Episode 157: Rewire Your Brain Like a Navy SEAL with John Kennedy

In this episode of the Happy Productive Podcast, Jennifer Dawn welcomes John Kennedy, a neuroplasticity expert who has spent his life understanding and optimizing systems – from large corporations to the US Marines. This conversation delves into how to leverage the brain’s incredible ability to change, offering a unique, systems-based approach to improving performance and achieving rapid habit transformation.

Discover the power of brain training for habits, learning how physical integration and conscious repetition can literally rewire your brain for faster thinking, sharper focus, and lasting positive change.

Transcript

Jennifer Dawn: Hey, hey, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of the Happy Productive Podcast. I’m telling you, you’re gonna love this one, and it might even be one that you have to go back and listen to a couple of times. My guest today is John Kennedy. John, welcome to the show.

John Kennedy: Oh, thanks so much, Jennifer. I’m excited to be here. As I said, I just read your book. I’m so excited to spend time with you as well.

Jennifer Dawn: Oh, wonderful. I am too. So you guys, John is a neuroplastic and for some of you, you’re gonna be like, oh my gosh, I gotta hear more. And for some of you who are like, what the heck is that? Just sit tight because you’re gonna absolutely love this. John spent much of his life understanding systems and also saving some of the world’s largest companies from defective systems. And as business owners, we all know like how defective systems could make our lives pretty miserable.

In 2007, his life took a significant turn when the US Marines asked him to develop an innovative systems-based approach to reducing casualties and restoring lives. His unique approach, which helps us to train the body and the brain simultaneously, is now called Combat Brain Training. It forged an entirely new and powerful approach to improving individuals, teams, and companies. Now, all kinds of amazing organizations like the Navy Seals and C-Suite business leaders, professional athletes, all go to John. John’s the go-to guy to help with all of this brain retraining. John, we’re so excited to have you here, but tell us just a little bit of how did you really, what, what’s the story?

John Kennedy: What’s the story?

Jennifer Dawn: This? Yeah. What’s that led you to be here?

John Kennedy’s Journey: From Problem Solving to Brain Training for Habits

John Kennedy: So it’s interesting. Ironically, a couple weeks ago I was at my high school reunion in Tokyo, Japan, and that’s actually the, the seeds of everything I’ve done since. With a phenomenal experience. Two, 200 kids, but 50 different nationalities. Back then we moved from a small town in New York there. My dad worked for IBM. Two things happened. One, my dad was director of patent licensing for all of Asia Pacific. Any new invention that wanted IBM to to take on, went through my dad, but went through our dinner table, so I’d be exposed to all these really innovative ideas. The other thing was when I was there, I really wanted try to learn Japanese.

John Kennedy: So on the weekends I talked some friends into accompanying me. My goal was to get lost by lunch. So we’d take a train to the end of the line, a bus in line where nobody spoke English. ’cause in Tokyo, Japanese wanted to learn English and then spend the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get back. Ironically, I never really learned Japanese as much, but I really developed a knack for solving problems and that kind of carried over into my business career where just before the brain training, that was my, I. Kind of my, my niche was rescuing pro trouble projects for the C level of Fortune 50 companies. I developed a process way approach to that, which was very effective. So I was able to, I mean the experience of working with so many multicultural people in Japan, so I would be able to lead these teams and then the process approach to get us over the finish line. And I was perfectly happy doing that.

John Kennedy: In 2006, my brother came back from Iraq, and he explained that IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are the worst threat that our troops face. That was really what’s changed my life. I thought maybe instead of helping businesses make more money, I could maybe save lives. Then I was able to get invited to a marine event. All about I, and I was shaking hands with the base commander at the last day, and I had one of these. What if I could do the same thing for the brain that I do for operations and use neuroplasticity, which is the incredible capability God’s given our brains to change from repetition as a medium, no idea if it was gonna work or not.

John Kennedy: He helped me get my first contract, and that was an incredible experience for me, that that was so successful not only at improving performance, also helping accelerate recovery from the wounds of war. So post-traumatic stress, concussions and so forth. Then it was so successful with Marines, that’s how it spread. So Navy seals, snipers, pilots, and, and now as you mentioned, professional athletes and business people. But I, I get a lot of joy actually out of helping people on the other end of the spectrum. So kids with autism, kids with ADHD, people with strokes, people with dementia. I have a client now I’ve been working with for about a year with dementia and concussions. That’s what gets me up in the morning is helping people really in a way that no one else can really help them exceed the, the expectations that they have in different areas of their life. This all ties back to the power of **brain training for habits** and broader brain function.

