Your Brain Has Been Hacked — And You Don't Even Know It- With Leah Zittar

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01]This session is the most important session you'll ever hear in your life.

[00:00:04]Your emotions are being weaponized.

[00:00:06]Whether it's by algorithms, ideology, and or your own conditioning. And that's why we have with us today Dr. Lea Zitzer. Who grew up in a cult, spent decades studying how brains get hijacked, and has built the framework to fight back. Stay tuned and listen to this podcast.

[00:00:24]Today with us we have Lea Zitzer. Thanks for joining, Lea. It's a pleasure having you on board.

[00:00:29]Before we deep dive into the questioning that I have in line, I'd like to give you the floor and give you a couple of minutes to introduce yourself to the world. So, Lea, go for it. Floor is on you. Who are you and what do you do?

[00:00:40]>> Oh my.

[00:00:42]Um I have a I have a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience, research psychology.

[00:00:54]Uh and right now I'm transitioning from more than 20 more than actually 15 years writing for writing and researching for companies um the emerging tech such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft to um consulting in cognitive security.

[00:01:19]>> Oh wow, that sounds amazing. What is What does that entail right exactly?

[00:01:23]Like what do you write for these companies?

[00:01:25]>> Ew. Um I was in the forefront of virtually all the AI that was coming out. Forefront um of in of blockchain, cryptocurrency um I was I wrote on the beginning um the large learning models. So, it was essentially popularizing um this this emerging technology.

[00:01:51]Uh and researching its its challenges.

[00:01:55]And writing thought leadership pieces and so forth.

[00:01:59]>> All right. Okay. Okay, I see. So, when I when I >> That's where I use That's where I use the That's where I use the neuroscience aspect, the behavioral neuroscience, because essentially robots think like humans or humans think like robots.

[00:02:15]>> That's very interesting, and I think that's what uh sort of brought me a little bit to your profile, cuz you combine neuroscience and entrepreneurship quite a quite a lot. And you know, you have neuro-entrepreneurship as a sort of term that I I saw a lot on your profile. So, what is that and how is it different from traditional entrepreneurship thinking?

[00:02:39]>> Entrepreneurship thinking or the psychology of entrepreneurship thinking has gone through three stages.

[00:02:45]The first one is the surface psychology, uh such as um the personality of of an entrepreneur.

[00:02:55]Second stage is more of the cognitive the cognitive aspect, such as through Kahneman um that which represents itself. And this This last stage, which neuro-entrepreneurship, since 2017 or so, uses neuroscience to identify to uncover what you may call the black box, like the emotions, um the feelings, and the socio-cultural conditioning of of the person. So, it's much more than how a person thinks.

[00:03:36]It's the feelings and how we've been conditioned that underlie everything and that is invisible.

[00:03:46]And that's where neuroscience the the the tools of neuroscience, such as fMRI and so are used to see what differentiates the successful entrepreneur from the less successful and how how one can overcome crisis and so forth.

[00:04:08]I find it rather relevant for today.

[00:04:12]>> Okay. Uh, wow, that's actually pretty amazing and you know, you you also mentioned cognitive biases a lot. So, how does it impact cognitive biases um, in terms of the black box connection in decision making that you're trying to make?

[00:04:27]>> All connected.

[00:04:29]Um, the best way I can describe that is that I often use this model for to uh, help people who have come from extreme closed religions or closed cults uh, decondition themselves and to be radicalized their for their their families and former friends.

[00:04:53]Um, you see the popular model that is used is usually cognitive behavioral therapy which basically says uh, think differently or address address the situation and think about it in a different way, appraise it in a different way and that could help you.

[00:05:16]And what many people say and this truth about that is it's too deep for us. The the the trauma is too deeply rooted and that's the truth. You see the thing that rushes to the surface, which is called system one, is our feelings. You see something and instantly say you're hurt, you cry, you laugh or whatever.

[00:05:44]It's only much later that our thinking.

[00:05:48]We can deal with that.

[00:05:51]But the first and foremost thing is our feelings and also how we have been conditioned and all of that we are unaware of.

[00:06:01]Has that answered [clears throat] >> Tell me more. Expand a little bit more into it because I really like I like I like hearing this. So I mean deep dive a little bit more into it.

[00:06:08]>> Yes.

[00:06:09]Um Well, that brings me back to how how I came to all of this. I grew up I grew up in a in a cult. Um actually I grew up in London but without even knowing that I lived I was living in London or living in England.

[00:06:29]I received no education. By age 21 I hadn't even been on a bus by myself. Um And so it was only through well, certain incidents that I thought I realized that there were different other people in the world other than the community that I had grown up in and then I started wondering how can I know whether or not I have been um I have been conditioned. How can I know that what I think or the way I behave is really true is really from myself or whether it's been put into I wasn't even allowed to the library.

[00:07:19]There was nothing I could compare it with. So the So the moment I was I was put into a forced marriage. One of my first things was I taught myself I thought the brain is like the apparatus behind me of how I work.

[00:07:41]I wanted to know how my brain works. I thought once I knew how my brain reasons, decides things, then maybe I can step into it and maybe I can change it and become my own agent.

