 it was never about the money. If you're going for something just for the money, there's a pretty good chance you won't get there. Today we're going to be talking about how to fall in love with the process and this is episode number three around how to take action. When we're talking about taking action, there's obviously a process to get us to where we want to go. One of the most important things that we can do is learn to fall in love with the process of everything that we're doing. Today we're going to be talking about something called a dopamine reward system. I'm going to teach you how to actually use the chemicals in your brain and how to actually get your brain to release the chemicals that you need to reward yourself whenever you do something so that therefore you continue on the path of the success that you want. Before we dive into that, it's very important to know what is dopamine. So dopamine is a chemical that's inside of your brain. It's a neurotransmitter and most people think that dopamine is the feel good chemical of your brain. It's actually not the feel good chemical, although you do feel good when you have dopamine that's released in your brain. It's actually the chemical of motivation. So it takes your focus and puts it externally. Now, if you've ever seen somebody that does cocaine or heroin, what that does is it releases massive, massive, massive amounts of dopamine, something that you can't do without a drug. That's why, though, when someone doesn't have the heroin that they want or they don't have the cocaine that they want is they have to get it like they have this when they're addicted to it, they have to it's anything they can do to get their hands on that. That is the external feeling of motivation to go get that thing no matter what. Now, obviously, you'll never be able to release that amount of dopamine in your brain simply through a dopamine reward system. But what it's doing is it's showing you when dopamine is high enough, somebody will do anything that they want, anything that they can to get the end result. In that end result, we're talking about a drug, which obviously you're not going to be doing, hopefully. But in this end result, can we talk about the end result being, you know, creating the life that you want, the happiness that you want? Dopamine is a very externally focused chemical. A lot of people get dopamine and serotonin mixed up with each other. Dopamine is the chemical of motivation. It's an externally focused like I'm going to go get this. I'm going to go achieve, achieve, achieve. Serotonin is actually pretty much the opposite. It is the here and now chemical that makes you feel gratitude, makes you feel grateful for what you have and everything that's around you. So dopamine is the chemical of more. So if we can create a dopamine reward system, just a little tiny bit of dopamine being released, we're just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Then it's going to motivate you to continue to work harder and to fall in love with the process, which like I said, we're going to be talking about. So it's the chemical that's released whenever you're excited or whenever you're celebrating something. So if you win something big and you're like, oh my gosh, my team just won the NBA finals or they just won the Super Bowl, that chemical dopamine is released at that moment. It's the celebrating molecule. It comes out whenever you're celebrating, you're excited about something. So in this episode, I'm going to talk to you about how to use that chemical to take the action that you need to, to create the life that you want to. When you think about some of the most successful people, like let's just take athletes as an example, right? Like the most successful basketball players that have ever existed. Like if we just say Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, right? Maybe LeBron James, we put him in there, put a few other people in there as well as like some of the best that have ever done it. But let's just talk about Michael, Jordan, Kobe Bryant, because I at least know what they used to do in their practices and stuff, right? What's the commonality between like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and some of the most successful CEOs and entrepreneurs? What's the commonality? You might say hard work, you might say dedication, you might say obsession with their craft and all of those would be true. Those, none of those are incorrect. But most of the time, what they've taught themselves to do, whether they realize it or not, is to fall in love with the process, not the end result. When you look at it, it was never about winning an NBA championship for Michael, Jordan, Kobe Bryant. They knew that if they became the best that they possibly could, they would have a better chance at then winning an NBA championship. So what happened was they fell in love with the process of it. And I'm sure they probably didn't know that they were creating a dopamine reward system in their brain. But what they would do is they would set up a dopamine reward system around the process that they had. I'm going to teach you exactly how they did that. So what is a dopamine reward system? First off, it's a way to get your brain to release dopamine after you accomplish a task that is part of your process to achieving the goal. Here's where most people make the mistake. Most people tell themselves that they won't ever celebrate until they're where they want to be. They won't celebrate until they become a millionaire. They won't celebrate until they win the championship. But that's the wrong way to do it because it's going to take a long time to become a millionaire. It's going to take a long time and a lot of hard work before you win the championship. So if you want to use the dopamine reward system, you don't attach it to the end result. You attach it to the tasks that are part of the process. I'll give you an example of what I used to do. And I didn't know this was a thing when I was younger. I just did it because I heard somebody talk about it one time. When I was in sales and I was in sales, I would sit down to make 100 phone calls in a day. That's a pretty strenuous process just to sit down to make 100 phone calls. But what I would do is after every 10 phone calls, I would give myself, I had a bag of Skittles that were out. I would give myself three Skittles after every single phone call, after every single 10 phone calls. So I'd do 10 phone calls, you know, I would then give myself three Skittles. I do the next 10, three Skittles. And then when I finished all 100 phone calls, I would let myself finish the bag of Skittles. I didn't realize what I was doing, but I was actually setting up a dopamine reward system for my brain to want to continue to keep working for what it is I was going for. Now, if I would have gone, I'm only going to be able to have Skittles after I finished the 100 phone calls. I wouldn't be rewarding the process, which is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to celebrate the process. I'm trying to celebrate every 10 phone calls, which then makes me want to celebrate and get more dopamine after another 10 phone calls, after another 10 phone calls, after another 10 phone calls. And then it's a big celebration. The rest of the bag of Skittles, whenever I finish all of the phone calls, a dopamine reward system is like the breadcrumbs that you set up for yourself on the road to success. It's kind of like if you remember E.T., where they would take the Reese's Pieces and they put like one every four or five feet so that E.T. would come and eat it and he'd follow the quote unquote breadcrumbs, follow the Reese's Pieces. That's exactly what you're trying to do. In fact, to give you an idea, research shows that if somebody is given at