Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a former Family Law Paralegal now a Breathwork Facilitator, Sound Healer, and Transformative Mindset Coach.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success.
Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets and often their words, has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
The Order Matters: Why Effort Before Reward Changes Everything | 158
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What if the secret to motivation, energy, and focus wasn’t about doing more… but about doing things in the right order?
In this transformative episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo is joined by Andy West, author of Dopamine Mountain, to explore why effort before reward changes everything. Through her journey with bullying, addiction, depression, and chronic fatigue, Andy discovered that dopamine isn’t just about pleasure, it’s about balance, timing, and learning to do the hard but not extreme things first.
Together, Amanda and Andy unpack how small daily choices can rewire your brain, why the order of effort and reward is the missing key to motivation, and simple tools to break free from craving cycles. Andy also shares how journaling, affirmations, and micro-wins helped her rebuild optimism and self-worth after years of struggle.
This conversation is for anyone who’s felt stuck in burnout, brain fog, or endless loops of craving and is ready for a new way forward.
🎙️ In this episode, listeners will discover:
🌊 Why dopamine is a wave, not a switch and how to ride it
💡 The difference between effort, reward, and burnout
🛑 A simple tool to interrupt cravings and reset your brain
📚 How books by Louise Hay and Eckhart Tolle shifted Andy’s mindset
⚡ Why “hard but not extreme” actions create lasting growth
📝 The power of journaling, affirmations, and micro-wins in rewiring mindset
⏰ How the order of your daily tasks impacts motivation and energy
⏰ Timeline Summary:
[2:14] – Andy’s childhood, bullying, and early struggles with self worth
[10:48] – Depression, suicidal thoughts, and the turning point with Louise Hay
[19:33] – Addiction, dopamine “wanting vs. liking,” and how she broke the cycle
[28:15] – Chronic fatigue, anhedonia, and learning to reset her brain chemistry
[37:42] – Why effort before reward changes everything
[48:06] – Journaling, affirmations, and reframing optimism
[56:29] – The “hard but not extreme” principle in action
[1:03:50] – Practical steps for using dopamine to fuel growth
To Connect with Amanda:
Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE
📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess
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Today I'm joined with Andy West and we're talking all about dopamine, why the order of your day matters, how doing something hard but not extreme can change everything, and a super simple way to stop cravings right when they hit. Now let's get into the episode.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people where your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Manders Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I'm here today with Andy West, and Andy is the author of Dopamine Mountain and I am so excited to delve down her journey and how she came to writing this book. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. So can you tell us who Andy is at the core?
Speaker 3:so much for having me. So can you tell us who Andy is at the core? Oh, wow, I don't really define myself that much. You know what I mean. I just enjoy kind of being who I am, but I guess I don't know, I'm just me. It's hard to put into words. I don't really identify as an author, I just sort of like to live my life. And yeah, that's a weird question. What do most people say? Do they tell you like their age or their background, or it always varies? Yeah, I guess, in terms of who I want to be, I want to be someone who's optimistic, I want to be looking forward. You know, I want to help people through stuff that I went through. I want to grow, I want to learn. Yeah, so probably I know where I want to go, but where I am at the moment, yeah, I don't know. I just exist. It's fun.
Speaker 1:I love that. So can you take us down memory lane a little bit? Tell us about your childhood upbringing, family dynamic dynamic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I grew up in a little town, I guess, a medium-sized town called Walker. It's one of those interesting places that most people haven't heard of. I generally happy childhood, but I also had some bullying thrown in there and I had some sort of trouble with my parents that I never really could, you know, deal with as in like bullying type behavior. So actually, even though I was happy most of the time, I had this undercurrent of really low self-esteem and low self-worth. And, yeah, probably because of the bullying side of things, and in my teens and 20s I was quite depressed and suicidal because of the self-worth Like I always felt, like I was not myself. I guess you would call it masking. I always had to people please or just try to keep the peace, to get along, otherwise hell could break loose. So, yeah, it was one of those situations where I was just kind of in survival mode. Now that I look back and think about it. But I did also have like a lot of fun times, friends and we would play outside a lot and run around and have a really outdoorsy type sort of childhood.
Speaker 3:Do you have siblings? Yeah, I have two younger brothers and we get along great. I love those guys and I get along great with my mum. It's just my dad was always a struggle and all of us sort of struggled to get along with my dad. It was a very my way or the highway type of situation and like don't upset him and you never know what might happen, because he could flip into a rage at any given time. He's very short-tempered, but we get along now. But up it was just very hard because I was just scared of him and I was just scared of pretty much all males because of that.
Speaker 1:And how was schooling for you?
Speaker 3:School was okay, but it was very because I was sort of in a be bully or get bullied mindset if you know what I mean Like because I just grew up in a culture of bullying. If you know what I mean, because I just grew up in a culture of bullying. It was always like if I'm not going to be a bully, I will be bullied. Most of the time I stayed out of that realm but there were times where I was a bully, which I deeply regret, and there was plenty of times where I was bullied. It was always that undercurrent of fear going on in that school situation that you better always watch your back. And I don't know if other people grew up the same way. I've got a feeling not everyone gets that, you know, but to me it was just normal.
Speaker 1:So you had this always watching your back feeling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely. I was in fight or flight most of my early life. Did that ever end for you? Yeah, it kind of did. It seems like all my problems with depression ended mostly when I read the Louise L Hay book you Can Heal your Life. Have you read that one? I haven't.
