The Messy Middle Between Who You Were and What Comes Next | Dominika Staniewicz

Dominika Staniewicz had worked with the Polish president, the UN Commission, and the European Union. She had negotiated national labor laws, built a business, and led groups ranging from twenty people to a thousand. Then she moved to the United States and discovered that the only job she could get was sorting hangers in a warehouse for $10 an hour.That experience changed the way she leads.

In this episode of Marketing, Magic & the Messy Middle, Beverly Cornell talks with Dominika, founder of Your Brain Coach D and a neuroscience-based coach, speaker, and trainer. Dominika explains why being on the receiving end of someone else's authority made her pay attention to the intention behind every word. She also shares how brain awareness, intuition, and a clearly defined vision now influence the decisions she makes.The conversation reaches directly into branding and sales. 

Dominika describes correcting people who assume she is a doctor, practicing a warm and direct present no, and hearing from clients who followed her content for three years before reaching out. 

Beverly asks the question that changes the frame: what did waiting cost those clients?

This is a conversation about starting over with your experience intact, leading people with greater care, and building a brand whose message, boundaries, and choices tell the same story.

Three Marketing Topics

Turn reinvention into an authority story: Dominika's line, "I started from experience, not from scratch," gives founders a way to talk about pivots without erasing the knowledge, relationships, and pattern recognition developed before the change.

Treat communication as part of the client and team experience: Dominika's warehouse job showed her how differently words land when the speaker controls someone's schedule, income, or sense of security. Brand voice includes what a company says and the experience its language creates.

Give ready clients language for the cost of waiting: Dominika's three-year sales cycle led Beverly to focus on what those years require from the client. Real language from calls and testimonials can help a person recognize the cycle sooner without relying on manufactured urgency.

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SPEAKER_01 0:11

Did you know that approximately half of working women report playing stressed compared to only 40% of working men? For women in leadership, that pressure can feel very intensified by constant decision making, visibility, professional expectations, and responsibilities outside of work. Today's guest helps women understand what is happening in their brains so they can reduce the overwhelm, strengthen their decision making, and lead from their natural strengths. Welcome to the Wickedly Branded Podcast. I'm Beverly Cornell, the host, founder, and fairy godmother here at Wickedly Branded. And today I'm joined by Dominika Stanyovich, founder of Your Brain Coach D and a neuroscience-based coach, speaker, and trainer who helps women leaders reduce stress, improve their decision making, and lead from their strengths. With more than 20 years of experience in the United States and Europe, Dominica has spoken for organizations including Decline and MasterCard. And in this episode, we're going to talk about burnout and intuition and reinvention and what happens when your brand no longer reflects who you've become. Dominica, welcome to the Wickedly Breaded Pot. My pleasure. It's an absolute honor to be here. Thank you. Let's talk about how you got started, your kind of evolution, and what you're doing now. So you have a very strong background, lots of education, lots of high-profile jobs. What brought you here?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

So in the past, I've worked with the Polish president, the UN Commission, European Union. I've negotiated national labor laws, national minimum wage. I've done pretty cool stuff in my life. I love patterns and kind of projections. And I was really accurate when it comes to projecting out. I became a much better manager and much better leader after that experience, though I would not like to be reminded of that ever again.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Fair. You did your time. You're good. One thing that you, the one word that you said that was intriguing to me is the word pattern. Yes. And I feel like I am a pattern seer as well. And maybe it's my odd HD brain, or maybe it's my life experience, or maybe it's the work that I've done or the education I've had. I've done my master's and I've done content analysis and I've looked at patterns and things like that way. But I see patterns with the founders that I work with, patterns of their life that led them to the work that they're doing and how it informs the work that they're doing. And I am a geek about patterns. And your whole background is on neuroscience and how the brain works. And patterns seem to be something that sits right in the middle of. So talk about how you came to neuroscience and seeing patterns and how that affects your work today.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

