The Mindset Mentor - How to Be Happy Where You Are

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Are you chasing success so hard that you've forgotten how to actually enjoy it? In this episode, I'm breaking down the powerful difference between the part of your brain that constantly wants more and the part that's responsible for true fulfillment. I'll show you why gratitude isn't just a feel-good practice—it's the missing piece that can help you stay ambitious, avoid burnout, and finally enjoy the life you're working so hard to build. Freedom Live is a 3-day live experience in Austin designed to help you break through what’s keeping you from your next level.    Get $50 off your ticket: https://robdial.short.gy/freedomlive   The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life.     Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you're ready for your next breakthrough, join me at my three-day live event in Austin, Texas this December. It is a complete deconstruction of the old patterns and habits and beliefs and fears that are holding you back from breaking through to your next level. So if you want 2027 to be the best year of your life,

Join us at Freedom Live, 226.com. We're going to be deconstructing your old beliefs and patterns and habits, and we're going to be reconstructing who you need to be to make it the best year of your life. And right now there's a $50 off coupon that is going to be going away very soon. So join us, and I will see you live in Austin, Texas. Today, I want to talk about something that almost every ambitious person gets completely backwards because I know you're an ambitious person because you're listening to this podcast. and you've got goals and you've got standards and you've got things that you want to do in your life.

And from the outside, somebody might look at your life and be like, you know what? She's got it all together. He's got it all together. But when no one's watching and you're driving alone in your car, there's just like low-grade hum underneath everything. It's like this feeling of not yet. Not yet. Not there yet. I can't settle.

I've got to keep going. And you've probably diagnosed this feeling as your ambition. that's just my edge, like that's what keeps me going. And I get it because I felt that way for years, first 35 years of my life until I realized what it actually is. And it's not ambition. And so I want to actually challenge that today because in your brain there's two completely separate systems. One of them wants things and the other one enjoys things. And those come from two completely different parts in your brain with different chemistry trained independently of each other, which means that you can spend 20 years making the wanting, the ambition system so strong, while the

enjoying system is completely weak inside of your brain. And this is why you can hit a goal that you've chased for three years. And when you hit it, you immediately just move to the next thing. I did that so many times and so many successful people do this as well. And so today I'm going to show you the neurological reason why your brain won't let you enjoy where you are. And I'm going to show you why it always ends in burnout. And then I'm going to give you the actual step-by-step process to fix it. Because by the end of this episode, you're not going to be less ambitious. You're just going to learn how to be driven in a completely different way than you have before. Because a person who is grateful and hungry is almost impossible to stop. Okay, so I want to start with one of the most

fascinating pieces of research in this entire space of gratitude. And I would be shocked if you've ever heard of it before. But there's a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan named Kent Berridge, and he spent his entire career on one question, are wanting and liking the same thing? And everybody before his research assumed, yes, like, you want the thing because you like the thing, right? But what he found is they run on two completely different systems in your brain. Wanting runs on dopamine. It's big, it's loud, it's spread across many regions in your brain, but liking and enjoying, like actually feeling enjoyment, runs on completely different chemistry. It's concentrated in these tiny little clusters in your brain that are called hedonic hotspots.

And most people are strengthening the wanting parts of their brain every single day, while the enjoying parts of their brain are really not being used. And then you wake up at 40 and you go, why does none of this feel like anything? and it's not because you're like an ungrateful person, it's because you've basically hyper-trophied one system and you've let the other system atrophy. It's like the equivalent of like being a, you know,

bodybuilder with massive arms. And then you've got teeny tiny toothpick legs and you wonder why you can't stand up. It's because the wanting and liking systems, the wanting system's been built up and built up and built up, the liking and enjoying system you just never have been using. And I want to be clear, like, I'm not telling you to kill the wanting system. I love the wanting system that lives inside of me.

It's built everything that I have. But what I'm telling you is that there's a second muscle, quote unquote, in your brain that you need to strengthen. And it's gratitude in training. Like, that's the training you need. And gratitude, what it actually is, like, it's not positive thinking. It's not like, I'm just going to sit down and chill out because I just have everything that I want. it is a repetition for the only system in your brain that's capable of producing the feeling that you've been chasing with the other one for 20 years. And so you've been trying to get satisfaction out of the pursuit system part of your brain. Does it make sense? And like the pursuit system does not manufacture satisfaction. It never has and it was never designed to. And that's why you will

never feel happy with success is because that part of your brain was never done. designed to do it. That's why you can buy the Lamborghini. You can buy the BMW and it's cool for like a couple weeks and then you go back to normal. That's why you can hit a million dollars or 10 million dollars or a billion dollars in your bank account and then you just don't feel happy about it. And you might go, that's not me. Please, I know people that are worth over $4 billion and they're fucking miserable. So clearly the money does not make somebody happy. That must mean there's two different parts of our brain we need to work on, right? It's not that you need a better car. It's not that you need a bigger bank account.

