SUMMARY 

• If there was a button that would instantly make people the best version of themselves, they would push it immediately. Of course, things don't work that way in the real world, but in this episode I'll discuss one simple technique that can have this type of transformative impact on your life. 
• This technique is the power of the pause. No matter what we want in our lives, we are always faced with decisions on all fronts. The power of the pause helps you to make better decisions.
• You can pause proactively and ask yourself what you should do before a certain situation, or you can pause reactively, which is to ask yourself how you should react to the situation in the moment. It is all about pausing before you act.
• When you pause, you are allowing yourself to tap into your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that facilitates logical decisions. In that moment of pause, you tap into the wisdom in you that knows how to handle any situation.
• Then listen to the advice that the wisest version of yourself will tell you. Act with wisdom. React with wisdom. And remember to use the power of the pause. 

TRANSCRIPT

Here's the thing. All you have to master is the power of the pause to tap into the infinite wisdom within you.

We're all on a quest to be our best, right? Everyone wants to reach their full potential in business and life. There's not a person in the world—for example, if I gave you a button, I said, "Look, if you press this button, you'll become the best version of yourself."—who wouldn't press that button. Everyone would.

We all want to reach our full potential. We all want to be the best version of ourselves. The power of the pause is a technique that will aid you in that quest. So, many times in the course of your day, you are faced with decisions, choices that you must make. And the trajectory of your life, whether you view it as positive or negative or neutral, however you view it, it will be determined by the choices that you make. All those forks in the road that appear day in and day out on the health front, on the home front, on the work front, the cumulative effect of those choices will dictate whether your life is positive, negative, neutral in your eyes.

And the power of the pause is a simple technique that you can use to help you make better choices. Whether that's proactively, ‘What should I do right now’?’ or reactively, ‘How should I react to this situation?’ And the power of the pause says exactly what it is right there. It's about pausing before you act.

So if you have a thought in your head, for example, “Should I be going to the gym right now? Should I be working on this project right now? Should I take a moment and start playing this video game here or should I continue reading this book? In that moment, pause and ask yourself, “What would the best version of me do right now?” And just seek that advice and listen. You'll hear the answer almost instantaneously, and then follow that advice.

But we only access that by pausing. Here's what happens when you pause. When you pause, you shut off that emotional, perhaps suboptimal response pattern in your brain, and you tap into your prefrontal cortex, what makes us human. So that you can tap into that logical decision-making side of you and ask that more human side of you, “What is it that I should do that would be most consistent with the best version of me?”

Similarly, if you're faced with a situation to which you must react, whatever that might be; somebody cuts you off, you don't like something that was just said to you, the kids are out of control, you've missed some targets at work or with your goals. You can pause. And once again, you can ask yourself, “How would the best version of me react right now to this information, to this situation?”

Listen to the advice. Follow the instructions. The more you practice the power of pausing, the more you'll access the infinite wisdom within you so that you can make the right choices, which as they accumulate over time, will literally change the whole trajectory of your life.