Earn Your Dopamine

I want to share with you today one of my favorite questions to ask myself. As I get older, I find myself becoming more and more a collector of great questions, because, as Tony Robbins says, the quality of your questions dictates the quality of your answers and therefore the quality of your results. So if you want better answers, ask better questions. I am enamored with this idea, and I love collecting good questions that stimulate my brain to think in new, expansive ways. And I want to share with you a question that’s been. It’s been serving me very well recently, because at its core, my brain as an ADHD individual, or just, you could say, an individual of modern society and all the glitz and the glamour of technology, all the digitalization of pixels and how stimulating it all can be, whether that’s on the screen or in your food or, you know, whatever in life, we are living in a hyper caloric world. This question has helped me break through that to take back control of my brain, which is at its core a dopamine seeking missile. So the question that I like to ask myself recently has been, what are you going to do today to earn your dopamine? What are you going to do today to earn your dopamine? Dopamine is very easy to come by.

All you have to do is turn on your computer screen. You have to, you know, grab your phone, scroll some social media, go into the cupboard, grab the ho hos, right? It’s so easy to get the cheap dopamine, that dopamine that makes you feel good in the moment, but in the end makes you feel so empty, despite how hyper caloric. Everything that we are consuming is not just food, but like, visually as well, the information, the entertainment, it’s all very, very hyper caloric. But not satiating. It doesn’t sate, it doesn’t make you feel full. And the reason for that we talked about on this podcast before, is that you can’t consume your way to fulfillment. It can only be created. And so the heart of this question, what are you going to do today to earn your dopamine? As the acknowledgement that the most valuable dopamine is the dopamine that you earn through hard work, through effort.
And the three things that I like to think through this, through the lens of, is, what are you going to learn today? What are you going to think today? And what are you going to do today? So learn, think, do. That’s my favorite triumvirate of concepts. And if you could just create your life around learning more, thinking more, doing more you would be doing pretty good. Now, when it comes to learning to earn your dopamine, I’m a big fan of reading because it’s slow, it’s laborious, it’s difficult. And in that difficulty, there is value to be had. Nothing, nothing worth having comes easy, easily consumed information, the YouTube videos, that can be great, the instagram, that can be fine, right? Like, there’s ways that we can get information into our brain. Podcast, that can be an easy way to consume the information. But I find the more I struggle with the concepts, the more it forces me to sit and be with the ideas, the more that I get out of it.
So when it comes to learning, I’m a big fan of reading because it makes me really earn my dopamine, makes me earn it, and I feel good afterwards. When it comes to thinking, the truth is, thinking ain’t easy. It is not like our minds are these chaotic jumbles of thoughts. It’s chaotic. Most of us are just lily pad thinkers, which means, you know, we’re just skimming the surface of the pond of our mind, the thoughts, and we’re rapid fire like those little birds that dance along the water. We never go deep. As a result, we. We can feel pulled in countless different directions, never getting any closer to truth, to true wisdom, to true insight.
And so thinking, you know, is the act of organizing our chaotic mind and forcing it to make sense. The way that I do that, my best, my favorite way, is to write, is to journal every morning to take those thoughts and to force them through my pen tip and say, we’re going deep now. Now we’re not just gonna sit on the surface. We’re gonna go deep. We’re gonna find the truth of what I think on this matter. So that’s how I earn my dopamine. When it comes to thinking, when it comes to doing. Oh, boy, this is where the rubber meets the road, right? Because a million dollar idea is worth us.
Without a million dollars worth of execution, it’s very easy to find ourselves doing all sorts of activities that feel productive, and yet it’s not actually moving us closer to our goals, right? There’s no greater waste than to do with excellence that which shouldn’t be done at all. And I know I am guilty of this, probably more so than anybody else in the world. I am a master at doing things that don’t actually need to be done. I am the master at watering fake plants. And yet I let all the real life living plants that actually matter, I let them dry out and desiccate and die. And so when it comes to doing and earning your dopamine you have to ask yourself what are the things that are actually worth doing that will move you towards your goals. Prioritize those ask. It doesn’t have to be a tremendous amount of activities.

It just has to be the right activities. And if you do this, if you learn, if you think if you do every single day you will have earned your dopamine my friend. And in that you will find fulfillment, I promise not only that you will find your goals on a long enough time frame you do this, learn, think, do every single day on a long enough time frame you will accomplish your goals. I promise. Now that’s going to do it for me guys. Not promise. I appreciate, I appreciate you guys being here as always. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I will catch you in the next episode but until then stay hyper focused my friends.