Emonthebrain - Work-Life Balance Is a Scam (Here’s What Actually Works)

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

In this episode of Planet Em, Emily breaks down what “the pursuit of greatness” actually looks like in real life, not just what you want, but who you’re becoming. She talks about how trying to balance everything at once sets you up to fail, why “work-life balance” can be a trap, and how balance tends to happen across seasons instead. Emily also gets practical: how she uses weekly notes and brain dumps to capture ideas, how to stop overthinking the effort (effort discounting), why dopamine often comes after you start, and how intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation changes the way you chase goals. Plus: a simple focus reset (move your phone out of your field of view) and a question she uses when she’s torn between rest and discipline: “What would future Emily appreciate me doing right now?” Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/planetempodcast?igsh=NDYwZmtrZzRveHQz TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@planetempod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDvOOWaXWgFhRNB8DkW9Pww/ 

Hello, my friends and welcome back to Planet M, a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, spirituality, philosophy, and real life tools to help you rewire your brain, level up, and live your best life. This episode is all about the pursuit of greatness and being great because you know, you don't get what you want in life. You get what you are. And if you want your life to be great, you have to be great. There's actually a quote that comes. to my mind right off the bat. And it goes, if you want a blessed life, you should be blessing everything around you. It's kind of one of my realizations of the week. I'm the type of person that I, every time I get an idea, I will jot it into my notes app or text myself. And I found that a lot of the time I would make those journal entries or write those ideas or text to myself. And then I would just kind of never see them again. They would get lost in the abyss. And I found that there are a lot of people that I know that the same thing happens to them. So something that I've been doing recently is I actually, I kind of created a weekly folder in my notes app and my phone and on my laptop

and kind of throughout the week anytime I have an idea or realization or I hear a cool quote. I write it in my journal entry for the week. Something that I love doing is kind of brain dumps. I love doing brain dumps are basically just kind of stream of consciousness, you know, sit down and either voice note or write it out in your notes or actually like by hand, write it in your journal. And you kind of just stream of consciousness, brain dump, don't filter yourself at all, but you know, kind of get it all out of your head and somewhere else. And I have found this is actually so helpful for your brain to help you with creativity because it is the conscious practice of getting out of your own way and actually expressing yourself

freely without being filtered or judging yourself or criticizing yourself. And when you do that, what you'll start to notice, well, you'll begin to notice a lot of patterns in your own thinking, things that come up, things that you'll want to work through, but also a lot of great ideas if you're a creator. And this is something that I personally love to do. I'll end up having a lot of really good breakthroughs through this practice. But anyway, I don't add my brain dumps to my weekly kind of journal realizations. I have my own kind of folder in my phone or laptop for those, or I have a special journal for that too. But basically, even when I do brain dumps, usually at least I'll have one realization from doing a brain dump or something will come. And I'll take that one piece,

that one gem, and I will add it to my journal entry of the week folder. And I was looking through it actually before I got on to film this episode, of course, surprise, surprise. That's why my brain is primed with all of these things and I want to talk about them. And one of those quotes that I had written in my week of, you know, the second week of January entries was if you want a blessed life, you should be blessing everything around you. And the reason why that came to mind for me, that's been a quote that I've known for a long time. But the reason why it came to mind this past week was because I was sitting at the hair salon. I was at the sink like with my head back, you know. And I decided to just meditate rather than being on my phone, you know, at this hair appointment.

I decided to just like use it as a time for mindfulness. So I was just meditating and then I was kind of just looking around in the hair salon. And I was watching all these women kind of walk around and I was thinking to myself, I actually started crying at the hair salon. Like tears were shooting down my face while I was sitting there with my hair in the sink. And no one noticed because, you know, it's already wet going on with the water from the sink. so nobody noticed this. But what happened was I was sitting there and I was looking around and all these women kind of like rushing around, you know, doing their job. And I was thinking to myself, wow, this place is kind of like Santa's workshop, except, you know, rather than elves, they're angels.

And they might not remember that they're angels, but they are their divine life force beings and human bodies just roaming around, walking around, helping people, you know, doing their hair. And I was just like, wow, how beautiful is that? Like, how beautiful is that to remember that? to remember that everybody here, like we're all divine beings. We are all spiritual beings living a human experience. And how incredible is that to remember that in the moment? And like how how beautiful is earth? How cool is that? And I was like, wow, earth is so cool. And that's why I started crying. And I just remembered like how magical life is when you make the conscious decision to walk with that awareness. And I was actually listening to Jay Shetty's podcast with Matthew McConaughey. And something that

