Emonthebrain - How to Get on Go Mode: Start Small, Take the Next Right Step

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

In this episode of Planet Em, Emily shares real tools to help listeners get on go mode and start moving toward a dream, goal, or higher version of themselves. She breaks down the “mountain goal” idea, which is choosing a meaningful direction without needing to know the full path, then focusing on the next right step instead of getting overwhelmed by the whole climb. Emily explains how she used this method while building her career, including writing out every possible next step on a whiteboard, then choosing the option that excited her most. She emphasizes that trying to pick the “best” option can keep people stuck, and that momentum comes from choosing something, running it long enough to learn, and making adjustments from experience. The episode closes with a reminder to trust the process, detach from how and when it will happen, and keep the barrier to entry small so progress becomes inevitable. 

Hello everyone and welcome back to Planet M, a podcast all about neuroscience, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, and everything in between. I want to share some real life tools with you guys today about how to get on go mode. This episode is going to be super impactful if you are somebody who wants to start moving toward a goal if you have a dream or if you want to become a higher version of yourself and you're just not exactly sure where to start. or what to do next, this is the episode for you. In this episode, I'm going to share exactly my process that I used to start my business, to start creating content, and to get to the point where I am today, where I've, you know, gone on this massive journey from grad school to consultant, coach, creator, to now really doing lots of different things. But anyway, So this episode is actually inspired by somebody inside of Mindcraft and my coaching program and community online. She is so incredible. So shout out to Amanda.

She got on to a live call with me and she had expressed that she was, I think, three months into the program and she felt like a new person. She said, I'm a new person. I feel so much better. My mindset, my energy, my focus, my nervous system state, all that. She's like, and I've never been more motivated in my life to start. She said, I really want to spread this information, everything that's helped me. I just want to give it to other people and impact other people. And I said, yeah, I know exactly how that feels because that's how I started.

I started leveling myself up and I'm like, I need to give this to others. And so she said that and she's like, I've never been more motivated than I am right now. I just don't know exactly where to start. I don't know exactly what to do next. and I gave her kind of a short rundown and then I made a whole kind of workshop on it, but I want to give you guys sort of my method, my short rundown for how to get on go mode and how to take a dream or, you know, some thing that you maybe want, but you don't know how to get it and you don't know where to even go, where to start and how to start. And it's actually really cool because I gave her my kind of five minutes quick rundown. and the next week, I think it was two weeks ago, she brought this to me by the time of the episodes coming out, probably different than that. But anyway, it's two weeks ago now that she asked me

this question. And then this week, she got on the call. She's like, yeah, I done this. I done that. I started creating content. I actually started helping people. I had a conversation with somebody that I had never met before. I'm like, you don't even need the whole workshop then because my five minutes motivated you and fired you up to just go and get started. So I hope that that can be this for you guys and I'm so excited to share this with you because it really is time to get going. We are in the year of the fire horse. All of the energy is behind us right now. And just to kind of set the tone for this episode, you don't, you absolutely can do it all, but you don't have to do it all at once. So it's just about taking this little small step. All right. So let's get

started. You have a dream. Maybe. Or maybe you don't. If you don't, I always say if you don't know what exactly you want to pursue, pursue yourself. Whether you have a big dream that you are wanting to achieve or you just want to go after being the highest version of you possible, it doesn't matter. Going after the highest version of you possible, when you do that, a big dream will unfold by accident. That's just kind of what it tends to happen. I've noticed, I mean, that's how it happened with myself. Actually, I think it was the dream first that happened for me. And then that dream motivated me to become the highest version of me because I had to in order to get there. And just so that it's not vague. Whenever I was in undergrad, I was getting my first degree in neuroscience,

and I took a class on the neurobiology of drug addiction, and why the current treatments for preventing relapse just don't really work that well. And it's because they put a band-aid on the problem rather than actually solving the problem. And that's the case because we don't nearly know what the problem really, really is. There's not just one channel or one molecule we can target. It's a complicated issue, right? So anyway, in that moment of reading that research paper, the dream was born within me. I'm going to go and I'm going to cure drug addiction. And so when I had that dream, I was like, okay, what, where do I start? Well, I need to go get my PhD so that I can, you know, have my own research lab and et cetera. That's the first dream I ever had. When I birthed that

dream, I realized I need to become a way better version of myself in order to do that. Like, I need to get my habits on track. I think there was just so much that I needed to do to get there, like applying to PhD programs while I'm still in college and just everything that I was doing at the time, I needed to be an optimized version of myself, but also I realized I need to believe in myself. I need to be focused. I need to be disciplined. I need it to be all these things in order to achieve it, right? So that is why having a big meaningful goal or dream is so really, it's so important because it really does motivate you to be the best version of yourself because you're not really going your likelihood of achieving it is a lot better when you're the best version of yourself so