So my first degree, my master's is in sociology. And guess what? Sociology is patterns of the society. Yeah. It's it's part of what I was trained to do. And I always thought, now I'm gonna give you a little tip. Female brains are prone to see patterns because that's a safety feature. And it's better developed in women than in men. Like I'm digressing. So when I came to the US, I went through that experience and listening to podcasts and to people, I simplify it because it is complex, but it can be simplified so people can understand it and make use of it. And that's how I fell in love. And that was my first certification at Eamon University. And now I'm a mentor at Eamon University, and I teach future coaches and trainers about brain health and brain systems and patterns. And how can you use the neuroscience knowledge that we have to make it work for you? And how can you redesign your brain consciously? Because a lot of things can be done. Not everything, but a lot of things can be done. And in the long run, we used to talk about the power of the mind. There's power of biology. The idea behind Dr. Eyman and how we train, how we coach, how we teach is that your brain creates your personality, not the other way around. And if you create a strong, resilient brain biologically, you will be able to deal with life on your terms in better ways, and you'll have more resilience. Resilience, it's tied to parts of your brain, physical parts, that we can see grow when you practice resilience and grit. And that then gives you the ability in psychology to refrain or restrain things that are coming your way or refrain from reacting. So all of that is connected. And the elements of biology that are infused in this type of coaching and training for female leaders allow you also to look at you holistically. For example, if your blood work is out of whack, it could be in the norm, but not supporting brain health, you'll be struggling. We already know. Simple example, lack of iron or low iron and ferritin will result in higher levels of stress, anxiety, anxiety, and depression. There is a correlation, and if you're prone to it, that will make it even worse. Getting that intact, it's so simple and so cheap, but you need to know what to look for. So the idea is to coach with a ladder of change, and medication is very important. Don't get me wrong. Medicine saves lives, no doubt. But there are a lot of things you can do if you're not in crisis, the suicidal crisis or long haul depression that lasts for years, that you can do to work on your brain so your brain can actually regenerate because neuroplasticity is a lifetime thing. Your brain can change till the day you die. It's not true that you cannot teach old dogs. You tricks.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Well, there's some people who are just stubborn, though. But I want to say a couple of things. I love this so much. I have been exploring being a perimenopausal woman and understanding about a year ago was having some heart palpitations and anxiety. And I thought it was related to progesterone and the lowering of estrogen and progesterone. So I went to my doctor and I talked to her about it and she tested my iron. My iron was low. Then I went to a sleep study. In the sleep study, he did a ferritin test. And I guess your ferritin is supposed to be like in the hundreds. Mine's at eight. So it's really low. And that can cause heart palpitations. It can cause issues with anxiety, like feeling anxious, also restless sick leg syndrome, all kinds of can affect your sleep. And so actually, next week I have an iron infusion to help with my ferritin levels. And I'm really looking forward to the effects it's had, hoping that it actually does help. There are so many things that are interconnected that affect our health internally, vitamins, amino acids, all kinds of things. I work with a lot of one of my clients is a naturopathic doctor. I work with a lot of holistic healers who look at your body holistically, but I've not really had a lot of conversation with them about the brain and how neuroscience and all of that is related. Everything you're saying is clicking for me because I'm like, of course it's all related. It's not fits related. One little thing like your ferritin or like your B vitamins could really affect you so strongly when you're looking at decision making. We're looking at your stress levels of feeling overwhelmed. And so many of us who are doing all the things for our businesses oftentimes don't take care of ourselves from a health perspective. I feel like we're the last on the list. Is that what you're seeing?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

I would say, especially for women, we have been told by society, by our parents to take care of everybody. Notice that women are usually the caretakers for elderly parents, not the sons. Women are the ones rushing and helping. But the truth is, I would say for most women, the truth will be that it's hidden low self-esteem. So we have something called mirror neurons. Yeah. And by the way, we're not altruistic as we think we are. And that was a very sad discovery from neuroscience. Well, mirror neurons allow us to feel and notice what other people are feeling. And then your brain perceives that feeling.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