Matthew McConaughey was saying was that he's realized that a lot of his greatest achievements, a lot of his greatest days and times and when he was felt the most spiritual was not just when he was spending time in prayer, but when he felt that moving through the day felt like prayer. And I 100% resonate with that. And I just kind of remember like in this moment of, you know, having this realization, just kind of thinking to myself, wow, like how, How beautiful is it when you can just move through life remembering how magical life is? And how beautiful is it when you can remember that you are not alone? And whatever it is that you believe in, whether it's the universe, God, your angels, your spirit

guides, whatever, I'm not here to tell you what to believe in. But how beautiful is it when you can remember that you are not alone and that God is there, like always with you? Like there is a power here to support you in any moment. And I love to pray to God and my angels. And I have noticed in my life, like, I, I just feel like, God is God. But then I have my angels that are kind of like, you know, my spirit guides and my angels that are just kind of always with me. And even when I was a little kid, I remember, like, one of my aunts gave me, like, something with an angel on it. And I just always kind of felt like, you know, I had these angels that were always with me,

like guardian angels. And I like, I remember actually one time living in Miami when I lived there, I was something that I used to do. And this is actually the point of this episode is to talk about greatness. And I am currently in this period in my life right now where I am nearing the end of a huge project that I've been working on for a long time. And it's going to be incredible and it's a part of a huge level up in my life. But you know, it's been a huge project. And as I near the end of this, I'm in like the last couple miles of a marathon. And it's tough. Like it's really challenging to do hard things. Like it's doing hard things. It's called doing hard things for reason. Like, it's not easy. And I've just kind of been reflecting in my life back to the times when I did hard things.

And I've been reflecting back on the periods when I did things that most people will never do in their lives. And like, for example, in undergrad, you know, graduating as a neuroscience scholar and, you know, I was nominated by the dean of UT Austin as like a graduate of distinction for my research. And then going into a PhD program in neuroscience and then like, excellent. And then like, excellent. in that and then deciding that I wanted to graduate early from my PhD after finishing all the coursework with my master's instead to move across the country to Miami to pursue the dream of starting my own business and coaching people just thinking back on all these different periods right and so the point the example that I was about to share though is when I was living in Miami I remember

you know this was a time of extreme uncertainty because I had just graduated moved across the country I didn't know a single person in Miami when I moved there and And I remember I was talking to my angels a lot and I would go for walks and I would have my headphones in. And I remember, you know, I put my headphones in. People think I'm on the phone. But really I'm just talking to myself. And then I'm talking to my angels. Something that I really like to do is have conversations with myself too.

Talk to myself like I would, you know, one of my Minecraft students or my best friend. And I'll just be like, okay, I'm like, how are you feeling? And just like walk myself through a coaching session with myself. It's life changing when I do that. And I've been remembering to do that a lot more often as I've been putting myself. in uncomfortable situations again. And I've talked about this before on this podcast. Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations on purpose pushes you to grow unlike any other thing. And so I've been definitely, I'm in that uncomfortable position again. And it's a good thing, right? Like being uncomfortable

is good because it means you're growing. Full circle tying it back. When I was walking down the sidewalk in Miami, I was walking to the beach. And at the time, I, you know, I did not, I was in the very beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. I did not have it all figured out at all. I don't think anybody ever fully has it all figured out. Like nobody does. We're all still figuring it out. But I really had nothing figured out at this point. Like I didn't know what I was doing at all. And so I remember I was just praying. I was like, angels, like I don't need any sort of sign. I know you're here with me. Like, I know you're here with me in this moment. And as I said that, I saw dolphins jumping out of the water. And now if you know me, you know I'm a dolphin. I have identified as a dolphin since I was a little kid. I went on a family vacation when I was younger and I was like, mom, dad, like I want to be a dolphin. Like I have always had extremely strong ties to dolphins. I personally really resonate with being a dolphin. And so don't ask me to, don't ask me to, don't ask me questions. No, but you can ask me questions about that. You can ask me in my comments or something. Or if you come to one of my master classes, one of my free masterclasses, I, I, I, I, I, you can ask me questions about that. I, I, I,

usually end up sitting with everybody for like an hour afterward and I just answer questions. And it's really fun because like half the people will leave, more than half the people will leave actually. And then people were just be asking me questions and I just sit there and we just kind of like have fun with it. I end up having a lot of fun in the Q&A at the end. But anyway, my point is that come to that class and you can ask me about being a dolphin. But anyway, when I saw the dolphins jumping, even though I had said I didn't need a sign, I knew immediately that it was my sign that my angels were there. And I went to a sound healing meditation in Sedona not that long ago. and I was deep in meditation.

