AP 0394: Do You Still Use Muse For Meditation?

AskPat 394 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn:What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 394 of Ask Pat. Thank you so much for joining me today. We've a great question today from Mike, but before we get to Mike's question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is Zoom.

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All right, here's today's question from Mike.

Mike: Hey, Pat. What's going on? It's Mike T. Nelson here. Thank you very much for all the great information. Just recently found your podcast and I've really been enjoying all the content. Very cool stuff. Just curious if you had any followup on—you had talked about the Muse device in a few episodes back regarding meditation. I'm just curious what you've found. I checked it out. Looks like a pretty cool device for some neurofeedback training, and just wanted to get your followup on it. Thank you very much and keep up the great work. Take care.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Mike. Thank you so much for the question. I really appreciate it because a lot of people have been asking me about my meditation recently. A lot of people know that I've recently put and incorporated meditation quite heavily into my morning routine, thanks to Hal Elrod and the Miracle Morning. And my buddy Mike, he introduced me to this little device that you put on your head. If you don't know what this is, this is, like Mike was saying, a neurofeedback training device. It's literally like a headband that you put on that reads with your phone and it gives you feedback on whether how active or not your brain is. It goes through some gamification on helping you do that. I will get into the details of it, but I do use it, and it helps me because of that gamification. I used to do meditation through an app called Headspace, and I wasn't really sure if that was working or not.

With Muse, I've noticed that my focus has improved over time and I still continue to use it. I still continue to try and improve. I like that direct feedback that comes from it, Mike. And I'm still using it. I still use it. I still love it, and I use it for seven minutes every single morning. Honestly, I just got back from Australia and I haven't used it for two weeks, so I'm kind of itching to get back into it, interestingly enough, but it is an important part of my morning routine, and I like the fact that I can tell that it's working or not.

For those of you who don't know, when you put this on, there's a couple different apps that go along with it. The main one, you put it on and then you do a meditation session for seven minutes, and within that seven minutes, if your brain is active, you start to hear rushing water and waves and a lot of sound, and then if it's not, you start to hear a lot of peace and calm and just a little bit of trickles of water. If you are calm for a lot period of time, you start to hear birds, and you try to collect as many birds as you can. Again, it gamifies it, and that's really what works for me. A few of my friends who have used this have used it religiously and now they are off of it. They've used it as a stepping stone to real meditation. Not to say this isn't real meditation, but to meditation without it because they know what it feels like to actually do it correctly, and they don't need the device to tell them that anymore.

I'm still using it. I'm still bumping my way up to the 12 and 20 minute mark. My goal is to get 85% calm in a 20 minute session by the end of year. I'm still currently only putting seven minutes into the morning and I'm at about a 70-80% calm rate right now. And it has been climbing. The cool thing in terms of the effects of this is it helps you understand how to focus. And so this is really important as an entrepreneur. I think that's why a lot of entrepreneurs mention meditation as part of their morning routine, or something they do every day that's really important. Even though—and this is how it was to me in the beginning when I first heard that entrepreneurs use meditation in their daily lives—I thought it was kind of woo-woo. I thought it was, they sat down with a cloak on and cross-legged with their middle fingers touching their thumbs, and their hands are out, Buddhist-style.

That's what I thought it was like, but no, it's nothing like that. I just sit on my couch here in my office and I put this device on and it helps me focus. I still get distracted. Everybody gets distracted, but what's I've noticed the big difference is, it helps me get back into task much faster. I've learned that when I get out of focus, I know how to get back into focus. And that's what you do when you are thinking while using this device, or trying to think about one thing. It's not about trying to get rid of all the thoughts in your head. That's another myth about what meditation is. It's not about clearing your mind, essentially. It's about focusing on one thing at a time without having all that traffic get in the way.

So, Mike, I am using it. I still love it and I still recommend it. You can check it out, for those of you who are looking to understand what this is about, at AskPat.com/muse, and you can try it out there. And Mike, thank you so much for the question and I look forward to seeing if you end up picking it up and what you think of it. And for everybody else out there who uses it, great job. If you are able to use meditation without it, or do meditation without it, kudos to you. I'm still working my way up there, but I am incorporating it into my daily life, still, and I enjoy it very, very much. So agnina, AskPat.com/muse, M-U-S-E. Thank you so much Mike for the question. I really appreciate it, and we're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show.

For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

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Awesome. Thank you so much for listening in. I appreciate you listening in this week, and for those of you who know, I'm back from Australia now and ready to rock in it. Find me on Periscope @patflynn. I've been doing a lot of periscopes lately, and I look forward to seeing you there.

Here's a quote to end off the week, from Mary Ann Radmacher. She said, “Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.” Have courage everybody. Take care and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks so much.