Getting a nice car and getting a bigger bank account will not change the way that you feel long term. You need to strengthen the different part of your brain. And listen, like, I get it. I completely get it for all of you guys. I ran my entire life off of the wanting part of my brain for a long time. And I thought that's what made me ambitious. But wanting and then achieving and then never fully feeling the enjoyment in your life will burn you out. working really hard with no real feeling of reward will burn you out.

Burnout is not caused by working too hard though. Like I've coached thousands and thousands of people. I've watched people work insane hours on something that they loved and they come out energized. That's how I feel about what I do. But I've also watched people work 40 or 50 hours a week on something that they don't love and come out destroyed. The difference wasn't the workload. it's how much they are enjoying and getting enjoyment out of what they're doing but also what they're achieving and how much they're letting themselves feel the gratitude for their lives, for their achievements,

for their challenges, feeling gratitude for the challenges, feeling gratitude for the losses, for everything. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. You know, people think gratitude is soft. Gratitude is not soft. Gratitude is strategic. in the brain. I'm going to explain to you what I mean by that. Because the more I can feel gratitude for everything that I have, the more that I want to build an even more incredible life to be grateful for. And when I push and I hit a goal and I succeed and then I allow myself to truly feel that gratitude, my brain releases dopamine. And my brain goes, damn, like that felt great. Let's do it again. And it wants to keep achieving. And this is why dopamine is a chemical of motivation. It wants to keep

achieving more of what gave it dopamine in the first place. So if you never truly enjoy your successes, you don't get the dopamine. And then you don't want to keep achieving more. So as I actually said, gratitude in this case is a very strategic thing. It's not like a soft little mushy woo-woo thing. Like let me shift gears for a second. I want to tell you something that I believe, right? And you can take it or leave it. But I believe that there's something running, this whole world that we live in. right you can call it god you can call it universe you can call it source whatever's you want to call it i really don't care what words you use but i've come to believe and i have a deep-seated belief in this that it operates on stewardship and if you think about it practically it makes sense imagine you gave

somebody a small team to manage in your company and every day all they did was complain like oh my team's not big enough and you know i can't do what i want because our budget's not big big enough and nothing's ever right and my salespeople's numbers aren't where they should be. Like if they're constantly complaining about the small team that you gave them, would you ever give them a bigger team? Hell no. Of course you would not. And it's not because you're punishing them.

It's because they can't even handle the small team. Like they've given you very clear information about the fact that they can't handle this tiny little bit that you gave them. And so if you gave them more resources, I guarantee they would still complain with more. That's like exactly how I think life works out. Like if what you do is complain with a little that is in your life, why would you ever be trusted with a lot? Like do you think about that for a second. If you're like, well, my life, it's not very great and boohoo and my bank account and all of this stuff, if you complain about the small blessings that you do have, why would you ever be trusted with more? People don't think about it this way. And I don't mean in like some mystical way where the universe is like keeping score and like with a notebook or anything like that. No. You see the person who's grateful for what they have and takes care of it and sees himself as a steward of what they have, they notice more. They are better at everything they do. Better people want to work with them.

they act from like a full tank instead of an empty tank so they last longer they don't burn out in year three of building something so they're still standing in year 10 where everything starts to compound later on so like gratitude doesn't like just like summon the blessing that's what i'm trying not what i'm trying to say gratitude makes you the kind of person who can handle the blessing when it compounds and becomes greater than you thought that it could be and so So I really want you to think about this question because I have an honest question for you, okay? If right now you are handed everything that you say you want, right now, today, in this moment, but you still have the exact same identity and operating system that you've always had,

would you enjoy it? Or would you eventually find something wrong with it in like six weeks like you've done with everything that you have now? It's a real question I want you to think about because no amount of success. or achievement will ever change how you feel inside, right? You fix the internal and the external changes. You fix the external, it doesn't change the internal. So how do you train this? Before I give you the actual steps on how to train it, well, there's one thing. There's a study that was done out of Indiana University where they had people do a gratitude exercise every morning. And then three months later, they scanned their brains. They found out that the people who had the gratitude group

showed a greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex. That's the part of your brain that gives things meaning, which means that gratitude actually changes your brain. So gratitude is not like fluffy stuff. It's an actual practice. It's mental training to change your brain. So let me give you the step by step process. The first one is this. Get specific. And I mean like painfully specific. Most gratitude practices fall short because people are like, I'm, and they just take like a bucket of life. I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my job. Those are like categories in life. And your brain has heard my family 10,000 times. So I want you to go like more granular. You can say I'm grateful for my son. Yes. Or, but you can even go more granular with him.

