Happy Monday. Oh my gosh. I know that I'm, I am probably not in the best company when I say that I love Mondays, but I really do, and today's not just any Monday. It is the Monday after my kids' spring break. I went to a conference the weekend before last and it's awesome, right? And you always come back from conference and you're like, I have so many exciting things to do. And then my kids had spring break and I was like, but we're gonna paint rocks and go on hikes and watch movies. Um, and you know what? It was amazing. It was great. Uh, it was a good time. It was nice to spend time with my kids. My house is a mess. Um, but this morning is my first real Monday and it feels so good to get back to work. I have plenty to do, but I've been thinking. Kind of adding little bits to my podcast, um, short, digestible pieces. And because I didn't have a whole lot of time to think about it, I decided to call'em pocket thoughts. So hopefully these are just kind of thoughts that you can keep in your back pocket information. I have, um, kind of this weird, I don't have a photographic memory, but I have like, um, like an audio graphic type memory. Not just that, but where, when I read something, when I read statistics, when somebody gives me a statistic, uh, when they give me like great information, I tend to hold onto it. And then I can tell you the day and time and exactly what they said. So like, don't have a conversation with me if you don't want me to recall it. Anyways, I, so I have to start by telling you that I got to, um, speak during a career fair to. Some high school students, and if you don't know, I did used to teach high school. That was the plan. And actually my bigger aspiration was just to go on and teach college because I love that age group. I, I just love it. I love the hope and the excitement. I love the naivety and the stupidity. All of high school and into those, those college years and you know, it's still on the list of things to do. In fact, knowing for really a long time, especially once my business started to get going and I started to see kind of my strengths come out again, I weird noise going on. Very ethereal. Um, I knew I wanted to write and in like, especially a few years ago, but I feel like even, you know, nowadays there are all kinds of biopics by women. Um, and they're amazing. I love reading them, but I felt like I need something different. I, I, I, there's so much of that I, and not that I'm gonna write a bestseller necessarily, but I know I wanna write and it kind of hit me one day when I was like, I wanna write to like, Young adults, I wanna talk to them, I wanna catch them, tell them about the stupid stuff I did. And so when I taught high school, my goal, and this is so silly, was to be a health teacher. You know, everything's a business. So I went and I talked to the, um, dean of whatever education I had gotten my bachelor's degree in health science. And I went to them and I was like, I wanna teach health. I wanna give them all the right information so they can write, make the right choices. That is, that's, that is the most important thing. Like it, unless you, I mean, I, I sell health and wellness supplements, um, and I've been kind of in this industry of helping people have like, Improve their life through clean products and healthy living for a while. And what I've always known is that until people have like the understanding, not, you don't have to have the deep, crazy science and molecular levels of things, but until you have an understanding, it's really hard to stay consistent in things. And until you have an understanding of, um, just all kinds of stuff, it's hard to make the right decisions. So one of my favorite things to do, Speaking with my high school. Well, okay, let me go back to this conversation with my dean real quick. I'm like, I wanna teach health. I wanna change these kids' lives. I wanna help them make the right decisions and inform them so that they can, you know, not get pregnant when they're 19 and not do all the drugs and, you know, fail outta school and all of that stuff that, you know, I didn't get pregnant when I was 19, but I did fill outta school cuz I was having too much fun. and he was like, oh yeah, we need, we need health teachers. We really need health teachers. So I go through the entire program and at the very end I realize being a health teacher isn't really a thing because it's not really a subject that's taken seriously. And it's typically taught by the like tenured, uh, biology or like history teacher who just needs to pick up an extra course. So that leaves like very few actual health, health teacher positions. E, exactly. None for the most part. Then I went and got my master's degree. Knowing that I could take that to another level, hoping to teach college, and I got to actually work, um, at the college for a while. Loved it. So anyways, all of that is to say that I love teaching young minds about things. And one of the things that I used to love talking to my high schoolers about was their prefrontal cortex. And so I would explain to them. That you know, their brain isn't. And, you know, they get very mad. And what, what are you saying? And I'm like, you guys, it's not, it's not my fault. I'm just the messenger. And it's not your fault. It's not gonna happen until you're like 24, 25. And here's the thing, that prefrontal cortex it is so important. It is what helps us, like look into the future, make good decisions, um, determine what potential outcomes can be. It, it is so important and you