Speaker 3:It was my sort of turning point and Louise was one of the very early self-help authors, one of the books that sort of opened up the realm of everyone else to write about their experiences, their trauma, self-esteem, self-worth. So I was given that book by a friend of mine and I didn't read it for ages. He gave it to me. He's like have you read that yet? And I was like, no, I just didn't get around to it for ages. And when I read it I was like my whole life basically shifted, because Louise talked about how to love yourself, how to appreciate yourself, how to have balance in your life, how to choose optimism and choose the best case scenario thoughts instead of the worst case optimism and choose the best case scenario thoughts instead of the worst case. And she also got into a lot of how emotions can cause pain in the body and at the time I didn't really think much about that. But there were certain opportunities that I had to try out some of the affirmations in that way and I found they actually did work when I tried them out. So there was one example I remember there was one time I had lower back pain and there was an affirmation for that and I can't actually think of what it was, but I did it. And then very soon after I had less lower back pain. And there was one about knee pain and somehow she was saying that knee pain can relate to the ego. And I remember doing whatever the affirmation was about ego and also finding that it lessened my knee pain. So I thought, okay, this is weird, but there might be something to this. But most of what I got from it was just the mindset of feeling my own worth and feeling other people's worth and feeling optimistic about humanity, which was a super big shift for me. And I was about 26 when I read that book. So then, yeah, I kind of practiced that for a while.
Speaker 3:But I also then did slip back into some sort of bad thought habits for a while. And then a couple of years later I read the Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth. Have you read that one I haven't. A New Earth was my next big shift in consciousness, because I think he is all about really letting go of the past and that's probably why I got into this habit of not really defining myself, because it's kind of like sort of forgiveness, if you want to, but more like letting go of that and just being more present in the moment and really embracing how you feel and how your body feels and where you want to go and things like that. So I just kind of forgot about like my whole identity really and just focused on myself in the present.
Speaker 3:What else does he talk about?
Speaker 3:Letting go of like fear and shame, and I don't know if he really means to sort of teach people this, but I really let go of so much fear and instead of like thinking about the future what might happen I just learned to think about the now and what is happening.
Speaker 3:And he says there's never a problem in the present moment, like we never have a problem in the present moment. At first I thought of course we do, we all have problems. And then I was like all right, well, what problem do I have right now, in this moment? And then I remember thinking right now, I don't have a problem, like sure, I'm going to have bills to pay tomorrow or I'm going to have, like everyone has struggles that they come up against, but right now I don't have one. And that was kind of a shift for me, instead of thinking about all these problems that are going to implode on me and that I'm going to have to stress through, but to just take a breath, just to actually relax into the present and be like I'm actually fine, you know, and it was very refreshing.
Speaker 1:Now, did you realize this at any point prior to reading these books?
Speaker 3:No, not really. It wasn't really something I'd thought about and I thought because I was quite a pessimist and I thought everyone was basically a pessimist. And before reading these books I thought optimism was fake. I thought it was that false positivity where people just deny all their problems and go it's amazing, everything's. But it's not that at all. It's like taking what struggles we do have and turning it into a growth opportunity, learning from it, going towards it, you know, like working through it instead of just deny and pretend everything's fine. It's a whole different thing, and I used to think optimists were just idiots who were just lying to themselves, so I paid no attention to them. I thought, oh yeah, all right, mate, good on you. But it turns out that proper optimism is actually a really great thing. I love it.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing, and you didn't realize that until these books.
Speaker 3:So I just really didn't have that perspective.
Speaker 1:I want to transition back a tad Now. You mentioned that schooling was a little bit of a struggle because of the social aspect. Post high school did you go to college?
Speaker 3:Yes, I did. I studied teaching and so I got my degree in teaching, but also I sort of played around with a lot of drug use around that time, so it took me a while to get the degree. So I sort of did a few years where I pretty much just dropped out and I got into like party drugs. So I got into cannabis and I got into ecstasy and actually I should make a side note I don't recommend that people take drugs at all. However, when I did take MDMA, which is ecstasy, I kind of had some sort of awakening, because it does. Have you ever tried it, manda?
Speaker 1:I have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so before I tried that I didn't ever really experience that self-love. So this was before I'd even read the books, but I was basically just a big hit of dopamine and probably GABA as well. But I suddenly had that release from all the fears and all the worries and just had this kind of ecstatic experience where I actually did have I felt like self-love and I felt love to everybody else and I felt empathy for myself and others. And I know people do use it on like a proper prescription in therapy. Probably for those reasons, because it just kind of allows all the fear to melt away. It probably allows glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter of fear and of withdrawal, probably allows that to melt away as well.
Speaker 3:I haven't looked really deeply into how that works, but yeah, so looking back it was kind of a bit of an awakening. But of course I didn't realize that at the time. I just thought this feels great and I want to do more of it because I'd always probably been really low in dopamine my whole life because my mood was low and mood and dopamine are exactly the same thing. So when I had these big rises in dopamine, of course I wanted more drugs because I wanted to feel good again. I didn't want to feel crappy.
Speaker 1:So how did you get out of that cycle of the drugs?
Speaker 3:Well, after the MDMA, I got into amphetamines as well. I got quite heavily into amphetamines and I was actually addicted in that I would always be thinking about it. It was a really quick and sudden hit of dopamine and it was the biggest dopamine source I had in my life. So, of course, when I felt bad and I wanted to feel better, the only way I knew how to do that, or the fastest and most efficient way, and really the only way I knew at the time to do it, was to go and take some drugs, and so I was doing that quite heavily for a number of years.