If it's extreme, that's even a psychiatric with these binary messages of how you should show up as a female, let alone as a female founder who has some level of agency and power. How do you find yourself in all of that? And like you said, I think so many of the people we have observed, so many people that we have helped. And I certainly have the helping gene. You're saying, like, oh, yeah, maybe that has something to do with mind the way I was raised. But they're helpers and they want to save the world. And so they are relationally tied. And when you're relationally tied as a founder to others, it is even harder to find yourself in the center of all that because you're so busy taking care of everyone else. I'm guilty of this too. I said yes to everything and everyone because I didn't want to disappoint anyone.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Working on you hurts more than helping others. Yes, absolutely. Things where your identity does not match who you are, and things you did don't match what you think about yourself on the conscious level. And if that requires work, and that's very uncomfortable. So it's much easier to help others because then they give us the validation, right? And that is also the brain's need for creating groups of supporters because we don't survive alone. I think what you're describing is very typical for a lot of women. And I am going to go on a limb and I have a theory which I've been researching for quite a while, and I'm almost sure I could prove this. Of course, science can prove me wrong. But people who are on a mission to change the world usually are unhealed humans in some area. If you have not dealt with some type of trauma from the past and you're so angry still about it that nobody will ever experience it, it is phenomenal fuel for success and growth in the healing space. The truth is, the moment you forgive those people and you come to terms with it, that drive is gone because you're okay and you can move on. Found a lot of women have not dealt with their past and a lot of men too. One of them is coming his drive to change the world. He talks about how his mother helped hurt him, how she would change partners, how she was an alcoholic, how his stepfather turned away food when they were starving too, and he has a mission, nobody will go hungry again. Do you see that where I came from? So if we don't deal with our pain and trauma, this can be a driver to change the world. But is it really serving you? Is that the way to do it? So, what is the way to do it? From my perspective, as a health brain coach and the sustainable performance, it is finding not the why that makes you cry. That's total BS. That's brain hates that, by the way. Don't do the whys that make you cry because that burns you out and you end up with me and spend a lot of money. That's like this narrative that has been running around. That's the worst thing you can do for your brain. Passion is not the same as why that makes you cry. Passion is we're not looking for balanced life. We're looking for harmony, which means a lot of things can be happening at the same time and create a beautiful experience with dark shades and light shades. Balance is you're constantly concentrating to keep things which burns you out. That's insane, that narrative that we have. The way, from my perspective, it is to allow yourself to run with your gift. And every time you support people, ask them, do they want it? Is this serving my mission? And is it serving me at this time? And if you start asking these three questions, you will find that if any of these is a no, this is not the time to do it. Because forced help. Are the three questions? The first question is, do they want my help? The people that you're serving, your customers. So for example, when a client comes to me and they want to find out, they go, Yes, I really want to do it. But when I start asking questions, it turns out that they're really not driven to do it. They're just it would be cool too. Yeah. Checklist item or something. So do they really want my help now? Because even if they need it, they need to want it more than you.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

One of the things that I've learned, Dominica, I think this is so powerful, is I cannot carry someone across the finish line. So this idea of do they want it is super important when you're because otherwise you're going to exhaust yourself trying to help people who don't, who are not ready for the work or don't want to do the work, or think that maybe that it'll be easy and then it's actually a lot of work for them. So this is great because you cannot carry someone across the finish line.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yeah. And then we're asking, of course, ourselves, is this serving me right now? Because very often, so one of the things when we're learning about the brain is that brain hates multiple choice. Brain likes A, B. And that's the way to prevent burnout and actually make better and quicker decisions. So when you're on a mission to do something and things come, right? The shiny objects and oh, this will be cool to do, this would be cool to do. Mission foutining is real, yes. Exactly. You need to ask yourself, is this serving me right now? My what I want to do. Because if it's not, then maybe just suggest I have a list of coaches that do similar things to me, but in different angles with different perspectives. And I can recommend five more people that you can go to is in their mission right now because I have a focus where I'm going. And if it's not serving me, it's taking me away from where I want to go. So notice that the I is always in a context. And that's the difference. I in a context is much more powerful than I alone.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

