So what is manifesting? Manifesting is mentally training, forgetting what you want. That's all that it is. It is part of the toolkit that successful people around the world use. Let me tell you what manifesting is not. Manifesting is not thinking thoughts and then hoping they come through. That is what people do on their seventh birthday, and they blow out the candles. That is not what we are doing here. Manifesting is based in neuroscience. It is a tool that you are going to use precisely, intentionally, systematically with purpose because you use manifesting to rewire your mind and your body and your spirit to help you do the work to achieve your dreams. When you use manifesting properly, you are removing the mental obstacles of self-doubt, resistance, fear, perfectionism, feeling overwhelmed, other people's expectations, all that stuff that is holding you in place right now that makes you spin in circles. Manifesting clears that shit out, and it programs using science a completely different way of thinking and feeling about the things that you want to create in your life. When you manifest properly, it's almost like the pre-game training that you do before the big game.

It prepares you to take action. It boosts your confidence. It gets you ready to do that thing. You and I are going to walk step by step through how to do this. But I just want you for this moment, I want you to embrace the definition that this is not wishing. This is not the law of attraction. This is based in science and neuroscience. This is about reprogramming your mind instead of letting your fears run your life. I know what you're thinking. Okay, Mel, what the hell does that mean? Don't you worry. We're going to go step by step through this, and I'm going to keep on teeing up the mistakes that you're making because everybody makes the same mistakes. I made the same mistakes, too. I'm going to show you the four things you need to do instead so you can leverage the science to create the life that you want. Step one of manifesting properly according to research and science. First, you have to tell the truth. You have to declare what you want, period. This does not work if you're lying to yourself. This does not work if you're fuzzy about what you want.

And so Megan already did step one. She said, I want to move. She even told us that she'd been wanting to do this for a while. And the only thing that's been holding her back is all that negative programming in her mind. So now it's turn to you. Tell me the truth. What's something that you want? And don't be scared to say it out loud. Don't worry, I'm not moving in with you. But you have to tell the truth. That thing that you have an itch to do, that's what I'm talking about. And if you are so shut down that you don't even know what you would want to manifest, let's do the exercise that I have shared multiple times on the Mel Robbins podcast. Every single morning is part of your morning routine. I want you to just take out a piece of paper and write down five things that you want. And every morning as you do this, as you give yourself permission to one thing, you're training your mind. You're getting in touch with your dreams and your goals. And if you're having trouble connecting with this, I have a free cheat sheet for you.

Just go to MelRobins. Com/dreambig. I walk you through it. You can download it for free. And you can also listen to the episode we just did on Dreams. It's the one we released right before this one. But you have to be honest. You want to know why? Because you're training your brain and your brain knows when you're bullshitting, especially when you're bullshitting yourself. You cannot half-ass this stuff. Just listen to this question from Rochelle. My name is Rochelle. I am from Ontario, Canada, a small town north of Toronto. So for 25 years, I've had a head full of ideas. I've had half-ass projects and lots of plans. I chose always wishing, overdoing. Many of my blocks were due to fear, many just basic survival. The idea of goal setting, it really fires me up. The idea of remembering to revisit those goals, that freaks me out. I just think of.

All the things.

That I should have done and want to do still that, again, I thought about over the last 25 years. What do you have a vision board for? That seems like, what are you? A child? I love you guys so much. What do you have a vision board for? What are you? Child? Rochelle. Okay, so first of all, we love Rochelle. We love everybody. And what I love about her is she's admitting to you that she's been thinking about things that she's wanted for 25 years, and she's never getting past the thinking part. Why? Well, because, again, the overwhelm, the self-doubt, all of the disorganization, it's stopping her. That's where manifesting comes in. And she asks the question, vision boards. What the hell am I a child? Let me tell you why vision boards can be important with one huge caveat based on science. Vision boards are important because when you take the time to create a vision board, which is basically bringing your dream or your goal to life by creating a collage of images, what you're doing is you are grabbing that dream or that goal that typically we bounce around in the back of our minds and private, you're pulling it out of your mind and you are grounding it in reality.

One of the reasons why this can be so powerful is because it signals to your brain that this is really important to you. We've talked in previous episodes about the Zyarnik effect. It creates this to-do list in your mind. The other reason why it's important is because when you put a vision board in a place where you can see it, it keeps these goals and dreams front and center, which is really important. But here's the problem. Everybody puts the wrong shit on their vision boards. You've been sold a bill of goods. You have been told that if you simply create a collage of some Beach House or your dream body or a million dollars in the bank or a Maserati that suddenly the universe is going to hand you those things. That's not how that works. What research shows is exactly what Rochelle is talking about. If all you ever do is think about the big thing. You think about the End goal, the Beach House, the Maserati, the thing that's like 10 years from now, and then you create this beautiful collage of this amazing thing that you want, that's a huge mistake. See, everybody makes this mistake.

If you look at anybody's vision board, you know what's on it? It's beach houses and a million dollars and a Maserati and the finishing line at the New York City Marathon and all the things that you hope and dream for. The reason why that's a huge mistake is that if the only thing that is on your vision board is the thing that's going to take you 10 years to get done, as you sit here in your studio apartment or in the spare bedroom of your parents' house at desk in the corner and you stare at a $10 million beach house, oh, my God, that is going to feel so far away. It's going to feel like you might as well move to Mars for crying out loud. Instead of that vision board keeping your dreams front and center, that vision board is rubbing them in your face. It's not motivating at all. Why? Because you start to become present day in and day out to how far away you are from that dream of yours. And that starts to make you feel less motivated. It doesn't surprise me at all that Rochelle has been thinking about all kinds of things for 25 years, and yet she can't get started.

And the reason why is because she is making the mistake of visualizing the end. Manifesting is not just hoping and wishing, remember, for that beach house? Manifesting is training your mind, body, and spirit to do the work to make that beach house a reality. Step two to manifesting according to neuroscience. Visualize the steps along the way. This is research from UCLA. In order to make manifesting work for you according to science, don't visualize the end. Visualize the steps and the actions that you're going to take to get there. So what does that mean? That means all that hard and annoying and tedious stuff that you got to do that you don't feel like doing in order to make that thing a reality, that's what you're going to put on the vision board. That's what you're going to visualize. You see, according to the research from UCLA, brain scans show that when you visualize yourself performing an action, you stimulate the same brain region that you're using when you actually perform that action. So manifesting properly according to science means you are socializing your mind to take action. Now, what does socializing your mind mean? Because that's the language they used in the study.

It means you're training your mind to take the action. By sitting there and mentally rehearsing this.

You are.

Telling your mind, you're stimulating the part of the brain that actually is going to take the action. This taps into something called procedural memory, and it helps you lock in the actions you need to take as a new habit. See, procedural memory is part of your long-term memory. It's like writing with your hands or pouring a glass of water. All those actions and habits, they're all stored in your procedural memory. Your procedural memory has all the information that you need in order to perform things like brushing your teeth or walking and talking. And when those things get rehearsed over and over and over again, guess what? They become encoded. They become automatic. The more you think about the steps you need to take and you start to visualize them, the stronger the connections become. And this isn't just like common sense. What happens when you visualize this way is that connections are being made between gaps and neurons. They're passing signals back and forth. And so before you even take the actions, you are now socializing your brain to get ready to do it. You're preparing. It's super cool. So let's just start with step one, manifesting according to science.