And I remember at this time, this was a while ago, it was like months ago, but at this time I was feeling a bit disconnected from my spirituality. And I remember just asking, you know, my angels for a sign. And I walked out of this place and there was a giant angel statue like fountain. And I didn't even realize it when I was on my way in. And that's just another one of those examples of just priming your brain. And so that's actually one of the things that I've been really tuning back into with getting uncomfortable and, you know, in this journey that I'm on right now and, and finishing this kind of

of last sprint. And so before I kind of dive into more of the neuroscience and, you know, just more examples and things like that, I just want to say just to let you guys know and just set the intention right now for this episode, this episode is just as much for me as it is for you because, you know, I wanted to film a podcast episode right now. And I was thinking to myself, like, what should I film this episode on and I love making content about things that I'm currently working through and something that I'm currently working through right now is stepping into a higher level of greatness and something actually in Minecraft when I was talking to everybody I think it might have been on the call last week but I was talking to everyone we've talked about discipline a lot and we talked about routines and falling through

on your word and kind of and I don't want to say like hustle culture but and or grind but really like obsession and being all in and we were talking about that and and my my one of my one of my star students Mario he came on and he was asking me some questions on the call and he he said something that really kind of resonated or like kind of made a light bulb go off in my head and he was like no like we want to hear about what you did to get to where you are and to achieve the success that you've achieved you know I think a lot of times I want to cater to people right and people want to want to hear like, oh, self-care, rest and all that. But I'm going to be so real with you. Work-life balance is a scam. Like, it is such a scam. I'm filming this episode at 10 p.m. 10 p.m. at night. And I woke up early

this morning, worked out, made content, wrote my book, ran errands. And now I'm here. Filming this episode at 10 p.m. Like, work-life balance is a scam. Balance happens between the seasons of life, not all at once. And if you try to balance everything at all at once, that's when things are fall and it doesn't and they don't fall on purpose and then that's when you're hard on yourself. That's when you beat yourself up for not doing everything you said you were going to do because you're trying to do it all and you and the truth is that you can't. And when you try to do everything great, you end up doing nothing great. And this is something that I've realized whenever I was in undergrad. I would get up at 6 a.m. and I would go to the gym and then I would make it to my 9 a.m.

class. I'd be in class all day. I also worked in a research lab when I was an undergrad. And then I would get home, right, and I would have to do homework until about 11 p.m. And now this wasn't every single night, but this was a lot of the time. There would be weekends, especially before an exam, that I wouldn't do anything. I would just study and work, but then there would also be weekends where I would be crazy. Like, I worked like really, really hard. And I, you know, and an undergrad, like working in the research lab, I got like course credit, but I didn't get paid for that. So it was just like a lot of work, a lot of work. And especially when and when I decided that I wanted to go into the PhD program, get my PhD in neuroscience, I spent my entire summer leading up to going, you know, I got,

accepted. That semester that I was applying for PhD programs, I had zero life, zero life. I actually ended up kind of like, I say losing, but, you know, everything happens for a reason, but the relationship that I was in ended at the end of that semester. I had zero life because I was so focused on the mission. And my point with this is that I think it's okay and it's important to realize that you're going to have to, if you're juggling too many balls, you're going to have to put some down. And, you know, I ended up going into the PhD program. The entire summer before that, I read a research paper a day, if not more than one, a day leading up. That way I was prepared when I got there. And then when I was in my PhD program, I would get up before lab and work out,

and I would get into lab depending. Sometimes I would have to be there at 7 a.m. Sometimes I wouldn't need to be there until 9 or 10. But then I would be in work in the lab. And I would be in, work in the lab. and then I would go to my classes for the PhD program, and then I would go and I would TA, especially like in the last semester, I would go in TA undergrads, and then I would get home, do my own homework, grade exams for the undergrads if I needed to do that, and then I would need to read research papers for my research project, and then I would create content for M on the Brain because I started creating content when I was in my PhD. Do you think I had any sort of life during that?

Like, no, but that was my life. And so I don't think that even maybe the term work-life balance is really the term that we need to be using. Because I was so happy during these times. Like, I don't want you to sit and think like, oh, like, hustle culture. She was on her grind. Like, she must have been miserable. Like, these were actually some of the happiest times in my life. I think we forget that discipline and hard work feels good.