So this relates to the concept I say is a sacred no. You have to understand who you are, where you're going, what you want, so that you can say no to the things that don't serve that purpose. And it's not a mean no, it's just no. Like you said, I'm not the person for you to do that thing. I know other people who could do that for you, that are in that space, that are living that and love that. But that is not for me. I said yes to everything in the beginning, and now I say no a whole lot. And the idea is that I'm in my zone of genius for me. The thing that I know drives me, fuels me, gets me excited, that I know that I can make a difference into. That's the other side of it, right? And that I just know I'm good at and I have the experience for. And so I want to sit there because that's what lights my fire. That's what makes me happy. That's what when I know I'm doing the work I was supposed to do, and it just lights me up from the inside out. And when I'm doing things like I don't do Google ads, I don't, I do branding evolution. That is my forte. I help branding evolution authority positioning. That is what I love to do. Yes, I could run an ad for you on Facebook, but that's a whole mad scientist thing, too. And somebody who does it every day is gonna be way better at it than somebody who does it every once in a while and understands the basics. So saying no is actually the highest level of respect, I believe, to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

I think saying no is the only way to go because your identity and self-worth is built also on saying no and feeling comfortable with it. Saying no in a respectful way, I'm gonna add. Sure, you're right. You know what you're good at. Make sure you surround yourself, you create your tribe of people who are great at similar things that you can refer out. If you want P. I had some NLP training, but this is not something that I love doing. And I know a few amazing people at it. That's not me. And if you need, I understand hormones, but I also have a list of doctors that have been trained to look at things and I know things are off. I'll go, I would recommend you go and see a doctor so they can work with that because that's a medical degree necessary. I have to understand it, but I cannot shoot you. And my job is to get you to your finish line as quick as I can. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

So the brain, the brain, so you do neuroscience, you talk about that from a speaking perspective, from a leadership brain that was running.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

And the moment I gave in and started talking to women in power and leadership, and saw them struggling, and I saw my knowledge from Dr. Daniel Eyman, Huberman, and a few other phenomenal people who I learned from work and make them better leaders, happier women, having time finally for themselves, being able to work six hours instead of 12 hours, able to enjoy life, asking themselves the question what do I want to do today? What would make me feel great? And this was such an epiphany for them because their brain finally started functioning at a level. We looked at their blood work, their hormones, we looked at their sleep patterns, their academic rhythms. This is all brain related, it's not a separate thing. And it was like, oh my goodness, those women have influence on hundreds of people. What if I could work with one and through this make better life for so many? The ripple effect is real. One of the things you mentioned on the application was your life over and over until it sticks. When I was 18, I was told I can never ever graduate university because my epilepsy is so severe. I'm pretty so I probably will find a husband. I should have kids and just go to bed at eight and relax. Needless to say, I don't go to bed at eight. I did get married and I have four degrees and going for a fifth one. That when you that is my if it's my dream and it's in my core that I feel like I have to do it.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I'm so sorry. My assistants are very cute, but they're very mouthy. So you were talking about the stubbornness and how you you weren't gonna get married and you weren't gonna have kids, and you're married and you have four degrees and you're working on your fifth degree.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yep, that's it. And I'm getting my master's in neuroscience psychology. I've been doing this for such a long time that I might as well get a piece of paper. But the truth is that what I didn't realize is that my stubbornness is connected to the moment when I listen to my intuition. And that's a very different type of stubbornness. When it feels right, and I'm in a calm state, by the way, I talk a lot about intuition because it's a brain function and there are brain parts that are responsible for your intuition. That when we fall in love, when we're talking about the butterflies and your stomach, that's the signal of run. This is your amygdala telling your brain that you've experienced this before and didn't end well. You don't want to be madly in love, you want to be calmly in love. So there are a lot of different parts in our brain that we were given and developed for protection, for success. And yet we keep going with that flow per se, not listening to what our gut are saying. And when I on stage ask women, I'm not gonna ask you, ladies, if you're listening to this, ask yourself when you didn't listen to your intuition, how did it end? There's not one person who will say it went well. So I've made a promise to myself that my drive and my stubbornness has to be connected to my intuition, not just to prove people wrong. That was great for the beginning of my life. Sometimes didn't end very well. These are the success stories, but there are a few very not successful stories with being stubborn. So now that you add the intuition in and you sit and you there are exercises literally that we teach women to ask your nervous system if you cannot find out how it feels, that will biologically tell you if your nervous system is agreeing with this. One of them is a really cool one, is was also demonstrated on Stephen Burgslet podcast where when you lie and you take your hand out and you say, My name is, and you push, and there is a turn, and when you lie, you have no strength. There are ways to do it on your own without another person, and we teach those things so you can ask your internal intuition when you cannot feel the access if this is the way to go. So there it's fascinating how everything is connected, and neuroscience gives us tools like mental rehearsal, which we knew worked, but nobody used. Do you know that 80% of practice of F-16 pilots is not in the planes, it's on the ground, imagining that they're flying and making the right moves physically, like muscle memory, yes, but it's also emotional regulation, it is reacting to sounds, it is reacting to intuitive feeling, it is adjusting. But guess what? We can use that to train our nervous system to react a certain way in certain situations. We can imagine those situations and specifically train ourselves. Smell for your brain bypasses prefrontal cortex, goes into the limbic system. You can train a feeling based on a smell, which you already have, because if you think of your favorite food of your mom or your grandma, you smile. And when you start remembering how it looked, how it smelled, how it tastes, your face lights up. Guess what? That is based off a smell. Smell is a strong precursor emotions and memories. So we can now create smells that will be connected with a specific feeling that you can evoke when you need it, like courage or flirtiness, whatever else that you might need. Now, obviously, you're not gonna have the author of smells. We can do it on two, three so it works. But there are specific exercises, things we can do with the brain. So the brain responds to what you need it when you need it.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

