How to Control Your Brain State on Command & Why Entrepreneurs Swear by This Hack | Mind Pump 2742

Key Takeaway

Start your deep work with small, easy wins before tackling harder tasks. Use the 'dopamine warm-up' strategy: knock out quick emails or simple tasks for 20 minutes first, then immediately transition to your most challenging work. This builds momentum and makes your brain more receptive to sustained focus.

Episode Overview

Brain FM CEO Dan explains how engineered music induces specific brain states through amplitude modulation, creating neural entrainment. The company's focus mode increases focus by 119% according to Nature-published studies, while their new workout mode helps athletes reach flow state faster.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to Control Your Brain State on Command & Why Entrepreneurs Swear by This Hack | Mind Pump 2742 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Dan, welcome back to the show. Hey. Hey. Thanks for being here. Off air. I got to share this off air. Uh, you were talking about how with Brain FM, you guys have a new category because of the story I told on the last time we had you on the show. So, for people who aren't familiar, you you you run the company Brain FM. You guys engineer music that essentially induces states of mind. And I talked about this crazy story of how I was on a flight.

I was with these guys. We were flying from was it Spokane to one of the scariest flights I've ever been on. Very short flight tiny plane. The most frightening flight ever. I mean I mean it was [ __ ] like if I didn't have my seatelt on I would hit the ceiling a few times and people are crying and praying and I don't like flying anyway and I put brain FM on and I put my hands in my lap here and it like saved me dude cuz it was terrifying and I guess you guys got a lot of messages and you guys so now you guys have like a a travel mode like explain that.

Yeah, we put So your story, we had a lot of people said, "I had the same thing. I had the same thing." And there's so many people that are stressed, especially now with the holidays around where they're traveling and the best way to get there is through planes, right? And what we did is we just put inside the relax that a specific uh mode that helps you with a click of a button you listen to calming music resets your brain allows you to be relaxed and just feel more at peace even with turbulence and all these things that are going on around us.

And and you just kicked that out by the way for people uh listening right now. It's not just calming music. No. Okay. So explain if someone doesn't know who you guys are cuz this this this market can be a little competitive. There's a lot of white noise type of things that you can find on Spotify or YouTube. This is not listening to meditative music or white noise that cancel. This is engineered sounds that induce brainwave states. Did I say that right? Yes, that's right. Yeah. All right.

So So break it down a little bit. what's happening when I'm listening to something that's fighting anxiety or counteracting anxiety or giving me a a the brain waves that if you were to give me a scan, you would say this is a relaxed brain. Yeah. So, let me start off with saying that brain FM is music that's made to enhance the activity that you're already doing with a click of a button. And the way we do that is we basically see music, right? We know what your brain looks like in focus, relax, or sleep.

And we develop uh specific rhythms and patterns that we put into the music that when you listen actually align your functional networks together in your brain that allow your brain waves to sync and blood flow to shift as you're listening to the music allowing you to go into focus, relax or sleep. So we're doing that through a novel process called amplitude modulation. um it creates a neural p neural um entrainment in your brain, right? And really it's just fancy new technology that allows you to um shift from one state to another.

So in that in that um in the mode that you're listening to when you're freaking on an airplane, right? What's happening is in the base frequency of the music, right? We have an on andoff pulse and your brain by listening that pulse it syncs to it and it guides your brain into being a more relaxed state. We take the same technology and we can do that for focus or for sleep or for meditation. And really our bread and butter, a lot of people use this for all these different things, but our bread and butter right now is focus.

And that was actually just validated in nature um when they came out and they they saw all the science that we did, saw all the peer reviewed studies that we did and they validated that we can help increase focus by 119% for people that are trying to get into that zone. Go. So what else improves your focus by? That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, if you It's like pharmaceutical. I was going to say, I wonder how that ranks to think against traditional things like caffeine or what everybody else would traditionally, but you're now in the realm of pharmaceuticals if I'm not mistaken.

That's a big impact. And I'm sure you can't say, yeah, that's a big claim, but but what I would say is what's really interesting is the way it works from a neurochemical level, right? neurotransmitters is that because we're aligning it in an electrical way by listening to music, that music transforms into electricity in your brains and then that's changing these patterns on the way our brain literally operates, right? It allows you to change how your neurotransmitters work, right? So, um things that increase your focus are more dopamine in your brain.