Speaker 3:The drug supply dried up. People were cutting the drugs thinner and thinner, like they were putting less and less drug and more and more filler in there to try and make money. We just couldn't get any drugs, or what we could get was almost nothing. So I kept using it, but having no effect, and I kept wanting it and having no effect, and eventually I just thought this is a waste of time and money, I'm just not going to do this anymore. And so I accidentally was weaned off it gradually and then I just went wait, I don't need this and I don't want this anymore, and I just stopped. And it was really weird because I never had to forbid myself. And I think if I would have forbidden myself, I would have rebelled against that, because I was really rebellious at the time, of course, being in my early twenties, mid twenties, whatever it was. So I was really rebellious at the time, of course, being in my early 20s, mid-20s, whatever it was. So it was really lucky. And so the war on drugs actually did something good in that case that it just it sort of just like faded out of my life. So, yeah, I think the people who waged the war on drugs in that case even though I thought the war on drugs was stupid at the time, because of course, I thought they were helping me I thought this helps my mood, it helps me to survive, it gives me something to look forward to when I'm feeling extremely depressed and I was suicidal at that point as well, just because I started having depressive and suicidal thoughts.
Speaker 3:And back then I didn't know how to choose my thoughts. I thought if this thought comes in, it must be true. But I hadn't learned that thoughts are optional and if I'm having like this, you know, thought of, oh, you're worth nothing, you might as well die. I at that point didn't know how to say you're worth a lot and why not live? I just believed every random thing that flew into my head. But it was Louise Hay, a couple of years after, that taught me to choose my thoughts. I'm so grateful to Louise and to everyone who has been to rock bottom or been through struggles and then written about it or spoken about how they got out of it, because without those people, those guiding lights, I don't think I would have been able. I just didn't have the tools to know another way forward. So I'm grateful to those people, so you mentioned, thought so optional.
Speaker 1:How did you realize that?
Speaker 3:It was through Louise Hay, where she would say if I'm having self-doubt or self-loathing or whatever, that's just a thought, and a thought can be changed. And so she inserts affirmations which are basically a positive thought, that we can choose. That would say something like I'm lovable, I'm a loving person, I have worth, I have validity, I have massive potential to change the world and to do good things in the world. And so those affirmations are just things that we can read in the morning. Or she says take them to the mirror where you'll see it. And things like I'm beautiful, I'm love, I'm wonderful, and you don't have to say those things.
Speaker 3:But it certainly doesn't hurt and, like, most people don't believe it at the start, but it's kind of repetition. The more we do repetition, the more we'll start to learn from it. And so I just started practicing those things. I mean, when we have a negative thought, who's to say that's any more true than the positive thought? They're both equally weighted and whichever one we choose to follow is the one that we will make into reality. So there was no point me saying I'm stupid or I'm a nobody or I'm a loser. Why not say I have potential, I'm friendly, I'm happy, I'm outgoing and just choose that path instead.
Speaker 1:I get that and now you mentioned some people might not believe it. Did you notice that you started to believe it over time by the repetition?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did. At first I thought, well, I mean, I might as well try it. But there were things in her book that really resonated and I thought, okay, she knows what she's talking about. Because I was feeling better about myself just in the first few pages and so I thought it must have risen my dopamine because I did start to feel good. And I thought, well, why not continue and try some of these techniques?
Speaker 3:And I tried her journaling technique as well, which is all about writing down the most difficult things that we feel and sort of those stuck emotions and those sort of repressed, negative things that we've just pushed out of the way and we've never really felt and never really dealt with. So I did a lot of journaling and she would say just burn the piece of paper at the end if you want to feel that catharsis. And so I would burn it or just throw it away or rip it up, and it really helped to get some of those old negative, stuck emotions out of my brain and body. And it turns out that just because it's hard, like no one wants to feel these old or even new horrible things like guilt or shame or self-loathing or whatever, but just going towards.
Speaker 3:It is an act of moving forward, and moving forward activates dopamine. So just doing the hard thing that we don't want to do. It turns out that when we stop and it's over, we get a rise of dopamine, because we kind of push the dopamine down, we went into the hard stuff and then when it's over, we get a rise of dopamine because we kind of pushed the dopamine down, we went into the hard stuff, and then when it's over, we get relief. So there's sort of a double relief there. For one thing it's over, for another thing we've released all that stuff and also we challenged us if we did something hard, and when that's over we get the dopamine rise. So there's actually studies as well that prove that journaling for 15 minutes in three different sessions has massive effect on our mental health and mood.
Speaker 1:Can you explain what dopamine is?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's a neurotransmitter, which means that it just helps energy and also chemicals move around the brain. And everyone has a different idea of what dopamine is, it seems. So some people think it's all about just hedonistic pleasure, like the most pleasurable things possible, like drugs and alcohol. Some people think it's all about just hedonistic pleasure, like the most pleasurable things possible, like drugs and alcohol. Some people think it's motivation. Some people think it's just like what even is it? They don't know. But what it is, it facilitates our mood. So when dopamine goes up, our mood goes up and it facilitates our motivation as well. Like it's very deeply tied to motivation.
Speaker 3:So in my studies if I breed mice to have no dopamine, they do not move. Even if the food is right in front of them, they will not move towards it. So dopamine is what motivates us to move forward and it's our chemical of wanting. And actually when we get the thing that we want, it's a different neurotransmitter that is released and that is called GABA and that is our liking. So people don't realize with addiction we've got two steps in addiction. We've got the wanting phase and then we've got the liking phase.
Speaker 3:And people who get stuck in addiction, like I was tend to be stuck in wanting. So they want the drug or the alcohol or the gaming or the porn or whatever. They want it. They want it which means they think about it all the time and even the thought of that thing spikes dopamine a little bit, which spurs us on to want again. So when we just repeat the wanting we think, oh, I'm so addicted to this, I have to have it. But that doesn't necessarily mean they like the thing.
Speaker 3:And I've seen heaps of accounts, including myself, that just wanting over and over this addictive thing. Then when we get it it doesn't release the dopamine we expected. It's not what we expected. So we go chasing it again. But really we can interrupt the wanting with something deliberately to drop our dopamine. So instead of the wanting raising dopamine and then wanting raising it again, we do something to immediately interrupt that. That is unpleasant. So, for example, some push-ups or sit-ups or eating hot chili sauce or anything that's unpleasant Like I eat hot chili sauce off a spoon sometimes if I want to deliberately lower my dopamine because it hurts. Exercise is better, obviously, because you actually get the benefit of the exercise as well. So I will do push-ups to interrupt addictive thoughts. So that's been a fun finding to interrupt addictive thoughts.