This is so great. And I think I do this, but I didn't realize this is what I was doing. So I when I want to really focus, I put in a piece of gum and I play a specific on Spotify. I have a playlist that is piano music. And when I put that on and I put in the gum, my brain knows it's time to focus. And it's I'm training it to do that. I have trained it over years. Okay, it's now game time. I put the gum in, I put the music on, and I'm able to really focus. So it isn't based on a smell per se, but it's an action or even the taste of the gum and the sound of the music. Here puts my brain into a state of flow that I don't have normally when I'm just going from thing to thing. And every day, at least for an hour or so, I am in that state to get stuff done, to get off my list, whatever it is. That is an intentional thing that I do to put my brain into that state.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

You designed your brain to behave in a certain way. This is exactly what we're talking about. We can do this with so many things. Now imagine if you could finally stop responding emotionally to things that piss you off and just let them go immediately. Imagine you could have design, especially in the important things for you, because not everything needs to be changed. Some things are great the way they are, but there are some things that are creating struggle in your life. So one of the important things, for example, I highly recommend to every woman, your brain, if you have a phone in your room, even face down, it is constantly in the background using your decision-making skills, anticipating that something is going to show up on your phone. If you want to increase by about 30% of your concentration level, take your phone to another room. Out of sight, out of mind is a very true statement for the brain. And you will perform your work much faster. Interesting. To my listeners, you should try that. Try it and see how it works. And it's free, it's simple. And again, that's all neuroscience-based. So imagine the amount of tools we have now. And this is evolving. And I told you before the show, I listened to myself from five years ago. I'm like, oh, that's not accurate anymore.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

We're learning so much about the brand, how it works. A couple of things that you mentioned that are really powerful for the work that we do and how we help our clients too is this idea of reactivity versus intentionality. And are you just reacting to your day and to your marketing and to your branding, or are you actually intentionally planning, focusing in a different way? And the difference is one of the best things that I've ever done is take control of my time. So Mondays is like my operational day, Tuesdays is a work day, Wednesdays is a recording day and content creation day, Thursdays is a work day, Fridays, I actually leave open. This is actually my day as well, Dominica, but I really wanted to open up a time on Fridays for additional podcasts. But what the idea was is that instead of pulling myself in a thousand different directions, now every day has a focus and every day has a plan to a certain degree as a business owner things happen. But for the most part, I have now trained my staff, trained my brain, trained my team, trained my clients. This is when I'm available to do these things. And I know those days going in, like what my day is going to be like. So my brain knows it's Tuesday. Oh, it's a work day. This is what that looks like. So it's, I have taken more control of my life, my work life specifically. Doesn't always work when you have an 11-year-old, you have to take to soccer and do all the things. But I have found a way to harness my energy during the week using these time chunks that help me and my brain. I maybe it is a ferritin issue, maybe it is a hormonal issue that I was late diagnosed ADHD, but that has really helped me not feel like I'm just reacting all day, every day. Like I feel so much more in control of the business and what the work and what we're doing now based on just taking control of my calendar. Now, there's many other things I do too. There's other things that I do too that work for me that may not work for somebody else. But what are some of these things that you think can help? There are so many things that we can do as a female founder. We have all these roles, right? Like you said, we take care of our parents, we take care of our children, we take care of our husbands. As a founder, I'm taking care of my business, I'm taking care of my clients, I'm taking care of my team. We're always in these pulls in many different directions. And the decision fatigue is real, cognitive overload is real. All these things are very real for female founders. I'm sure they are for men too, but what my experience is as being a female, and most of my clients are female. A tip or a thing that you think would be super helpful for us to know about our brains, you can help them.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