Jennifer Dawn: So talk to us a little bit more. ‘Cause I know those listening are like, okay, this all sounds great, but how are you helping them in regards to the brain and reprogramming the brain? So just talk a little bit about what are we actually doing here with **brain training for habits**?

The Science of Brain Reprogramming: Neuroplasticity & Its Applications

John Kennedy: Yeah. Good. That’s a good question. And it basically goes back to how we view the different levels of processing in our brain. So again, neuroplasticity. Everything we do, we think or even say if we repeat it, it’s changing our brain physically. I highly recommend Norman Deutsch’s book *The Brain That Changes Itself*. That’s what really got me down this path 15 years ago, 16 years ago. But sometimes I use a, a computer as a model to help people understand. So almost everyone’s heard of muscle memory, right? When you repeat something, you, Gladwell says, throw a ball 10,000 times. You become a great pitcher.

John Kennedy: Those things are really like the applications on the computer, right? So we might have games, we might have our outlook, we might have our, our browser, and we can upgrade any one of those. But it doesn’t impact anything else. And the, the brain is the same way. So if you’re throwing a thousand pitches, it’s your body that’s changing, but it’s really your brain that’s changing. It’s remembering those connections that you make and that we all know that that’s you, you practice. Habits are like that, right? If you practice something over and over again, it becomes a habit. Now the operating of the system is really where psychology is. And there’s a lot of great psychological programs, but it’s the same thing.

John Kennedy: You, you, you see a therapist or a sports coach or or sports psychologist, you don’t change right away, right? You, it takes time. You have to repeat what he’s telling you and you have to integrate it in your life and become positive mental attitude and all those kind of things. That’s like the operating system of the brain.

John Kennedy: Now, the fastest way to improve all parts of your computer, every application operating system, just get a new one ’cause the processor is faster. And that’s where I act. So the exercises that we’ve developed originally for the Marines and now that we are derivative of, now that we do for everybody. Physically changes your brain immediately based on research out of MIT that found that this type of stimulation will start to change your brain immediately and in all parts of the brain. So our decision making plus the connections to the real world, I. So that’s why athletes perform better. Business people perform better, kids perform better because we’re changing that core part of the brain’s ability to process faster and stronger, which is the essence of effective **brain training for habits** and overall performance.

John Kennedy: Some people notice improvements in as little as 35 or 45 minutes, and their ability to focus and think faster. This rapid improvement is a hallmark of effective **brain training for habits**.

Jennifer Dawn: I love it. So when we’re improving the brain, ’cause you mentioned habits and then you also mentioned like our ability to think and act faster. It seems, are those two separate things or are those kind of together? Are they or are they more two separate things that we’re doing in the brain?

John Kennedy: That’s, that’s actually a good question. It’s actually two separate things, but based on the same principle, the principle of neuroplasticity, so the book that I, that I just wrote, *Hack Any Habit in 30 Minutes or Less*, not 30 days, right? It’s that same principle where we’re harmonizing the brain and the body together to make those connections stronger very, very quickly. And so that’s where the two things overlap. But the main part of the, the repetition is the exercises where we repeat very simple decisions and our brains will do what we ask it to do. And if we make those decisions harder, even though the brain thinks they’re easy, there’s a massive amount of change going on in your brain. So we had dopamine release, endorphin release, connections, faster connection, stronger. So the cold thing is no one has to know that, right? That’s all the stuff that’s happening. When I take people through the program, they don’t need to know all that. All they need to do is say these simple exercises and they get better. They improve their brain. This is the core of **brain training for habits**.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah, I love this so much. ‘Cause I know if you’re listening and you have, I certainly have struggled with certain habits that it’s like no matter what you do I’ll use dieting. I think everybody can understand that the food or whatever that we’re eating. If you’ve ever been on a diet and you’re like, okay, that’s what I’m going to eat. And then you go through the day and you’re just like, what happened? Like now I’m eating something completely different. Right. Like I’m not going to eat that again. And it’s literally like when we talk about habits and these neural pathways and just these programs that are just running. And I think sometimes they’re even running almost subconsciously. Yeah. Like you just, they just, they are just running so. If you’ve had a habit that you’ve been trying to break or trying to change and you’ve not had success with it, John, is there hope for us if we’ve got a habit we’re trying to fix? Yes, it sounds like there’s hope there to actually change it.

