Emonthebrain - You Need to Be a “Bad” Person to Get What You Want (The Neuroscience Behind Why)

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Em breaks down the neuroscience of why good people over give, people please, and end up drained and shows you the exact framework to stop betraying yourself and start putting yourself first. Interested in coaching or learning more about my program, MindCraft?? Sign up for my free masterclass! https://learn.emonthebrain.com/masterclass Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emonthebrain?igsh=aG1wNDY0OXZ1c3pi  I'm Going on Tour! Here's the link to RSVP for your city! https://laylo.com/emonthebrain/m/2jAoUd?utm_id=97760_v0_s00_e0_tv3

If you've ever heard the saying that bad things always happen to good people, there's actually neuroscience behind this and it might change your life. Good people are often taught to put everyone else first. And if they don't, then they're selfish. But the thing is that your brain is always listening and it learns from your behavior. If you're constantly overgiving or people pleasing or saying yes to things that you want to say no to, your brain doesn't learn, oh, we're so nice. it learns, oh, we don't come first. We are not the top priority and we aren't the most important thing. And then your brain starts filtering your reality for more evidence to prove that that is true.

Because remember, you don't experience the world as it is. You experience the world based on the way that your brain is wired. Your brain constructs your entire experience of reality and it actually filters out over 99.9% of the information that arrives to it every second. So overgiving, people pleasing, letting other people cross your boundaries every single time you do it, you strengthen that belief in your brain. And then what happens is you start attracting situations where you get betrayed or you're drained or dismissed. And all of these situations just keep building and reinforcing that belief that you don't come first, that you're not important. And then deep down, this belief starts building that good things never happened to me or things don't want. work out for me like that. When really, that's the reality that your brain is filtering for

because of the belief that it has built based on the way that you have treated yourself in relation to other people. If you really want to step into your power, you need to stop living for other people and start living for you. And at first, that might feel like being a bad person. In this video, I'm going to share with you my neuroscience-backed framework to finally stop giving your power away and start creating the reality that you really want to live in. And if you're new here, hi, I'm Emily. I'm a trained neuroscientist. I've got a bachelor's and a master's in neuroscience as well as many years of research experience in the lab. But I'm now a creator, writer, speaker, and coach to people in all over the world, over 55 different

countries. And I'm here to help you rewire your brain, level up and manifest your dream. When I first started creating content, I was entering into my PhD. in neuroscience with a dream of becoming a full-time scientist in the lab. I had absolutely no plan of ever doing this as work or building a career out of being online. That was never my plan. I genuinely was just changing my own life from rewire my brain, instilling new beliefs, regulating my nervous system, et cetera. And I remember the first time someone asked me, like, how are you going to monetize

off of content? Blah, blah, blah. and I felt weird when someone asked me that because that wasn't ever my plan. Like I wasn't going to and I actually didn't for a long time. I was doing it to share with other people what was helping me. Years later, when I decided to take this full time and I decided to put together a program that helps people coaching like I coach, I hire people for the best coaches to work under me, to work with people one on one, I decided to put together a program to change people's lives

on every single level, I get hate for charging money for it. A program that I spent so much money and invested so much time and money into to put together, I now get hate for charging money for it. I posted on my Instagram story, not even that long ago, a picture, and I wanted to share an affirmation or an intention that I like to say in meditation or in my prayers. I've been saying it for years. I will say it. I will wish it on a shooting star.

I will say, I ask to be on my high. timeline, the timeline for my highest good and the highest good of all. And I was in meditation and that came up for me and I was like, you know what? I want to share that on my story. I want to share this with other people and I want to wish every single person that sees my story. I want to tell them that I am praying for them to be on their highest timeline and the highest good of all. And I shared that and I was just like, hell yeah, I hope every person that sees it gets to be on their highest timeline. And you know, there are lots of love on that story, but we get a response that says, how can you wish for other people to be on their highest timeline and wish the best

for others while charging money for your program that's supposed to help people? How does that even make sense? Because the truth is, is that if you overgive and burn yourself out, you can't help anyone. You need to know your worth and add tax. The point of this story, the point of me sharing this wasn't to just dump this on you, but to share with you that no matter what you do, no matter what your intentions are, there are going to be people that will perceive you in a negative light, that will think you're bad, a bad person. There's an athletic brand that I follow. Their business model is incredible. They do a drop once a month and every single month they sell out. At least of the most popular products, they'll sell out, I think, like the day that they drop. And in the beginning, I had the

dream of getting something and then very quickly realized that if I wasn't there in queue or ready to buy, I wasn't going to happen. So anyway, I have absolutely no shade toward them because I I think it's an incredible business model. You don't create any waste because you're not having product, just sit in inventory. You're also not losing money again because you're not having product. Just sit in a warehouse somewhere. And you're also creating less waste in the world, right? So I'm like, I'm here for it.