That's how some of those medications work. and brain FM by adding stimulation. It also is changing your dopa um your dopamine your dopamic fancy word. Yeah. But your the way your dopamine is processed your brain allowing you to get into that very heightened focus state that you can't just do with caffeine and you would have to go more on the medication angle. But the cool thing is because it's through electricity and electrical impulses, right? You can't normalize to it like you can with caffeine and these other kinds of things.

We're targeting it a completely different way. Oh, so in other words, you won't have like down regulation from receptors or anything like that from using it too much like you would from a pharmaceutical. No. If anything, you get trains it better. You get an enhanced effect. So what happens to me with brain FM is when I would listen to focus in the beginning uh and this is me personally about 10 minutes in I'd feel the kick in and I could feel it like I'm listening to it I'm you know writing this is back when I used to write all of our content now we have writers but I would write blogs and I'd listen to Brain FM and it was around 10 minutes in it it felt I'd start to feel locked in and the best way I can explain the feeling is like when you're really into something like flow state.

Yep. Yes. It's almost like tunnel vision, but it's Yeah. You're just so focus like nothing else really matters. You're just completely about Can I ask you a question? Yes. Do you even listen to me? Do you even hear the music anymore after that 10 minutes? No. No. That's That's so true that I remember the first time that I used this to read, which just blew my mind that I could I would be So, one of the reasons why I do better with audio books than I do actually reading regular books is if I start to read a regular book, I have to go back and read the pages.

My brain trails off with that. And I remember after first getting introduced to I'm like, I wonder if I played focus while I try to read. It seems counterintuitive to have noise going on while you're trying to read. And it did exactly that. Did the opposite. Noise melts away. I got hyperfocused. I could focus reading even better. So what happens now is if I listen to focus, it's like four minutes. And so there is no downregulation. It's it's uh it's like I I snap into it quicker.

Uh, and I think it might have to do with um just the way that your neural connections develop after you practice something. 100%. But I'm not chemically inducing. You're not chemically inducing, but you're priming yourself. So there's all these other things that are happening in your brain functionally, right, from those electrical and blood flow changes. There's also this your brain knows what to expect, right? So the more you're listening to it, the more anticipates. Correct. Correct. And then you can drop in faster. Today's program giveaway is the super bundle.

If you want to win, leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comments section. Also, right now, we are offering one-on-one calls for people who want customized reverse diet plans. If you want a 90-day customized reverse diet plan, you can get on with a mind pump trainer or coach uh if you go to reverse dietcall.com and it's 50% off. So, it's 49 bucks.

That's it. For 49 bucks, get your reverse diet set up. This is while space is accessible once the space is taken up because we're limited with our trainers. We're not doing these anymore. So, if you're interested, go now. Go to reverse dietcall.com. Back to the show. Talk about blood flow. What are you guys seeing? You guys are using fMRI studies. Is that where you're going? Okay. So, for people aren't familiar, this is a a an MRI that is like real time. So I can put someone an fMRI and I can see where the blood is flowing through the brain.

And so through that we can see executive function, fear, and it's pretty good. Like I can't tell exactly what you're thinking, but I can I can tell that you're anxious. Tell what state you're in. Yes. I can see oh there's anxiety inducing or they're thinking of a fond memory or they're, you know, processing something that's requiring, you know, logical thought processing. You'd see this in fMRI. This is all based on where in the brain it's lighting up that you see the So what do we see?

What are they going in there and they're like, "Okay, let's this let's let's watch their brain then we're going to put on focus and then you can see like what does it look what are they looking at?" That's exactly what's happening. So, uh you will see the brain in in a resting state, right? Where blood flow is not as much in your prefrontal cortex where our higher reasoning and thinking is. And as you listen to the music and your brain sinks to it, you can literally see the blood flow go to your prefrontal cortex.

And then also in um EEG, which is the electrical headsets that you're wearing, you can also see that electrical activity change as well. Um one thing I mentioned before was uh neural phase locking, right? And your brain has this phase and that phase is really just this pattern of um you can kind of think of this is kind of a d a broader version, but how your brain is like oscillating like turning on and off, right? And you can see those patterns start sinking together, which is that phase lock, which allows you to again be in that mode that we know is deep focus or deep concentration or creativity or learning, reading.

