Did you know there was a fascinating experiment done on weightlifters where they didn’t lift any weights for two weeks? Instead, they just sat there and visualized themselves lifting weights. The result is that they experienced a 13% increase in muscle mass. This isn’t magic—it’s neuroscience.

Most people have no idea how much potential is locked inside their own brains.

To unpack how to unlock this potential, entrepreneur Steven Bartlett sat down with Dr. Tara Swart, a neuroscientist, medical doctor, executive advisor, and best-selling author. Dr. Swart’s work confronts the unhelpful preconceptions we hold about human potential, specifically breaking down how the brain-body connection dictates our success, our health, and our resilience.

If you want to overcome your biggest challenges and build mental resilience, you need to understand the physiological truth of how your brain works. Here are the core insights from Dr. Swart on how to rewire your brain for success.

1. The Brain-Body Connection: Stop Treating Your Body Like a Vehicle

Early in her career, right around the financial crisis, Dr. Swart worked with high-performing executives who treated their bodies merely as vehicles designed to carry their brains from meeting to meeting. They were being paid for their cognitive abilities, yet they completely disrespected their physical health, creating the worst possible conditions for their brains to operate.

“This tiny organ, if it’s not in an environment that is giving it the best chance of doing its job, it’s not going to and a crack’s going to appear somewhere.” — Dr. Tara Swart

The basic foundations of high performance aren’t a secret: sleep, diet, hydration, movement, and stress management. When you ignore these, the cracks inevitably show up. For these executives, the cracks appeared when people literally started dropping dead on the trading floor from heart attacks induced purely by stress, not high cholesterol or smoking.

If you want your brain to perform at an elite level, you must first optimize the physical environment it lives in.

2. Cortisol and The “Contagion” of Stress

Stress is not just in your head; it is a physiological response driven by cortisol, your main stress hormone. In a normal 24-hour cycle, cortisol levels should fluctuate. When a challenge arises, cortisol spikes so we can adapt, but it must return to baseline.

When stress becomes chronic, your cortisol levels stay elevated. Your brain’s receptors interpret this as an imminent threat to your survival, triggering a cascade of hormones that cause severe inflammation throughout your body. As a survival mechanism, excess cortisol also causes your body to store stubborn fat around your abdomen.

Even wilder? Stress is contagious. Cortisol literally leaks out of our sweat and can travel roughly a foot around us, absorbing into the skin of the people nearby. As a leader, your stress levels significantly impact your team. You cannot simply “hide” your stress by suppressing your emotions; your physiology will still affect those around you.

How to combat high cortisol:

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  Aerobic Exercise: You can literally sweat excess cortisol out of your body.

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  Journaling or Speaking: Get the negative thoughts associated with your stress out of your brain-body system by writing them down or speaking to a trusted friend or therapist.

3. The Power of Neuroplasticity: You Are Not “Hardwired”

For decades, scientists believed that once you reached adulthood, your brain was physically set for the rest of your life. We now know this is entirely false. Through a process called neuroplasticity, your brain is actively growing and changing.

If you do nothing to challenge your brain between the ages of 25 and 65, it will plateau. However, if you engage in activities that are intense enough to force your brain to adapt, you can actively improve your executive functions.

When you learn a new language, pick up a musical instrument, or tackle a massive cognitive challenge, you don’t just learn a new skill—you improve your ability to regulate emotions, solve complex problems, think flexibly, and override unconscious biases.

The 4 Steps to Rewire Your Habits

If you want to use neuroplasticity to break stubborn habits (like procrastination, negative thinking, or picking the wrong partners), Dr. Swart outlines a specific process:

1. Raised Awareness: Identify the pattern that is holding you back. Spotting the pattern is 50% of the battle.

2. Focused Attention: Look at your past decisions and the consequences they created. Understand why you are making those choices (e.g., digging into underlying beliefs about self-worth).

3. Deliberate Practice: Actively look for scenarios to practice your new, desired behavior. At first, your brain will resist because it wants to use the old, energy-efficient pathway. But with repetition, the new pathway becomes stronger than the old one.

4. Accountability: Because this process is hard, most people quit at step three. You need an external force—a friend, a coach, or a visual action board—to hold you accountable.

4. The 8-Hour Brain Flush (The Glymphatic System)

If you think you can “get by” on 4 or 5 hours of sleep, you are actively destroying your brain’s ability to clean itself.