that's the first part but again you don't have to force it and i don't recommend forcing it i don't recommend trying to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life i don't recommend forcing that at all if you don't have clarity then pursue yourself first and i will say when i went on the journey of pursuing myself my goal and my dream changed i went to the phd and i got exposed to what it was like to be a full-time scientist living in the lab and I'm not meant to do that. I'm meant to be out here in the wild. It's actually cool though because I'm still able to help people with addiction in my work now. So it wasn't a waste at all. The point is this. Either you have a big dream or if not, you pursue yourself. When you pursue yourself, your purpose finds you. Your purpose reveals itself

when you become extremely clear on who you are. I call this stage the mountain goal or the mountain dream. And yes, I developed this when I was in my PhD actually because I used to do something called intuitive hiking where I would go on hikes and I would purposefully go off trail and try to get to the top of where I was going or just, you know, have fun, hike around. I like going off trail and just hiking around for no reason. In this mountain park I was at, it was fine. You know, there are places where they ask you not to go on trail, but at this place I could. And what I would do was I would try to get back to my car without looking at the maps. I had Google Maps, so I was not endangering my life by getting lost on purpose. But I would try to get back to my car without using the maps to try to strengthen my own intuition.

And in the beginning, I would check my phone map. And I'd be like, damn, I was on the right track. I was almost there. And I didn't make it. And I should have trusted myself. And so that's how I learned actually to really trust my intuition and trust myself. But anyway, with that process, what I learned is that when you have a big goal or big, dream, this is the mountain goal, right? It's the mountain goal. Me trying to get to the top or get back

to my car. That's the mountain goal. It's the dream and you don't need to know how to get there. You don't need to know. You don't need to know how to achieve your dream. You don't. And in fact, when you think you know how it's going to happen, that's when you become too attached to a specific path and then you end up blocking yourself from the actual path that's going to help you get there. So let go, trust, surrender, detach from the how and the when, right? You don't need to know how. All you need to know is the next right step. When I was doing my intuitive hikes, I didn't know how to get back to my car.

I didn't need to know that. All I needed to know was the next right step. And how did I identify that? So when you have this dream of either pursuing the best version of yourself or you have a specific dream in mind or a goal in mind, and thinking about achieving it overwhelms you because I have other students in Mindcraft that specifically another one of my students came on this past week and she mentioned that one of her goals was really overwhelming her and thinking about everything that she needed to do to get it done

and this mindset switch really helped her when we were talking about you know climbing the mountain and it's like the mountain is beautiful you don't have to climb the mountain you don't have to at all. You could do absolutely nothing and not work towards your goals and dreams and that's an option too. You have that option. You get to climb the mountain. You get to pursue your dreams. And while yes, it can be very overwhelming in times, it can be stressful at times, it can test you at times, it can trigger you at times. That's the process of leveling up. We grow through what we go through. We're going to go through things and face trials and tribulations, whether we're trying to hike the mountain to our dreams or we're just walking a path. to nowhere so we might as well go up the mountain toward our dreams. Okay, so whenever I was first

starting out, I was sub-leasing this apartment on Miami Beach because after I graduated from grad school with my master's instead, I packed up my Jeep, drove across the country to Miami Beach because I had always wanted to live on a beach. I originally come from upstate New York and, you know, hearing about the beach, it just always sounded magical. So, and I love the ocean. I am a water creature at heart. And so I love the mountains too. It's very interesting. But anyway, I moved across the country to Miami Beach. I didn't know a single person there. And I was subleasing this apartment, this random person's apartment. This apartment actually just so happened to have a giant whiteboard in it. So at this point, my new dream was, I want to make an impact on the world. Like,

I want to elevate the vibration of the planet and I want to help as many people as I want to help millions and millions and millions of people all over the world. That's what I wanted to do. I have, I want to be the greatest to ever do what I'm doing, literally. And so I'm like, I have no idea what the path is for me to get to that level. Like I have no clue. It's crazy now. You know, I've been on some of the biggest podcasts in the world and, you know, this process really worked. So anyway, I had this giant whiteboard and I wrote down every single thing that I could possibly do to make money, to make progress toward my goals. I just wrote out everything that I could do. It was like long form content, short form content, making merch, like just coaching, consulting, so many different things.

Like the list was very long that I had made. All different ways to kind of take first steps. Basically, they were just, when you have this big dream, right, you don't know how to get there, but you can think of like, what is the next right step. And if you don't know what the right step is, then you just, you just write down what all of the possible next steps are. And that's what I did. And I was stuck there for a while.