[00:07:54]So, I taught myself from a plastic brain that was actually from Amazon and the color by by number coloring book on the brain on how the brain works.

[00:08:05]Had various ideas um and well, these I I I tested first on parolees in in San Jose and then just because I had to had to flee from country to country to change my identity again because of where I grew up and to to protect my children whatever um it happened to be that I taught neo-Nazis, so I tested on them. I lived among cults, so I tested on them.

[00:08:41]Later, I lived for a while in a in a in a hidden part a um a less well-known part in Virginia. My my neighbor, for instance, was KKK. He didn't know I was Jewish. He called me sister. They were all different small small groups and small churches. I was very intrigued. So, I I I I just was part of each and every one of them as many as possible um and just tested, was thinking all the time, reading as much as possible, tested everything I could on how to decondition yourself. Eventually, got my doctorate um I I got my doctorate and then the last 3 years or so, I was asked to test my ideas on on participants of more than 30 um conflict-ridden religions, cults, and so forth. And then from there it just got picked up, got transferred to to cognitive warfare, got transferred to to search engineering, got transferred to across industries because I was interviewed by many different people. And and well, that's that's that's how I came to this.

[00:10:16]>> Now, that's that's some reason.

[00:10:18]>> It's a very appropriate time. This is a time when misinformation is huge, when there's a lot of hacking, when people have also Some of the people have also asked me, say, "How can we How can we know what is true or not from the social media?" And it This is a rousing our anxiety, our outrage. How can we buffer ourselves from this? It's all human hacking. It's all It's all the same thing. And this is where the model that comes in.

[00:10:50]>> Now, that's that's amazing cuz it it it sounds to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you've taken the the experiences you've had, which are quite traumatic experience, and from there you've sort of evolved and and sort of analyze it in a way that most people don't analyze the experiences they've had. So, um now I want to backtrack it a little bit if that's all right with you, and I want to discuss a little bit how how you how you want you you mentioned the forced marriage, you know, you mentioned um cults, um members of the KKK. So, uh let me backtrack it a little bit, and let me ask you a little bit what what what is your life story and you know, how did you do that mental switch to actually study these cases rather than just live through them.

[00:11:38]>> It was one of the things that I came across when I was studying about reading about the brain.

[00:11:45]And I noticed that in certain universities, they were doing these tests on emotion regulation.

[00:11:53]And they were let's say for instance, there was this study in Belgium where they gave the participants um pictures, images of angry faces, anxious faces, and so forth.

[00:12:13]And they used um brain technology to evaluate how they reacted to this. Well, the individuals instantly got emotional. The The blood level in the amygdala rose.

[00:12:27]They couldn't think clearly. They were aroused.

[00:12:30]Then they took those same pictures or they took those words, let's say, and they they they asked the the same participants to look at them and to describe in words what they saw.

[00:12:44]Similarly, if the participants were given emotional words such as the word love, they they asked the the participants to break that word love into its letters, l o v e.

[00:12:59]Then they noticed that the blood flow from the amygdala had retreated, had now gone into the prefrontal cortex, which is the the part of the brain that is called the reality monitoring thing, the system two, what called system two, which enables a person to think clearer.

[00:13:20]Now the person, the participants, actually could see it for what it was, with calmer, and came to the right decisions. I was fascinated by that. I wondered whether that was applicable to other situations outside the classroom. So, after more research, I I saw something that was actually actually occurred in Israel at the time. It was a period of terrorism, I think this was the early 2000s.

[00:13:55]And this was done on the on a university over there. Where a certain stude- certain students who had been through terrorist attacks. So, they had been impacted by this.

[00:14:10]They were shown pictures of I think it was Palestinians or Arabs.

[00:14:16]And again, their emotions were aroused.

[00:14:20]That same that same um facilitator, he asked them to describe those pictures, to describe them as individuals.

[00:14:31]And the same thing, they were able not only did their blood level drop in their amygdala and and a consequent at the same time simultaneously rise in their prefrontal cortex, but they were able to see it in a more objective way.

[00:14:50]Then I decided I wanted to transfer that to myself.

[00:14:54]I noticed that whenever I saw someone say with a beard, um with a certain hat and so forth, I would I'd been so traumatized by this kind of person. If I were on a bike, say, I would I would sort of stand on the pedals. I would whistle or something like that. Because as a woman, I was not allowed to be on a bike. I I had to be indoors. I couldn't do any of this.

[00:15:24]>> Right.

[00:15:24]>> And I And I noticed I was acting in an irrational way. So, what I did was whenever I saw these people, I would separate it in my mind. I would notice that their eyes were like slits, their nose was like a triangle, say. The head was like a In other words, I reduced them.

[00:15:42]I reduced them to their brute factors, to their shapes.

[00:15:48]>> To their core, to their core shapes.

[00:15:50]>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I noticed that my emotions right away retreat I was able to be more objective. I was able to behave more rationally.

[00:16:02]Then I I I then transferred that to the job period I was going through.

[00:16:10]I I For instance, right in the beginning, I had no I had no degree I had no job experience, nothing. But then I was able to see the situations as it was, instead of being emotionally aroused, I would do the same thing, taking this emotional situation and reducing it to its elements, which meant no longer was my system one running to the forefront.