So your brain has a limit of decisions it can make daily. If you're overloaded with stupid decisions, it will impact how quickly you work, how well you work. One of the things you can do, you can simplify your closet that you wear to work.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

The president.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

There's four suits in the president's closet, right? Let's use other examples. Top female leaders, including the CEO of Chanel, has a very simplified closet. She doesn't think every day what to wear. It's taking away from decision footy. Another thing, your brain does whatever you program it to before you pick up your phone. Say to yourself, it's going to be a great day before you open your eyes. And think of amazing things that might happen. What happens is we have something called reticular activating system. It is a part of your brain where you tell it, oh, life sucks. It will start looking for reasons to prove you're right. The rule for the brain, your brain will always prove you're right. No matter what you say, you are right. Your brain, that's its job. Because when it's wrong, it has to use decision analytical skills and it decreases the cognitive ability. So it's easier to prove you're right and move on for the brain. So one of the things you need to do is make yourself think positive thoughts before you open your eyes. Next thing for your brain, we are going to increase cortisol on purpose, which is necessary for mental awareness and cognitive abilities. You're gonna go back. But if you create that environment and now imagine that people you work with are the same. So find out when is your team's perfect spot. Don't set up meetings then. And last thing but not least, which is not it is brain related, but it's something that I hope you've heard and you practice. Before you plan your calendar in any way, shape, or form, you plan your time off. And the good stuff, absolutely in your calendar. That's non-negotiable. It's not I have one more email to send. No, I it will wait. Trust me, it will wait. Do not replay you cannot. Okay, so when I work with women especially, we train on transition rituals. And I invite you to create one for yourself. The moment you leave work, like men when they come home, notice that they need to decompress for half an hour to an hour, and they're really non-responsive to you. They are in their own world and leave them alone. And then they come back and they say, I love you, how are you? The whole conversation starts. Women forgot we need that transition period too, because your business you is not the same as your private you, and they cannot be the same because different meaning give it. Okay. And Tommy Robbins, which I also adore and I crew for his events, and I think he he helped me a lot just in the environment, the very positive environment, the reinforcing of different way of thinking. We all take what we want and what we're ready for. But he says, and also Dr. Amon says the same thing, if you're gonna blame them for the bad, blame them for the good. See, your brain, again, decides, or you decide, what your brain is looking for. So if you decide to choose to look working separating hangers, somebody would go, oh my god, this is so horrible. I have been degraded, my life will never be the same. It is the meaning that's assigned to it because it fits the narrative. But what if I go, okay, that sucks? Naming feeling is very important. There's UCLA study and Stanford study that shows that it reduces stress if you name the feeling and what it is as it is, not good or bad. They're sick. That's not cool. I don't like this. That's perfectly okay, right? It's not necessarily end of the world, but if you go, oh, it's gonna be fine, it's gonna be great, you actually prolong stress response in your body, and you create actually even more challenges and anxiety. So name things as they are. My life will a lot of my choices, but a lot of life happening. And one of the things I have to understand is that the only thing I can control is my association of emotion and the meaning I assume. There's nothing else I control. I control how people react to me. And there's a fantastic exercise that is connected to self-worth that I do with grown women as well as with teenagers when I do teenager workshops for young female leaders. And we start, we of course preface it's an exercise, and I start yelling at them using something that is ridiculous. Let's say I'm blonde and I'm saying, you stupid, dark-headed, purple eye. This was the result. Could I have chosen something else to get a different result? Yes or no? At that time, no. But if I would do it now, could it be different? Yes. So I get to choose each time an important part. You cannot defeat your brain. Your brain is exhausted by the end of the day. We all know that we sit down on that couch are like, I'm gonna think for a walk is reviving. But the truth is accepting life as it is, accepting you made choices you've made, naming things as they are, and being excited how this can be connected, using your intuition, not assigning meaning that is not serving you, all of those tools are brain tools because they decrease your brain's overload and they allow space for creativity. I don't know if you know that, but if your brain needs, for example, some out-of-the-box thinking, there is an exercise you can do with peripheral vision and your creativity grows by 40%. Because you're a little looking outside of your normal yes, you put special dots very far away and you try to connect them. And then when you bring them together, it turns out that people get narrow vision. It's fascinating. So you can use that before meetings. My goodness, so cool. And what I love about what I do is I make it practical so you can use it. And if you want to read a study, I'll send you a study. We'll find a study and we'll send it to you, and you can read it if you understand how to read scientific studies. Sure. But neuroscience is supposed to help us. It's besides the phenomenal things, how neurons are connecting and all the cool. How can I use this for me to make my life better? That's the goal of brain health, brain science, neuroscience-based coaching. How can I make my leadership better? How can I be a better mom? How can I be happier with me, right? How can I enjoy and give myself grace? And that is all a brain function. You can train intuition to get better at it. You can train resilience, you can train grit, which makes your gray matter grow. And your gray matter is responsible for grit. You can train your white matter, which has connectivity between two areas of your brain.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