And they're also making good money with this kind of like scarcity sort of model. So I'm all here for it. I think it works. And I'm just like, wow, it's working for you. That's great. I'm not a hater. But I see people in the comments of their drops getting angry. at this brand. I've seen it toward other brands as well that follow the same business model,

getting angry. Like, how could you do this to your customers, your supporters? Like you're not providing enough for everyone, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Attacking the brand. And it's just another example of you cannot make everyone happy no matter what you do, someone is going to perceive you in a negative life. Artists, singers, songwriters, I'm on YouTube watching their interviews. I love to just watch interviews of people who are super successful and like dive into their minds. I think it's so interesting. And you will see that so many people just hate on them. Oh, they're bad.

This one singer that I was just listening to her interview donates tens of millions of dollars to charity. Oh, she's bad. She's a bad person. If you make that much money, you're bad. It does not matter what you do. There are going to be people that are going to think that you're a bad person. And let's put this on the smaller scale.

Maybe you have a boundary that you want to set and you're afraid of your friend or someone that you love thinking that you're bad or thinking about you in a negative light or being upset that you set a boundary that you're no longer overgiving growing up i my feelings were always getting hurt because i was the type of person to show up and show out for the people that i love i still am that type of person but i've had to learn that not every people not every person feels that way not every person looks at relationships and treats other people people that way. So I had to realize and learn and check myself, like, where am I overgiving? Because if I'm getting hurt and I'm getting drained and I'm getting upset or frustrated because

my energy isn't being reciprocated, that's not on them. That's on me. That's on me for not setting boundaries and protecting my own energy. So the first step here is to identify what your values are, what are your boundaries, like what are the things that are most important to you? Maybe it's a certain mindset a certain energy. I've always been very particular about the mindset and energy of the people that I surround myself with because I understand that energy is contagious. There is such thing as an ETD energetically transmitted disease. There's such thing as that. Mindset is contagious. Goals are contagious. Goals or lack thereof. So the first step is to identify like where what are the things that are the most important to you. Like what are your values and what are your boundaries.

And if you don't know what your boundaries are currently, that's okay. When you, when you, you have a situation like I just explained that I had where I was frustrated because someone didn't reciprocate, that is an opportunity for me to identify. There needs to be a boundary set by me to protect myself. So go through your day-to-day life and if you feel you are being drained or burned out or betrayed or dismissed, whatever it is, let those situations be teachers for you to set boundaries so that can no longer happen to you in the future. Start saying no to things that don't feel right to you. Start saying no and standing up for yourself and speaking up and speaking out for yourself. There was actually a research study done. They have actually shown in studies that

when you try to conform and say yes in a group that you don't actually agree with, a threat response is activated in your brain and nervous system. And when you say no, speak up, speak out against what you don't agree with in a group, challenge circuits are activated in your brain. So while you may think that you're protecting yourself or keeping yourself safe from just agreeing and conforming, you're not. You were actually dysregulating your nervous system. Now, what happens when you start saying no? When you start setting boundaries, when you start telling people how you really feel. If you're a chronic people pleaser like I used to be, I used to be this way, I used to, I used to I used to be that yes girl, always down girl, always, you know, just trying to like be chill and

just go with the flow. That used to be me. And so what happens when you start to speak up and speak out and say no and set boundaries? This is the second step. You might start gaslighting yourself. This is something that I did in the beginning. Okay. You start saying no. You start standing standing up for yourself and setting those boundaries and now all of a sudden you feel like you're being a bad person. It's not even that anyone else is telling you you're a bad person. You feel bad. You feel like a bad person. And this is why a part of the title is what you need to be a bad person in order to get what you want.

You need to be a bad person in order to manifest. At least at first, it might feel that way if you grew up programmed for people pleasing and overgiving and saying yes when you want to say no and not setting your boundaries and always just going with the flow or getting quiet. It might feel inside that you're being a bad person by saying no. And I know that because that's how I used to feel. In the beginning, it might feel bad. It can be helpful to have one friend,

and you can probably think of one person that you know that does not struggle with saying no or letting people think that they're a bad person. They don't care. I remember I had a really good friend at the time, and he just did not care what anybody thought about him. And he always, like he was the opposite of a people pleaser. He would tell somebody out,

He did not care. And so he was sort of my kind of mirror for situations where I was trying to practice saying no and I was trying to stop people pleasing. I was trying to start setting boundaries. And he was a person I would cut a mirror off of or call or talk to when I was feeling like I was being bad person. And he would be like, hell no, and that's exactly what you should do. You're not being a bad person.

And then over time, right, it starts to feel like the new normal. And now I know I'm not being a bad person. and it's okay to be selfish sometimes. It's okay to put yourself first sometimes. It's okay to let somebody else down. And I had times in the beginning where I would text a friend, for example, that we had a plan and I felt so bad canceling. And I were just like worrying that they would not want to be friends with me anymore. And she just was so cool about it.