You got to claim what you want and tell the truth. So let's say that step one, I want to train for and I want to complete the New York City Marathon. That is a bucket list item for me. And in fact, that was a bucket list item for me, and it's something that I've done. And you should do it, too. It's amazing. And so, yes, you are going to wake up every day and you're going to write that dream down, but to achieve it, please do not spend any time visualizing crossing the finish line. Please do not spend any time thinking about the roaring applause of the crowd as your name gets announced. Instead, what are you going to do? You're going to use science because you're smart. You're going to visualize yourself lacing up your running shoes when it's 10 degrees outside. You're going to close your eyes and you're going to picture what it feels like to be out there on a training run alone. It's Mile 13. You're on your own and your fricking earbuds just ran out of batteries and you're six miles from your house. And as you close your eyes and you picture that annoying and irritating moment, I want you to feel in your body the sensation of that moment.

And I want you to feel in your body another one. How about this moment? It's 5:00 a. M. Your alarm goes off. You're exhausted. You look out the window and you see it's pouring rain and it's a Saturday. And you said you do a training run. And I want you to see yourself dragging yourself out of bed, pulling on your jacket, even though you don't feel like it, and walking out that door. And I want you to feel yourself starting to run in the rain and it's 5:10 in the morning. That's how you manifest. Because here's the thing. That's what you're going to have to do in order to achieve your goal. And more importantly, five months from now, when you've registered for that race and that alarm goes off at 5:00 AM and you roll over in real life and you look out the window and it's pouring, you will have rehearsed this moment. So your brain and your nervous system and your body is going to be ready for it. You're going to roll out of bed because you've already been in this moment. You already have seen yourself there. You've already felt the resistance.

You not only know exactly how this goes, you've rehearsed it in your mind, and you've now rewired your brain to be ready for it. That's why you can't half-ass this. You got to be dead serious about visualizing the steps you need to take. Now that you got step one, which is tell the truth about what you want, get very clear about it. Step two is stop focusing on the end and start focusing on the irritating crap you're going to have to do day in, day out to march toward it. Now we're going to go from the kindergarten manifesting according to neuroscience to Olympic level manifesting. Are you ready? I'm ready. Because step three to properly manifest according to science, you got to feel that stuff in your body. I mean, really feel it. You got to feel what it's like to work for that dream. Now, this isn't just Mel Robbins, and this is not even neuroscientists anymore. We're now bringing in the Olympic athletes and all of their team of psychologists because they take manifesting to an even deeper level. When you're on the Olympic team, you call this imagery because it goes way beyond the visualization.

An Olympic aerial skier said, You have to smell it. You have to hear it. You have to feel it. You have to feel everything. And so that means as you are closing your eyes and as you are visualizing yourself doing the work, and for an Olympic skier, that means before you even get on that slope, you are imagining every twist, every turn, every bump, every jump. You are going over and over and over and over again, every twist and every turn. Because remember, according to the research at UCLA, your brain doesn't know the difference between something that happened to you for real and the things that you imagine happening to you. So you're warming yourself up to exactly what you'll feel as you're taking action. There's a huge article about this in The New York Times and in it, Bob Sletter, Lyndon Rush, who's an Olympic medalist, said, I've tried to keep the track in my mind throughout the year, he said. I'll be in the shower brushing my teeth. It just takes a minute, so I do the whole track or sometimes just the corners that are more technical. You try to keep it fresh in your head so when you do get there, you're not just starting at square one.

And it's amazing how much you can do in your own mind. And in fact, one of the things that psychologists uses for with our Olympic team is helping athletes deal with the anxiety and resistance that comes up when they're about to go back into racing after an injury. And so this imagery, this deep manifesting where you feel it. So what does that mean? You got to smell the air. You got to feel the wind. You got to really put yourself at the scene. When I was a young trial lawyer, I used to work for the Legal Aid Society as a criminal defense attorney. And when I was being trained to do trial work, they used to say, When you're talking to a jury, you have to put people at the scene. You've got to describe something in a way that they could almost see, taste, or smell it, and that's what you need to do. And so here's what I want to do. I want to do this with you right now. And so we're going to use our friend, Megan. Remember, she's the one that wants to move from Tampa. I want to play a part of her clip where she talks about her fears.

And as you're listening to our friend, Megan, I want you to see what sensations come up in your body as you are listening to her describe all the resistance and fears that she has about this thing that she wants to do. My biggest fear is just getting there and then being like, Why did I do this? I'm alone. I have no family or friends here. Who knows when my family or friends are going to visit me, even if they will? Is this going to cost me a lot of money? And now I put myself in a bad financial situation? What if I lose my job and I'm in a new city? What if I hate it? You want to know what Megan's doing? She's manifesting. She is letting her fears rehearse the worst-case scenario. She has trained her brain and her nervous system to be terrified of this move. She has a visualizational right that it's not going to work, that her parents are going to be mad, that it's a huge mistake, that she's going to lose her job. That no wonder she's not doing it. She's using manifesting in the exact opposite way.

She's literally she is systematically through her excuses and her fears and her parent's stuff. She is training her own mind to work against her. I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of that. It's going to be like this. It's going to be like that. You could feel, couldn't you? When she said, What if I get there and I'm alone? What if I get there and it's the worst decision? I bet you felt your chest seize a little bit. When she said, What if I regret it? I bet you felt yourself shrink a little bit. See, her excuses have trained her mind and body to resist taking the action. You do the same thing. Every time you look at the thing that you want, that itch that you have, the dream that you have, the goal that you have, and you're like, But this, but that. But what about the other person? But do do dodo do do do do. You're visualizing all the negative. And this is why you're stopped. And so instead of mentally rehearsing your deepest fears, let's just flip this. Try visualizing it being great. I mean, instead of going, What if it doesn't work?

What if it all works out? What if this is the best decision I've ever made in my entire life? Visualize saying goodbye to your parents and packing the U-haul. Visualize yourself alone in the apartment. Go to that really scary moment where you're there alone and you feel yourself getting anxious. But then, visualize yourself putting your shoes on, leaving the house. Go into that event you signed up, even though you didn't feel like it and bumping into somebody and making a new friend. Visualize your mom calling and saying, I miss you. I wish you heaven. And as you look out at the mountains or the oceans or this whole new city that you live in, feel the pride inside yourself that you took the risk and that you're going to see her next month when you go home. In a weird way, visualize and feel how this distance and you growing up has made your relationship stronger. Visualize that moment where you lose your job and going, But that's okay. I didn't like that job anyway. I've met so many people here that now I'm networking and I've just landed something new. Visualize yourself winning. I think you're getting this.

I know you're getting this. Let me just recap because you know nobody gets left behind on the Mel Robbins podcast. Step one, tell the truth. Your brain knows BS, and we need the truth from you. What do you actually want? Step two, you're going to use neuroscience, which means you're going to visualize and feel in your body all the little things you have to do, the annoying, the irritating. I want you to see it, to smell it. I want you to see yourself falling down or being scared and then picking yourself back up and feel the pride. Push through the resistance. There you are doing it. Rehearse it in your mind over and over and over. And what you're really doing is you are decoding all the resistance that your fears put in, and you are encoding and rewiring a whole new track, a tape in your mind that shows you doing the work and making it happen. And this is what Olympic athletes do. This is what Mel Robbins does. This is what successful people in business do. And this is what you're going to be doing now. And so now I want to teach you something else, because I think what's going to happen is that you're going to get all excited and you're going to identify and tell the truth about what you want, and you're going to sit down and you're going to go to start visualizing the steps and then something interesting is going to happen.