Like, that is actually true fulfillment. That's actually what really feels good. Like working hard and growing as a human feels like. good. Sitting around all day and not growing and not improving your life and feeling stuck or stagnant does not feel good. Actually, in the brain, neuroscience shows that stagnation or that feeling of being stuck, it feels bad because the brain registers stagnation or being stuck as a threat. If you think back from an evolutionary standpoint, right, if you were out in your tribe and you guys were not growing or evolving and you were stagnant or stuck, that was a threat to your survival.

if you weren't evolving, right? And there's plenty of different kind of research fields that study, you know, fulfillment and self-determination theory and different things like that. But mastery and self-mastery and growth and evidence of progress, like that's actually where true fulfillment comes from. And so, you know, I think this self-care kind of culture, of course, taking care of yourself is so important. Loving yourself is so important. But self-care and self-love also looks like doing the things that you said you were going to do because that's that's how you build self-trust and self-confidence. And so if you told yourself that you were going to get up tomorrow morning and you were going to go to the gym and then you wake up and you're tired and you're like, oh, I need to prioritize my rest. Like that's so important. And then you don't do it. Okay, fine. But after a certain

number of times that you do that, that's going to start to hurt your confidence and you're going to feel down about yourself because you're not following through on your word. And so it's kind of, it's a tricky thing there to balance between the two. But this is where I actually like to incorporate a question. I like to ask myself in times like this specifically, what would future Emily appreciate me do right now? There are times. Like, for example, the other day, I am, I'm planning on working all a long. I think it was like a Sunday. And I was planning on working all day long, but I got up and I was like, really kind of not feeling it. And I kind of wanted to go for a hike because hiking really just re-energizes me, makes me feel good. I was like, you know what? Like, you know, it would be putting off my work for

a couple hours, you know, and I was like, what would future me appreciate? What would me later to I appreciate and I thought to myself, you know, it would delay my starting time by a couple of hours, but it also might make me way more productive when I do start later because I will have done something to re-energize myself. And so I went for that hike, right? And so introduce that kind of idea or question just because I don't want you to get all caught up in like, oh, I have to forget about my emotions and only, you know, do what I said I was going to do because there is that saying where it's like, stick to the plan, not your mood. And I don't know if I necessarily. agree with that completely. Because sometimes, you know, it is important to recognize your mood or your

emotional state because a lot of the time you can't do positive work from a negative state. Sometimes that's the case and you need to take care of yourself, get your energy right before you go and do the work. And actually, Maya in Minecraft, she let me know this past Monday, she was able to manifest 36 grand last week. And one of the things she said she did was work on feeling good and being in a positive state before she went and did things. And so paying attention to your energy is extremely important. And she didn't just manifest money like 36 grand. She also said she had tons of opportunities coming through. And I love that she had said that because it really is so important. And it's something that I've realized in my own life as well too. Right. Like if I go and create an Instagram

video or a video for TikTok or even if, you know, I tried to film a podcast episode and I'm feeling terrible, it usually does not perform well. Like it usually does not perform well. because I'm not able to really put the energy into it that I need to. And I'm not able to show up as my best self, right? There's another part to that too, right? Where sometimes I don't really feel like it. But when I show up, you got to remember that the dopamine doesn't come before you start. It comes after the first 10 minutes. And so if you're feeling tired or lazy or unmotivated or you're procrastinating and you're sitting in your car outside of the gym or sitting in your car outside of work or the coffee shop and you're just thinking about the effort it's going to take to go in. and do the thing that you know you need to do. Remind yourself, the dopamine doesn't come before you start. It comes after the first 10 minutes. So get in there and do what you need to do for 10 minutes. Commit to 10 minutes. Stop thinking so much about the effort it's going to take. Because when you focus on the

effort something's going to take. This is called effort discounting. This actually raises stress levels. And then your brain wants to protect you from going and doing the thing that you need to do because it's stressing you out. But when you switch and you focus on, okay, first 10 minutes, will that lower stress? because there's less of a commitment, less work, less effort. And you'll be able to go and do it, right? And allow yourself to do it badly too, right? That lower stress too. It kind of decreases the barrier for entry.

So you're going to get in there and you're going to do 10 minutes. And guess what's going to happen after like 10, 15, 20 minutes or right? Like the time, the exact amount of time varies. But when you get in there and you go for 10, 15 minutes, then your brain sees evidence of progress. And that evidence of progress boost dopamine and feels good. When I'm thinking about the neuroscience of greatness, and I'm thinking about just goals in general, right? Because if you want your life to be great, you have to be great. And, you know, for an order for evidence of progress to even be shown to your brain, you need to have goals to begin with.

You need to have some sort of goal. And I actually saw some research somewhere recently, and I don't remember the exact percentage. But there is a very large percentage of the population that does not write out their goals. So if you actually write down what your specific, goals are. You are in the minority of the population. And it is so extremely important to get very clear on your goals, to write your goals down. Because when you do this, when you write your goals down, you are showing your brain what is important and what your brain needs to filter your reality for. Remember, your brain constructs your entire experience of reality. Every single second,

around 11 million bits of information arrive to your brain. But your brain, but your brain, Your conscious mind only perceives around 50 bits of information per second. So 10.999 million bits of information are being filtered out of your conscious awareness every single second. What determines what your brain filters out and what your brain filters in? Your brain chooses which information you consciously perceive according to your focus and your beliefs, your subconscious programming, your emotional state, right? Your emotional state actually determines a lot of how you perceive reality. We perceive color differently depending on our mood.