Hacking Habits: Applying Brain Training for Habits to Everyday Life

John Kennedy: Yeah. There, there absolutely is hope. And that’s why I was I, I had so much fun writing this book because habits really, that’s just neuroplasticity. We, we do some, and you’re right, it becomes unconscious. So neuroscientists have a funny name for the transformation of conscious to unconscious thought: they call the zombie system. ‘Cause zombies are out to get you without thinking about it. And that’s what habits are. That’s what we think, right? We, we, we make it a zombie system ’cause we don’t even think about it. Which is why in order to break that habit, you really need that. You have your starting point, right? Your trigger. You really needed to define, going back to the process piece, the new habits you want. And then you have to repeat that many times using all parts of your body in a short amount of time. That’s how you can change your habit. You actually hijack your habits into doing something more positive. This is the essence of **brain training for habits**.

John Kennedy: Now, a funny we talk about losing weight, which is one of my funny stories. So the exercises also can help. In a way that I had, I, I learned so much from my clients, right? They tell me things that happened. I know I was gonna happen. So one of my clients had started her own construction business in Montreal. So a woman in a male dominated industry, very stressed, trying to get a certification, she wasn’t getting sleep. She was very stressed. So one of the versions of my exercise, I call it a one minute neuro primer, you can run through it for just a minute. It kind of re-focuses, speeds up your brain. And also there’s little dopamine release. So whatever you do afterwards, you get it done faster and smoother. And that’s actually what she experienced.

John Kennedy: So she would do these 5, 6, 7 times a day. And the first thing she said was, “John, I’m noticing that the things I do afterwards, I’m getting done better and faster,” which is great. And then about three or four weeks later, she, she emailed me, “John, you’re not gonna believe this. I freed up so much time, I can start dating again.” And then she said, which is great for her, but, and then she, and then she in passing said, “and by the way, I’ve lost 12 pounds.” I said, “wait a minute. If we could, if we can market this as a weight loss business, we got a billion dollar business here.” So how does that happen? And she said that what she would do is she would tape the exercise to the refrigerator and to her cupboard. So whenever she, she was a stress eater. A lot of us have trouble controlling our eating because we get stressed and we want something salty or something sweet. So she said, when I had that feeling, I would go to the refrigerator, the cupboard, I’d see the exercise, I’d run through the one minute neuro primer, that was my dopamine release. So I didn’t need to eat plus now, ’cause my brain was, was sped up and focused, I was motivated to get back to work. So just by doing that, she broke the habit of that binge eating, right. And at the same time she lost 12 pounds and got more work done. This demonstrates the power of **brain training for habits**.

Jennifer Dawn: Wow. Oh my gosh, I love this so much because when we talk about the brain being like a computer and the program running and you said something so important of the trigger. So a trigger happens and the program runs. So if the trigger is stress and we’ve learned to cope with stress by, let’s say eating, there’s lots of ways we do it, but let’s say we cope with stress through emotional eating. And so that program runs and I think sometimes when I’ve experienced this, it almost. Feels outside of your control. Yeah. There’s nothing that’s gonna stop you. It’s just that’s what you’re gonna do. And, and then you, you eat or whatever, and then you’re like, what happens? Yes. Yeah. I think the important thing with your exercise is that you’re catching it before the program runs. So you’ve got the trigger. Yeah. But then you’re catching it, so you’re stopping that program. And then it seems like with your, with your, what’d you call it, neural primer.

John Kennedy: Yeah. Neuro primer. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Dawn: So with that exercise now, we are putting something new in there. Yes. It’s running a new program that’s within our, our grasp, within our control. Absolutely. Absolutely. We’re actually, and that’s that whole of the habit hacking. Habit hijacking is you’re actually inserting a new habit that’s positive and this one is one that will also keep you motivated to keep doing what you need to do. This is a powerful **brain training for habits** approach.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah. And you guys listening. So I did one of John’s exercise at a networking event where this is where I actually met John and his work. And he had us all do one of these exercises and I brought it home and I’ve, I’ve done it with my husband, I’ve done it with my kids. Like it’s just a super fun exercise, but. Honestly when he said we’re gonna do an exercise to train the brain. I’m like, oh God, what are we doing? Are we standing on our heads? Are we like, what are we doing? So can, could you mind just sharing with everybody when you talk about a neural primer, like that she had taped on her fridge? Like what, what are we talking about really here? Like when we start to retrain the brain for better habits?