You might find that something weird happens because this is what happened to Mara, and it's extremely common. So listen to this question. Hey, Mel. My name is Mara. I'm from Chicago, Illinois. I have a question for you. I was just curious, how does one tackle overcoming imposter syndrome while manifesting? So how can I take the steps to work on a business that I'm passionate about interior design with absolutely no experience other than my own home and planning my own parties and gifting during the seasons and birthdays? When I see these types of businesses online, they really inspire me to create. But the thought of me doing it myself is so scary. Okay, I love this question. This is so juicy and great, and I just am so happy, Mara, that you asked this. So first of all, let's just stop saying imposter syndrome, okay, everybody? Because when you're new to something, you're a student. That's it. You're a beginner. That's it. You're not an imposter. You're not faking anything. You're actually figuring it out. It's part of the process. So stop saying you have imposter syndrome because all you do is you have a dream and you're going to begin to chip away at it.

That's what we're doing here. That's number one. Number two, this is really common, and the reason why it's really common is because your fear is so big and your self-doubt is so big and you've never done this thing before. You can tell based on the fact that Mara was laughing. She's like, Oh, my God, I love this thing. She's diminishing how big of a dream this is. A lot of us do that. We make a little bit of a joke or downplay it a little bit, or we're nervous about it, we don't even admit it. First of all, I'm proud of you for admitting it, Maura. That's step one, you told the truth. Step two, the things you need to do, you can figure out because you're a student, you're a beginner, you love this, you're smart, and there's Google and there's YouTube, and that's going to give you the steps. Those are the things that you need to visualize. So when you sit down and you start to visualize and mentally rehearse, remember, you're an Olympic athlete, you're a winner. We're using neuroscience here. We're going to decode all those fears and all those bullshit excuses, and we're going to reincode some confidence, and we're going to see you doing it.

You might experience not being able to picture yourself in the visualization. This is super common. So here's what you're going to use. You're going to use the power of objectivity. That's it. What does that mean? That means if you can't picture yourself doing the work, pick somebody that you admire who you could visualize doing the work. There's a catch here. For example, you could pick me, you could pick an interior designer that you absolutely love. There's so many of them online that you could pick from that you can follow on Instagram and you can imagine them in there taking the certifications, asking their friends if they could stage their apartment for an Instagram photoshoot, networking with realtors, trying to get a job in a design firm or heck, in an amazing furniture retail location, so you start to build up the acumen. There's all kinds of things you can do. If you can't picture yourself doing those small steps, put in me or somebody that you deeply admire who's already in the interior design business. Your mind will allow you, through the power of objectivity, to imagine someone else. Now, here's the catch. Here's the catch, because remember, I'm the O-line.

I'm your offensive lineman. I'm clear in the past, so I'm not doing this on my own. I'm doing this, and I'm in your visualization so you can score with the ball. At some point in that visualization, let's just say you get a job at one of your favorite retail stores that sells furniture and is in the design business. Let's just say you put me in there and I'm the one that's managing the store. At some point in that visualization, I want you to visualize me turning around and extending my hand and saying, Come on, Maura. It's your turn. Come here and help me. And let me invite you to join my side in your visualization. Visualize us doing the work together. It's a super awesome hack. Using the power of objectivity, we can work around that blind spot in your brain until you're ready to fire Mel Robbins from that job. And now you can start visualizing yourself doing all the steps you're scared to take now. Super cool. Now let's get to step four, because this is probably the most important part of manifesting according to neuroscience. And I think absolutely everybody forgets to tell you this part.

Let's play Cynthia's question. Hi, my name is Cynthia.

I'm from Tamacula, California. My question was to Mel, how do you go about manifesting without feeling like a sense of selfishness? I was raised in a very strict household. And when you ask for things, it was like you had to do something in return. So I feel like when I'm asking the universe.

Or God, whatever.

You believe in, for my things that I'm manifesting, I feel like I owe somebody something or something is going to get taken away. So it makes me a little nervous to ask or manifest. Cynthia, I got to tell you're right. You're right. When you manifest, it's not selfish at all, by the way. It's an act of self-love when you train your mind to help you get what you want. But when you manifest, you are going to owe somebody something. And you know what you owe them? Fucking work. That's right. You have to do the thing you're visualizing. When you sit there and you intentionally mentally rehearse the steps you need to take, there is something that you owe the universe and you owe yourself. And that is to take the action. You're not just going to sit there and train. At some point, that Olympic athlete has to do the race. At some point, you've got to make the cult call. At some point, you've got to quit the job or pack the U-haul trailer or get off your ass and do the training run at 5:00 AM, so you better believe there is going to be something that is asked of you in return.

And that's where the magic comes in, because the magic is in your actions and manifesting according to neuroscience just gets your own fears and people's judgments and your childhood wiring out of the way so that you can take those actions. True science-backed manifestation. It's not as sexy as the secret makes it seem, and it's actually not as complicated as a huge PhD study makes it seem. You just have to do it. That's it. You have to take the actions. You do owe the universe and yourself something. You owe yourself the actions, the effort, the work that's required. That's what your dreams demand. I talk about this all the time. We all want to believe that somehow you're going to close your eyes and imagine what you want and it's going to magically happen. I'm sorry, that may happen on TikTok or in Disney, but that is not how the real world works. The way that you are going to make something a reality is you are going to declare that you want it, and then you are going to tediously, annoyingly, wake up every single day and push yourself to lay one brick in a path with one action every day.

It's not going to be easy, but day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, action by action, as you visualize yourself taking the steps, and then you actually push yourself to do the steps, you will wake up and realize you have paved a brick path to your dreams. And you are now, 10 years later, five years later, sitting on the porch of your ocean house. You are crossing the finish line of the New York City Marathon. You are making the final turn in that giant slalom race. That is how this works. So you do owe something. You got to put your skin in the game and your ass on the line. And you do that by waking up every day and taking one of those small steps forward that you visualized and practiced and rehearsed by manifesting properly according to neuroscience. Now, let me say the final mistake. You ready for the final mistake? This is mistake number four. You get impatient. I cannot tell you how many people literally give up on their dreams and they are one audition away from making it. Or how many people stop working on their business and they were one hour away from the breakthrough that they needed in the financial model?

Or you give up on that novel or cookbook you wanted to write because you got frustrated by the creative process. You make the mistake of thinking just because this is getting hard or it's boring or it's tedious, it's not working. Here's the thing I need you to understand. When it comes to achieving your goals and your dreams, there is no timeline involved. You have to give up the when, and you got to stay focused on the why and the how. You now know the how. The how is using neuroscience to remove the resistance in your mind, in your nervous system, in your body, and then pushing yourself to do the work because manifesting is not magically making something appear. Manifesting is preparing your mind, body, and spirit to do the work to make it a reality. Overnight success does not exist. Period. Yes, there are a lot of people that have gotten lucky. Yes, privilege is real. Bias is a fact. And it is really easy to get jealous. But what you aren't seeing when you focus on the end result is the years and years and years that went into this moment. A lot of people are looking at me right now and they're like, Holy cow.