Between 2012 and 2014, scientists discovered the glymphatic system, an active waterway channel in the brain that flushes out toxins overnight. This system clears out the exact proteins (like amyloid plaques and tau proteins) that are linked to dementing diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

This active cleaning process takes 7 to 8 hours of actual sleep to complete. If you are constantly cutting your sleep short, your brain is accumulating toxins.

Pro-Tip: Dr. Swart notes that sleeping on your side is the optimal position for this overnight cleansing process.

5. The Truth About “Manifestation”

The word “manifestation” often gets a bad reputation as being “woo-woo” or overly mystical. However, Dr. Swart believes in manifestation based purely on cognitive science.

The brain is the source of your reality. You cannot simply “think” about becoming a millionaire and have the universe deliver it to you. True manifestation requires aligning your thoughts, your beliefs, and your actions.

For example, if you want to manifest an amazing partner, you must write down all the attributes you want in that person—and then ensure you actually represent those qualities yourself. Psychologically, you meet people at the level of psychological evolution you are currently at (or at the depth of your unhealed wounds).

If you want to jump-start your success right now, Dr. Swart offers a simple, 5-minute practice: Get very clear on what you want, visualize those things being true, and give gratitude for them. This simple act moves your brain from a state of fear to a state of trust, opening the gateway to making massive changes in your life.

What is one habit you want to rewire using neuroplasticity? Let us know in the comments below!

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Hustle culture teaches us to seize as much as we can and hold on to it tightly. We go through life plotting how to pull ourselves up the ladder, reaching for the next goal or big score, continually worrying that our carefully crafted plans will fall through and we’ll lose everything. 

The fear of ending up with nothing (rightfully) freaks us out. We toss and turn at 3 a.m. on a heap of twisted sheets, battling a delightful combination of rumination, intrusive thoughts, and (my personal favorite) catastrophic thinking. 

Early in my career, I spent a lot of time fretting about how much money was or wasn’t coming in. I was constantly stressed and regularly performed financial gymnastics in my bank accounts.

This struggle fueled my quest to not only make more money, but to be at peace with it. I envied anyone who managed to be calm when they spent money, and I aspired to embody that magical disposition.

Accepting Defeat

Once, while working as an art director for a publishing house, I told my coworker that I’d just lost a $500 deposit on a trip I could no longer take. Without missing a beat and with an edge to his voice, he remarked, “Well, that’s $500 you’ll never see again.” 

Oof. That stung. And while it felt true at the time—I’d definitely lost the money and was upset about it—I also couldn’t quite buy into the idea that, once spent, money is gone forever and can’t be found again. 

I didn’t envision it showing up in an obvious, literal way–like a check in my mailbox for exactly $500. But I still felt that somehow I’d reunite with it again, in an unexpected way. However, at the time, I pushed my unicorn-level optimism to the side, accepted defeat, and soldiered on.

I continued working hard and saving small amounts consistently. But I also dove into personal development and read every money management book I could get my hands on. And then one day, I finally realized something profoundly obvious: Money comes and goes.

Making the Mindset Shift

We’ve all heard this common adage, I know. But have you really heard this? And do you believe it? 

I was on the phone with my friend Tory, talking about the rough patch her business was going through, when she offhandedly said those exact words to me: “Money comes and goes.”

For some reason, the words finally landed. It all hit me like a truck—yes, money does come and go! There’s an ebb and flow simply because of its transactional nature. So why was I trying to micromanage it? 

I silently declared that the next time I had to dish out a chunk of change, I would have faith that it would be replenished, by hard work or otherwise. Of course, my declaration and new mindset has often been put to the test.

The Power of Acceptance

Last summer, I went to visit my friend Christa, who lives a couple hours outside of Toronto. Our first stop was a local honey store that only accepted cash. We’d both forgotten this detail, so we detoured to the only ATM in town. 

We chatted animatedly as we made our transactions, with me extra distracted by the high-tech nature of the ATM. Finally, we left in a flurry, beelining (pun absolutely intended) back to the honey store. After stocking up on goodies, I went up to the counter to pay. But as soon as I opened my wallet, a hot, burning feeling washed over me. There was no sign of the $200 I’d just withdrawn.

It only took a millisecond to realize what had happened: I’d left the cash at the ATM. Cue internal beratement and a carefully orchestrated “I’m not going to have a meltdown in public and further embarrass myself” moment.