How does this all play out in how you show up as a brand? How you show up in your messaging, how you show up in the work you do? How does this show up for you? I say branding is identity work. And so much of this is your identity work that you are creating intentionally with the work that you do.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

So how does it show up for you? For me, I do have my vision board. And when I get distracted with things that come my way, I'm like, is this really where I want to go? Is this what I want to do? And I when I say no, I take a deep breath. And I, one of the things I've tried to train, I wasn't good at this, is a present no. What is a present no? I will look into your eyes and be very warm and say, Okay, I appreciate this offer. I think it's fantastic you thought of me. At this moment, this is not something I want to do. And I would love to help you. Let me give you some resources of people who could help you, which means I am living true to my identity. Now, is it working all the time? Of course not. I'm human, I'm imperfect as everybody else. I also got to a point where people started calling me doctor, which I'm not. I never claimed to be a medical doctor, but they call me Dr. D. And I had to make a decision: do I correct them or do I let it slide? And I choose to correct them because I believe that that is unintentionally misleading, and it's an honor that they perceive me that I have that level of knowledge. At the same time, I want them to be fully aware what are my capabilities and what I can do with the knowledge we have. It also basically gets rid of a lot of potential clients.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

They call it the sacred no. I feel like it's very similar. And every potential client is a perfect client for you.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

And I have noticed that people who will work with me are people who already have gone through coaching, training, they have done some work on themselves, they've been to therapy, read books. Because this is another level. This is playing with biology. This is taking a lot of conscious and regulated work. It is maybe working with a person who's gonna set up your food. And it's not me. I'm gonna send you to somebody who will work on the food you're intaking that is influencing your brain. It is looking at your blood work, it is going to different doctors, it is redesigning your life on how you work, what time you wake up. And it's not about optimizing, it is about living the life you would like to have. One of the most beautiful exercises for the reticular activating system, it is sitting down but designing your perfect day. And most people have no clue how they're perfect daily. But it's not, I am at an ocean and I go out with friends. No, it is as detailed as I wake up in a queen's bed that has white silky sheets with little dots on it, and it feels soft on my skin. When I touch it, it's cold. I turn my head to the left, I open my eyes, I see, and you describe in extreme detail all the senses in each case. A lot of work. What happens is when you describe that, record that, or write that down, program your reticular activating system to look for it in daily life, which makes happiness much easier because then you go, that's for my perfect day. It's part of my perfect day. I get to live that.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