don't have that, that's why you do stupid. and I want you to understand that you don't have it so that when something seems like a stupid choice or a bad decision, you can be like, oh, that's right. I don't have a brain yet, maybe I shouldn't get in the car with the person who's been drinking, or maybe we shouldn't go and, you know, buy. Throw eggs at the school as a joke, even though it's not gonna be funny and we're vandalizing. Um, you know, it's, it's all of those things. It's why my best friend and I, in like seventh grade, decided to make candles and wound up pouring wax, a red wax all over her mother's. Driveway, which does not come off of cement. It was, you know, it was silly, it was stupid, but we didn't even consider the fact that the cupcake holders weren't just gonna like open up and fall apart, like we did not have. That ability to imagine the potential outcomes of this. And so in getting to share it with these high school students, my goal is like, you know, and by the end they're kind of like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And my hope was always that giving them this information would help them to at least try and use the other parts of their brains. To make better decisions. Right. Well, in all of this, um, as I've come through and started my business and get, you know, gotten to see dreams actualized, help people act, actualize their own dreams, whether it be in business or in, um, you know, in earning money through, you know, online marketing. and talking with so many people who have the same story as I do, where you just kind of like get to this point in life where you're like, okay, and this is what we do every day. Empty the dishwasher do. I'm the mom, I'm the dad. This is my job. Um, this is it. And, and it's not that those things aren't beautiful, but you forget about some of the things that lit your fire. I always kind of wondered and imagined and thought that I would go back and get a PhD and write a, like, write my dissertation on this only to find out that it's already been done. So I'm super annoyed, but it's gonna, we're gonna get to that. Um, I'm giving myself a time limit, by the way. So my thought was, wow, missing this prefrontal cortex was, you know, Why so many silly, bad, potentially life-threatening decisions get made at young ages. I also think it's why kids, teens, young adults are able to really hold on Chihuahua dream big, right? Like have these big, crazy goals. And I know I've talked about it. but, um, my son, Jameson, he's 10, he'll be 11 in a little while here. He decided that he, he got very serious about baseball, um, over the last year and a half. And he decided that he's going to play catcher for the Dodgers. Not like, not just like he's gonna play Major League baseball, but like he's gonna play catcher for the doctors and he has four different options of schools. He is gonna go. um, they're all very good schools. And at first I was like, okay, well, you know, I mean, maybe. And then I was like, wait, what am I doing? Yeah, sure. You're gonna play catch up with the Dodgers. Like, let's go with I'm, I am in full support of that. But you should know a couple of things, dude. First of all, you need great grades. If you wanna get into any of these schools, you can't just be an awesome baseball. Second of all, you know, and I've talked about this before, we have like these levels of goal setting. So top, top level goal catcher for pitchers. You cannot snap your fingers and make that happen. I can't, I, I can't, I don't even know, like, I don't think I could pay anybody enough money to just like have a kid be catcher for any specific baseball team, right? So I'm like your next level goal college. That's awesome. Can you snap your fingers and get into college? No. You have no way of determin. Who else is gonna be trying to get into that college? How good they are. So what can you do, Jameson? Well, you can get your grades up. Not that he had really bad grades, but they were like, mimic me, You can get your grades up, you, he's taking school seriously. You can practice your butt off, you can show up, work hard, you can practice every day. Like all these things, these are the things every day that you can do. Right. And watching. Since that, it's like, yeah, what's Jameson gonna do when he grows up? He's gonna be the catcher for the, for the Dodgers. I support that. What's he done? He goes out on our levee and he hits rocks almost every single day. Right? His bat is just beat to crap. He got a new one, don't worry. Um, he is signed up for spring ball, obviously, and he's in a travel. He is like the most serious kid on the field. Well, except for sometimes he is not. He's but in at appropriate times, mostly. Um, he is watching games, he's learning things. He knows everything about every pitcher, every player known to man at this point. Um, he is learning and he is doing everything that he can at this point. Not to mention that he's brought his grades up every single semester this year, which. Such a source of pride. Like I'm so absolutely proud of what he's done educationally and academically. Not just because I always knew that he was capable of it, but because it just shows his level of commitment and that he understands that it, he's gotta, he's gotta grow in a lot of different areas. It was also really funny when I told him he wasn't allowed to get in trouble. I'm like, you know, like you can get kicked off the baseball team for some things, especially in high school. So, um, it's helped him. Decide