the end, or they allow themselves to eat a small piece of chocolate after a workout, that dopamine reward system at the end of a workout will actually motivate them to show up the next day because their body and brain want the dopamine again. Now I'm not saying eat an entire candy bar because that's not part of the research. It was a small piece of chocolate and you might think that's counterintuitive because it's like, well, I'm trying to work out. So why would I have candy? Because you're literally setting up a dopamine reward system for finishing the workout. Can you go even further than that and set up a dopamine reward system just for showing up at the workout? Can you set up a dopamine reward system after every single set? And it doesn't have to be, you know, I'm talking about Skittles and I'm talking about candy and stuff. It doesn't have to be just candy. A dopamine reward system, the best part about it is it's completely subjective. So it doesn't have to be candy. It doesn't have to be anything physical. It could be literally just celebrating yourself after you do something. One of the things that I do is after I, when I sit down to record podcasts, I'll sit down and I'll record three to four in a row and then I change my shirt after every single one of them so that when you're seeing these videos, it looks like I'm in a different day. It's the same freaking day, just different shirts. But what I do is I will then celebrate every single episode at the end of the episode with myself as I'm changing my shirt, thinking to myself about how good that episode just was and how many impact, how many people it's going to impact. That alone makes me excited about the process of doing what I'm doing and makes me want to go in with more energy the next time I record. So it doesn't have to be Skittles. It doesn't have to be chocolate. It can be completely subjective of a mini celebration with myself. Just, oh, that was so good. That was amazing. You did really good with this and building myself up, telling my brain when I celebrate, boop, just read a little bit of dopamine and get myself addicted to the process of what I'm trying to get to. So completely subjective. Doesn't have to be candy or any of that stuff. And notice this is attached to the process, not the end result. So Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant were, they won tons of championships. What is it? 11 championships between the two of them, right? But they were notorious for working harder than anybody else. Like Kobe Bryant was known for being at the gym every single morning at 4 a.m. since he was in high school. Since he was in high school and he's notorious for being known that what brought him the most joy was not winning the championships. It was that he knew at 4 a.m. in the morning he was the only one of like only competitor out there that was waking up and working out at that time. His dopamine reward system is he would celebrate himself for being at the gym knowing that all of his competitors were sleeping and he was out working them. So of course he wanted to show up the next day and feel that way again and show up the next day and feel that way again and show up the next day and feel that way again. This is why you see people and you realize it's not about winning. Winning is just a by-product of all of the hard work they put into it. It was about becoming the absolute best at their craft that they possibly could and then winning was just the by-product of it. It was just I want to live up to my full potential. I want to be the best basketball player in the entire world and so waking up at that time knowing that they were the only person up knowing that they were out working all of their competitors brought them joy and so that joy is a little dopamine reward system that they probably didn't even know that they set up but they were excited about it. So it wasn't about winning. It was about becoming the best they could and winning was the the by-product of it. So when you think about this for you for your success for your growth for the business that you want to grow whatever it is can you attach a dopamine reward system a mini celebration a getting excited about it and building yourself up and talking positive to yourself to make yourself feel good along the process not going well when i'm finally successful when i'm finally a millionaire then i'll be proud of myself then i'll be happy then i'll be bringing the joy and everything that i want to in my life. If you're doing that and probably won't you probably won't get there you won't be able to force yourself for 10 or 15 years most of the time. You can but it's gonna be a struggle on the way but if you celebrate showing up and putting in the work and showing up and putting in the work and if you're trying to work on your body don't only be happy whenever you get on the scale and it's finally the weight that you want it to be be happy that you showed up be happy when you get done be happy after every single set and celebrate yourself and build yourself up because that will actually make you addicted to the process which is what you want to become addicted to becoming better in every single way that you possibly could. Attach your reward system to the process and the effort that you put into something not the actual end result so attach them to making the phone calls not getting the appointment set attach them to finishing the workout or finishing each set not getting on the scale and being what you want to be attach it to reading five pages of a book not finishing the book attach it to eating a healthy meal not the way you look in the mirror that's the important thing is you need to realize is to fall in love with the process is the most important part this is why you always hear you always hear we always hear it all the time the most successful people saying it's about the journey it's about the journey it's about the journey it's about the journey it's always been about the journey this is why you see CEOs and people are like oh my god he's so rich why doesn't he just retire it was never about the money if you're going for something just for the money there's a pretty good chance you won't get there what it was about for them is building the business the work seeing this amazing thing being built around them that was only in their mind two years ago five years ago ten years ago and so the reason why they look like they're addicted to their business is because the things that brings them the most joy is bringing out the highest potential of themselves and building this amazing thing and they have probably without realizing it built a dopamine reward system to the process not the end result that's why you see so many people that sometimes are working for money and working for money and they're trying to build this business just so they can make money and eventually they give up or they burn themselves out is because their entire life was attached to the end result it was never attached to process and bringing out their true potential so the questions that I have for you is this what do you want okay what do you want and what actions do you need to take to get there what's the process of you getting whatever it is that you want and then how can you build a dopamine reward system to get you to fall in love with the process because if you fall in love the process you're going to keep showing up and if you just keep showing up eventually the byproduct will be whatever it is the success that you want in your life hey thanks so much for watching this video if you want to learn even more about master your mind click right here and watch this video as well we have mastered the art of distraction so why is it hard to focus because you're a freaking professional of distraction to yourself