This is why the saying, looking at the world through rose-colored lenses is biologically true because we actually see the world differently. And we see color differently. We see colors as more saturated when we're in a positive mood. I'll give you kind of a real-life example for this. So research actually shows that if your phone is within your field of view, You are less able to concentrate on the task at hand. Why?

Your phone gives you a lot of dopamine. And so your brain has learned that your phone is important. And so your brain is always directing a little bit of attention and diverting a little bit of attention and energy to the phone. And so there's that's that much energy less that you have to put on the task at hand. Which is why literally just moving your phone out of you makes you better able to focus, listen, comprehend, pay attention. and do what you need to do. And so this is what your brain does. It learns what's important, what is a goal-oriented object, what is valuable to you, and then it diverts attention and filters

your reality for things like that, like your phone. Or if your goal is to write a book, now you might be driving down the road and you might see a Barnes & Noble. If your goal is to buy a red jeep, driving down the road, and all of a sudden, you're going to see a red jeep. Why? Because your brain has learned that that thing is relevant to your goal. And so it's going to filter reality for it. I have an example of something that happened this past week that's sort of in the ballpark of what I'm talking about here. I was driving down the street. I was driving down the road to work out one morning this past week and I was just not feeling it. I was tired. I was just honestly had this feeling of dread. I was just like damn. God, I was really tired, right? And one thing

that I know to be true is that when you are tired, stressed, or underfed, hungry, you're more easily triggered and you're more easily you're more emotional and your impulse control is not as great and so anyway I just was not feeling it and I knew that it was because I was tired right and so that was the first reason and I'm like yeah right like that's valid like how you feel right now is valid I validated myself right I don't invalidate my own feelings so anyway I'm driving on the road right and I'm like I don't want to bring this energy into the rest of my day like this isn't going to help me perform my best and feel my best and it also does not fun to feel this way and so I'm like okay and so I'm taught I decide to talk to myself. I'm like, what's going on? Whatever? I'm like, I'm tired. Okay, valid. What else is going on?

Right? Because you've been tired before, but still feeling great. So what else is there? And I realized that the reason why I had this feeling of dread was because I was feeling like I already knew how the day was going to go. I had a meeting or two. And then I was going to go work on a project that I've been working on for a long time, had a coffee shop, and I was probably going to be there to like 9 p.m. grind it out. And so, yeah, that was the day. And, you know, I just kind of was like, yeah, that's it. That's what I got to do today. And what I realized after talking to myself, though, was that you, like, well, one, there's a quote by Wayne Dyer. And it's that nobody knows enough to be a pessimist. And the immediate thing that kind of came to my mind was, you have no idea how this day is going to go. You have no idea what

blessing or opportunity could fall into your lap today. Today is the day that a dream could come true. We don't usually wake up in the morning knowing that something that we're going to achieve a great goal today. Sometimes we do, but a lot of the time we don't. And so I was like, you know, today could be the day that something I've been wanting for so long could just happen. Like you never know. And so I used an affirmation that I use and I've used this for years. People in Minecraft use it all the time. It is today I am prepared to be surprised by the unexpected blessings and opportunities coming my way. And guess what happened? A few hours later, I'm on my meeting, I want to call, and I get some incredible news, just phenomenal news. And I got so excited and I told the person I was on the call with, I was like,

you have no idea. Because this morning, I was feeling the sense of just not feeling it and I was feeling dreadful. And I just decided to switch my mindset. And I was like, you know what? You have no idea what could happen today. something great could happen today. I primed my brain. I said, prepare to be surprised. And then boom, here's my surprise. It's an absolutely amazing news. I got some incredible news that like made my week, my month. I don't even know. And he was like, oh, I love that. He's so happy for me. But it was great. And, you know, I was feeling extra grateful because it's magical when you see the evidence of the internal work reflect on your external reality. That's such a cool moment. It's such a cool moment when you see the evidence of the internal work that you're doing reflect on your external world. And so one more

thing that I kind of want to touch on when it comes to understanding a little bit more about motivation and when you are in the pursuit of goals, there are two types of motivation. There is intrinsic motivation and there is extrinsic motivation. Okay. Intrinsic motivation comes from within. It's appropriately named. Love on that happens. Comes from within, right? From things like having meaning and purpose, right? Or like, for example, for me, with filming this podcast, like I thoroughly enjoy sitting here and talking about things that I love. And so that motivation comes from within, right? But I'd be lying if I said that I always ran on that, right? And it's great when you're intrinsically motivated. Like when you have a real clear sense of purpose,

and this is why I say, when you have a goal or a dream, take the time not just to write down your goals and dreams, but also to write down why you want them. Because that clear why, that will help you commit to your goals. It will help you be way more persistent, push through challenges, overcome obstacles, improve your performance, and it will help with the intrinsic motivation, right? Dopamine from within, motivation from within. And so knowing your why, it tells your brain that, you know, because your goals, your brain doesn't just, you know, pursue goals. It pursues meaning. And so when you, when you tell your brain what the meaning of these goals are, it sort of becomes unquestionable. It's like, yes, this is what I really want.