Speaker 3:So that's been a fun finding. To interrupt the addictive thoughts. Yeah, because all it is wanting that releases dopamine. Wanting that releases dopamine. Then if we lower dopamine the same way that with my drug use, I was wanting but it gave me nothing. You know, it dropped my dopamine because it gave me nothing. That's how you interrupt an addiction. You deliberately do something you don't want and don't like to drop your dopamine and then it interrupts it. It cuts it off because there's no payoff anymore.
Speaker 1:I'd love if we could delve down how you discovered about your severe chronic fatigue and then got into writing about this.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So in early COVID I got unwell like really early COVID with the alpha strain. It was March 2020. And at that time my business had to close down and we went into lockdowns because I was living in Brisbane, australia, at the time. All this stuff started happening uncertainty about money and about the world, and fear and terror and I got something which was probably COVID although it wasn't tested because you couldn't easily get a test at that time and they were saying lockdown, so it was just assumed COVID. And also I had an accidental drug-induced psychosis.
Speaker 3:So at this time in my life I was not using drugs, or very rarely I'd use anything. I wasn't addicted to anything, but I was using an oil that had THC in it as a muscle rub. And it turns out and I don't know why, because I haven't found any other examples of this happening to people but I had broken skin at the time and it was absorbing into my skin and I was getting high off this THC cream without any need to be. So I was having these crazy panic attacks and anxiety and paranoia, but combined with everything in my life, I was also having relationship problems and you know, I just didn't really recover from COVID and I didn't know what was happening, you know. So I spent over three years just having brain fog, chronic fatigue, flu symptoms, and I felt like I was operating on one brain cell, like I could barely work, I could barely get out of bed, and I used to think that chronic fatigue is for lazy people, and I was completely wrong. I thought, oh, surely you can just work through it, like surely just get out of bed and go, you know, do something. And then, when it happened to me, I had no tools, I did not know how I was going to survive it. I surely just get out of bed and go, you know, do something. And then, when it happened to me, I had no tools. I did not know how I was going to survive it, I didn't know where money was going to come from.
Speaker 3:And it turned out that I had anhedonia, which is like depression. To be hedonistic is to seek pleasure. So I had anhedonia, which is no pleasure. Nothing would release pleasure and I had no motivation or drive, and so it's like depression, but it is basically the chemical form of depression. So you can still have self-worth and self-esteem, which I did, but your brain and body have no dopamine or no access to the dopamine. So it's horrible. It feels horrible because your mood is extremely low, your energy is extremely low and it feels like hell.
Speaker 3:And I did not like I didn't want to go suicidal again because I kind of decided I wasn't going to be that person anymore.
Speaker 3:I was like there must be a better way, like I've dragged myself out of things before.
Speaker 3:So I started using all different supplements and reading about dopamine Like for years I was reading as much as I could, but I didn't understand and nobody seems to be saying that it's not just raise your dopamine, it's deliberately push your dopamine down first so that you can raise it afterwards. And a few people Andrew Huberman is talking about this, but most other people are just like oh, get some exercise, but when you've got chronic fatigue, exercise makes you feel worse, it puts you in bed for days, even small amounts of exercise, and it seems to be the reason for that is buildup of excess glutamate in the body. It seems to be the reason for that is buildup of excess glutamate in the body, and so it's a neurotransmitter that's released by fear and withdrawal and fight or flight, and if we have too much of that, it overwhelms the dopamine and GABA system. So we get really stuck and it's similar to learned helplessness. Where you want to move, your brain has just rewired and will not allow you to move.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned how exercise isn't going to help in terms of the chronic fatigue, but to do and correct me if I'm saying this incorrectly but to lower the dopamine so that it can then be raised.
Speaker 3:Yes. So what I did was to use really gradual, incremental changes in my activity. So if we overdo it, the fatigue does release more glutamate. So we don't want to go into fatigue. So I would do a little step that was hard and then I would reward it. So we don't want to go into fatigue, so I would do a little step that was hard and then I would reward it, so I wouldn't go too far. So what I always focused on was doing something hard but not extreme, and then rewarding that step.
Speaker 3:Because everyone tells us, if you've got a goal, just break it down into smaller steps and then you'll be able to achieve it. But they don't tell us that we need to reward each little step, because our dopamine system is our reward system. So if we want to use dopamine wisely, we need to put in effort first, then we need to reward it and then we need a rest, even if it's like a very small rest. So that's the order that we evolved in or were designed in, or however you want to think about people. When our ancestors hundreds of years ago wanted breakfast, it wasn't just sitting there, they had to get up and find it or they had to hunt for it and that is effort. And then when they found or hunted whatever they were going to eat, that was the reward. And so our brain runs in the order of effort and then reward. But if we just do rewards, so rewards are anything that release dopamine, and pleasure, like scrolling.
Speaker 3:If we just wake up and scroll and then we have a coffee, then we do all these high dopamine things they can just compound and make our body think well, this is the new normal. So then it looks for a high because it's getting its high. So it thinks, oh well, this is normal, but where's my dopamine going to come from? And we could think of it like a helium balloon. If a helium balloon rises up to the ceiling, there's only so far it can go. Rises up to the ceiling, there's only so far it can go.
