a million dollar company yet. I am not a millionaire yet. It changes the whole dynamic because it’s being honest about what you’ve achieved and where you are currently. But it’s leaving open that door and saying that it’s just a matter of time and energy and application and that you have the potential. And I think always leaving the door open for your potential is an important concept that so many of us growing up never like, we just we closed that door, we shut it, we locked it, and we said, nothing can get through there.
Anthony Vicino [00:12:04]:
But if you were coming from a childhood, an upbringing, just a life where your self esteem is very low and the beliefs that you have about what you’re capable of have been influenced heavily in the negative direction by others. Then the first step towards unlocking your potential, I think, is to start changing those words, stop saying those negative, limiting things about yourself and start substituting a more realistic perspective of I have the potential. It’s just a matter of continuing to move forward towards that potential. And so yet is just this implicit understanding that it’s a matter of time. And for me, that makes it the most powerful word in the world. So I hope this brought you guys some value. Let’s wrap it up. Let’s get out of here.
Anthony Vicino [00:12:49]:
Guys. If it did, do me a favor. Share it with somebody that you think would get some value out of this episode. Episode, or one of the previous episodes that we’ve done. And as always, my good, good friend, stay focused. No, you know what? Scratch that. Stay hyper focused until tomorrow. I’ll see you right back here bright and early or in the afternoon or whenever you listen to these podcasts.
Anthony Vicino [00:13:09]:
But guys, I’m excited to have you here. Thank you so much. See you tomorrow.
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