John Kennedy: Yeah, no, and that, that’s good. Probably help people visualize it a little bit better. So the exercise that you experienced, it’s the core of everything I do now is actually a derivative of one of the very first ones I developed for the Marine Corps. This one actually is just symbols on a piece of paper. The simplest thing. Each symbol requires a decision, right? Because we wanna make decisions and our basic thinking process. Is break it down, think it through and execute. So basically as data’s coming into our brain constantly, we have to be able to break it down. Different components, prioritize, right? Otherwise we get inefficient. Think through what we wanna do with it, and then execute. And then what keeps us on track is focus. This structured approach is fundamental to **brain training for habits**.

John Kennedy: Ironically, that goes back way back to my project management and process management methodology, which was define design delivery. And what keeps us on track is change control, but that’s what we’re doing for the brain, basically project management for the brain. As you experience the simpler, so simple, right? And, and again, when I develop this from the Marine Corps, my daughter was five and I wanted her to be able to do ’em as well, which is why they’re so simple now. Actually, she just graduated. From Hope College with a degree in neuroscience and psychology. So I’m very proud of her. She’s helped me with my research, right? So it paid off that investment. But that’s why it’s so simple that even a child can do. But as you experience, every time we did it, it was a little bit harder. And I love when I take people through that because if you experience, I actually, okay, now let’s try this. You’re thinking, oh my goodness, it’s gonna be too hard, right? And then you do it, right? That’s a dopamine release and do, and then by the end you’re doing things so much harder than you started in what about 35, 40 minutes? And that’s how it is. It’s so simple and is in a group. It’s special. That’s why I was glad to do that with the, the C-Suite group. And I do work with families as well, and I’m glad you’re doing it with your family. ‘Cause when you do it with someone else and you have to sync up with everybody else, there’s a huge benefit to emotional intelligence, to teamwork, to communication, because everybody is aware of everybody else what they’re doing. At the same time, they have to focus on the decisions in front of them.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah. Yeah, it, it was really powerful when we did it as a group together, and it was really shocking because you timed us and so you timed us like the first time we went. Right. Second time we went through it, and even by the third or the fourth time. The, the dramatic increase in how fast we could do these things was really surprising. And, and then when you sync up with other people, that to me was really cool too as we were sinking up. And it was funny. My son, he’s so smart and I did it with him. He is like a math guy and he just thinks, and he is just so smart. And I could even feel myself trying to like, keep up with him. But then there were parts where oh, I had it. And, and he was like, trying to keep up with me. And then my poor husband was there the whole time just like trying to keep up with both of us and what the hell have I gotten myself into? All right. They were really simple exercises, but really fun. And it was amazing to see how quickly the brain adapts.

John Kennedy: Yes. It’s interesting. I speak regularly once or twice a year, at medical conferences, at brain conferences and, ’cause that’s how I learn. I’ve had several neuroscientists help me with the research. I’m the consultant. I’m always finding new ways to do it. I wanna find out why that’s, that’s being so powerful. Part of that, it’s always interesting ’cause they present research and I present these results and they help me put this together. But when I, when I when I do that one of the things that I’m understanding is just how this works. How this, what’s really going on in the brain to make this so powerful. And one thing for preparing for an upcoming one is I realized this. This light went off. It should have been off a long time ago, but I realized that really the key is what you mentioned, the processing speed. So I did some research and almost every debilitation, whether it’s strokes, ADHD, cut, whatever, it’s poor processing or slow processing speed. The difference between a high performing executive or an athlete really is processing speed, right? If they can think faster, they can get more done. So I took 12 of my clients who were struggling with different things. From dementia to depression, ADHD. Of them. And then I mapped out the increase in processing speed, which is what you mentioned, and then the results afterwards. So after just five weeks, almost all the symptoms had gone and it became very apparent that it’s that processing speed improvement. Was making the difference. And because the exercise, it’s not just a processing test on the screen, you’re actually engaging, right? All parts of your brain, eyes, ears, mouth, hands, all those connections. So you’re really pushing through those connections to be stronger in order to get faster. And that’s why, dude, it’s fun to use a stopwatch, right? ‘Cause if you remember the first time, sometimes I, I did a, a conference at Southern Utah University, 800 people in a room. Doing these exercises and the first baseline, half, halfway through, half the people stop and get really upset at everybody else ’cause they’re distracted, right? Because that’s what you experience. But by the, 25 minutes later, they’re getting all the way through it, right? Faster, smoother, and not distracted. And that’s really the sign. That’s why we always measure the, the stopwatch, right? Processing speed as we, as we progress. This is the measurable impact of **brain training for habits**.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah. Do you see, and this is a, a question probably completely a little bit outta left field, but I’m wondering, with so much going on with technology, like even with my daughters, my kids, like they’re on the phones so much more than we were. And even in my business, I’m on the, I’m on the computer. And so do you see with this just massive like inundation to electronics and technology and even AI. Like I use AI right now to help me write a blog post. I don’t wanna think about it. Like I wanna write and it helps me write. Do you see that that diminishes like our processing power in the brain? Because we’re not having to use our brains Like, I can’t even remember phone numbers. Remember when we used to? Yeah, that’s right. So tell me a little bit like, do you see diminished brain capacity because of all of these advances in technology?