Speaker 3:And dopamine only feels good when it's actively rising. So if we have done all these pleasurable things and it's stuck at the ceiling, it can't rise anymore. We have to pull it down with effort, hard work and something unpleasant, so that then, when we stop, dopamine will just go up from relief. Or then, if we do something rewarding, it will rise again. So it's like a wave. Dopamine can't just. If it just gets stuck at one level it will stagnate and it will turn into depression. So we need to deliberately do effortful and hard things that we don't want to do and then after that reward it with the things that we do want to do, and that keeps that wave in motion, so it doesn't flat line do you think there's a level of like in terms of the how things that we should be doing, like how hard it should be?
Speaker 3:yeah, that's a really good question, and so I go for hard, but not extreme, because if we just do extremely hard things all the time without rewarding it, we will burn out. That's what burnout is. It's a lack of rewards and a lack of the balance between the ups and downs of dopamine. And I've done burnout a number of times where I've just strived and worked and done all the hard things and then I haven't remembered to stop and reward myself afterwards. I've had burnout a number of times because I would kind of just then chase dopamine at the end when it was too late, when I was already collapsing in a heap from all of this overwork. So don't be extreme, all of this overwork. So don't be extreme. If you're getting too extreme, stop and reward your effort, have a little rest and start over.
Speaker 1:And now for these rewards. How, like it should be, something that we want, but like how do you determine this reward?
Speaker 3:Well, it's what we naturally gravitate towards. So if we wake up and want to scroll, or we wake up and want a coffee or we want a croissant, it's those things that we crave. Our vices For some people it's nicotine. So they're the rewards that we want, and the things that are best to put effort in is the stuff we've been putting off the longest. So that's how to know if we want to have that contrast the hard stuff is what we put off the longest, and the vices and the rewards are those things that we naturally gravitate towards to comfort us. So in this way, if we choose to do our hard things first and then have our rewards, it also is a way to moderate our intake, because we don't. So we might think, okay, I want to do something and I'll reward myself. So I reward myself with one Skittle. That is enough to spike my dopamine. So if I do something hard or sometimes it might be two or three, depending on how hard it is but and I don't eat sugar the rest of my day, that's why it works for me as a dopamine spike.
Speaker 3:If I was just eating random sugar all day, that would not spike my dopamine, because my normal would be sugar, but I use that as a way to reward my system and then if I'm thinking, oh, I'd like something sweet, well then I go work for it. I go do something I've been putting off and then I'll allow myself to have the reward and only one, usually, or a predetermined amount. I won't just go, oh well, I'll just have some more. I never just go and have more. I make myself do something that I want to do first, something that benefits my life, and then I will have my reward after that. And I stopped craving sugar after I started doing this. I was the biggest sweet tooth. I loved my sugar, but when I realized it was messing up my dopamine system but I could use it to supercharge my dopamine, then it became a tool and then I would just keep it for when I'd actually earned it.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense and you start in terms of craving it less because it wasn't. Your body got used to not having it. I have my own weight loss journey where I've experienced removing the dyes and the fructose, and now I can't even imagine what it would taste like having it in my system, you know.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, it doesn't. For some people it won't be sugar. It might be a piece of fruit. You know, I wouldn't. I don't say that people have to have sugar, or they might have something else that they enjoy.
Speaker 3:If they're trying to give up smoking, it might be put in some effort and then you get to have your dopamine reward of the cigarette or the vape or whatever it is, and then it does moderate the intake and at least it's using dopamine to reinforce what we just did. Because when we do something hard and then we reward that with dopamine, it means we're going to want to repeat that thing. But if we reward inaction, just say we're doing nothing, we're not feeling very good about ourself, and then we go eat cake or then we go drink or smoke or whatever it is. That's just rewarding inaction, so we'll just get more inaction. That's just how dopamine works. It's the same as training a dog. If it does the command and you reward it straight away, it will repeat that command. But if you're just randomly giving it treats at any given time when it's jumping up on you or when it's misbehaving, you're just rewarding that. You'll just get more of that. So the brain can be trained in the exact same way.
Speaker 1:I really like the dog example. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think we've all seen the dog that the owners just give them treats all the time, and then the dogs that like get treats from it's the reward.
Speaker 3:And they think that they're loving this pet because they're oh, I love it so much I'll give it all of these treats. But that's the same way that people say a child can be spoiled. If they don't learn to work for their rewards and put in effort for their rewards and they just get everything handed to them, well, they're going to experience depression because then they're just going to look for reward only. They're not going to understand that if I don't work for this first and push my dopamine down, how's it going to rise after that?
Speaker 3:And there was an interesting study done with pigeons where they would let the pigeons just be in their natural sort of doing their natural social thing and they would just randomly reward them at any given time. And they found that some pigeons, if they were scratching themselves when they got the reward, they just keep scratching. But the ones who were like pecking something when they got the reward, they would just keep pecking because they think pecking causes my reward. So they just keep repeating these random behaviors. And it looked like mania to the outside observer because they were doing all these crazy random things, like some pigeons were scratching themselves and some were flapping their wing and whatever they were doing when they got the reward.
Speaker 1:That's all they would repeat until they learned that, oh well, this won't give me the reward anymore, but if it happens to keep giving the reward, they're going to keep doing that random behavior that makes sense and I think that could even tie into like why people who, either unintentionally or intentionally, like rewarding this inaction, like get in this loop cycle and it's difficult to get out of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. You're right about that. See, people will say, oh, if you've got depression, go exercise. But what if you've got depression and then you've been watching porn all day, or you've been eating sugar all day and smoking and then go exercise? It's not going to feel good because you've gone from high dopamine to then. The exercise will make it lower because it's effortful. So you're going to experience exercise as a drop in dopamine and as a punishment and you're not going to do it again.
Speaker 3:But if you wake up and before any dopamine sources, then you do your exercise, even if it's a small amount. This is what I did, and I only started with five minutes a day, so I would do a walk and a jog of five minutes. If that is hard for me, then whatever happens next is going to be easy and it will be a dopamine rise. And so if we do our hardest thing first thing in the morning, then we get that hard thing out of the way, but everything after that feels relatively better, and that is how you use dopamine to supercharge your day and do it before any other dopamine source I want to transition a tad, but we live in such a culture of instant gratification like amazon prime or like your stuff can be there in two days it's still insane to me.