And also, of course, like, that helps you really stay in alignment too, because when I first started content creation, I was doing it just purely because I liked to. Like, I never wanted to be a content creator. That was never my goal. I was just in my PhD, learning about neuroscience, healing my own mind, healing my physical health, my mental health, and, you know, feeling the best I've ever felt in my life. life and achieving all these goals and dreams come true like getting into a PhD program in the first place but I knew my purpose like I had a greater purpose for why I was there I was not just there to get

my PhD in neuroscience I was there because I wanted to do research and change the world like I wanted to discover things and change a world and really help people and that was driving me so much and that I just felt so grateful for the opportunity to be able to do that when you have that intrinsic motivation right and that'll have you leaping out the bed in the morning. It'll have you excited, right? But I'm going to be honest, like, there have been times when that just doesn't do it for me. It just doesn't do it. And I, you know, when I actually, when I was filming the second course for Minecraft, because there's two courses. There are things that you can be intrinsically motivated to do. And there are things, there are projects that you work on them for even a few weeks even and you finish them. But filming a 12-week course that doesn't get done, at least for me, that didn't get done in a few weeks. Toward the end, I just really started to lose that motivation and that excitement. And that's only natural. Like, I've been doing it for so long. I was ready to move on to the next thing. And what did I need to do? I needed to give myself a tree. I needed some external motivation, motivation from the outside. Now, there are kind of the upsides and downsides to external motivation. There are external motivators like people and wanting praise and applause from people and wanting approval from people. and, you know, wanting that external validation. But then there are other external motivators that are not so bad. Like wanting to make more money is not a bad thing.

A dog does not learn to sit for free. You have to give your dog a treat. Positive reinforcement, right? And that's a form of external motivation. And so, you know, when I was getting toward the end of filming this course, I was like, you know, a month into it or whatever because I was doing a lot of other things at the time. And it just, you know, takes a long time to write and then film a 12-week course. I remember, you know, needing a little, I was like, you know what, I need to give myself a treat.

I need to set up an external motivator and a future reward because dopamine is released in the brain in anticipation of a good thing happening. And so if you can give yourself something to look forward to when you finish, that's a beautiful thing. Like, that will be a great motivator. And when I decided I found something that I wanted to buy for myself or something. And I was like, yep, I'm going to get myself this bag whenever I finish. Obviously, the size of the reward can depend greatly on the size of the project and what you're doing. Sometimes the reward for me is bringing myself to go get a macha and rewarding myself with that. Sometimes my reward is completely free and it's just going for a hike with my dog. Sometimes the reward is buying myself something. Sometimes it's making a plan

to hang out with my friend. And, you know, back when I was in college, actually, you know, I actually, I learned this intuitively before I kind of understood the neuroscience behind it fully. I would be way more productive throughout the day when I would have plans that night. And so that anticipation of a reward, that thing that you know you're going to get when you finish it, that will drive you and that will motivate you and increase productivity in the time between so that to help you actually finish what you need to finish. But yeah, I think just kind of wrapping up that topic. I really just do want to hammer in purpose because purpose for me has been the driving factor in everything that I do and it's a huge reason I am where I am today because I believe

and know to be true that when you are working on something you really believe in, it makes you way better at it. Your performance is way better and people feel that. Like people feel the energy. Actually, there's a quote from the book, The Creative Act, A Way of Being My Rick Rubin. This is a book that I just read actually over the weekend. He says, consider that it wasn't your style that attracted success, but your personal passion within it. So if your passion changes course, follow it. Your trust and your instinct and excitement are what resonate with others. When I read that quote, I just remember feeling, yeah, when I was first starting out and I lived in Miami and I was consulting for a woman, Mary Lou, and I had a whiteboard full of ideas, all these different things that I wanted to do,

didn't know what to do first, didn't know which one was going to make me the most successful. And she said to me, you know, don't worry about which thing is going to make you the most successful or which thing is going to work the best. Do the thing that excites you the most because that's the thing you're going to make work the best. And that has been the story of my life. When I was in undergrad and I took a course on the neurobiology of drug addiction and we read why the current treatments for addiction don't work. It's because they're treating the symptoms and not the problem. And it's because they don't really know the problem. It's not anybody's fault. It's nobody's fault that they haven't uncovered the real, you know, neurological problem or the chemical

reaction that's, you know, we don't know. And when I read that, right, in that research paper in that class, a light bulb went off in me where I was like, I just resonated so deeply because growing up, I really struggled with my physical health and having PCOS and doctors just telling me, oh, there's no cure. We can just treat the symptoms and it really resonated with me. Also, I, myself was addicted to nicotine. And so I was like, yes, this is what I meant to do. And I had been working in the research lab for years at that point, studying learning memory and the perception of time and context and environment and all that. I knew I wanted to do research, but I just didn't know like what category or like where I wanted, where I really fell into place there. And when