The Dangers of Digital Devices: Is it Harming Our Brains?

John Kennedy: Yeah, that’s an excellent question because that yes, we do. It, it’s we, it, all of those are great tools, right? They help us get more done better, more productive they want. But the thing to remember always is anything we rely on, something else to do besides our brain, our brains aren’t getting the workout. It’s if you go to the grocery store, you can drive there in five minutes, right? Or you can walk in 15 minutes and as you’re walking, you’re getting exercise, you’re experiencing the fresh air, you’re observing the birds, and it’s such a more enriching experience for your brain and body to walk than to take a car. But the car’s faster. Now the real tragedy is young kids and I speak to parents groups sometimes about this. Many years ago in South Korea, they were doing a lot of studies and they coined the term “digital dementia” and they found that kids that were on it, ’cause they start very young in South Korea, if they start on a digital device.

John Kennedy: Because up until the age of six or seven is when our, our brains go through these massive connections. If you can imagine, you learn to speak, you learn to walk, you learn to run, you learn to throw ball. All those things are creating all these massive connections and our, that we, we gain our most strongest connections by modeling from adults and interaction with the environment. So if you, you know your kids, you let ’em outside and run all day, it’s the best thing they can do, right? They fall, they trip, they learn, they balance, they, they throw. That environment outside, running around exploring is the absolutely the best way to improve those connections. Now, if you take that child and instead you put it in front of an iPad or a phone. They aren’t getting those connections. And so digital dementia, they discovered that kids that were on a digital device during those formative years, especially by their early twenties, already developed dementia because the foundational connections weren’t there to build on. So that’s why even later, so that’s why like my program or playing sports or doing something, yes, you have to use that device in order to get things done. But remember that that device is great for getting information, right? So you could get videos, but it’s not training your brain. It’s just. Pop popping images or words into your brain, but your brain isn’t working hard to do it. So that’s the one thing I always leave these parents with is anytime that you’re not using your brain, your brain’s gonna get lazy, right? You use it or lose it, and so any way you can incorporate some sort of brain and body. Exercises or sports or playing with your kids, the thing that you always bothered me is, oh, they need to learn technology, or they’ll be behind. No, you can always learn the technology, right?

John Kennedy: And the programs are changing all the time anyway. It’s much better to have that brain power. So when you wanna learn something, you, you can learn it quickly. Now, AI is interesting because it’s taken that digital world one step further because sometimes it’s hard to know what’s real or what’s not. This highlights the importance of active **brain training for habits** and critical thinking.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah.

John Kennedy: And the, the difference between, so my daughter’s an artist as well, and, and she paints abstracts. And I always ask her why abstracts instead of, realism? And she goes the, the difference is when the artist paints something realistic, he’s telling you what he wants you to see. When it’s abstract, you get to see what you want in there. And it’s the same with digital and, and the analog worlds, right? Digital, the developers are telling you exactly what they want you to see.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah.

John Kennedy: you get a bunch of kids outside in the field or you out, then you’re deciding, you’re focusing on this, you’re focusing on that. You, all these thoughts are going on, and it’s much more beneficial to you than to just, follow along rope with whatever someone’s putting in front of you.