Speaker 1:It's like people don't have the ability to wait for things. Do you think that ties into this?
Speaker 3:It a hundred percent does, because dopamine is basically all of our mental health and, you're right, this is why our mental health is suffering. But you know, seeking sugar is also dopamine seeking behavior. So every disease that is related to obesity is related to sugar-seeking and dopamine as well. So if we changed how we lived our life, we would get rid of so many mental health problems and so many physical health problems as well, like diabetes, heart disease and all these things that are related to being overweight. But, yes, having our instant pleasures and not waiting for them, because the waiting is what pushes dopamine down as well. Because just being bored if you can't handle boredom, it's you can't handle being low in dopamine you are dopamine seeking. If you can't handle being on your own, having silence, meditating, you're just seeking dopamine. Having silence, meditating, you're just seeking dopamine.
Speaker 3:And so focus just means to put aside the biggest dopamine thing we want to do, like scroll or chat or whatever eat and drink, and to focus on something lower dopamine. And that can be practiced, and I practiced it and I had all these symptoms of ADHD and my focus, like when I was having brain fog, my focus was a few seconds long. I could barely function as a human. But I practiced writing my book. It started with journaling and it turned into writing my book and just practicing focus and doing the hard stuff we don't want to do just extends attention span massively. And now my attention span is great because I always I practice it.
Speaker 3:I don't chase the dopamine. I do the hard things, I wait for the things and then the dopamine release at the end reinforces that. So I just get better at focus. But yes, when we're having these food deliveries and we can Uber anywhere we want to go without any effort, it's basically giving us that flat line in dopamine, like when the balloon is stuck at the ceiling and we're not putting in an equal amount of effort to get our things first, and so it's no good for mental health at all.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people don't realize that and they think it is good because they're getting what they want. Quote, unquote, like right away, they don't have to wait. You know what I mean, but like it isn't.
Speaker 3:Because pleasure is only pleasure when it's in contrast to pain. It's only that contrast that makes us feel good. If you give someone pleasure after pleasure, that eventually will turn into pain. And I think we've all experienced that. When we have gratitude for something, it's usually because we had to go without. And then we have gratitude because we realize how much we really had to be grateful for when we've had to go without and have no dopamine from that thing, whether it be a person or a luxury or just a basic need. When we've gone without we really feel what it's like to struggle. But then when we get that thing back, that contrast will raise our dopamine and then we can feel grateful for it.
Speaker 1:So why is it that doing these hard things increases our dopamine?
Speaker 3:Because dopamine is just released from getting the pleasure. But when we do the hard things we're lowering our pleasure because it doesn't feel good to put in hard work and exercise. It's just not how it works, so that just drops the dopamine from the effort. There's also a neurotransmitter that I mentioned called glutamate, and it regulates fatigue, pain withdrawing. It's likely that is going to be rising when we're doing the hard things because they work on a seesaw. Glutamate is basically the opposite of dopamine. You have to be kind of careful to not go too far into exhaustion or into overwork when you're doing the hard things, because glutamate will kick in and that's basically telling us no and dopamine is what tells us yes.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned, I want to transition a tad about the order of our daily tasks makes the largest impact on our energy. Why?
Speaker 3:is that? So when we wake up in the morning we've got extra dopamine, we've got a little bit extra from our rest, from our sleep, and so if we can use that in our favor and do the hard things first, then if you have a hard morning, the rest of your day is going to be relatively easier, because it works in relativity, in the contrast. So if we have things that we've been putting off that are the hard things, if we do those first up, that will push our dopamine down, so then it has to rise after that, just from the relief, so that rise. We can then invest that into the next thing we want to do, so we can enjoy that, have a rest and then do the next thing that we want to do. And it does. It keeps that wave flowing of the dopamine. It keeps it moving instead of stagnating it.
Speaker 3:So when I finally figured all this out, there was a few books that made me sort of start to understand. This One was Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy, who says do your hardest thing first thing in the morning, and then you will be able to have that motivation and that momentum to take you forward and to do the next thing, which is true. And there was the War of Art by Steven Pressfield and he says to turn pro. So he says when you get up, do your hard things, but do them like you're on a paid job. So you know, when you show up to work, you're there, you've got the time, you're like I'm here, I might as well do all the stuff that needs to happen, but he says to do a time blocking technique where you set your alarm, you sit down and act like you're working and you get all the hard things done. So that's how I wrote the book as well.
Speaker 3:I forced myself to learn focus by sitting there and just writing and I had a two hour timer and then I would have a reward after that. So I just forced myself. At the start I was just journaling and I started to realize this stuff is helping me and I thought I better write down what this is in case anyone else wants to do it. But it all came down to doing it in the right order, because I had tried exercise before and it made me feel worse or I had overdone it and I hadn't done it. You know, step by step, reward each little step. So putting those two things in the right order after years of struggle, started to turn my whole life around. In a few weeks I could organize, I could just do my normal daily tasks. I just had the energy, I had the motivation, I just felt like a normal person again and the fatigue started wearing off. And it was so rapid that I just thought I have to write about this.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. Now you said a two hour timer. Was there a reason you did a two hour timer?