We rushed back to the bank. But—no shocker here—the money was gone. I was officially out $200. That hot feeling washed over me again, but this time, I quickly course corrected: In that moment, I took a deep breath and consciously decided to stay calm. I was not going to let this little disaster ruin my day, let alone my entire trip.

I was pleasantly surprised at myself, noticing how I was choosing peace instead of spinning out. Who was this Yoda of a person? 

When we got back to Christa’s house, I called my bank to see if there was a way to rectify the situation. They created a case and said I’d be reimbursed if the claim was approved.

Choosing Flow over Fear

So, did I get the money back? I actually don’t know. I never checked. It’s not that I didn’t care or didn’t value the money. I did. And I do. At one point in my life, $200 was the difference between making rent and not. 

But believing the money was gone forever and I would always be $200 poorer is, well, limiting. That does not feel good or abundant. And knowing what it’s like to struggle with money, I’m definitely aiming for abundance.

If you’re shocked by my laissez-faire attitude, trust me, I’m even more so. In my twenties, I developed some awful “money avoider” habits. But after realizing my behavior was making my financial situation much, much worse, I spent decades consciously learning new, positive habits. 

I now spend consciously and routinely review my bank account and credit card statements. So why, in this instance, did I ignore the numbers?

I wasn’t avoiding the problem: I was choosing flow. I chose to believe more money was coming my way, no matter how much unexpectedly disappeared from my bank account that day.

Whether it’s factually true or not, I find it much more energizing to believe that money circulates in a loop of abundance and I can be part of that flow. I can let money go when desired and/or needed, and stay open to it finding its way back to me.

This new, healthier relationship with money is amplified when I remember to do three things:

1. Pause and take deep breaths before reacting;
2. Acknowledge and accept my emotions;
3. Choose thoughts that are supportive and expansive (even when I don’t want to).

Try this simple formula the next time you’re stressed about finances.

Yes, you can break the patterns that don’t serve you.

The results might surprise you: more peace, more calm, and an account balance that supports more sweet hauls.

You’re not lazy. You’re not undisciplined… and you’re definitely not broken.

You’re an entrepreneur with ADHD, and right now you’re probably sitting on 19 unfinished projects, 47 open tabs, and a brain that feels like it’s running on 12 different radio stations at once.

You’ve read the books. You’ve tried the planners, the Pomodoro timers, the accountability groups. You’ve even hired coaches who promised to “fix” your focus. Yet here you are — brilliant ideas, massive potential, and a business that still feels like it’s one step away from collapsing under the weight of your own mind.

Here’s what almost nobody in the entrepreneurial space will admit:

The real struggle isn’t your ADHD. It’s that you’ve been trying to run a neurodivergent brain inside a neurotypical business model — and then beating yourself up when it doesn’t work.

Most advice for entrepreneurs was written by people whose brains work differently. They preach consistency, routines, long-term planning, and steady execution like those things are universal truths. For the ADHD entrepreneur, those “truths” feel like trying to swim upstream in cement. You can force it for a while (and you have), but eventually your brain rebels, the burnout hits, and you’re left feeling like a failure who just needs to “try harder.”

That cycle is quietly destroying more talented founders than cash flow problems or bad hires ever could.

The deeper layer most people never reach is this: your ADHD isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a different operating system entirely. And when you stop trying to install Windows on a Mac and start building everything around macOS, the game changes completely.

The Hidden Addiction That Keeps ADHD Entrepreneurs Stuck

You already know the surface symptoms — time blindness, rejection sensitivity, starting strong and fading fast, shiny object syndrome.

But the real trap is more insidious.

It’s the addiction to chaos and novelty.

Your brain is wired for dopamine. New ideas, big visions, last-minute sprints, high-stakes pressure — these things light you up like nothing else. The boring, repetitive, systems-building work that actually scales a business? It feels like torture.

So unconsciously, you keep your business in a state of controlled chaos. You say yes to too many things. You chase the next exciting opportunity. You avoid building the boring infrastructure because “I work better under pressure anyway.”

And every time the pressure gets too high, you crash, swear you’ll get organized next quarter, and repeat the cycle.

Meanwhile, the neurotypical advice keeps telling you to “just build better habits.” As if your brain is a poorly trained dog that needs more discipline instead of a high-performance race car that needs the right fuel and track.

This isn’t a character flaw. It’s neurology.