This is one of the most successful podcast launches in history. How the hell did that happen overnight? It didn't. This has been in the works for 10 years. I have been chipping away at it, doing the work behind the scenes before I even launched this thing. You have to ask yourself, I think, when it comes to the big stuff, are you willing to work 10 years for it? Are you willing to work 10 years for that beach house? Are you willing to work ten years for that million dollars in the bank? Are you willing to work ten years to get that PhD to heal your trauma, to be happy? Because that's how long it might take. And if we're being really honest here, if it's a really big thing, it could take even longer. That's okay. Because you know what? There's nothing more fulfilling in life than chipping away at your dreams and your goals. That's what gives your life meaning. Achieving your goals doesn't give your life meaning. Working on them, working toward something bigger than where you're at right now, that is where the real secret sauce is. If you want to be successful in business, you got to get ready to make a hundred hours of cold calls about your product or about the thing you're selling before you get one person that doesn't hang up on you.

I'm not even talking about a yes. And that's where visualization comes in. You got to visualize the nose. If you want to be a writer, how about getting ready to write for five years? Five years of drafts. Five years of what Anne Lamont calls your shitty first draft. Days and days and days of sitting down every single day because this is what a writer does. They sit down and they write no matter what. Days where you sit there and you stare at a blank piece of paper, visualize that and visualize yourself keep going. Visualize publishers saying no and no and no. And then finally, somebody says, Yes, are you self-publish? See, the time and the effort that you have to put in, it's not glamorous, everybody. It's not easy. And there are going to be times that you're going to feel like giving up. And this is what separates the people who achieve their goals from the people who don't, in my opinion. It's this quitting day. It's this moment where you throw in the towel. If you can go one more day, you can make it happen, because then you can go another. See, the benefit of waking up every day and using manifesting according to neuroscience to visualize yourself continuing to go forward is that when the going gets tough, you will have trained your brain and your nervous system that you're the person that keeps going.

And when your body and your brain knows that about you, when the going gets tough, you will keep going. So please, once you're honest with yourself about what you want, put in the time. Bring a lot of patience. I promise, if you're willing to put in the work and the effort and you're willing to continue to train your mind to believe that, yes, in fact, you are going to cross that finish line. You are going to have that million dollars in the bank. You are going to have the happiness and the love and the health that you deserve. You're going to have the family you've always dreamt of. You will eventually make it happen. I believe that. Honestly, I just love this shit because manifesting according to neuroscience is one of my superpowers. If I'm not talking, I'm probably manifesting something that I want. I currently do not have a beach house. Let me tell you, I have two or three particular homes in mind that are currently occupied. I have all kinds of manifesting according to neuroscience going on. I'm in no hurry. I know this takes time. I keep seeing myself chipping away at it.

I see the letter I'm going to write and I'm going to stick it in the notebook. I see myself working to make the money. I also have done this with this podcast, you guys. This was two years in the making before we recorded our first episode. You know what I was doing? I was busy manifesting all the hard and tedious stuff that would lead me here and actually doing it. Another thing I'm manifesting, we are getting this incredible studio space in Boston. I keep having these visions of making the drive down from Southern Vermont. I have this vision of one of our team members, Charlotte, standing out front of the building with a clipboard. She has this little one of those headset, walkie-talkie things on, and she's greeting this SUV that comes up. I am upstairs having stress, diarrhea, because the Dalai Lama is stepping out of the SUV and is coming up to be on the Mel Robbins podcast. I am managing through my stomachache as Charlotte is walking the Dalai Lama through our lobby and up the elevator to our brand new, insanely cool... This is what I do, everybody, because it's a superpower.

I am training my mind to help me make my big dreams and visions a reality. I'm even doing this for our daughters. I'm manifesting what it looks like for our daughter to, I want her to do it next fall. I'm visualizing her halfway around the world and working her way around the world. I'm visualizing our other daughter spending late nights in a session writing her music. I can feel what it's going to feel like when she calls crying and saying that something happened. And so I'm doing this for me. I do it for you. I do it for the people that I love. This stuff is awesome because in some way, when you really get good at this, it is true what the research at UCLA says. You do trick your own brain. When we started this podcast, finally, after years of thinking about it and two years of properly manifesting according to neuroscience, I was so rehearsed, I had a Mageride or whatever the hell the word is that the Olympians used, that when I stepped in to record our first episode, it felt like I had been doing this for 10 years, because in my mind, I've been preparing that long.

That's how cool this is.

It is the message that a really dear friend who's fed up with you delivers straight between the eyes. What am I talking about? I'm talking about your dreams. You're the person, just like me, that every single year you write down the things that you want in your life. And I would imagine that as each year rolls on and the new list gets written, you move the thing that you didn't work on this year to the list that you do for the next year and on and on and on. I mean, how many years have you been thinking about writing a book or changing your job, or changing where you live, or healing some aspect of your past, or finding love, or learning how to love yourself, or starting that business? These things that you hold in your heart, they are meant to be out in the world. And today, I'm on a mission to get you to stop waiting. Stop waiting for the perfect time. Stop waiting to feel ready. Stop waiting for the money. Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting to feel like somebody's going to care about this. The only person that needs to care enough is you, because today is the day that you're going to pick up the pen, you're going to start the research, you're going to commit to taking action.

Why? Because that's what you're meant to do with your life. You're meant to create a bigger vision for yourself. And the reason why I wanted to talk to you about this today is because I know you need to hear it. See, a couple of weeks ago, we did a episode on imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is just self-doubt. It's just when you intellectualize your self-doubt and you talk yourself out of doing what you want to do, you tell yourself, Oh, my God, I want to be a singer. I want to be a writer. I want to travel more. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to do the other thing. And then you tell yourself that you're not ready, that you're not worthy, that it's not going to happen to you. That episode was called The Four Words at Silence: Self-Doubt. So the day we released that episode.

Two.

Really interesting things happened. And it made me realize, I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you about how you're holding yourself back from pursuing the goals that you want to pursue in your life. And so here's what made me realize, we got to talk about this. First of all, on the morning that the episode aired, number one, I woke up and there was already a voice memo from a friend of mine. She was only halfway through the episode. She was already starting to tear up because the episode made her think about this dream of writing a book, publishing a book, and how she's been putting it off because her self-doubt and feeling like an imposter, it has kept her from picking up the pen. Here's that memo.

Hi, Mel. I'm partially through Kindel's imposter commentary, and I had to stop it right in my misty moment to tell her and you, as a woman who's soon going to be 60, I feel the imposter, imposter syndrome too. Why I've had have a book deal sitting on my desk since 2006. Too self-doubting to take the risk of judgment. Oh, I'm not a respected writer. Oh, it isn't that interesting to.

Actually pin it.

It's been on the top of my annual goal list for almost 20 years now, yet remains just a dream due to every imposter, imposter excuse to not follow through. I teared up when I got to that part of your message, which is actually the most powerful awareness. Talk about a.

Double.

Barrel of self-doubt that I too share. I just want to thank you, Kindel, for being raw and real.

And I want you to.

Go for it.

You got this. Imagine how.

Far you will be in 20 years. And thank you, Mel. You just don't know who you might be touching. And I appreciate all your kindness and love to the universe. You know.

What strikes me about that? This is what hit me. Time. Twenty years.