[00:16:36]Now, my prefrontal cortex, my system two, had switched, had flipped over, and that was now the one that was seeing the reality as it was and making the decisions.

[00:16:51]So, I wrote about that. And that's when That's when um His name is Rami Rostam from Uniting the Nations. He read that, and that's when he asked me to do that program.

[00:17:03]>> Well, that's that's very interesting.

[00:17:04]Why do you think most people don't actually go through the same process like you do to analyze it and potentially resolve their problems?

[00:17:12]>> I wanted so much to live my own life. I wanted to be my own person. I wanted to know the truth.

[00:17:18]And so I realized, you see actually how I realized it was because I was always asking questions when growing up, so they thought I had a bad spirit. In fact, they told me they call me insane, not normal. They literally literally thought I had a bad spirit. To get out this bad spirit, they put me in an attic for about a year, my grandmother's attic. There it was really boring. So I looked out of the window, and that's when I saw different people.

[00:17:44]Turned out, you know, probably probably they were Muslims, probably Christians or so, and it came to me I was imagining flipping off their clothes and changing them one with another like you do with cardboard figures. You know, I thought if I dress that one, say, uh in jeans or gave that one a different sort of book or gave that one a gun or something. Now, the outside, how they would dress, would change how they thought and how they behaved.

[00:18:14]And then I thought this this whole life, all of these people they're living as their teachers teach them, as their rabbis, as their clergy, and so forth and so forth.

[00:18:25]And maybe afterwards they will die, and then it's too late. Maybe they've lived the wrong life.

[00:18:30]And then I thought maybe that is me, too. Maybe that is what what's happening to me. But I thought, how can I know what is true what is not?

[00:18:40]How can I know whether I have been taught the wrong things.

[00:18:47]And then later that So that was where these questions came along. Later that became even sharper when I first started reading about the brain because apparently for the first 30 years or so, and certainly when you're growing up, when your brain is most fresh, when it's most vulnerable, everything you're taught from your environment, from your experiences, it's like food.

[00:19:14]It goes into the walls of your brain. It makes your brain what it is.

[00:19:21]So, anytime your brain perceives or sees something new, it vomits it. It's like your stomach. Your stomach you're used to digesting what you're used to digesting. Anytime you have something that disagrees with your stomach, it's it's something you're not used to and you vomit it.

[00:19:39]So, that's the same thing when someone says "This is not comfortable for me to I can't believe it with this."

[00:19:48]Uh or a different it's a a cultural shock. It literally is a shock to the brain. It's foreign to the brain.

[00:19:55]So, one instantly goes to what one is used to, what one feels comfortable with with a brain, what the brain has been fed on.

[00:20:07]And that just sharpened my question. I thought, "Okay, so my brain is instantly taking in the things that it's being fed.

[00:20:20]But maybe those things are wrong. Maybe those things are toxic. Maybe I'm just doing the wrong behavior. I'm making the wrong decisions and those decisions are harming me without my actually knowing."

[00:20:36]>> All I can say is wow. Um do you think that that's also the reason why so many capable individuals fail? Not necessarily because of skill, but because of internal cognitive and emotional patterns.

[00:20:51]>> From everything that I've read, um from the neuroscience and so forth, yes, it's more it's more the it's more what lies in your black box. It's more the conditioning.

[00:21:03]And that's the way that you see reality.

[00:21:06]Everything that's been put into you, your brain interprets what's out there.

[00:21:12]You can see the world can be blue, but if your brain has been fed a certain way with let's say the color red, you would see the world out there as red. So, it's more what lies in the black box. It's more It's more of the conditioning, um the constant conditioning during those years, especially in a closed control group, where the conditioning is very intense. And the emotions, which come from your experience and come from the ideology from the conditioning.

[00:21:40]>> So, how do you fix that?

[00:21:44]>> Exactly Exactly the same way as Dalio says, actually, right Dalio? On his principles. He says the most important thing is seeing reality as it is.

[00:21:53]Question is the problem is that you may think that you see a reality. I may think I may see a reality. This reality is passed through our brain.

[00:22:03]Our brains. And our brains are made in a certain way. So, then again, what is the reality? And how How I fix it is basically again seeing things exactly as they are. What then happens in the brain is that the the emotion retreats. Literally in the amygdala, the the blood goes down. The prefrontal cortex is now alert. Alert. Not only that, there are actually a um four three or four different neurotransmitters that also make the brain more alert to be able to see what's outside you more clearly, more as it is.

[00:22:47]Um and then once I see things as they are, well, say if I want to decondition myself.

[00:22:55]Now, how can I know what is really good for me and what is not when I've been told that this is bad and that is true and that is not true.

[00:23:04]Basically, I look at the thing as it is.

[00:23:07]See, say, I've been told say that a person with a tattoo, the tattoo is bad which makes the man bad, right? So, now I see the thing as it is. I see this is a man and on his hand say he has something in ink, say he has a heart in ink. I see as it is. So, then I can ask myself now that I've broken it down, if I see you see, if I see the man with a tattoo, instantly my conditioning and my emotion runs to the forefront. And I think, oh, this is a bad man. I have to keep away from him. Like he's he's a negative influence on me.