I was stuck at what is the next right step for me? I just don't know which option is the correct one. And I was consulting for this woman at the time. I was consulting for her business. I was teaching her kind of the neuroscience behind what her business. does and she sort of out of the kindness of her heart acted as a mentor for me she was you know probably around my mom's age at the time kind of like a motherly figure if you if you will um i was i don't know how i think i was maybe 23 24 at the time and she i had told her so i we we held

our session i helped her out i consulted her and then after that i you know, kind of told, she's like, how is everything going with you? She was always very helpful. She wanted to help me start my business. And I told her, you know, I have all of these options laid out in front of me. And I just don't know which one to do. I don't know which one is going to work the best. And she said, stop trying to figure out which one will work the best and do the one that excites you the most because that's the one you're going to make work the best. And that is stuck with me for years now after that conversation. And that is 100% the criteria for how I choose things. Like when I teach my live classes, my master classes that I hold, I switch them up all the time.

I very rarely do the same class. I might hold the same class for a few sessions in a row. I switch it up. And the way I decide on what to teach and when to pivot is what, what excites me right now. What is going to light me up to teach about? What feels like fun doing to do? That's how I decide. Same thing with this podcast. Like what feels fun to talk about today? What is going to light me up? Because if I'm sitting down here and I'm dreading what I'm talking about on this podcast right now, You guys are going to feel it. You're not going to be as inspired by it. It's not going to be as engaging.

And it's not going to be as good, period. So choosing what lights me up the most, that has been a really core driver for me throughout my entrepreneurial journey. And that wasn't the only conversation I had at the time. I had another conversation with a friend from college. And he was very into, he was. was working a nine to five but he was very into the entrepreneur space he was like yeah that's the way anyway so i was talking to him he's really nice guy and i was talking to him about the situation as well

and he said emily you are in a trial and error period of your life right now like even like like entrepreneurship is experimental at its core like that's that's what it is like there's nothing certain about it but honestly there's nothing certain about life in general um you know and he's like you're not going to know which one works the best until you do it. You just have to try. You just have to choose something and see. See how it feels when you do it. If you don't like it, you don't have to keep doing it. But if it's like, hey, this might be, I kind of like this. This might be interesting. Let me carry this out. Well, then that's something that you carry out then. The point is that you have to choose something because if you choose nothing, you make no progress. So you have to choose something.

and then do it and carry it out and let it run its course. Don't just give up after a little bit. Choose something and do it. I decided to continue doing one-on-one coaching, continue to do my consultation sessions and can go all in with short form content. And for a little bit, I was posting YouTube videos as well. There are old YouTube videos you can find from literally like the first couple of months of me just starting out. That's when I filmed those videos in my sub-lease apartment. You could go find them on my I'm on the brain YouTube channel. It's there. But those were the first videos I ever, like long-form videos ever made. I was editing them myself. I was on a different level at that time. That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. And so when I, when I was talking to

Amanda and Minecraft, I had said to her, you know, I told her this process. I told her exactly what I just told all of you. And I said, you just need to choose something. And if you're wanting to make a positive impact on the world through what you've learned in Minecraft, then maybe that looks like creating content. And she had mentioned she didn't necessarily want to, you know, have her face out there or whatever. And I was like, well, content is not limited to talking head videos. There are so many different ways you can do content.

You can write. You can do, you know, substack or X or, you know, there's so many different. You can have an email. You can build an email list. You can, the world is your oyster. You can do so many different things. Or you can simply just start writing in your notes. Like just start writing helpful tips in your notes for nobody to see.

Or just start posting them like written. People create just text slides on Instagram all the time. So just do that. And for nobody to see. Maybe you just share it on your story for your friends at first. And that's how I started, right? Just posting for my friends at first. That's all it was.

I just literally was posting on my stories tips for my story. friends with no intention of ever posting for you guys. And it's like, again, make the barrier to entry as small as possible. I said, if you don't want to get on the camera because you're uncomfortable, then don't do that. It's stopping you from taking the first step. And it's cool. It's really cool because a week later, when she got on the call, she had started making content. She had been having face-to-face conversations. She had already done all of these things. And I was blown away. I was like, you're incredible. I was blown away. It's really just the magic of make your list. Identify the big mountain goal or dream, whether that be a physical material goal.

It can be a goal to be the most grateful that you've ever been. It can be, you know, to optimize and pursue yourself. I'm not, I'm not, I can't sit here and tell you what your goal should be, but pick your mountain goal. And then write out all. the possible next steps that you could take. 360 degrees around your whole body. What are all the different steps you could take? Make the list as long as possible. And then just choose one.