Speaker 3:I don't remember why I decided two hours, but I just thought that's a good amount of time to force myself to focus, and so I was not very good at focus. So sometimes I would just write random things down and then think no, that's no good and I'd start over or I just edit things that I'd written before. But I just stayed there because we want to chase other forms of dopamine. We don't want to sit there and do difficult things and sort of boring things. I wanted to scroll, but I would not look at my phone in the first half of the day, so I would basically do what people call a dopamine detox. So all those pleasurable things, I would put them aside and then only have them in the second half of my day, after I'd done the hard things and use them as a reward. So I would still use my phone for research, but I would just make sure I looked at one app only and then I'd lock the phone as soon as I got the information or whatever I was looking for. And then, if my timer was still on, I would sit there and some people even sticky tape their self to the chair Like they tape themselves down with gaffer tape or whatever to force themselves to sit and focus.
Speaker 3:And it actually works, because anything we practice we get better at, and that's what neuroplasticity is. It's forcing ourself to push through the difficult stuff, and that's where we get the biggest growth, and Andrew Huberman talks about that quite a lot where it seems like that difficulty is going to kill us. It seems like we don't want to be doing this anymore. It's so hard to push through and that's where the growth happens, because that's a sign of the brain reorganizing its circuits to do things in a more efficient way. But if we quit at that point we've just rewarded quitting because it's hard. Then we quit and then the reward is the relief. So don't reward quitting when it's hard. Practice grit and practice perseverance and we get better at perseverance the more we practice it and then we will have a breakthrough, the brain will come to the table and we'll learn something and we'll grow, and then we can have the reward.
Speaker 1:I liked how you mentioned a two-hour time though, because it's a lengthy amount of time, but you weren't sitting there for like six hours. Like the reward and a little bit of that break needed to happen. You know, I've read and I don't remember who, but nobody can focus. I think it's almost over two hours and I don't know who said it. But a lot of our brains need like, even if it's not a long period of time and I don't know who said it but a lot of our brains need like, even if it's not a long period of time, and I don't know the specifics and the science and the research on it, but I know we need to separate. Like you need that break and I'm like getting that reward and then being able to do it better continuing.
Speaker 3:Yes, and because I knew that after that I could have my cup of coffee or I could have whatever my reward was. So I had something to look forward to and I knew, if I just sat there, that I was getting better at focus. And I think it's 90 minutes, which is an hour and a half. I think they've found or some studies have probably found different things, but somewhere I read that 90 minutes would be an optimal one, but I just wanted to push that a little bit further and do two hours. It just seemed to work for me. And then, after I had my reward and had a little rest, then I would do another two-hour timer and I did.
Speaker 3:Actually, most days in that over a year that I wrote the book, I would do six hours. So I would do three, lots of two-hour timers and sometimes more. If I was on a roll, I would just keep going. So six days a week of over six hours a day, but I was happy to do it. Think if we were only doing two hours a day of some important thing that we wanted to get done, like something that we feel like might be our mission. It might be a book, or it might be a short story or a film or all these other things that people are into, even putting two hours aside, which most of us can find, because the average person spends four to six hours on their phone every day, so we probably can find that time. If we just got up in the morning and just committed to doing that time block that Steven Pressfield was talking about, imagine what we could get done.
Speaker 1:It's so true you weren't sitting there for four hours or for six hours. You know like even a lot of us entrepreneurs will wonder why we have this almost brain fog. But like you need to stop at some point, like you can't just sit there. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yes, because everything that humans want to go towards and want to move towards is because of a dopamine reward. The only exception is when we are driven out of fear. So if we're driven out of fear, we're running on glutamate, but if we're driven by something that we want and we're moving towards, we're driven by dopamine. But we forget this and then we think, oh, I just have to do this work and I just have to do this, and we forget to add a reward at the end or have something we're working towards. So when we work towards something dopaminergic, even if something small, then that becomes the reward and it spurs us on to the next thing. So we need to remember to have a goal and something to actually make it worthwhile, and then we will keep moving what would you say is the biggest tip that people could still doing today?
Speaker 3:to tap into this like the sample yeah, I would remember that every little step is a success. So if you're not able to get out of bed, just moving your arm a little bit closer to the edge is a success, and so reward it and then repeat it, even if we can't, obviously, reward everything with sugar. But we can reward it with our own mind, because we have to remember yes, that is successful, you have potential, you're here for a reason. You could change the world. Even if it's only smiling at a stranger, that stranger goes and smiles at the next person and it adds up.
Speaker 3:So just keep remembering that those little steps that feel like nothing to us when we're struggling, it's everything. So every time we move and we activate our motor cortex, which is the part of the brain that controls movement, and then when we reward it, we get success from the sensory cortex. So just keep taking a step, however small. Remember, yes, you were just successful, reward that. And then do another one and just keep going and the steps will get bigger and better. And just keep going and the steps will get bigger and better.
Speaker 1:I love that example. Even if you can't get out of bed, know and reward it and then go the next step.
Speaker 3:Yes, because the brain actually grows new synapses. Every time we do something hard we don't want to do, it actually grows, and the more we do in action, it actually shrinks, and they've shown this in a number of studies. So just remember that everything that we don't want to do, that we push through, even if it's small. You've just gotten brain growth and you've just taken one important step to getting where you want to go, and you will get there. Just make it hard, but not extreme, and then just repeat it when you're ready, after you've had a little rest, go again.
Speaker 1:Road, but not extreme. I love that. Thank you so much, andy. I really appreciate all your knowledge.
Speaker 3:It's been so nice to talk to you, and thanks for everything you do as well. You're really inspiring and you're a great host.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. I do have one more question for you, but I'm curious why and how do I want to word this? I feel like the medical profession should be able to help us more so with mental health and understanding this, and I don't feel like they really do.