[00:23:45]Now that I see I >> I'm sorry to interrupt, love, but isn't that up to interpretation because what is good for me could could be bad for you and vice versa, what is what is bad for me could be good for you. So, I mean, isn't it very isn't it a very subjective truth rather than an objective truth?

[00:24:02]>> Yeah, but this is where I'm referring I'm I'm connecting it to myself.

[00:24:06]I was indoctrinated I was indoctrinated say that a person again, again, one of my closest friends today he has earrings in his ears, he has a ponytail.

[00:24:18]Growing up, A, I could never befriend a man. B, certainly not a male with earrings or with a ponytail, right? So, I and this guy, he's so good and he's so inspiring.

[00:24:33]And he teaches me so much. I would have missed all of that had I continued naturally, instinctively, because that's my system one, seeing him that way, instinctively, right? Now that I see him as say, oh, he has his hair is tied at the back. He has these loops in his ears, right? But now I can break it away from who he is in his essence. And then I can question and ask myself, is befriending him helping me grow or not helping me grow?

[00:25:15]Do you see? And that's where I'm getting into system two, which sees the reality as it is and enables me to question.

[00:25:24]System one brings my conditioning, brings having programmed to the fore. I've compared it a lot to large language model, let's say to chat GPT. Chat GPT has programmed a lot as I was programmed. I would be continuing if I would continue to be as I my behavior as I was growing up, I would simply spit out what was pushed into me as chat GPT does.

[00:25:55]Now, I am getting above and beyond my programmer by seeing things as they are, which means I'm getting away from my amygdala. I'm putting system two on top of the system one, which allows me to see things exactly as they are, to see the reality exactly as it is, not how it is has not how it has not how I've been conditioned in my brain to see it, and then to question it and to ask if this is good for my growth or not. So that I become a free agent. And this has been the one and only way I found that one can decondition themselves or get out of the matrix, to use the popular term.

[00:26:45]>> Let you mentioned your creator. So the way I understand it for you, um early conditioning, based on what you said, has an important role. So, um your narrative focuses a lot on the nurture side of things rather than the nature side of things, but I also want to understand to what extent does conditioning play play a significant role uh in someone's ability to take risk, innovate, grow in general.

[00:27:15]>> There are studies um Zimbardo, I think, is the name No, I I cannot remember the name offhand, but there are studies on this that show that it affects the brain both in a functional and in a structural way. So, for instance, people brought up in a kind of closed society like I was, their brains become parts of their brains become narrower, um and they think also in a more inflexible way, like they're taught to think.

[00:27:52]This is bad. This is good. These are These are insiders. This This is where you belong, and these people are outsiders. They're not good for you.

[00:28:03]This is black. This is white. This is true, and there are no nuances. So, this is how the brain is trained to think over over over over from earliest on, and so this then gets transferred to every other way of life. Now, I've also done this research into say people brought up in a conspiracy group, or people brought up on conspiracies, this also goes across extreme religions, too. And because their brain is trained to think in terms of these myths, in time, they do tend Many of Many people like that do tend to see reality outside in terms of conspiracy theories and so.

[00:28:54]So, a lot goes back to how the brain is trained. Again, very similar to how an AI is trained.

[00:29:03]>> Okay, so in that case is is failure a sort of neural feedback loop rather than an external event or a little bit of both?

[00:29:15]>> I would think when I when you say failure, I was thinking of it of translating it into a different way.

[00:29:23]You see, where I grew up again the failed person was someone who ironically went to college, would go to university, would be a woman who I I with my doctorate today, right?

[00:29:41]And with not having 10 or 20 children I where I grew up, I am a failure. I'm a real failure. Why? Because I eventually went to college. I'm a failure because I got divorced.

[00:29:54]I got divorced. I'm a failure because I am speaking now publicly. That is disallowed for a woman.

[00:30:01]So, the term failure and I'm a failure because I didn't I never had these 15 to 20 children that really literally a lot of people where I grew up did have.

[00:30:11]So, I think the term failure is very much depends it's a it's a construct.

[00:30:18]It's a social construct.

[00:30:21]>> You reckon?

[00:30:24]>> Sorry?

[00:30:25]>> Can you you reckon? Can you deep dive a little bit more into it being a social construct? I I like I like the train of thought, but I I want you to deep dive a little bit more into it.

[00:30:36]>> Okay.

[00:30:38]Uh When I was growing up, I tried very hard. All right, I can give you another example. This was someone, he was an ex-Buddhist, and he came to me.

[00:30:50]Um there was something he had a tough time getting over. He grew up, he said, in a family that was poor.

[00:31:00]And his father would keep saying that it is our karma. This is the way the world is made. It is our karma that we don't have money.

[00:31:12]Um this is just this is just what happens. Karma karma. He would keep on repeating that. That was his environment. And he told me how difficult it is for him to get beyond that. How difficult it is for him to make any sort of money today because he thinks that this is his karma. Whatever happens to him, he cannot succeed. This is his karma.

[00:31:40]So so much. Maybe I'm getting off the tangent here.

[00:31:46]>> No, no, I like it. I like I like where you're going with it, so it's fine. Go for it.