And until you stop treating your wiring as something to overcome and start treating it as your greatest strategic advantage, you’ll stay stuck in the same exhausting loop.

The Identity Shift That Changes Everything

The entrepreneurs with ADHD who finally break through don’t “fix” their brains.

They redesign their entire business to work with their brains.

They stop trying to become the consistent, routine-loving founder the gurus talk about. Instead, they become the architect of a system that leverages their natural strengths — hyperfocus, pattern recognition, creative problem-solving, relentless drive under pressure — while outsourcing or automating everything that drains them.

This is the layer most ADHD entrepreneurs never reach because it requires something terrifying: accepting that you are never going to be “normal” at entrepreneurship… and that’s exactly why you can win bigger than most.

Your ability to see connections others miss. Your tolerance for uncertainty. Your capacity to go all-in when something lights you up. These aren’t liabilities. They’re unfair advantages in a world that rewards speed, creativity, and bold moves.

The shift is simple but brutal:

Stop trying to manage your ADHD. Start designing your business around it.

How to Actually Build a Business That Works With Your Brain

1. Stop fighting your energy cycles — weaponize them. Most ADHD entrepreneurs try to force 8-hour focused days. That’s insane. Instead, track when your brain actually works best (for many it’s 10pm-2am or random 4-hour hyperfocus bursts). Build your schedule around those windows. Protect them like gold. Do the deep, high-leverage work then. Use the low-energy periods for admin, calls, or recovery.
2. Build “chaos containers,” not rigid systems. Traditional project management tools feel like cages. Create loose but effective structures that give your brain freedom. Use tools like Notion with massive flexibility, or body-doubling (working alongside someone virtually), or even hiring a “chaos wrangler” — an assistant who thrives on turning your scattered ideas into executable plans.
3. Turn your rejection sensitivity into rocket fuel. That intense fear of letting people down or looking stupid? Channel it into creating ridiculously high standards for your customer experience or product quality. Use it as fuel instead of letting it paralyze you.
4. Outsource the parts that make you want to die. The execution, follow-through, and maintenance phases are where most ADHD entrepreneurs lose. Hire or partner with people who love the details. Your job is vision, strategy, and big swings. Let someone else own the spreadsheets.
5. Create external pressure on your own terms. Deadlines and public commitments work wonders for the ADHD brain. Use them strategically — announce launches, create beta groups, or work with coaches who understand neurodivergence instead of fighting it.

The entrepreneurs with ADHD who are quietly crushing it right now aren’t the ones who finally became “disciplined.” They’re the ones who stopped apologizing for how their brain works and started building empires that are specifically engineered for it.

They have teams that handle the boring stuff. They have systems that flex with their energy instead of fighting it. They’ve turned their “flaws” into the exact reasons their businesses stand out.

Your ADHD brain is not the enemy. The enemy was trying to play the game by rules that were never designed for you.

The moment you accept that and start designing everything… your calendar, your team, your offers, your processes — around how you actually operate, the struggle doesn’t disappear… but it becomes manageable, even exhilarating.

You were never meant to fit the mold. You were meant to break it and build something better.

The world doesn’t need another cookie-cutter entrepreneur. It needs the chaotic, brilliant, all-in, slightly unhinged visionaries who can only operate at full power when the game is built for them.

That’s you.

Stop trying to fix yourself. Start building the business that was always meant to be run by a mind like yours.

Your next breakthrough isn’t going to come from working harder or being more consistent. It’s going to come from finally giving yourself permission to work differently.

And when you do that? Watch what happens.

The same brain that once felt like a curse becomes the exact reason your business becomes unstoppable.

You’ve got this. Not despite the ADHD. Because of it.

If you want to learn more from me or send me a personal message I’ll respond to you on Instagram at https://instagram.com/iamjoelbrown speak soon!

You’re damn good at what you do.

Clients have breakthroughs. They send you the late-night voice notes about how you changed their life. Some even credit you with saving their marriage, their business, or their sanity.

Yet here you are… exhausted, trading hours for dollars, wondering why your income hasn’t doubled in the last two years while your calendar is still packed with 1:1 calls.

You’ve tried the funnels. You’ve raised your prices (a little). You’ve posted the content. And still… the business feels heavy. Like you’re carrying every client on your back.

Here’s what almost nobody in this industry will tell you:

You’re not stuck because you lack strategy.

You’re stuck because you’re addicted to being needed.

And that addiction is invisible, socially rewarded, and absolutely lethal to scaling.