And in my head, I'm like, oh no, she's not going to be. The inner people pleaser and me was worried that she was going to be so upset. I know. She was, of course, like, yeah, she was sad. She wanted to do the plan. But she's like, I understand. The people that love you and the people that are meant for you, they will understand. They will get it. The people that actually love you. And the people that don't actually love you, the people that are just taking advantage of you, the people that are manipulating you and wanting you for something and not actually wanting you to thrive. Those are the people that are going to be upset by you setting boundaries and standing firm on them. The bottom line is that, that when you start putting yourself first and you start choosing you first, your brain will still run that old programming and flag this behavior as wrong. It'll feel like you're being bad before it feels like freedom. It's your old programming trying to stay relevant. So let's move on to the next step, which is giving yourself permission to be perceived as bad and then naming what comes up for you. This is where the reprogramming and the rewiring in your brain happens.

naming what comes up for you allows you to kind of rewrite the story or make peace with whatever it is. Now, oftentimes being perceived as a bad person. Now, this can bring up feelings of rejection or losing your place in the tribe or no longer belonging to the group. Now, from an evolutionary standpoint, we are wired to want to belong because this is important for our survival. We are social beings and social creatures. This is just a part of our biology to want to belong.

So there is nothing wrong with you, right? If you're upset or sad because someone thinks you're a bad person or someone's rejecting you, like that's the way that we're wired to be accepted, to be part of the group. And if you think from an evolutionary standpoint, right, like if you got kicked out of the tribe back in the day, you were dead. You were alone out on the prairie, maybe eaten by a lion. Now, that isn't the case nowadays, and nowadays we are subject to being perceived by so many more people. We are being perceived in millions, thousands, hundreds, lots of different realities,

because every single person's brain is constructing a different version of you. They are not seeing you as you are. They are perceiving you as they are. based on their own background and their own upbringing and their own family life and conditioning and programming. So they see your choice and they filter your choice based on themselves and their own programming, not based on what you had to do and your situation when you made that choice. Now, if someone you love deeply and someone and multiple people around you are like, that's bad, you should. Now, obviously, now that is when we maybe should start to sit with ourselves and think,

like is this really but I've had times in my own personal life where people that I know shamed me for wanting more for wanting to give a better life to myself like I was I was sort of limited or projected onto in that way so it is important to have different perspectives around you now luckily I also surrounded myself virtually with people that had this mindset as well like wanting to grow and wanting more and wanting to be successful and wanting to make an impact on the world and not help me that helped me belong to the community that I wanted to belong in. So it's important also to take criticism from people that you would switch places with. Take criticism from people that you would also take advice from and not from people that are living lives that you would never want to live. So bottom

line here, name what comes up for you. If someone were to tell you that you were a bad person for doing something, what comes up for you? Is it loss of belonging, loss of love, some sort of fear or stress? Like, name what comes up for you and really sit with that and come to terms with it even. But the truth is that if you betray yourself to be nice or be perceived as a good person to someone else, then you're not being a good person to yourself. You're betraying yourself. And then you don't belong to yourself. You belong to whoever you're going outside of yourself for. You belong to whoever you're people pleasing for. To whoever you're betraying yourself for. Step four is realizing that if you want to create your dream reality, living authentically and being yourself to the fullest

extent are the most important things. Living in complete and full alignment with who you are is the most important thing. You are put on this planet to be the unique expression of life that only you can be, that nobody else can be. And so your manifestation power, your creation power, your ability, to achieve whatever it is that you want will be so much greater when you are being you, when you are choosing you, and when you are putting yourself first, that is living in alignment. That's why so many businesses that succeed are businesses that solve a problem that the person that created the business had. That's alignment 101. And I also believe that that's why I've been able to be so successful on social media, on Instagram, and on TikTok. I've been able to be

so successful because I'm sharing things that have helped me. Like, I am truly. sharing the things that have helped me get to where I am. There are multiple people that I'm thinking of specifically right now that create content. And when they finally broke through and started creating content super authentically, like they stopped before they were dimming their light and kind of just watering themselves down and being a little generic and maybe softening their opinions because they didn't want to overstep or be polarizing. When they finally realized like, oh, wait a minute, I actually need to be myself and just say what I really mean and what I really feel. Talk with my be a little, you know, be myself to the fullest extent, all of a sudden now their social media

started popping off and they're getting brand deals and making more money than they'd ever made. I have multiple people that I worked with that made more money in one deal than they had made an entire months in the past. After unlocking their own authenticity, like that's really what it's all about. But you can't be authentic and be people pleasing and betraying yourself at the same time. It doesn't work. You can't be authentic and still watering yourself down and being afraid to say what you really feel and do what you really want to do. If you want to learn more about unlocking your authenticity,

regulating your nervous system, rewiring your brain, and maximizing your potential and really creating the reality that you want to live, highly recommend coming to my completely free masterclass. The link to register for your spot is going to be in the description below. Highly recommend you come. Every single time I hold one of these classes, people say that people will come back like the next class and be like my life is completely changed and I'm not kidding you. So highly recommend coming to the master class. I will. also be going on tour live and in person. So check out the link to RSVP for your city in the description below. This is how we are going to be deciding which cities to come to. So please

RSVP for your city and go out there and be a badass. And if you didn't notice, badass has the word bad in it. In order to be a badass, you got to be bad. Okay. No, but seriously, I am sending you so much love. I believe in you. I'm rooting for you. You got this. I believe in you. And Seriously, go out there and be a badass. Realize how incredible you are. And put yourself first. Do something for you today. I love you.

I'm setting you so much love. And I will see you next time. Bye.