[00:31:50]>> Okay, so much of how the brain perceives the outside is what it's being conditioned on, but it doesn't realize that it's got a lot of toxic and false things in there.

[00:32:03]So he So, let's say he perceives himself So, what he perceives as failure, what I perceive as failure, what someone else perceives as failure may not actually be failure. Let's go back to, you know, what do you How would you define failure?

[00:32:25]>> It's a very good question.

[00:32:26]Uh I don't really think I have a definition for failure. What is What is failure to me could be success to someone else, you know?

[00:32:36]Uh personally, I thought uh failure would be to sort of sub subdue some of your emotions and your train of thoughts so sort of fit into a social group or or a workplace, but uh it turns out that in many occasions that is uh success for some other people. So, I don't I don't really have a definition of of failure and success.

[00:33:00]Uh I just ultimately think that if you're able in in in a potential male role um to provide and achieve some of the basic things you want to achieve, that that would be successful and on a female role, I suppose uh something along those lines. So, I I really don't have an answer to your question. I don't know what a failure and and a success is.

[00:33:22]Uh >> And that also comes from your social construct, even what you were saying about the male providing. Like from where I came, it was the woman who should provide.

[00:33:31]And the male would just work, study.

[00:33:33]>> Play. Play. It's something that has evolved like very very a lot during, you know, my my my years. If you ask me 10 years ago what success would have been, I would have told you to make a tons of money and climb up the corporate ladder, and I don't see that as a success anymore. I see that more as a failure, to be honest. Um so, you know, it really it's it's really up to perception. I don't have the same perceptions as I had 10 years ago. And 10 years ago, the world made more sense to me than what it does now.

[00:34:01]>> Mhm. A lot comes from the times. What you were saying about the success of making a lot of money is interesting because that same question was asked saying that in the '60s about what people considered success then to university students. And many of them said just finding out who we are, finding out our real self.

[00:34:22]Um making the world a better place. They asked that same question in the '80s, and then it was making money.

[00:34:28]>> I think we have a small issue.

[00:34:30]>> And and hey, if you go back to the medieval times, which I did cuz I took that construct, then it was becoming closer to God. It was theological. So, a lot of it depends on the country you live in, on the times you live in.

[00:34:44]>> The The theological aspect of the theological aspect definitely helps in most cases. I can I can understand that.

[00:34:52]And it also can provide answers where the rest of the social contract doesn't really make sense. So, uh it's it's a very interesting debate, the theological debate. Um I I think it provides answers sometimes where answers cannot be provided by anything else.

[00:35:09]Or, you know, the answers that are provided by something else lead closer to nihilism, and most people might not want to sort of be acknowledge and or accept that because if you accept nihilism, then it's a dark path to follow.

[00:35:26]>> Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:35:31]>> Okay. Uh let me move on then. Um let's focus a little bit into AI disruption and cognitive pressure.

[00:35:39]Um you know, you you mentioned a lot about cognitive warfare and whatnot. So, how do you think AI is going to be changing the job market, uh human identity, and decision-making um under uncertainty?

[00:35:54]>> Again here, I'm going to go a bit deeper than AI.

[00:36:00]The AI is programmed. It's not people people use the AI as in an anthropomorphic way, I think that's the word.

[00:36:09]>> Mhm.

[00:36:10]>> But really, let's break it down to generative AI. That's what we're really talking about, I think. That's the biggest threat. And that is programmed by a company that makes that generative AI, the larger one, especially the large learning models such as ChatGPT, say Gemini and so forth in its image. So, the Grok would to a certain extent more represent say Elon Musk and the people who he's hired.

[00:36:42]Gemini is someone else. Then you've got the smaller models where say you've got Jesus AI and so forth, but they they reflect their company. So, when we go to the generative AI, the large learning models, I think possibly that people the more we use them, the programmers may begin to affect us.

[00:37:09]Say say recently it's been noticed that Gemini comes to the beginning of the forefront of almost all our search queries, impeding people from reading further and doing their own research, looking at other articles. So, let's say the more we read Gemini, the more it's not Gemini that makes our brains, but it's those that program Gemini. And those that program Gemini are hired by Google, are hired by certain people.

[00:37:44]They reflect what Google wants them to transmit. So, what you're getting to in the end, ultimately ultimately, is that it's going to be a few people there that may be that that may be programming all our brains.

[00:38:00]That's just something that slipped through my mind.

[00:38:04]>> That's that's very interesting. Thanks.

[00:38:07]On the other side of the >> the AI, the AI is at the end of the day programmed. The AI is is zombie.

[00:38:14]>> Well, there's there's theories out there that there might be there I mean, you have large trading companies and it's been said that for example BlackRock and whatnot had their own AI model like way way way before AI became publicly available. And one might argue that potentially even the military did.

[00:38:35]So, um really what what my my issue with it would be on a baseline level to what extent is the AI we're using um used to its fullest potential.

[00:38:49]And if it's not being used to its fullest potential, what damage or good could the fullest potential uh actually mean when it becomes unraveled to the public.

[00:39:02]Uh so, I don't know how you feel about that statement.

[00:39:05]>> Depends on the person. The AI can be The AI can be both positive and negative.

[00:39:11]Um and you can't always know when it's positive.