Time. That for 20 years, she would put on her annual list of goals, write a book, write a book, write a book, write a book, write a book, write a book, write a book. I bet you make a list of dreams and goals, don't you? I do. Every single year, I write them all down. And when the next year rolls around, there's usually one or two that I move from one page to the other page. For me, it was always, start a podcast, start a podcast, start a podcast. And so much fucking time went by, where I carried this dream from one page to the next.

Why did you waste.

So many years thinking about this podcast and doing nothing about it? Well, I'm sure for the same reasons that you're wasting time. To begin with, I didn't know how to do it.

Plus.

I had so much going on from the little things like, I got to get dinner on the table. Somebody else has already done it. I got college tours this weekend.

What.

If I do it? And it's a disaster. It's embarrassing how bad it does. By the way, who am I to compete with the people that are already doing it, that have already said everything, like Joe Regan and Alex Cooper, and NPR and everybody else. And by the way, all the good ideas, they're already out there. There's no room for me. I don't even know how to get started in this. I mean, the excuses are endless, but time isn't. Just think about that. Your excuses are endless. But time isn't. Think about all the time that passed. Not only was this something that my friend had written on her annual goal list, she actually wrote a book proposal, and she got an offer, and it was sitting on her desk since 2006.

That's 18 years.

What a shame. When you hear somebody's got a goal and they've just been pushing it off for a week or two or a month, you're like, Oh, come on, get over yourself. Come on, get your ass working on it. Let's go. But when you think about how much time you've wasted.

That's a lot.

And look, I don't want to scare you, but I want to take my hands right now and put them on your cheeks or your shoulders and shake you because I want to wake you up. And I need you to realize that your life, it's a melting ice cube. And I think we all believe that we have time. That at some point, it'll be the right time. That someday you'll feel ready. That someday it'll be perfect. That someday you'll be a legitimate writer. That someday you'll have something to say. And I'm here to tell you right now that today is that someday. You will waste your whole life and you will watch that ice cube melt. You will watch time tick by waiting for some day to come. And you are listening to this right now because you needed to hear this. You have on that secret list that you either have on a piece of paper or you have tucked into your heart a dream, a goal, something that you want to change that you are too fucking scared to get started on. And today that ends. Today you're going to stop waiting. You're going to stop wishing.

You're going to stop waiting for the right time, waiting for this to happen, waiting for the other thing to happen, waiting for you to feel ready, waiting for this, waiting for that. That ice cube is going to be a puddle that will evaporate if you keep doing that. And I am not going to let 20 years go by. No way. Not in your life, not in my life, not in my friend's life. Today, we make a commitment to ourselves that we are going to get started. And I know you need to hear this from me today, because the second thing that happened after we released that episode is that within 24 hours of it going live, Kathy was only the first person to reach out to me. But within hours, there were over 700 messages from listeners of this podcast from around the world talking about their dreams and how imposter syndrome had taken them down to, how they felt paralyzed and awkward. How many times have you looked back on your life and thought, I wish I had started something sooner. I wish I had done this thing. I wish I had done that thing.

I'm going to tell you something. The biggest regret that you will ever have in your entire life is you didn't push through the fear. You didn't push through the bullshit, imposter syndrome. You didn't push through the self-doubt and get started on the dreams that you have, on the life you want to create. And so today, this conversation is dedicated to your dreams. It's dedicated to the courage and the fire inside you and your capability of moving from thinking and wishing and wanting things in your life to finding the courage to take action and make them happen. And is it going to be easy? No. No. Is it worth it? Always. I think it's important that everybody just be on the same page about how scary it is to want something and how frustrating it is when you want something, but you're too scared to get started and work for it. And my mission today is to kick you in the ass so that you push through the fear and the insecurity and the imposter syndrome and the sadness and the regret or whatever it is that's holding you back from taking the actions that you are capable of taking over time to chip away at this dream and this vision of a bigger life.

I want you to start to see something bigger for yourself. And more importantly, I want you to start working on it. And what does that look like? What does it look like? Well, I'm going to boil it down. It's very simple. It's about time and energy. That's all that this is about. You do not have to write that book overnight. You have to pick up the fucking pen. You do not have to become a physician overnight. You have to research schools, and then you have to apply. Today, we are going to begin the process of moving from the dream world and the doubt world into the real world. We are going to get physical. And I'm going to bring in a metaphor that I think is really important, and it's a metaphor that I used in a project that we did with Audible called Reinvent Your Life. I like to think about life as one long road trip. Every year of your life is a mile marker on the road of life. And the thing about this road trip is it's a solo journey. You started at Mile Zero and you were alone. That's how you came into this world.

And wherever the road of your life leads you, when you leave this world, you're going to be alone. When you leave. Yes, you'll be surrounded by family and friends. But when you actually pass over, you are on your own. And the truth is, it is a solo journey. Yes, you're going to drive parallel with some people. Yes, you're going to intersect with some people. Yep, you're going to travel in packs, but you are driving alone. And look, I'm not telling you this to make you feel isolated or unsupported. That's the last thing that I want you to feel. The reason why I'm telling you this is because I want you to understand the power that you have to make these dreams part of your day to day life as you pursue them. I mean, maybe you've been so worried about what everybody else is going to think, and that's what's kept you from starting your YouTube channel or writing that screenplay or making a career change. I'm here to tell you, no one gives a shit about what you do. You want to know why? Because everybody else is driving their own car on their own solo journey, and they're busy trying to figure out their own life.

When you realize that the only person who is truly judging you right now.

Is you.

When you embrace that you're the one in your way, it can spark a fire in your gut.

Yes, it.

Sucks that my friend has been telling herself for 20 years that she's not a real.

Writer.

That she's not a respected writer, that it's not that interesting. Yeah, that sucks to wake up and realize that you're the one that's been dragging yourself down. But you want to know it sucks more spending another 20 years never writing it. So step one, you have to acknowledge the thing that's on your list and that's in your heart. And then step two is take responsibility for doing whatever you can, however you're capable in whatever big or small way to move toward it. Get serious about looking ahead instead of looking back, looking out the window in front of you at the road ahead and where you want to go. You can inch your way day by day.

Week by week.

Month by month, year by year to creating a whole new life for yourself. And that's not to say there's anything wrong with your life right now. It's to say that there are directions that you want to head in that you.

Deserve to.

Start paying attention to. And I'm going to come back to how you do it. It's time and it's energy. Every single day when you wake up, you can find five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes to move from thinking about what you want.

To.

Taking action on what you want. Picking up the pen, writing a sentence, sending an email, doing the research, taking a class. All of these actions are how you move towards what you want while you're still in the life that you have. That's how you do it. And the other thing that you're going to have to pay attention to is energy. Because just like you are wasting precious time on shit that doesn't really matter to you, you are also wasting your precious energy, spending time with people who are draining it from you, who are not giving it back to you. And so every single day when you wake up, I want you to pay attention to where you're putting your time and where you're putting your energy. And I want you to find five measly minutes to start working on what you want in the physical world instead of keeping it a secret in your heart and in your mind. Wait till you hear what your fellow listeners from 194 countries have to say about the dreams that they're holding on to, that they're afraid to pursue, how they're talking themselves out of it. And when I do this, I want you to pay attention to how much energy and time we put into talking ourselves out of stuff.