Jennifer Dawn: It makes so much sense. I, my daughter and I, we both ride horses together and we’d actually gotten her, I’ve had my horse, but she got her horse like two years ago now. But as she’s going into high school, it’s such a difficult time and I’ve specifically wanted her to have something that she loves. It’s interesting to me how on the days when she comes home from school, the first thing she wants to do is jump on those electronic devices. Yeah. The days where she comes home and we go to the barn. We’re outside, we’re in nature, we’re with animals, we’re riding, we’re physical. Like the shift in her mood, the shift in her demeanor. One day she said to me, “Mom, what is it about the barn that makes everything in life be okay?” Yeah. Right. Yeah. It’s like everything’s okay. So I think it is so very important for us to have, physical things being completely off the electronic devices, and. Just whatever that happens to be for you, because it I think, affect us.

John Kennedy: Oh, absolutely. And if you even go more into that, the whole social media thing, you’re probably aware it was big for a while that you know, all the masters of the universe, they don’t send their kids, they don’t, they don’t have iPhones for their kids. Zuckerberg, Jobs. They go to the Waldorf School where there’s no digital devices, even though they’re trying to make it addictive. And there is a a, there is a real. Physical addiction to that, the part, the centers of the brain, that immediate dopamine every time the, the adrenaline rest. So it’s hard for kids. That’s why parents really, really need to be aware of that. You just, you can’t just give ’em a phone or iPad or something and, and trust them. They’re their children. They don’t know they’re just gonna do what they wanna do. An interesting experiment, many years ago. There was a, a, a group that raised money to get I think were iPads or, or Chromebooks to like these villages. I think it was in India again, it was a couple years ago. And the whole idea is we wanna make them digitally savvy, right? And, but they found this, and the cognitive skills testing, they did worse. With the devices because what, what, what do they do? They’re not, they’re, they’re learning content, but they’re also, going, they’re going to porn, they’re going to games, they’re doing all other things because the temptation is there because the device is there, what they never would’ve done before. And instead of interacting with the environment, now they’re interacting with this device. And so even though the intent was good, the reality was bad, it was a disaster. This reinforces the need for conscious **brain training for habits** that encourage real-world engagement.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah, so John, I know there’s people listening right now, and I even have a couple clients that have gone through this where they are addicted to the social media. The, I’m gonna go on YouTube, I’m gonna be on the Facebook, that adrenaline. So when you do have something like this where you’ve created a habit around it, or you’re stressed and so you go and you’re gonna be like, okay, I’m just gonna zone out. I’m gonna be on social media. What’s something that we can do to help reprogram our brains to, to stop that, right? How do we break that habit?

Practical Brain Training for Habits: The 10-Second Pause

John Kennedy: Right. And again, it depends why, but, but I’ll give you an example. One of my clients who had just built out a website and, and so she became addicted to that notification ’cause she wanted to know how many people were going to a website telling stuff. And that’s a lot of times what it is, right? It’s, it’s it, we might be having a conversation and notification goes off and look at our phone. So one of that, and I mentioned this actually in the book, one of the ways we can correct is we call hijacking a habit, not a new habit, but hijacking it. And in order to do that, the great way to do that is if you could, when the notification goes off, if you could just count to 10 before you look. Now that’s really important for kids, right?

John Kennedy: So why do you know? I, every time I pay my phone bill, I get a big sign, take the pledge, right? So I’m not going to drive and text, right? Yeah, that’s easy for me sitting on my computer, paying my bill to think about that. But when I’m driving, and especially young people, that’s why they have so many accidents. So really important thing could save their lives. If they could count to ten first, ’cause then it opens up a little window of consciousness and they can say, oh wait, maybe I better wait. 10 seconds is not too long, right? So whoever’s messaging you, they can wait 10 seconds. But the way we make that a habit, again, we have to integrate everything that we do to perform that habit. At the same time, we’re using our brain.

John Kennedy: So the, what I told her to do is to set, your listeners can do this as well, is to just set the notification on your phone to a minute. And then sit quietly. Sometime when you’re quietly, nothing’s else going on. As soon as that timer goes off, the notification off, just count to 10 and then physically pick up your phone and look at it. The key to changing habits fast is integrating your body. So then you set it for a minute. Again, you put it down and you wait and it goes off. You count to 10, then you pick it up, so you can do that 20 times in 20 minutes. Then you set the notification for 10 minutes. Go do something, whatever notification goes off, now you’re starting to get that automatic habit where you count to 10 and you can set it for 30 minutes. But basically you’re training yourself in a very short amount of time, a new habit. So if you insert that 10 seconds, just count to 10 before you look, it becomes a habit. And then you start to get the dopamine release. ‘Cause you’re actually looking forward to being able to do that. ‘Cause you’re gonna feel so good about accomplishing it.