[00:39:16]You see, I have used AI to teach myself things.

[00:39:20]I say sometimes like I'd say to Gemini for instance, okay, "Listen, this is what I think of the subject. Um I'm trying to master a certain subject.

[00:39:32]Now, please tell me where I am wrong."

[00:39:35]And it would tell me something. But let's say at the same time I ask Claude, I ask Poe, I ask um I ask Perplexity. I ask a few. Each one tells me different things.

[00:39:49]And then when I And then I ask them also to provide me with the citations and when I look them up, sometimes they're wrong, totally wrong. So, in some cases these AI do help me, but the thing is I don't know when they help me and when they don't.

[00:40:06]And I have to check everything.

[00:40:08]So, it's is I think it's a double-edged sword and I think a lot of it depends on the person.

[00:40:15]It's like social media. It can be used for good and it can be used for bad.

[00:40:19]>> So only >> Okay, AI matrix system that could keep you enslaved or set you free.

[00:40:24]>> Yeah.

[00:40:26]>> Okay.

[00:40:28]Here, I appreciate that.

[00:40:30]Okay. And what about it's >> And it's image.

[00:40:35]It can make you see it seems to me as though while the AI is becoming more human, humans are becoming more robots.

[00:40:42]The AI is So could could make humans in its image and at the same time we're being trained by the AI to be human.

[00:40:54]>> That was my next question for you. What what do you think the impact on cognitive fragility is, but uh uh go for it, explain it. Shoot.

[00:41:03]>> You mean what it does to our brains, whether it makes our brains more alert or more zombie?

[00:41:08]>> Yeah.

[00:41:11]>> I I think [clears throat] from what I've seen in myself, too, it can definitely Look, all you have to do is look at the Hitchcock movie, say, and look at any of the movies today produced by AI, and to me they already answer the question.

[00:41:27]But I often find that just take the short way out. I don't know what to do, I don't want to say, I ask the AI. But I also I also have found that or for instance, I'm having an imposter imposter syndrome a lot on a lot of different things because I haven't had basic education. I haven't had a high school education.

[00:41:51]So I often have this complex, say, that my vocabulary is not up to par, my knowledge on many different things. So I ask the AI.

[00:42:04]But then when I use I I I feed the AI my ideas, I ask it to write it to write it in its own words, just so that I acquire a sophisticated vocabulary. But then I look back and I think my own writing was so much better. Or people have told me >> I wouldn't worry about that that much.

[00:42:25]It's a clown world, you know, I I don't think I mean you're a PhD holder, you know, I wouldn't focus that much into the lack of a high school degree, for example.

[00:42:36]>> You know actually what people have been telling me or studies is they say that they now prefer they now prefer mistakes. They like they prefer reading things with mistakes rather than polished zombie Yes, more human. The polished zombie slop of the AI. That's what they prefer. So now I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to make as many mistakes as possible so I'll get more readers.

[00:43:02]>> Fair.

[00:43:03]>> No, I'm really not going to go that way, but that's what you could say.

[00:43:08]>> Can we can we can we shift a little bit and focus on cognitive warfare and information control? Uh you know what is cognitive warfare on social media for you?

[00:43:20]>> Misinformation, propaganda, deliberate misinformation, where where a a certain entity um looks into your triggers and uses your triggers, uses your emotions, uses your identity.

[00:43:41]Um for instance, I know what one of my friends, he's a he's a military expert.

[00:43:47]He's working for the new Syria, um the new government in Syria.

[00:43:55]Um he used to have he used to be part of he used to have Hezbollah um connections and the like. And he well, he he claims that cognitive warfare is the psychological um correspondence of the of the physical warfare. And just like in physical warfare, it's extremely important to know all the facts on the ground. With a psychological warfare also, it's extremely important to get through the propaganda, through all of it, and know exactly the facts on the ground so that you can make the right decisions.

[00:44:34]What the entities, the the attackers or the propagandists actually try to do is they know they try to reach anyone who has an internet connection. They try to reach certain kinds of people that are more vulnerable to this.

[00:44:52]And through triggering certain of their emotional triggers, they hope to win them over to their aims.

[00:45:04]>> Okay, but I mean, it's very different to physical warfare, isn't it? Cuz physical warfare you can see it, you can feel it, like it's there, it's visible.

[00:45:13]Um cognitive warfare, sometimes you don't even know what's happening. Like you're not sure.

[00:45:18]Being bombarded with information doesn't make all information correct, doesn't make all information wrong. So how can you how can you distinguish between the two?

[00:45:26]>> Here's an experiment that I did.

[00:45:29]This was This actually happened to me.

[00:45:33]There was someone who She was from Lebanon.

[00:45:38]Um she became an ex-Muslim. She had been groomed. She actually had been part of Hezbollah.

[00:45:46]And sorry, the the ex-Syrian, he was not part of Hezbollah. This person was part of Hezbollah.

[00:45:53]And she needed to flee. She needed to escape. I thought Georgia could be a safe place for her.

[00:46:00]So I So I and this was shortly after October, the whole thing that October 7th, I advertised on there. I asked um if there is Jews living in in Tbilisi, anything like that.

[00:46:19]Um I'm Jewish. I happen to be living in Israel.