How much energy and time you put into doing things that you don't want to be doing instead of carving out and fighting for small amounts of time and energy to propel yourself forward. You will start to see when you get serious about this what an active participant you are in your own demise. How much time you waste, how much energy you pour into things that really aren't what you want. And when you wake up and realize that time and energy is a secret and taking it seriously from this moment forward, that's the answer. Not in big moves, but in the small daily rhythms that you can insert in little ways to just start honoring what you want in your life. And if I had to really bubble up why this really matters is I personally believe that working on your dreams and taking what you wantsure you take your life seriously enough that you do the work to make it a reality, I personally think this is the greatest act of love that you could ever give to yourself. That is the engine that fuels the joy and the fulfillment that you're going to feel in your life.

Let me share some of the things that fellow listeners wrote to us about as soon as that episode aired.

Mel, I dream about being a motivational speaker, but I lack the experience and I lack the plan. Let me just stop right there. Let's just stop right there. Of course, you lack the experience. You've never done this before. That's why you doubt yourself. That's why you feel like an imposter. If you've never written a book, of course, you lack the experience. You haven't done it before. And so the first thing that I want to tell you is that this is good news. It's good news because it doesn't mean you're not going to do it. It's good news because it just means you're beginning. And being a beginner is so cool because you're going to learn so much. We talked about this exact point in that episode I told you about earlier, the one that got Kathy crying about the book that she hadn't written, and that got... I want so many of you to pour in the stories about how you've got dreams that you've been putting off because you lack experience. I need to drive this point home about embracing the fact that you don't lack experience. You're just a beginner. I want you to embrace this idea that you're just a beginner.

Let me play you a moment from that original episode with my daughter, where she's describing.

This.

I'm a beginner, epiphany.

To you.

Check this out.

You can diffuse the imposter syndrome if you just accept where you're at. I think once I.

Owned where I'm at, which.

Is a beginner, I'm not an imposter as a beginner because that's what I am. Wait, say.

That again.

I'm not an imposter if I'm a beginner because that's what I am.

Yeah.

Then the imposter syndrome disappears.

You're not imposter. You're just a beginner. Did you hear that? So that dream that you have, that thing that you've never done? Great. Great. You are a beginner. And that's amazing because everybody starts as a beginner. But as long as you refuse to drive forward, to step into the physical world, and to start walking and driving and moving toward the things you want to create.

You're.

Standing still in your life, and time is passing you by. And we're not going to let that happen, because when it comes to the things that we all want to create in our lives, we're all beginners. I'm going to read you a few more that have come in from listeners. I want to pursue a career as a fashion editor, but I'm afraid at 34 of making a huge career change. Let me tell you what's more scary than making a career change at 34. It's spending the next 34 years of your life in a career you didn't like and being at the mile marker at the age of 68 and looking back at this moment when you were 34 or 31 or 18 or 54 or 39 and wishing you had made the career change. Do not waste your life doing things that don't fulfill you. You have the ability starting today to change the direction that you're driving in. Now, are you going to arrive at this new career overnight as a fashion editor? No. But you won't arrive there ever if you don't take the wheel on the car that you're driving and turn it in the direction that you want to go and start inching toward it?

This is what I'm talking about. Here's another one. I want to design clothes. I'm 31 and I haven't achieved anything, though.

Well.

Of course you haven't. How are you supposed to design clothes if you're not designing clothes? How are you supposed to make that change if you are only thinking about it or writing it on a list? When I say that I want you to start driving toward your dreams. I want you to start taking action. What that means is it means that you need to start to take your time and your energy. And in whatever way you can, in whatever capacity that you can, you need to start to direct your time and energy at the things that you want, not at the things that you have. And look, I know so many of you have really full lives right now. You're a single parent. You're caring for aging parents. You're underwater with your bills. You've got 10 minutes a day. You've got five minutes a day. You've got 15 minutes a day. And that's what I want to inspire you to start doing. And I feel so adamant about this because time keeps going, even if you don't. Because when you're so in it, you're so busy in your day to day life as it is right now that you can't.

See the.

Bigger.

Picture.

Time is passing. It's always passing. I think a lot about this moment where after we sold our house where we raised our kids outside of Boston, where we spent 26 years, I always thought when I lived there, I would live there forever. I just took it for granted. And over a year ago, I drove down the street that I had been driving up and down for 26 years for the very last time. And I saw the house that I had raised my kids in disappearing in the rearview mirror for the last time. And I say that because eventually you're going to look back on this moment, too, and you're going to think, My God, I wish I had begun back then. I wish I had started. I wish I had said, Fuck it. I know it's not going to happen overnight, but I'm not going to let my entire life go by just thinking about this thing that I want to create. I'm going to try. I'm going to step out of the thinking and I'm going to step into the doing because it's never going to feel like the right time. It's never going to feel perfect.

You're not going to feel worthy until you actually start taking the actions. And so, again, I want you to stop waiting to create what you want in your life. If you want to make art, make art. If you want to write, write. If you want to travel, you got to figure out how you can travel. You are missing out on everything because you're waiting for someday. You're waiting for someday to feel ready, someday for it to be perfect, someday. Well, I'll tell you what, today is that someday. And my mission today is to light a fire under your ass and have it burn so bright that that fire inside you becomes the engine that drives you.

One of the reasons why I love.

You.

Is.

You.

Have been a expert on the brain and a psychiatrist for 40 years, and you do not focus on what's wrong with us. You literally teach us how to bring out more awesomeness through brain health. You call it elite brain training. What is that?

Well, a long time ago, I realized I hated the term mental illness. It shames people. It's stigmatizing. And it's wrong. There are brain health issues. And if I can teach you to get your brain healthy, well, your mind is better. People often don't understand that. Your brain, physical functioning of your brain creates your mind. And so if you want to be elite, you're already elite. But the people I work with, everybody wants to be better. Nobody wants to be told they're mental. And so the mission I have on the planet is to end the whole concept of mental illness and create this revolution in brain health, which is why I'm so grateful to hang out with you today.

I wasn't planning on asking you this, but I just was struck by the fact that you distinguished between the brain and the mind. What's the difference between your brain and your mind?

Well, your brain, the physical functioning of your brain creates your mind. And people get this mixed up all the time— but you just have to think of someone who has Alzheimer's disease. And if you saw the scans of people with Alzheimer's disease, you see that they're wildly damaged. And then that person is no longer fully that person because their brain has been damaged or just take COVID.

People.

Who get COVID in the next four months have a 25 % chance of having a new onset psychiatric illness because COVID causes inflammation in the brain. And then I was on the compassionate show recently, and Kemal came to see me and she's like, After I got COVID, I'm so anxious. But if you look at the physical functioning of her brain, her emotional centers are on fire. And so people really need to know, if you want a healthy mind, the first thing to have is a healthy brain.

And when you say a healthy brain, so that makes sense to me, Dr. Ryan, first of all, especially the Alzheimer's example. It makes sense to me that when the physical structure and functioning of your brain is impacted, of course, it has an impact on the state of your mind. And so are you saying that absolutely anybody can improve the physical health of their brain, and that will have an impact on your happiness, your performance, and your mental health?

Everything. And it happens quickly. So, for example, if you get better sleep tonight, your mind can be better tomorrow. If you get drunk tonight, your mind's going to be worse tomorrow. And because those both have a direct impact on the physical functioning of your brain.