And then you do that and you'll notice it feels really good to make progress. And it feels really good to move toward my goals. And maybe when you take that step and you know, you don't want to write but you make a different type of video and then you realize, I don't really like that. I think I want to try this other thing. Okay. well now you know more than if you would have done nothing so stop you know and so it's like how do you choose just do the one that excites you the most right the list as long as possible of all the

possible next steps you could possibly take and then just choose the one that excites you the most to do and if none of them excite you close your eyes and point your finger just start very small and send it start small and send it stop holding yourself back by thinking that you need an entire plan all like No. I had had so many people in Minecraft start businesses and they get in there, they get into Minecraft and they think that they need all this elaborate plan and all this. And I'm like, you need to just launch. You need to just start, start small and just send it. You can make iterations. You can improve. You can evolve after you've started. That's the best way to evolve. Learn from experience. before I started Minecraft and I built it, I remember talking to my brother about it. And I was like,

I don't know. Like, should I change this? Should I change that? And he goes, M, you have no idea how it's going to go. You just have to just launch it and then see and get the feedback and then improve from there. And I have improved it a ton. I've added so much stuff since the beginning. So the point really is just to start and choose one thing. And it's so cool because you'll start learning about what you like and what you don't like, what actually does light you up and what drains you. And through that, you'll start to learn, well, you'll learn more about yourself and you'll also be making progress towards your goals. And then my last real piece that I want to share with you guys is that when you do this, you make the list as long as possible, you can even Google options, ask AI,

the world is your oyster at this point. And you start, you need to then trust and to, surrender to it, right? And trust that as long as you are taking steps, trust that everything is unfolding in your favor. Trust that as long as you are staying on top of your routines and making sure you believe in yourself and you're loving yourself and you're following through on your word and respecting yourself. Trust that as long as you are doing those things, then your life is unfolding in your favor. Just trust it. It's so easy to get overwhelmed and be like, I just don't know how it's going to work. You don't need to know how or when you don't need to know those things. All you need to focus on is the next right step. And if you don't know which is the right one, choose the one that excites you the

most. If that one ends up not being the right one, then you could just pick another step and try that one. When you're driving down the road, you need to eventually take a turn, right? You got to go down a path, choose a path, right? You've got to choose a path. And you can always turn around, but most of the time, you will not have to because new paths lead to new adventures, new opportunities that you may never have encountered if you never took that first turn. So take the first turn, take the first step, and get walking. And you will be so surprised by the opportunities and the doors that open up for you. You will be so surprised. And you'll just feel really good because progress feels really good.

To wrap up this episode, you guys already know we got to do our three Wonders of the week. I highly encourage all of you to share. I love, actually, I've been going on the Spotify podcast and I saw people are writing in the comments. Someone mentioned their Wonders of the Week. So please, and whether it on YouTube, wherever you're listening, write down your wonders of the week, share them.

It's really good actually to write them down. it reinforces them to your brain. I wrote them down before this and then I'm going to share them right now with you guys. So my first wonder of the week is the mountains. I love a mountain. I was driving earlier today in my car. I love Arizona so much. I just love it.

It's so beautiful. The sunsets are magical. And I was driving and I was just looking at this mountain and this one mountain just really looked just like a bunch of rocks stacked on top of each other. Like this is so cool. It really just looks like a playground. I'm like, I want to get out of my car and just go climb it really quick. My second wonder of the week is my community.

All my amazing students in Minecraft. I think that this week, especially every week, but this week especially on the call, so many people got up. And I mean, Amanda, I shared her story today. And she got up and just talked about all the things that she was doing just in the past week. And I just felt so happy for her and motivated and inspired by her. Everybody in my community, and I'm not, I'm using her as an example because she asked me the question that led me to this episode. But everybody in the community is just doing such amazing things and they are amazing people.

So they are my second wonder of the week. And my third wonder of the week is that there have been so many people on social media the past few days sending me this clip of this Olympian woman. I believe she's from China, but I could be totally butchering that. but she's a skier, and she's talking about neuroplasticity and the power of the mind, etc., etc. There have been so many people DMing me the video of her in an interview talking about the power of the mind and neuroplasticity, and there have also been tons of people tagging me in this interview of her and posting her video on their stories and tagging me and

saying, this is exactly what M teaches. and I just, I want to take a moment to just really express my gratitude for all of you guys that are listening. Like, you're honestly my third one or the week. It's just everybody that, like so many people have been sharing with me that video. And it really makes me so, it makes me so happy that I'm the one that everybody listens to that. And like, oh, that's M. And it's just like everybody's thinking of me and also just they're connecting, making that connection. And I think that it's been really cool.

for me also to see that when people talk about neuroplasticity they think of me. So anyway, that's been really cool just to see how many people have sent me that video because that video made them think of me. So I just, like, that's my third wonder of the week is really just a moment of gratitude for that. And also, it's super cool that there are Olympians out there talking about neuroplasticity and the power of the mind because it is so important like I always tell you. Anyway, guys, I'm saying so so much love. Have a great. week and I will see you in the next episode. Bye everybody.