Boosting Brain Health by Finding Your Purpose

With big changes happening in the Sherzai family household, we sat down for a roundtable discussion about the concept that will shape what we’re all doing next: our purpose.

00:00 - Intro
00:52 - What is purpose, and why does it matter?
04:05 - Grandiose goals vs. daily intention
05:42 - Dean: purpose engineering explained
06:44 - External vs. internal purpose
09:05 - Fulfillment vs. addiction
10:18 - First experiences of meaning
14:21 - Living your values vs. chasing outcomes
15:10 - Big goals drive small daily habits
16:00 - Staying purposeful in a distracted world
17:11 - How to avoid the limbic hijack
20:34 - The role of art and creation in purpose
22:01 - Can AI have meaning?
25:38 - Brain-machine interfaces and emotion manipulation
26:35 - Ethics, history, and philosophy in tech
28:10 - Protecting your purpose from algorithms
29:00 - Policy, awareness, and reclaiming meaning
30:01 - Sherzai family: our small and big purposes

In this ‘unplugged’ mid-season chat, we’re joined by our kids — Sophia and Alex! — for a wide-ranging conversation about our values and goals. How they form, how they falter, and how they evolve, in an increasingly noisy world.

Together, we discuss:

• The neurological and evolutionary importance of purpose
• How a firm sense of purpose can help us develop better habits
• The difference between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ purpose
• How we can stay focused on our values in the face of modern life’s distractions
• The promises and pitfalls of AI in shaping (and potentially hijacking) our sense of purpose

Sophia — now heading off to Boston! — works in biomedical engineering and brain-computer interfaces.

And Alex (self-proclaimed Tetris champion) is focused on the intersection of brain health and artificial intelligence.

This is Your Brain On... Purpose, a Sherzai Family Special!

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/76eL...

SUPPORTED BY: NEURO World. Help your brain thrive, now and into the future: https://neuro.world/

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