Speaker 3:They don't yet know that the order is so, so important. The order is everything of effort first and then reward. There are some studies that demonstrated this and you can look up backwards conditioning to read about these studies where they've demonstrated this, but it hasn't yet flowed into psychiatry and psychology as yet. So they know that exercise helps some people, but they haven't looked at which people and when they're doing it and in what order. It's extremely important to tell people this if they don't already know that do it first thing in the morning, before your dopamine hit, and it will have the biggest impact. And then, if you reward it, you've even supercharged it as well. It will start to add up, it will start to give momentum. But yes, they don't know this yet. It seems Only very few people are talking about it.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense, though. So the order it makes a big difference, Because I've gone down my own weight loss journey and my own mental health journey and you hear doctors say all the time move your body, exercise more. But like when? Why? Obviously, movement is good because we don't want to be fully sedentary, but like when? What movement? Why? Like how long it's big.
Speaker 3:Yep, and I found that, making it hard but not extreme Each day. I still make it hard, but not extreme, but each day I can go further and do more. So I'm not just doing the same small amount, I'm adding a little bit as I can get there, and it's just adding up to me going faster each day, because I get up and run first thing in the morning and then I have a cold shower as well. But just getting a little bit further and a little bit faster each day, I'm still just gradually, at my own pace, getting better and faster.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, so do I, of course. And now have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yes, so follow him on Instagram. I'm a big fan. He's got a podcast called On Purpose and he ends it with two segments, and I've stolen his two segments and I end my podcast with the two segments. First segment is the many sides to us, and there there's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as Confident? What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as Friendly, motivated, annoying? What is one word you're trying to embody right now Growth? Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence. What is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:A growth mindset and just keep learning and go towards the hard stuff instead of away from it.
Speaker 1:Why is that the best?
Speaker 3:I tried it. It works. It got rid of my anxiety and it activates dopamine as well, because we're going towards the hard stuff and it can extinguish fears even so, growth mindset, I think, is, if you could just do one thing, learn how to do growth mindset and it will open up your whole world what is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:oh, that's a good one. Um, oh, the worst advice. The worst advice is when someone says, oh, you need more dopamine. So they're like, oh, just do something that makes you feel good. And that thing that makes you feel good that might be drinking or it might be something completely unhealthy, just randomly. So there's two kinds of dopamine. We want to invest in our dopamine by doing the hard stuff and then it will rise. Don't just go towards a high dopamine thing when you're feeling like you need a boost. Actually push it lower, ironically, and then you'll get it.
Speaker 1:What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 3:What other people think.
Speaker 1:If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say? I would like it to be an overall gain in mental and physical health for society if you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 3:One law. Oh okay, I'm not really into telling people what to do, but I would just say get up and do something hard and then have your pleasure. Just do something hard as soon as you wake up.
Speaker 1:And why would that be the law?
Speaker 3:Just for the way that it will make the rest of your day feel much easier. And then your rewards will actually mean something. They won't just stagnate, you'll actually feel better.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Thank you, it's been awesome.
Speaker 1:I agree, and now, where can listeners connect with you?
Speaker 3:So I'm on Facebook and Instagram as Dopamine Mountain and also DopamineMountaincom.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I will link all of that in the show notes and no pressure, but I do just like to give it back to the guests. Any final words of wisdom you want to share with the listeners?
Speaker 3:Yeah, every single person is important and every single person is equal in what they can bring to the world and how they can inspire others. So even if you're having a bad day, it's just one bad day. Just keep going and just bring out your potential.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. Well, thank you again so much, andy. I really appreciate it. Thanks, amanda, and thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mandy's Mindset. Thank you so much for tuning in to that inspiring and thought-provoking episode with Andy. She is great Mandu's here and I wanted to share a few key takeaways to help you really implement all of the wisdom that Andy shared with us.
Speaker 1:The biggest reminder is that dopamine is a wave. The biggest reminder is that dopamine is a wave, not a switch. You feel your best when you own the rise Effort first, reward second. I'm going to say that again Effort first, reward. Second.
Speaker 1:A few key takeaways to remember from my conversation with Andy. First of all, hard but not extreme, little hard steps. Lower dopamine just enough so the next moment can rise and level up. Burnout happens when it's only hard, with no reward. Secondly, the order matters. Do your hardest thing before any dopamine hits, like coffee, like sugar, like scrolling social media that keeps the wave moving all day long. Third, interrupt the craving loop when wanting spirals, break it with a quick interrupter push-ups, cold water, even hot chili to drop dopamine and reset your system. Lastly, train belief and release. Thoughts are optional. Use affirmations and journaling to replace the old script in your mindset and clear stuck emotions. So again, my four key biggest takeaways are hard but not extreme. The order matters. Interrupt your craving loop and train belief in release.
Speaker 1:Now I have a few action steps that I encourage you to try this week. First, the morning wave Before you use your phone or before you have any caffeine. Do 5 to 10 minutes of something hard but not extreme. Then reward yourself. Second actionable step is a focus block. Andy talked to us about her focus block with helping her to write her book. Set a timer for 90 to 120 minutes and do deep work. Then give yourself a reward and a short reset. I encourage you to determine what the deep work is going to be that you will work on before you set this timer. Next actionable Do your interrupter. Then choose a small earned reward. The last actionable step is micro wins. Every day is going to be different and your ability to show up will look different every day.
Speaker 1:If you can't get out of bed, move one limb, reward it and repeat it. And it honestly reminds me of my Mimi, because towards the end of her life she was bedridden and I constantly remember her always doing little things to still move her body in ways that she could, even though she could not leave the bed. So, even if you find yourself bedridden and you can't get out of the bed, move one limb, then one limb, and reward it and repeat it. That's how we level up. Lastly, I have a journaling prompt that I encourage you to reflect on and journal about. Where can I put effort before reward tomorrow morning and what tiny reward will I give myself right after I'm going to repeat this again? Where can I put effort before reward tomorrow morning and what tiny reward will I give myself right after?
Speaker 1:I really hope these takeaways help you to implement the wisdom that Andy shared with us in this episode. Thank you, guys, so much for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks, guys, until next time.