It's interesting because you're right, there is so much information and so many conversations out there about mental health, but you have this revolutionary approach of teaching all of us how to take better care of our brain and how to improve our brain itself and how that has a direct impact. I want to start at the very beginning.

Because.

You've been doing this for 40 years. You are, in my opinion, the world's leading expert on the brain. Can you give us just a one-on-one on the brain and what you want anybody and everybody to know about the brain. And I want you to speak directly, Dr. Amen, to somebody who may be listening, who's never thought about this topic before or before?

So your brain is involved in everything you do, how you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people. It's the organ of intelligence, character, and every single decision you make. And when your brain works right, you work right. And when your brain is troubled for whatever reason, you're sadder, sicker, poorer because your decisions aren't as good. And the very first step in getting a healthy brain is developing a concept I call brain envy. I always say Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. I haven't seen it once in 40 years. It's brain envy is what you want. You want to love the three pounds of fat between your ears. Today, I'm in Miami, but I usually live in Newport Beach, where we have more plastic surgeons than almost anywhere in the world because people care more about their faces, their breasts, their belly, and their butts than they do their brain. And that's insane because it's your brain that makes you attractive. It's your brain that makes you happy. It's your brain that keeps you purposeful, or it's your brain that is the organ of rage.

And so getting your brain right is critical. And it's these three steps: brain envy, got to care, avoid anything that hurts it, know the list. And quite frankly, most second graders would get a 90 % if you gave them 100 things that hurt their brain. And then the third thing is regularly do things that help it. And I worked with B. J. Foggs for six months. He runs a persuasive tech lab at Stanford on how people change. And we develop tiny habits. What's the smallest thing you can do today that will make the biggest difference and the mother tiny habit is whenever you go to do something today, ask yourself. It takes three seconds. Ask yourself, Is this good for my brain or bad for it? And if you can answer that with information and love, love of yourself, love of your family, love of your mission, you're going to just start making better decisions because you care about the organ that makes you you.

Wow. All right, let me unpack this. So number one, brain envy, is this idea of actually caring about the health of your brain. And so do you recommend that you have somebody in mind that you envy? Like, clearly, I envy you because you take incredible care of your brain. But is it just this concept that you just actually have to wake up and realize that what's in between your ears is the most important aspect of your health and wellness period? Is that what you're saying?

Yes.

Number two, you then said that there are these micro habits that you have developed, one of which is asking yourself literally throughout the day, Is this good or bad for my brain? Let me just role play that one real quick. Because you said that what, 90% of second graders can answer the question correctly almost all of the time, but we adults get it terribly wrong—so let's just say it's breakfast time. How do you use this to start to make better choices that help your brain? Do you literally go, Okay, am I having a cup of coffee or a glass of water? Am I eating like a big piece of toast with tons of butter and all this crap on it? Am I taking my supplements? How does this play out in somebody's day to day life, Dr. Amen?

So I used to play a game with my daughter when she was little. Her name is Chloe, and we called it Chloe's Game. And I would say Blueberries. And she would say, Two thumbs up, God's candy. And then I would say, frosted flakes should go way too much sugar or avocados to thumbs up God's butter or hitting a soccer ball with your head. And she.

Would just.

Roll her eyes like, Brain is soft, skull is hard. That would be so stupid. And so if you think of the standard American diet, sad, almost everything's bad for your brain. From the toast in the morning to the sugar cereals to the donuts to the pastries to the coffee with sugar and milk in it, no, those things are not great for the health of your brain. But if you did intermittent fasting and you start to skip breakfast, well, that's good for your brain.

Why is intermittent fasting good for the brain?

Because it helps your brain clean up the trash that builds up from the day before. There's a term called autophagy, which is cells start to eat the extra trash that built up the day before. And so if you don't sleep, you don't have enough time for the cleaning crew to come and clean up your brain. Intermittent fasting gives you a little bit more time to do that. So breakfast is marketing, and it's actually not essential. Now, for people who might have hypoglycemia or low blood sugar, then breakfast really is important. And kids who have ADD, for example, if they have protein in the morning, their medication lasts longer throughout the day. And when you and I were growing up, things like sausage and eggs were common for breakfast, where now, because everybody's on the run, it's sugar-laden cereals, juice, that was the only thing the second graders got wrong when I tested them. So I gave them a list of 20 things, and I'm like, Good for your brain or bad for it? And the only thing they got wrong was orange juice, which they put in the good category, but it's clearly in the bad category because when is it rational to have this sugar from four oranges?

It's not rational.

That's true. It makes a lot of sense.

What are three.

Micro habits that have the biggest impact on the health of your brain other than asking yourself, Is this good or bad for my brain?

I start every day with today is going to be a great day because once you get the physical functioning of your brain healthy, you then have to program it. I knew I was going to talk to you. It's the first thing that came up in my mind. I start every day. And if you have children, it's really good to do this at breakfast, which is if you have breakfast is... So why is today going to be a great day for you? Directing your mind, which for many people, because of evolution, they wake up in a negative state. It puts your brain in a positive state.

And.

Then my favorite of all the habits I do is when I go bed at night, I say a prayer, and then I go, What went well today? And I go on a treasure hunt. And I actually start from the very moment I woke up looking for what was right about the day. And I've done this now seven or eight years. And even the night my dad died about two and a half years ago, and it was an awful day. I did it because it was my habit, right? The brain is lazy. It does what you nudget to do. And so it really helped me even in a really hard time. But it's almost my favorite time of the day because like you, I'm busy and great things will happen, and I'll just not really focus on it. But it's that treasure hunt that is just so good. And then I take my supplements every day because we live in a nutrient-deficient society, and I always want to give my brain the nutrition it needs so it can serve me rather than derail me.

Is there one supplement that you believe everybody should take for better brain health?

Well, a couple. Multiple vitamin, a really highquality, multiple vitamin. I make one called Neurovite Plus. Brand new study showed people with memory problems who are headed to darkness when they took a high quality, multiple vitamin within a matter of months, their memory was better.

What?

Wait a minute. Hold on a second.

So.

You're saying that a high quality multivitamin can not only improve your memory, but if you're sliding on a slippery slope toward memory loss, research shows that it can actually bring memory back?

Yes, brand new research just came out. They're actually comparing it to placebo and cocoa extract, chocolate. And they were hoping the chocolate would do it. It wasn't the chocolate, it was the multiple vitamin. And why I developed Neurobite like I did, it has the same dosages of B6, B12, and foley that decreased the conversion of mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease. Now, I never make a disease claim with supplements, but if this level of B6, B12, and foley did that, I'm going to put those levels in our supplements.

Wow. I'm going to start popping it like candy is what I'm going to do. I'm going to make sure that we link to that study and then we link to the supplements that you make as well just so that people can check it out. That's incredible. So a multivitamin has a huge impact. I hear a lot about fish oil, too.

And that would be number two. I did a study at Amen Clinics, and we found 98 % of people had suboptimal levels of omega-3 fatty acids unless they were supplementing, because we don't have the same level of fish consumption we had before. Plus, fish is tricky. Brand new study out of Florida International University, so not very far from where I am today. They looked at bonefish off the Coast of Florida. On average, they had seven pharmaceutical medications in their tissues. And I'm like, no way. And the most common were antidepressants. So as humans excrete the medications they take into waste plants, that gets out into the ocean. And then the fish we eat are impacted by them in a negative way.