what he's gonna do day by day. So anyways, my point is that I believe that missing this prefrontal cortex allows us to dream bigger. I remember having those meetings that weren't really meetings in, in the dorm with like all this like strange grouping of people. We all look around at each other and we're like, we never would've been friends in high school. Like, this is wild. Like, I probably wouldn't have, we wouldn't have even talked to each other. And here we are, we're best friends and we're dreaming up how the world can become a better place. And, and again, it was so simple. It seemed so simple. Maybe it is, but then like we didn't have our prefrontal cortexes fully developed yet. You didn't really think about all the crappy stuff out there that keeps. As simple as like everybody's sitting around smoking a piece pipe and saying like, let's just be happy. Um, we were missing the prefrontal cortex. So then I start thinking, well, but those dreams, like where do they go? Where do they go? Why do they die? Because they do. And so before preparing for getting to go and speak to these high schoolers, I. Well, I wanna kind of look into this. Surely nobody's done any research on this before, cuz you know it's gonna be my thesis and how I become the most famous human in the world. And then I found that in fact there is a study that has already been done and, um, not just any study but it is 64 years of data that proves that. 64 years. It proves that the bigger kids dream, the more successful they will be. And not just that, but that it is a bigger determinant of dis success than their iq. The college they go to, their socioeconomic status. You guys, it is more important than any. Anything. The bigger kids dream over 64 years, they found the more successful they will be. And what was really interesting to me in this is not just, I'm not surprised, but I am like, that is incredible. And I know that, you know, my brother has a story where he had. my oldest brother is, I mean, he's so smart. He's so, he's so, so smart IQ through the roof. Um, and he wanted to be a naval aviator. Actually, both of my brothers did. And he, we had an, an uncle who told him that he couldn't because his eyesight was too bad. And, you know, like that's, that's not really a thing anymore. I think that maybe he could have overcome that in a number of different ways by the time he got there. But he gave. He gave it up one person, not his parents, not anybody else. One person told him, you're not gonna be able to do that. And he gave it up. Um, my other brother ended up being a fighter pilot. I don't know. They fought a lot like like brothers do. Maybe he did it just a piss of off. I'm just joking. He's an incre. He was an incredible, like maybe one of the best fighter pilots ever, but that's neither here nor there. On top of this. The fact that it's not just how big they dream, but it's also the support that they're given from family and from, or teachers, you know, anybody else in their life that support is integral to their future success. This study followed 17,000. From 1958 through whatever was 65 years later, and it proved that how big they wanted to go as a child determine their success. It doesn't mean that if they said they wanted to be the catcher, For the Dodgers that they became the catcher for the Dodgers. It just means that that big dream led to big success later in life. Now, another piece of this that was so fascinating to me was the fact that there's also this space and time in the mid twenties where disappointment in life is higher for these people. And do you wanna know why? You might know already if you've been Listen. Because the prefrontal cortex develops and all of a sudden it's like, shit, I just have to pay bills. Like this is gonna be hard. There goes that dream. I have to figure out how to just like live now. This sucks. This is not what I was going for. And that is like what I, I love that I, I don't know, in the study it didn't spec specify that, but I know it to be true. So maybe that's the dissert. but I remember it. Any of you guys remember it? It's like you got these big, so it's gonna be so amazing. I'm gonna go do these huge things and change lives and da, da, da. And then all of a sudden you're like, or I'm gonna work at this cubicle and I'm just gonna try and figure out how I can have enough money to pay my rent and go to the bar with my friends on Saturday night. Um, life hits. Life hits. And I think for a lot of people, even if like the dream big aspect wasn't really. they had to work hard. Um, you know, their families just needed them to like buckle down and do the things, or they didn't have the support and they didn't even think to dream big. Um, you then you hit that space and then it's just like getting through it. And I don't believe that dreaming big is, is like if you didn't dream big as a kid, that doesn't mean that you can start dreaming big. You can't start dreaming big. I think that this story is more for those of us who have any kind of impact on children, to know that we can have a much greater impact by encouraging them to dream huge, huge. I mean, just another study that one of my mentors talks about is like the determinant of success, and it is unrealistic. Optimism. Optimism for the future, unrealistic. And um, I know that if I sat down and told you all the things that I wanna do, you might think that I was crazy. I know when I first sat down with my friend, she was like, you should come and do this network marketing gig with me. I'm gonna