[00:46:24]And I thought I could make connections there with the Jewish people over there.

[00:46:29]Then how this person who I knew sat well over there.

[00:46:34]And so, what I got instantly back was the Palestinian flag.

[00:46:41]And that bothered me. Like, my first thing is, "Idiots! Like, what has one thing to do with the other? All I'm asking is, are there Jews living in Tbilisi? After all, I want to help this person."

[00:46:55]Then it took a moment to think. I realized this is my emotions, my system one coming to the fore. Right? It's the It's the flags. I'm looking at it. I'm thinking, "Okay, there is this red triangle, okay?

[00:47:09]There is this this green stripe and the other white one, whatever, and it's Once I was I saw it like this, my brain told me how weird it is that this is the sight of Tbilisi and they are posting this flag.

[00:47:24]So, then I posted the Georgian flag. I told him, "You got the wrong flag. Here, let me educate you. Here's the Georgian flag." What happened was, I instantly felt calm. Because I felt calm, I was able to react in a in a calm way, in a way that incidentally bewildered the the the trolls.

[00:47:49]And I was able then to go on to achieve what I wanted to achieve.

[00:47:53]This was one incident, but but I have done this I have done this with other people that told me um that that told me that they didn't know how to respond to all the violence, the conflict, the the insults that they were getting.

[00:48:14]It bothered them. It it made them miserable. It stopped them from getting on with their days.

[00:48:21]So, I trained them into how they could see the thing as it is and then respond in a cool rational or not respond. Most times you don't respond to those people.

[00:48:33]But, also how it helped them move on from that. Now, this is difficult to do.

[00:48:39]It comes through constant training, constant constant training to see everything as it is because especially with social media, the mind is constantly being buffeted by these by this drama, by the noise, by the emotional images.

[00:48:57]>> I appreciate that and I also know you've done some work that's very closely aligned to this in terms of manipulation and deradicalization. So, you know, can you talk to me a little bit about how you help some people rebuild their identity after dismantling either a belief system or understanding they've been manipulated into a belief system.

[00:49:17]How do you How do you handle that?

[00:49:20]And how do those people handle themselves also?

[00:49:25]>> This was someone who told me about his friend.

[00:49:28]He was He was telling me about his his friend who didn't know anything about Azerbaijan, but he he was concerned that his friend was giving too much time, money, and too much of his energies to Azerbaijan.

[00:49:44]And we figured it out that why was this friend so invested in Azerbaijan?

[00:49:52]This friend was a Muslim.

[00:49:55]Now, growing up the his identity had been that this is the the Muslim flag is the moon and the stars and so forth. Incidentally, the Azerbaijani flag also has the moon and the stars.

[00:50:12]The friend not knowing anything about the conflict, just sees that flag.

[00:50:19]In his brain, these symbols, the stars, the moon is associated with Islam. In his brain, Islam is him because of how he's grown up, you see.

[00:50:32]The the insular, the amygdala, the hippocampus, everything in that limbic thing, the memory, the emotions, the identity, we as a group we we bow together, we fast together, we flog ourselves, say we we sing together, we do everything together. It's not anymore I as an an individual. I am a Muslim over over over over again. That is pushed down until the brain sees identity, large I with small identity, the self.

[00:51:09]>> Mhm.

[00:51:10]>> And there's no more and and also the symbols of the flag.

[00:51:15]And so, once that person was able to see these are the symbols. It doesn't mean that this country is Islam and it doesn't mean that this country is doing things that I agree with, he was able to separate himself from that.

[00:51:34]And then figure out, do I I need to know more about this conflict? Do I agree with it or don't I?

[00:51:41]This this just one incident. There have been many many others, but it's it's basically taking the thing that triggers you, but triggers you without you realizing it.

[00:51:54]It's the thing that's instinctive, unconscious, emotional, and and reducing that to its elements.

[00:52:05]>> Do you think the significance of neuro literacy will be as important as financial literacy? And if yes, to what extent?

[00:52:17]>> One minute, by the way, do you want me to do adjust the lighting? I didn't realize it's become so dark and I look like a dead >> No, no, it's it's it's okay. I have no problem whatsoever. No problem whatsoever.

[00:52:28]>> Okay.

[00:52:30]Um yeah, because it it well, it's basically one and the same.

[00:52:36]If I take financial literacy, let's say according to Dahlia or something like that, you need to know the reality. You need to know you need to know what is really going on or to know where to best value your money. In In other words, there is actually an economics field called identity economics that basically says that how a person spends their money is how they've been conditioned.

[00:53:01]So, going back to how I grew up, I may spend my money say on um on certain types of meat, say.

[00:53:13]Right, but not on books.

[00:53:16]Not on computers, absolutely not on computers. Where is to I certainly not movies. Went to a lot of C movies.

[00:53:22]Whereas today, I would actually I I'm a vegetarian. I wouldn't spend my money on that. I would spend my money on different things.

[00:53:30]So, finance and neuro entrepreneurship, both things fall down to seeing reality, seeing what's outside your brain as it really is, so that you can decide how you want to spend your money. You can decide what kind of business you want to do. You can also get out of your emotions, out of your conditioning, and decide how you want to outsmart the AI.