John Kennedy: And very quickly she was able to, the habit went away, so now she counts at 10 every time she gets a notification. And again, it’s that repetition of brain and body synchronized that changes the habit so fast. This is a powerful **brain training for habits** technique.

Jennifer Dawn: I love just taking a moment to have that awareness of ah, that, that whatever that is, that trigger has happened. I’m in that, Ooh, I want to go do whatever, and just taking a moment to talk, to pause. Yes. Breath count to 10 and like interrupt, interrupt that, that impulse. You can actually put something different in there.

John Kennedy: And the key really is to, I call that applied neuroplasticity. The key really is to take that 30 minutes, whatever, and make it a habit, because how many times do we think about it, right? Oh, if it goes off, I’m gonna count to 10. And why we look at, because thousands of times, a week we’re looking at our phone, right? So you really have to take just 30 minutes out of your life, right? And it you, you’ll be able to change that habit. This approach to **brain training for habits** yields quick results.

Jennifer Dawn: I love it so much, and you guys, you can learn so much more about this in John’s book, which is *Hack Your Habits*. And I’ve read it, I have it. I love it. It’s a super easy read and, but it’s filled with so much information to help you actually hack your habits in far less time. You don’t really need 30 days. John can teach you how to do it in 30 minutes.

John Kennedy: Yep. Exactly. Yep.

Jennifer Dawn: I love it. John, tell everybody where they can get your book and where they can find you to find out more about all the amazing things that we can do here.

Connect with John Kennedy & Explore Brain Training for Habits

John Kennedy: Yeah, so thank you Jennifer. So the book is on Amazon. So *Hack Your Habits in 30 Minutes*, not 30 days, but if you just Google *Hack Your Habits in 30 Minutes*, is there nine, 9 cents on Kim on Kindle? You, if you wanna buy the hard copy you can, but it’s so small. It’s be one of the shortest books you’ve ever read. So that’s up to you, but you follow it. If you do, please leave a review and then you can email me and tell me. What habit you changed, right? People tell me all these different habits that they’ve changed. The be we’re rebranding redoing our website right now so the website you can use to learn more about what I do now is thekennedymethod.co. So what we’re doing now is we’re integrating the combat brain training with the habit hacking and the process work I used to do to create it all under The Kennedy Method umbrella. But I’d love to hear from people if they just want to email me, John, at combatbraintraining.com. Don’t forget the brain.

John Kennedy: People always think it’s combat training. It’s dot combat training. It’s combat brain training because we want your brains to be able to perform in combat situations, right? Fast focused and **flow state**.

Jennifer Dawn: So much. And we will put all of John’s information you guys in the show notes. So if you’re like, “Hey, where did he say to go to?” Just, it’ll all be right there in the show notes for you. And John, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here with us today.

John Kennedy: Yeah. Thank you so much. Oh, I also forgot, we also have a videos course so they can, when they email me, I can send ’em, I’ll put the link in your, an intro video course if they wanna get started. But thank you.

Jennifer Dawn: We’ll add that to the show notes. You’re very welcome. It was so great to have you here today.

John Kennedy: Yeah. Thanks Jennifer.

Jennifer Dawn: When I talk with you and it’s oh wow. That’s so cool. That’s so cool. And, and everybody, you guys know when you listen to the show, and thank you so much for taking your time and being here with us today. But look, it’s one thing to sit back and listen to the show. It’s another thing to take some action. So many great things from today’s shows, I’m gonna really encourage you to just take one thing that you take action on and put it into your life. So even if it’s just going and grabbing John’s book pick a habit. Any habit that you’re like, “I don’t like that, this habit.” Right. John’s gonna give you a way to hack it in 30 minutes or less. That’s how you’re gonna see the result from all the great information presented here today.

John Kennedy: that’s right. Thank you, Jennifer.

Jennifer Dawn: You’re welcome. All right guys, that’s it for today’s show. Take some action and that’s it for us. So get out there and have a happy, productive day y’all. Bye.

Links

• Connect with John Kennedy:
• Website: thekennedymethod.co
• Email: john@combatbraintraining.com
• Book: *Hack Your Habits in 30 Minutes or Less* (Available on Amazon)
• Connect with Jennifer Dawn:
• Website: www.jenniferdawncoaching.com
• Retreats: www.jenniferdawncoaching.com/our-retreat
• Join our Academy: www.jenniferdawnacademy.com