I read this, I knew this was my place. And so in that moment, I decided I was going to go and get my PhD in neuroscience so that I could cure drug addiction. Like that was the goal. There was never anything less. It was never, oh, let me just, no. It was, it was all the way to the top, like, all the way to the top, to the top of the mountain. Here we go. It was all the way. That's just the way that I am. I dream big and I believe that I'm destined for greatness. Like I have that feeling within me. And now if you're the type of person that you're okay with just like living a normal life, then, you know, maybe this episode isn't necessarily for you. Maybe it is. Maybe there's still things you can get from it. But because I say that, I don't say that to be like passive aggressive or anything because I have,

I do have friends. Like I've known and loved people in my life that they genuinely did just want a normal, comfortable life. And so I realize that there are people that want that. I'm not one of those people. I want to be great. I want to be one of the greatest of all time at what I do. Like that's what I want.

And I, like I just, I'm addicted to growth. Like I'm passionate about it and I just can't wait to get better every single day. So yeah, that's why I say that. But and so when I went to the PhD, right, and I was, and again, I was so passionate about it. And people told me, like, oh, you're not going to make any money being a scientist. You don't make any money. I did not care because I cared about my mission the most. Like that, because it was lighting me up.

And I've known this for so long. Like, money does not bring you happiness. Like, and research shows that too. Like, once you get to a certain level, like a certain level of, okay, I can. afford what I like to pay my bills and I can afford to be comfortable like once you can get to that certain level of being comfortable more money does not equal more happiness necessarily right like obviously it can be used as a tool to have more fun which is my plan for it and to make a greater impact on the world which is another way that I can fulfill one of my values right

and help other people and you know don't donate and all that but it wasn't one of my driving factors and so I got there I was passionate about it I was lit up I did great at it like I I I was like the one of the best students at all my classes. I had a 4.0 even in the in the PhD program after finishing all the classes. And so I just like thrived in it. And of course I did research and all that too. And then, you know, when I decided I was going to go on my journey of being an entrepreneur and all that, like I wasn't just like, oh, I want to go be a creator. Like no. I was like, I want to be like, I want to be. When I left, guys, I don't know if you guys know this, but when I decided to go on this journey, I had 30,000 Instagram followers. I had no.

no reason to believe I was going to be able to get to the point that I'm at currently. Like, I had no reason to believe that I would be on the Jay Shetty podcast. Like, what? Crazy. Crazy. And that's just, that's, it's like two years after leaving. And it's such a short amount of time. My point is that when I left, I had another huge dream. I was like, I want to be like big time. Like, I want to be, I want to be one of the greatest people to ever talk about this stuff. Like, I want to be known. I want to change a world. I want to make an impact. I want I help people. And so I believe that I am destined for greatness. And so I don't, I don't play small when it comes to life. And if you feel within your heart that you are meant for that life too,

do not ignore that. Like do not ignore that calling or that feeling that you're meant for more. Because if you have that desire planted within you, it was planted within you for a reason. Because you are meant to fulfill it and bring it to life. Or you're at least meant to go on that journey, right because I thought that I was meant to you know have my own research lab and all that and then I got there and I realized hey I don't think that this is the life for me there's no way that I could have known that from the outside and this is why I always say you do not need to know how to get to the top of the mountain from the bottom all you need to know is the next right step you don't even necessarily need to know what the right step is just take a step and allow the path to unfold before you if you go down the wrong path and you make a mistake you can

always turn around, but a lot of the time, you will not have to because new paths leave to new avenues, new adventures, new doors, new opportunities that you could never have found or accessed if you hadn't taken that wrong turn, quote unquote, wrong, in quotes, because it wasn't really wrong, right? Like, I couldn't be sitting here today if I didn't go and do all the coursework in my PhD program because now I have a PhD level education in neuroscience. Like, that's the highest you can go. I wouldn't have that if I wasn't first, if I didn't have a different dream plan in within me, right? And allow your dreams to evolve with you. Like, it's okay. It's normal because as we evolve, our dreams and goals will evolve. And I think one of the biggest kind of hinders to our

success or one of the biggest things that holds us back from making progress is that planning stage or people sit around and they think to themselves like, oh, I just don't know what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Like, that is a crazy thought to have, to think that you should know what you're going to do for the rest of your life. Personal opinion that I'm I'm about to insert here. Doing the same thing for the rest of my life feels like a living hell. Like that feels terrible to me. Like I really hope that I wouldn't have to be in that position.