[00:54:00]Or whether you want to outsmart it and so.

[00:54:04]>> Okay.

[00:54:06]All right. That's very interesting.

[00:54:09]>> Did that answer your question?

[00:54:10]>> Yeah, I mean it it it does. It does, but I I really don't have a response to it cuz for me I think it it it's financial literacy and sort of neuro literacy are going to become very intertwined in the future the way I see it.

[00:54:29]>> What do you say What how do you call about neuro literacy? How do you define it?

[00:54:34]And okay, please please elaborate on what you want to say and how you see elaborate on your perspective.

[00:54:42]>> No, no, I'm No, no, it's it's good. I'm just thinking a little bit outside the box, right? So, the way I see neuro literacy, basically I would say it as the ability to sort of uh understand the way you behave, you learn, and your overall well-being, as well as what is impacting it, whether it's culture, society, group, social groups, religious groups, etc. etc. So, that's or the a lot of the infotainment you're receiving daily, whether that be social media or or news bombardments or whatnot. So, that is kind of how I define neuro literacy and the way sort of economies are evolving to be sort of content oriented or actually more attention oriented, um the way you're going to master your neuro literacy and the way you're going to be mastering your financial literacy are two scenarios that are very intertwined.

[00:55:37]Um cuz, you know if you can master what basically attracts attention that you could also potentially master financial growth as is the case with many content creators.

[00:55:48]So that's how I see it. I mean that was sort of my train of thought the way I responded to you but I don't know if you feel the same way.

[00:55:55]>> You know that there is research that's a whole different two different topics.

[00:55:59]One is called neuroeconomics.

[00:56:01]One is called neurofinance and they basically summarize what you have been saying. They use neuroscience to enable a person to be to do and be their best in the economics field and in the finance field. The trading and in how they spend the money.

[00:56:19]>> Does it work?

[00:56:22]>> To me everything seems to boil down to the same thing of there's the emotions, there's the black box. Now how you see there's so many neuro fields. There's there's neuro management and there's neuromarketing that's pop that's famous. But there's so and they they just cross over.

[00:56:44]You can really transpose from one to the other.

[00:56:48]There's neurosecurity which I use for for for search engineering.

[00:56:55]So there's a lot of them.

[00:56:57]>> There's there's a lot of intertwined.

[00:56:59]Okay, I see.

[00:56:59]>> There's neuropolitics also which is how why and how an extremist behaves as they do. Which goes back to what you were saying before about about whether their brains are different. With the flexibility and so with the rigidity.

[00:57:17]And yes, they seem to be.

[00:57:19]>> Now this is very interesting and I think this is subject to a second podcast but as we're approaching a little bit time here we're we're a little bit like a couple of minutes before the hour mark. So uh I can I just ask you like one final question and we can take it from there?

[00:57:37]>> What what's your last question?

[00:57:39]>> Uh if you had to design a single framework that helps people succeed in in business, uh resist manipulation, indoctrination, and basically recover from any form of ideological capture, what would it look like and how would you do it?

[00:57:57]>> Exactly what I've been saying all the time. What I call the as is model.

[00:58:02]And this is basically also what Ray Dalio says in different ways.

[00:58:07]Trying to see reality as it really is.

[00:58:11]And naturally see everything. We naturally, all of us, naturally see what's outside us through our brain.

[00:58:17]Through the food that's been put into our brain.

[00:58:22]If I really want to make a successful life, and let's forget at the moment what success is, I need to see what's outside there as it really is.

[00:58:34]And that and and well, that's what I do.

[00:58:37]It's trying to book things to to the to the elements. And that's how it also changes how my brain looks at it and how my brain >> Somebody listening to Somebody listening to to this could easily just turn around and say, "Do you think it's really that simple?"

[00:58:51]>> No, it's not. No, it's not and yes, it is. Yes, it is and no, it's not. I actually find it simpler than meditation.

[00:58:58]I find meditation so hard, but because I'm so bored by it. But I do this all the time. The more I practice this, I can do this right at the moment when I'm speaking to you. And then and then it's neuroplasticity, really. Because the more I do this, the more my brain gets used to doing this.

[00:59:17]So, now I just see your glasses as a shape. I see your nose a triangle. I see your you know, I So, it just it just naturally I am not I can go places that long ago I used to be triggered. I'm not triggered by them anymore. Words that would trigger me, not anymore. So, the more I do this, my brain gets used to doing things that way and that's also how at the end of the day my brain is no longer programmed by who it was programmed by. The more I do this, the more I control my own brain and I become a free agent. I become an agent of my brain.

[01:00:00]I make my own life.

[01:00:02]Because I'm making my brain.

[01:00:05]>> I respect that very very very much and I think that is a good conclusion point for the session and we could definitely get into the neuro politics of it at some point in future if you like.

[01:00:15]Uh Thank you so much for for doing this with you, Lea. I will sincerely wish you all the best and if there's any parting words, please share share them right now.

[01:00:25]>> Well, thank you, Alex, and it was nice speaking to you.

[01:00:29]>> Same same same here. Thank you very much. All the best. Have a good day.

[01:00:32]>> You too. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[01:00:36]Goodbye.