Most coaches and consultants entered this work because they genuinely care. They’ve felt the pain of being unseen or unsupported in their own past, so they became the person they once wished existed for them. That empathy is your superpower in the room with a client.

But the same wiring that makes you exceptional at holding space for someone else’s transformation becomes the exact thing that keeps your business small, stressful, and one person away from collapse.

You get a hit of meaning every time a client says “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Your nervous system registers that as safety, as worth, as proof that you matter.

So unconsciously, you start designing your entire business model to keep getting that hit.

You keep the business one-to-one. You underprice because “I don’t want to make it inaccessible.” You say yes to extra sessions, extra support, extra emotional labor. You resist group programs, courses, or team members because “they need my personal touch.”

Deep down, part of you is terrified that if clients become truly independent — or if the business can run without you in every session — then who are you?

That fear never gets spoken out loud at coaching conferences. But it’s running the show for the majority of talented practitioners I’ve watched plateau for years.

This is the layer most people never reach.

They think the problem is marketing. Or niching. Or offer structure.

Those are symptoms. The root is identity-level.

Your self-worth got quietly fused with being the indispensable helper. And every time you try to scale, that old identity fights back with guilt, procrastination, or the sudden urge to “just help this one more person for free.”

I’ve seen it in coaches making $250k who feel like impostors when they consider $10k offers. I’ve seen consultants who could easily productize their process but keep reinventing the wheel for each new client because it feels more “authentic.” I’ve seen brilliant facilitators burn out at the peak of their success because the business finally demanded they step out of the rescuer role — and they didn’t know who they were without it.

The brutal truth: the very thing that makes you an incredible coach in the moment is quietly sabotaging the empire you’re capable of building.

Because real transformation… the kind you actually teach… is about helping people become self-reliant.

Yet you’re running a business model that keeps you (and them) dependent.

The shift that changes everything is this:

You stop being the hero in every client’s story and start becoming the architect of a system that creates heroes without you in the room.

You move from “I have to be there for every breakthrough” to “I design experiences where breakthroughs happen even when I’m not.”

This isn’t about becoming cold or corporate.

It’s about maturing as a leader.

The coaches who break through to seven and eight figures don’t love their clients any less. They just stop confusing love with over-responsibility. They fall in love with building something that lasts beyond their personal bandwidth.

Here’s what that actually looks like in practice for coaches and consultants:

First, you audit every part of your business for hidden “neediness.” Are you the only one who can deliver the transformation? If yes, you’ve built a job, not a business. Document the process. Record the frameworks. Turn your magic into a repeatable system. Your future self (and your bank account) will thank you.

Second, you raise your prices not because the market will bear it, but because charging what you’re truly worth forces you to stop over-delivering and start trusting your clients to do the work. High-ticket clients step up. Low-ticket clients keep you in rescuer mode.

Third, you build assets that create leverage. Group programs. Online courses. A small team of facilitators who deliver your methodology. A community that supports itself. Every asset you create is proof that you are no longer the single point of failure — and that your impact can actually expand without you burning out.

Fourth, you get brutally honest about your own identity. Ask yourself: “What am I afraid will happen if my clients no longer need me personally?” The answer is usually some version of “I’ll be irrelevant” or “I won’t feel valuable.” Sit with that fear. Feel it. Then choose the new identity anyway: the leader who equips thousands instead of saving dozens.

The coaches who make this shift report something wild: their clients actually get better results.

Because when you stop needing to be needed, you create the conditions for real empowerment. You model the exact independence you’re teaching. And ironically, people become even more loyal to a coach who sets them free instead of keeping them hooked.

This work was never supposed to be a lifetime of 1:1 calls and emotional labor.

It was supposed to be a vehicle for massive, leveraged impact… while you live the freedom you help others create.

The addiction to being needed feels noble. It gets you praise. It feels meaningful in the moment.

But it will quietly keep you small, tired, and secretly resentful while the coaches who break the pattern build something that outlives them.

You already know how to guide people through hard identity shifts.

Now it’s time to guide yourself through the biggest one yet.

Stop being the person your clients can’t live without.

Start becoming the leader they never want to be without.

Your business… and every future client you haven’t even met yet… is waiting for that version of you.

The question is whether you’re finally willing to let the old identity die so the bigger one can be born.

Most won’t.

But you? You’ve built your entire career on helping people do exactly that.

Now do it for yourself.