retire my husband. I thought she was crazy. I thought she was ridiculous. I actually like went home and laughed about it. Just now I'm like, Hey, I wanna retire my assistant's husband. And she's like, please don't. I like him at work, So first I wanna say, Did you have big dreams as a kid? I feel like it's, ah, what's happening? Um, I feel like, I feel like everybody did at some point. You know, I know that I was lucky enough to be in a family where I think that sometimes my daddy dreamt even I didn't call him daddy. I meant to save my dad. He, he's, he is my daddy. He is, he's amazing. but I think that my parents at times, I dreamed even bigger for me for a minute, you know, uh, he always said I should be a newscaster or a lawyer and actually both seem like directions I could have gone. But, um, I, I was lucky enough to have that. But I do believe that a lot of kids dream big, and I'm sure that oftentimes that those dreams are squash. We can start now and we can start supporting anybody else, especially in that little age bracket where they, they just have these crazy, big dreams. Even if they can't specify what they are, it's the biggest determinant of success. And so, like I said, these people did have kind of like more of a downturn in their mid twenties because their brain showed up and was like, eh, it's not gonna be that easy, but, they, they find the success. You can find the success and change it all. The drop of a hat, it's fascinating to me. It's beautiful to me as a mom, as you know, a mentor, as somebody who just really loves this kind of sciencey stuff. Research like this. I say all the time, I ask my guest to say all the time, like, this is not for other people. This is for you. Write down what those dreams were. You don't have to like go after them. If like you were gonna be the pitcher and now you're like 43 and you're like, eh, I don't think I can make that happen. But you can still make something happen. You can still go huge because that drive is there in you somewhere. And we can still be incredible partners, parents, hard workers. I'm not telling you to quit your job to do anything else, but if you're not completely happy, do not lay down and. Find that, you know, like find the part of your brain that was taking over before that whole, like thinking too much part came in, have set some crazy, crazy goals. And then what's the mid-tier goal and what's the day-to-day goal that's gonna get you? And let's like slay some dragons. You know, let's do big things. It's never too late. I talk to people all the time and they're like, they just like throw these little ideas out, like, I think it would be really cool to do this. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. It's not like, oh, I think it would be really cool to do this. It's like, this is what you should do. That's doesn't even sound hard to me. That's what my business, my consulting business is, is saying. Yeah, that's a great idea. Let me put you in contact with the people who can make this happen and make that happen because you don't have to figure it all out. You have an idea and it's brilliant. You have an ability and it's amazing. And if you know you can't afford this, then I'll give you this option. So again, I'm not trying to like, Totally promote myself. But if you are one of those people, I, I'm free by the way, so there's no use in promoting me. We sit down, we have a conversation, I put together a strategic plan for you and, um, and just connect you with the people who I believe can help you get your next steps going. Uh, but that's what's been so incredible is, is getting to learn about and meet so many people in so many industries who are the genius. and can do. It's not, it's, it's who, not how That is an actual book. I think I have it right here. Who, not How Dan Sullivan. I love to, I like to dream. So that's what I do. I dream with you and then we find the who. Um, but more than, more than anything, I just hope that you're able to remember some of those dreams and. Sit on the fact that they were there. And that alone means that you have a high likelihood of success, even greater success. If you feel like you're the most successful you can be. Even greater success, cuz there's always a level after next. All right, I did it in 25 minutes. That's pocket thoughts for the. I hope you guys have an amazing week, and I'm so excited for the podcast dropping this week, uh, with Lynn Rivers. She knows more about the microbiome than I like, thought was even possible, so it's incredible. It's, it's exactly right around, uh, where my mind has been at lately. And, um, specifically because I've been talking a lot about hormone regulat. And, uh, have a new product that is for supporting hormones holistically, completely, and without any kind of hormone replacement or, um, phytoestrogens all natural. And it works so much better when in conjunction with a healthy gut because your gut. Like, it's like really your first brain and she's gonna explain that. I can't wait for you to hear more. All of the information is gonna be on the show notes here. And I also have, um, a cool braid going on this topic. Exactly. So I'm gonna post that in here too. If you haven't checked out Braid. I absolutely love it. New app, new idea. Um, really fun way to just be in contact with some really incredible minds and, um, collabo. Share, interview, all of that. So, okay, now I'm up. Now I'm over my 25 minutes. thank you for joining me. Have an incredible week level after next. Let's do it. Go forth and slay.