I'm grateful for the specific way that he says words wrong that I know he's going to grow out of in a few months. I'm so grateful for how fucking cute it is when he wants to say crackers and he says coggies and dead. I'm so grateful for when my son wants to say avocado and he says kapu. Right. Like I'm so much more, I'm even like feeling good about that right now thinking about how he does that. Right. So the more detail that you can be in your gratitude, the better. That's number one. Number two, I want you to catch the complaint and converted. Okay. You can't stop your first thought, but you can always change your second thought. Right. And so this week, I want you to catch yourself complaining. You will do it. And don't shame yourself for it. Just ask yourself one question when you

complain. What in this exact situation would I miss if it was gone? Right. So let's say like you're stuck in traffic. What in this exact situation would I miss if it was gone? Well, if my car was gone, like I'm really grateful actually that I do have a car because a lot of people don't have a car. Right. Okay. There's something I can be grateful for. Like let's say you're slammed at work, right? what in this exact situation would I actually miss if it were gone my job if my job were gone like people want to make the amount of money that I make or shit some people just want a job so I'm grateful that I do have a job and I can pay my bills right or like your kid is being crazy because we know kids can be crazy what in this exact situation would I actually miss if it were gone

your kid is alive your kid is in the house your kid is healthy so much to be grateful for in the moment so we can take our complaints and by asking our that question, completely change the way that we feel. And you're not lying to yourself about anything. You're just refusing to let your brain run old patterns of complaining when there's something right in front of you you can be grateful for. Right. And you're choosing to get stronger in the gratitude parts of your brain. You're finding gratitude. Right. So that's number two. Number three, last one, terminated in action. This is where like what separates gratitude from like passivity. every time you get grateful, close it with a question.

So ask yourself, when you talk about your gratitude practice, so what am I going to do with it? Right. So let's say you're grateful for the fact that you are so healthy right now. What am I going to do with it? I'm going to go use my body, right? I'm grateful for my business. Okay, so what am I going to do with it? I'm going to go serve a client better today.

Because gratitude that stops at just a feeling is just that. It's just a feeling. And there's nothing wrong with that. but if you really want to etch it into your DNA, gratitude that has a feeling and then ends in action, that's like stewardship of the thing that you're grateful for. Right? That's the loop.

Get grateful for it, so you take care of it. And if you take care of it, it grows. And if it grows, that means there's going to be more for you to be grateful for. Okay? And so here's what I want you to do. I want you to write this down.

Answer this question. What am I currently treating as not enough that I once prayed for? I promise you, every person listening to me, there is something in your life that you're stepping over on the way to your complaining about something else. There's a version of you five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago who would love to have something that you have now. Question number two, if nothing external changed for the next 12 months, what would I have to change inside of me for that to be a good year? Whatever comes up for that one, that's the actual. work because you're not unhappy because your life is too small. I promise you that. You're unhappy

because you've been so many years training the part of your brain that chases and you have spent no time at all on the part of your brain that feels gratitude. And the more that you do gratitude, the more that part of your brain actually starts to strengthen. You can fix it. It's like a muscle, but you just never really went to the gym for that one. And when you fix it, you don't get soft. You don't lose your edge. You don't lose your ambition. You become somebody who cannot work everybody else because now you're not running from past trauma. And that's what gives you your quote unquote ambition.

You're running because you're grateful and you want to create even more things to be grateful for. Because when you achieve the things that you're working towards and you allow yourself to actually feel it, you'll be more excited to actually run and go get that thing. because in all honesty, if we're building these lives, what's the point of building a beautiful life if you don't actually truly let yourself enjoy it? So that's what I got for you today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me at Rob Dial Jr. R-B-D-I-L-J-R. And once again, if you love this podcast, these are like 15 to 20 minutes. Imagine what it would be like if you and I had three days full immersion in person working on deconstructing your old beliefs and habits and patterns and fears and reconstructing you into the

person that you need to be so that you can break through to the next level. That is what we're going to do at Freedom Live 2026.com. Once again, Freedom Live 2026.com. Join us and I'll see you in Austin, Texas. And with that, I'm going to leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission. Make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.