Prime Your Brain for Success: How to Start Your Day Right
Set yourself up for success today.
That means getting yourself into the best mindset possible to use your brain. You’re going to have a lot of ideas show up, decisions to make, and advice to offer. Each one represents a fork in the road of life. Each leads down a different path.
Discerning which route to take is a large part of what will define your success—or not.
The outcome of cumulative decisions—each one bearing compound interest in the months and years to come—underscores the weight of your choices and their potential for long-term success.
So, what mindset sets you up for making the best decisions? My bet is on the part of the brain that sets us apart from almost all other species: the neocortex. This infinitely complex and capable bit of anatomy allows us to think critically, problem-solve, explore, learn, retain, experience, and improve. It sounds like the kind of powerful tool I’d want firing on all cylinders as often as possible.
But many of us don’t show up to work with this part of the brain ready to rock. Instead, we’ve fed the fearful, angry, or frozen bits of the brain—the parts that thrive on stress and keep adrenaline and cortisol pumping.
Grab that device, read that headline: another murder, another war, another border crisis… the world burns. Society is fractured. It’s all awful. Why show up? Why bother? It sucks here.
Oh! A red dot… someone loves me… Scroll, scroll.
Twenty reels later, and we’re still no closer to feeling good. But we’ve sent our partner a few pebbles.
Shit… now we’re late. Late for whatever else mattered.
The stress is rising... the pattern is set.
Another quick hit of dopamine into our system, but adrenaline and cortisol are never far behind.
What rotten pain we’re inviting into our lives—and it’s not even 9 a.m. yet.
Now we’re at work, and before we’ve had a chance to grab that life-saving cup of coffee, the flood of emails and questions crashes over us.
This, my friends, is no way to live. Not if you want to do your best work. This path suppresses your best thinking. Instead of having your alpha-team neocortex driving the car, you’ve handed the wheel to your beta-team amygdala maniac. And the decisions made through this lens? They look very different.
Fight, flight, or freeze. Piss people off, run away, or sit in indecision—hardly the three best options for solving complex problems in an interconnected world.
And yet, this is how many of us set up our day.
The best thinkers don’t do this. They see the danger and deliberately turn away from it.
The best thinkers I know—or read about—set themselves up for a day of high-quality thinking.
They eliminate the poison, or at least consign it to the low-value part of their day. They don’t read the news, doom scroll, jump on WhatsApp, or watch TV when they need to be thinking. They’ve learned the cost of these decisions. Thinking is almost always your highest-value task. The higher you climb the leadership ladder, the more this holds true.
Instead, they seek out and consume information with intention. They do things that enable creative thoughts. They create space for deep thinking and deep work.
I’ve been trying to work this way for years, but I’ll admit—it’s a struggle. My mind moves fast, but it wanders easily, too. So I’ve gone full monk-level boundaries to protect my highest-value activities and boost my creativity. I’ve created my own “Monastery on the Mountain.” Hard to get to, cold, no one wants to visit. Perfect.
My day now begins with three hours set aside for creative, energizing work. Sometimes that means reading. Sometimes it’s exercise. Maybe it’s walking my dog and communing with nature.
Then, it’s time to write. Organize my thoughts, capture ideas, create solutions to big problems, and innovate things that enable big opportunities. Thinking.
It might even involve a nap to recharge, because rest matters a great deal.
None of this happens in the office, because the office is a disaster for being present with the big things. Phone silent. Distant. Disconnected from distractions. Entirely connected to my work.
After lunch, I let the wave hit me, confident I’ve already done my highest-value work for the day. Meetings, calls, client work—these things all happen after lunch.
You don’t have to be this extreme. My job now is to think as much as possible. But if I were still a vet/owner/operator, I’d rebalance to match the demands of my objectives and the realities of my job. You need to be present with your team—but not all the time.
Surely you can carve out one day a week for thinking? Not doing. Doing pays the bills today. Thinking pays the bills in the years to come.
Whether you’re doing or thinking, setting yourself up for success is still crucial. Because doing still needs thinking. And thinking will always be at its best when the best part of your brain is engaged and whirring.
So get a grip on that morning routine. It costs you nothing more to act differently, but the payoff is huge: better thinking, more creativity, and clearer discernment. These are the qualities that will help you thrive—now more than ever.
Making headspace is hard. Finding time is hard. I can help you with these things. I have limited private consulting spaces available, or for your best value option, join one of my veterinary leadership academy courses. Each comes with a weekly open office access where I take questions and do group coaching. Ten minutes of talking about the right things to the right people can really change your outcomes. Have at it!
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