One.

Reason I like high-quality fish oil because it's purified, especially ours, but also omega-3 fatty acids have been found to be good for your heart, good for your brain, good for your hair, good for your.

Skin, good for your eyes.

Why is it good for the brain?

Twenty-five % of the nerve cell membranes in your brain are made up of omega-3 fatty acid. So if you're deficient, your brain is not going to work as fast and efficiently as it could. And low levels have been associated with all sorts of bad things, from depression to dementia to ADHD.

Right now, for the women or of all the owners that are listening, that when you start to realize, Oh, it makes a lot of sense. I'm a crock pot. I'm a slow cooker. It takes a while for the heat to come up. And what's missing in my partnership and in my sex life is any foreplay, any stimulation on skin, any warm up whatsoever. And I don't know how to even ask for that.

Yeah, okay, let's get into that Mel. That's really common scenario. And so the first thing is, we talked about timing, tone and turf. We've already decided with our partner that we're going to start to have some conversations about our sex life so we can have more pleasure, have a growth mindset, continue to grow as a couple. Again, in SmartSex, I've got so many... I literally have a whole chapter that's just scripts because I know, Mel, that this is so hard that people are now going, Yes, I wanted to let my partner know, but how do I do it? So one way you could say the compliment sandwich is basically, you got two compliments as the bread and the meat of it is your request. So I'm going to say, You know what? I'm going to start with something positive. I really am loving the last sex we had, I really loved how we slowly made out. That was really hot that we were kissing. I thought it was really great. I realized we haven't kissed in a while. Then you go into like, I love the way we were kissing. Then you could say, And I've noticed something, I've learned something about myself that making out and foreplay, and touch is a really big part of my arousal process.

And then you close it with, I feel like if we could do more of that kissing and slowing down, more oral sex, playing with my toys, that I know that we would both have more pleasure and it would really benefit our sex life. So how would you feel about that? And then you have to listen. Now, again, I can't say this enough, you're like, What do you mean? A lot of times, they're in fight or flight now, perhaps. They're on the defensive. You've never.

Talked about it. They're like, Oh, babe, let's go.

Yeah. Some might be like, Oh, but hopefully, they're like, Oh, wow, I hear what you're saying. Tell me more about that. We have to remember that we don't want to be defensive. We want to listen, and then we just explain them, give them the facts. I know that, because again, Mel, foreplay is not just a light suggestion. It's actually a requirement. Let me remind you that if you have a vulva, it's going to take you between 20 and 40 minutes to have an orgasm, typically.

With a partner. Wait, what?

Hold on.

I want to make sure everybody, vulva owners or not, just heard that. We're slow cookers. And on average, we're talking 20 minutes of arousal. And I like these terms because it's making me understand my body and it's making it less about what you do, what I do, that this.

Is literally.

How my body and my sexual system works, that arousal is a massive part of it. And if your partner is like, Game time, and you're like, Whoa, I need 20 minutes to really get the arousal engine going, that's not unique to you if you are a Volva owner. And it's important that we all understand that and embrace that fact. And look, I know we're now going to get all kinds of emails from people like, I can get aroused in one minute flat. Okay, great. Congratulations. I'll ship you a medal. But for the rest of us, embracing this and being able to not feel shame around it. And I like what you said, How do you feel about that? How does that sound to you? That that's the way you serve up the sex compliment sandwich? That you then ask them how they're feeling. And that conversation in and of itself, if you start to talk about it, probably begins a little arousal.

Yes. Now that's the thing is that once we get over all this stuff that's holding us back, couples are going to find that they actually enjoy talking about sex. I mean, you're planning your summer vacation. You're planning we're going to dinner, and let's plan our sex.

I love that.

What about a script for someone who has been in a relationship that has not been having sex for a long time? And as a sex therapist, what do you define as.

A.

Normal, healthy amount of sex that doesn't include penetration, everybody? We're talking about actual moments of consensual pleasure with one another. How often should we be shooting for in order to have a healthy sex life, Dr. Emily?

So I'm not able to give you a number. I can't be prescriptive here. People always want to know, Am I normal? We have sex one time a week. Is that okay? Is it three times a week? First, I want to say, in your relationship, you both get to decide what feels good for you. How many times a week, how many times a month? What do you both need? And then we find that sometimes those numbers don't match up. It's not enough for one partner, it's too much for the other partner. And so every couple gets to decide, but then this is where it takes some negotiating, some compromise. I would say that overall, once a week feels pretty good to a lot of couples, and that seems to be common. Once a month, not usually, I don't think that that's as great. If we're talking about even just intimacy, and connection, and touch, I don't believe that that's enough time for many. I think that we need to find out other ways to connect. But again, I don't like being prescriptive here because a couple is like, We do it every 10 days, and it's great, and we feel wonderful, and that's great.

But again, people are asking me, usually because they have a suspicion that it's not enough or someone's not as satisfied.

What do you say to somebody who hasn't had sex in years with their partner? How do you even bring that up?

Well, I think that we live with the elephant in the room. So again, using my timing tone and turfie to say, Hey, I think it's time we talk about it. Let's talk about our sex. Are we okay with that? I know it's been a long time that's gone by, and it doesn't feel good to me, or it does feel good to me. I mean, really, if the goal of that is to reconnect, listen, we have certain agreements, and they're unspoken. We get married to someone, and we commit to somebody. They're the unspoken agreement that we're going to continue to be intimate. You can't opt out of your sex life, right? I mean, it's just, unless without talking about it, certainly.

I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people stop having sex for whatever reason. They're pissed off, they have trauma, they're stressed out, all of this stuff. You go through body changes, and you suddenly are embarrassed by the weight you gained, or your libido hits the shitter like most of us in menopause. And then all of a sudden, you look up and you're like, Holy shit, it's been three months.

I.

Mean, Chris and I have gone through a period where we didn't have sex for several months. And I look back on the times when that's happened. It's when we were really struggling financially or in a lot of stress. And I thought about it all the time. There must be something wrong with us. Will we ever have sex? Is he not that interested in me? Like, all of that stuff. But I think it becomes easy to opt out of having sex. And so how do you.

Broach that for real in your relationship?

Because there were a hell of a lot of people that wrote in about it.

Okay, Mel, that's great. Thank you so much for, obviously, you always are, but sharing your real authentic vulnerability and stories, because I also want to say this. There's no sex police. No one's going to be knocking on doors like, I heard you guys having sex in three weeks. What's happening over there? What's going on with you guys? It's okay that you're not having sex. Literally, months go by. It's very, very common for couples. But what's missing from that is saying, Hey, babe, I'm acknowledging that right now, I know we're not being intimate. And I just think we're going through stuff. I'm not feeling great my body. My hormones are out of whack, not feeling great. I know we're going through this money thing. So maybe we could do some cuddling, or maybe we could just do some just acknowledging it Mel.

I had this vision that if you were to find the courage after listening to this to go to your significant other and be the one that just calls it out loud, that you're just going to say it out loud, We're not having sex. It makes me very sad. I would love to talk about it. I would love to connect with you, that you're hitting day zero on a new chapter because you're actually no longer ignoring it. You are doing what Dr. O'neill says we all have to do, which is we have to be responsible for our own sexual desires being met. And that begins by having the courage to say they're not being met and that it bothers you and that you want to do something about it. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God.

Please.

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