I personally, like I hope that what I do kind of evolves as I evolve. That's something that I would enjoy. Now, there are, of course, are people out there that would like to, you know, have that stability of finding one thing. But sitting around and planning and overthinking about what you're going to do, like that no progress comes from that, no momentum, no learning, no experience. One of the best ways to increase your success rate is to increase your failure rate. Your brain learns from failure and prediction error, right?

Whenever something happens that goes against what you thought was going to happen when you get the thing wrong. Intuitively, I've always known this back whenever I was in the PhD or even in undergrad, rather than just sitting and reading off a list and memorizing it, I would test myself. I would quiz myself on the information. even when I only knew 30% of the information, I would test myself on it because I would get things wrong. And I knew that when I would get something wrong and I would go and look and, oh, this is the right answer. That would help me remember and learn the right answer way faster that if I were to just read off a list. If I were to just read off a list and get it perfectly every single time,

it's going to take you way longer to learn that way than if you actually test your knowledge, allow yourself to get things wrong and then correct your errors. This is true for life. Allow yourself to make mistakes and get things wrong. Practice imperfectionism on your journey toward greatness. Productivity, forward movement, and progress requires tolerance for imperfection. So just start small. Remember the first 10 minutes.

Just start small and send it. But I want to bring it back to going all in on your mission. Identifying your goal, start small and send. it take the first step and go all in on your mission when your focus is scattered your direction is scattered when your focus is pinpointed your brain knows exactly where to take you and this is why you know i kind of was talking about like work life balance and all that and and something like i have had to kind of allow my content i've been spending way less time on content creation recently unfortunately um in the past few weeks one of the things i love the most about what i do is

creating content. Like, I live for the feeling of reading research papers and connecting dots and also working on myself and learning more things about myself and kind of what I need to do to level up and then sharing that on social media. Like, I love doing that. And I haven't really had the time to do that. And my content has definitely suffered because of that. And the reason why I bring that up is because I've kind of been suffering internally and mentally recently because of that. And I've had this internal battle and what I had to realize was that it's actually okay to let that ball drop. It was a ball that I was juggling and I had to realize like it's okay to let that ball drop to the floor while I am in the pursuit of a different mission like I said I'm in the last couple miles of this marathon that I am

sprinting and it's okay to let a few balls drop like it is okay work life relaxation rest fun like these things happen in seasons I've had seasons in my life where I'm traveling a ton having so much fun just living carefree lifestyle. Those seasons are absolutely amazing. But those seasons, I wouldn't be able to really enjoy those seasons if I didn't also have the seasons where I had my head down. I was grinding and out and I was getting done what I needed to get done. Because if you try to be great at everything, you try to do everything, you'll end up being

great at nothing. Just to close out this episode, I just kind of want to remind you again to work on whatever it is that you're doing as if it's bigger than you. This was another really big takeaway that I had from Rick Rubin's book, The Creative Act, and it's really so important and it's so true. Work as if the project that you are working on is bigger than you. And most of the time it is. Most of the time it is bigger than you.

When you forget that, it can start to feel just mundane and not so fun and not so fulfilling or purposeful. But when you can go back to your why and remember that whatever it is that you're doing, it is bigger than you. Because even if it's just work on yourself and work on your own energy, that has a ripple effect on other people. So work as if the project that you are working on is bigger than you. Forgive yourself frequently. No one is expecting you to be perfect. Like, after all, yes, you are divine life force energy in a human body, but you are the divine expressing yourself as a human.

And humans are inherently limited. We have the nervous system that we were given. We have the brain that we were given. Birds can see a whole different spectrum of light. We can't see. All right, we're inherently limited. And that's fine. So accept that. One of the greatest problems that people have is that they think that they're not supposed to have them. That one's Tony Robbins. You're supposed to have problems. Everybody has problems. And so making peace with that and just being like,

yeah, it's normal. It's normal. It's not something that you need to fix. So just forgive yourself frequently. Show yourself some love. All right. If you love this and you want to join a live class and learn from me in a live setting, come to my free master class. I'm holding one soon. check my bio on Instagram. There's a link to sign up and save your spot on there. And again, there's a live Q&A at the end. Also, currently the only way to join Mindcraft, my coaching program in community is by coming to the live free class because I open the doors at the end. All right? I'm sending you guys so much love and I will see you in the next episode. Bye, everyone.