There’s a powerful shift that happens when your brain stops fighting you and starts working with you. I learned this during some of the toughest stretches of my Olympic journey, moments when motivation ran dry and willpower alone wasn’t enough. As someone who now spends his time advising, consulting, and workshopping with innovative companies looking to make change - we focus on delivering motivational talks, I often emphasize one simple truth: you can train your brain to want the work. The tool? Dopamine anchoring. A small psychological shift with massive performance upside.
Most people assume high performers wake up every day bursting with motivation. Trust me, we don’t. Even Olympic athletes have days when reluctance is louder than the desire to push. But the brain is programmable. And one of the most powerful levers we have is dopamine, the neurotransmitter that signals anticipation, reward, and forward momentum.
Dopamine anchoring means pairing something you must do with something you already enjoy. Over time, your brain stops associating the task with pain and starts linking it with feel-good chemistry. The power of voice via motivational talks, I’ve seen this shift transform how people approach discipline, consistency, and execution.
And yes, it works. Every single time.
If the brain believes something leads to pleasure, it pulls you toward it naturally. This is why dopamine anchoring is powerful - it rewires the emotional meaning of the task.
When I share these concepts as a motivational speaker, it shocks people how quickly the brain adapts. The shift doesn’t take months - it takes days.
Dopamine teaches your brain that: This task = good feeling.
With repetition, the brain releases dopamine at the start of the task—not when the reward appears. That anticipation becomes the fuel. I relied on this heavily during Olympic off-seasons when motivation was often at its lowest, and I was far from the next competition.
There were mornings when the idea of another long training session felt heavy. As an athlete, I couldn’t rely on inspiration. I had to create systems - structures that pulled me forward even when my emotional state didn’t cooperate.
Dopamine anchoring gave me that pull. As I share in my motivational talks, the real power of discipline comes from making the hard things emotionally easier, not from forcing yourself through them every day.
Think of this as a simple 3-part drill that rewires your habits:
Choose the task you’ve been avoiding - emails, planning, studying, workouts, tough conversations, anything.
Select something small that gives you a lift:
It must be small. Big rewards overshadow the task. Small rewards attach to the task.
Do them together, no exceptions, for five consecutive days. By Day 5, the resistance drops dramatically. You’ll feel a natural pull toward the work. This is the brain learning, adapting, and reorganizing around reward.
I coach teams and leaders on this in my workshops where we harness the power of the mind to counteract what we previously thought impossible, into a realm of “childlike play” mixed with intense focus and followed by recovery. The intersection of motivational talks, business, and high performance we understand how integral these are.
In a world where discipline is rare and distractions are endless, the people who learn to create their own momentum become unstoppable.
People often wait for inspiration to hit before doing the hard work. But some of the biggest breakthroughs in my life came during moments when I didn’t feel ready, energized, or excited. What carried me was the structure I’d built.
Dopamine anchoring doesn’t rely on emotion. It rewires the emotion.
When the brain anticipates pleasure, it reduces friction. That’s why pairing a hard task with a small joy builds consistency far more effectively than forcing yourself into action every day.
As a motivational speaker, I tell audiences that consistency beats intensity - every single time. And consistency is easier when the brain isn’t fighting you.
During the off-season, motivation is famously low. No competitions in sight. No crowd energy. No visible rivals pushing you. That’s when the mental drag hits hardest.
I anchored early-morning sessions with:
These tiny rewards turned grueling routines into something I could lean into - even enjoy. Years later, when I deliver motivational talks, these stories resonate because everyone faces their own off-seasons: the stretches where progress feels slow and motivation is thin.
Most people think success depends on finishing strong. But in reality? Success comes from starting consistently.
Dopamine anchoring makes starting easy - even enjoyable. Once you start, momentum takes over. When I teach this in workshops as a motivational speaker, I emphasize that the brain doesn’t need massive rewards, it needs predictable ones.
Here are simple ways to integrate dopamine anchoring into your life:
This approach often becomes an audience favorite when in board rooms or at a sales conference - continually identifying ways to maximize fulfillment but also increasing endurance in the corporate sector. The most requested are the motivational talks because it gives people something actionable, immediate, and scientifically grounded.
The goal isn’t to avoid difficulty. The goal is to remove unnecessary resistance. There will always be days when starting feels heavy. But if you can train your mind to want the work, to feel pulled toward the task, then the game changes.
Dopamine anchoring builds that pull. As someone who’s lived the grind of Olympic cycles and now motivates others as a motivational speaker, here’s my truth: When you create an environment that supports your effort, the hard stuff becomes easier, the resistance fades, and you unlock consistency - the true superpower of champions.
Crush your Tuesday. Lean into the work. Train your mind. And let the chemistry of motivation work in your favor. Go get after it.