I use this example. It's so interesting how we intuitively can do some of this stuff, and maybe we've done bits of it, just glimpses of it. But I talk about like when you buy a car, you all of a sudden realize everybody else has your car. There's an awareness that they were always on the road. But once you I have a white town and country minivan, but once you have the white town and country minivan, you realize how many white town and country minivans are on the road. The awareness of the thing that you so desired, you can see it because you program your rest to see it and it important. It's like serendipity, but it's not, it's not serendipity. It is the brain seeing the thing that you've so desired, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Always there, but you never put focus on it, right? Robin says, although it's not his quote, where focus goes, energy flows. Yes, that's where your attention goes as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Absolutely. And so his experience informed his perspective, right? And he saw what he wanted to see, where I saw what I wanted to see, which was something totally different. You know what? Both things were true, absolutely true at the same exact time. Exactly. It's just interesting how you your perspective can be I don't want to say manipulated, but it can be intentional. Yeah. Programmed. Yeah, it's very interesting. So for us, like I think about my my my founders that I help and how I observe their evolution, because what we do is get them to understand their identity more in the work that they do, what matters to them, how they're uniquely different, and how they have their whole life has led them to this moment and how they show up in that. And once they have that clarity of, oh, this was all on purpose, like in some way, and there was like a divine plan in that, they feel more confident and they feel clear, and it's easier for them to say no. And then they see opportunities they never saw because of the clarity. But the brain is so incredibly powerful and is such an important part of the process. And the programming that you've been given, maybe from family or society, might not be the program that you want to have for the rest of your life. And you have some choices of how you move forward with that. And having choices feels a little liberating.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

We always have a choice, and every choice comes with consequences. Tell me that to my 11-year-old all the time. And they're unable because their prefrontal cortex is developing. They're yeah, until 25, right? Or something like that. Yes. Women 25, men about 28. Okay. So it is part of it, but we can train that, right? There are exercises for prefrontal cortex to make it develop quicker. Yes, it brain develops from the back to the front. So first you have the cerebellum, which is movement, memory, and other things, and then it just kind of trickles down to the front. Either way, we as humans and we as women are superior in so many ways and are suffering predominantly without taking to the extreme of people being cruel and hurting other people. Most of our suffering comes from our own brain. We create that suffering, and we are imperfect. And allowing ourselves to be imperfect is the first step to creating a better life. Because punishment is not doing anything to you or to anybody else. It is not helping, it is not supporting. Punishment creates anxiety, anxiety creates cortisol release, release, blocks prefrontal cortex, and then blocks access to memories and problems and solution solving skills. So that's not going anywhere. But giving yourself grace, allowing yourself to make mistakes and saying, that's interesting. Instead of, oh, that's good allows to make it less impactful emotionally. Emotions are cocktails of chemicals that your brain assigned to different events. Actually, to be even more correct, feelings are cocktails. Emotions are five basic ones anger, love, right? The five ones. But feelings are cocktails of a very long sales cycle. But they're all very committed.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

I don't have to convince them that's you've built a lot of no trust in those three years.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

So now they're all for me is I understand that what I say is for a certain group of people. So a lot of people are watching. I coach, I use humor to lower the intensity. Nice. And it turns out that people see me as funny. And this I'm 51. Just learned that people see me as funny. And I always thought they were just being ironic. And that's again perception, right? We've been told over and over that you're just serious and you're you're just too detached. And then when you become yourself, finally let yourself go. People say you're funny. You think, oh, they're being sarcastic or they're being mean or be real.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yes. And if you're not, I am funny. You've been a pleasure to have on the show. So you're definitely funny. I love that. Playful is certainly definitely one of them. I don't want marketing. This is actually what I say. I believe in science, sass, and strategy. So those are all three things that make up who I am. I believe in education, I believe in the research, I believe in the patterns that I see. I'm also a little sassy and I like unicorns and sparkly things and see samples of me speaking.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

You can see the why the female brain is built for leadership pedics on there and my speakers real and some other testimonials. So I'm very easy to find. And if you ask GBT women on leadership speaker, probably I'll pop up because I've been popping up for a lot of my new clients.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

This has been so fun. I have loved nerding out and learning more about my brain and even understanding that I do some of these things is actually really cool to believe the work that you're doing with women, what I think I'm doing with women is so incredibly important right now. And it's changing people's lives and empowering them in ways we didn't even know was possible. So I'm so excited to see your work go and grow. And spending time with you has just made me want to cheer you.