And by playing with those states just a little bit different, by changing those patterns, we can bring you from deep work to having some of the best ideas that you've ever had or just feeling like you're on fire. Now, is is there a like would all three of us uh cuz obviously under each category there's also all kinds of different like kind of sounds, tons of variety. Just tons of variety. And is it normal that uh like oh this song or whatever is better focused for me than Justin and his is likeates more to you.

Yeah. Or is it is it pretty universal? It's like everybody who listens to this is going to get that. I mean what is or is it a spectrum? Like it's it's a spectrum. So what we do is we when we you you come in first what we're trying to do is figure out where are you on an ADHD spectrum, right? We're trying to figure out how sensitive you are to distractions, right? if you are um uh if you are extroverted or introverted, right? What kind of music you like?

Because just by asking you a few basic questions, we can extrapolate a bunch about you. Okay? So, most people that have ADHD really like electronic music, right? It's linked together because there's high texture, there's a lot of sound, there's a lot of things going on. It's very stimulating. Yeah. Yeah. So, we ask you a bunch of these things and then what we're doing is we start matching these things that we break down into activities into stuff for Adam or Justin, right? And then inside of that, we actually start personalizing the music for each song that you're listening to for you.

And we call that effect level. And what's happening is if you have more ADHD or I'm I don't actually maybe you guys both, but I don't know. I know where we at. If if you guys wins in the room first, second, third probably. If one person has more than the other, what we're doing is we're actually changing that specific track and song to a higher amount of that that pattern. So, it's it's um more intense. It actually that amplitude um is not just louder, it's actually a stronger signal.

So, it it will um basically affect you a little bit more. We can do that because people with ADHD can handle that signal stronger. They actually need it. But if we people that don't have ADHD, they'll actually get a headache because it changes blood flow so dramatically. That's right. Wow. So is there like an AI component to this that's figuring us out as we listen or how do you adjust that? I mean, so there's a lot of algorithms um that we're using, you know, uh we could call them AI, we could call them smart algorithms, we could call them a bunch of stuff.

We're we have a lot of really cool stuff on the pipeline that has more to do with that. Yeah. But for right now, we're really using these models that we've created. Okay. That are about okay, how does this person perform and and uh on this pattern, right, and studied things. And then how do we see over thousands of individuals um how they're locking into flow, etc. And study. It's also what you like and what you don't like. So it picks up like, "Oh, he likes this." Classical music all day.

And it's it's I love that too because there's this association already I have with that, but then you guys layered on top of that the background noises to keep me locked in. And what you said about effect is So what I noticed is if I go extreme effect uh on some sounds, it's too much and it can actually make me feel slightly nauseous. Yeah. This is it's very powerful. For people listening who haven't tried Brain FM, it is very powerful. And if you go too hard, you you'll know you're going too hard and you back off and you get the right dose and then you get what you're looking for.

I mean, this is how I knew it worked because I was going too hard and I was like, "Whoa, scale that down. Now I'm focused." Which, by the way, another tip is when you find one that works, practice that same one over and over. There's a a particular one that I listen to for the plane rides that will put me to sleep so fast and it's the same one every single time. And now it's like I put it on and 3 minutes into it I'm out.

Yep. It's it's it's pretty remarkable. So talk about what p what studies was was did Nature magazine review? What are they looking at when they said, "Oh, this is legit." Yeah. So, we did a study um we did it with Wesley University in Northeastern and basically it was some of the things that we were quoting earlier with um fMRI studies with EEG where we're basically looking at people with and without ADHD and we're seeing how do you work um over you know a 10-minute block of time, right?

So, you actually we would give people um video games to play. Some were um very boring and some were more, you know, exciting and interesting. And you basically try to start measuring how they start erroring out as they get more bored, right? And you can start seeing that when you play, you know, our music compared to a placebo or a um you know, just regular music. Yeah, just regular music. Um there is there is a very large difference in effect that is uh reproducible and measurable and um you know that's really the the founding uh story of brain FM like we are there's so many like you mentioned before there's so many white noise there's binaural beats there's so many things out there that say you know do this and you'll get this result right and for some people they have really good effects on them but if you already like that stuff you're going try us and you're going to feel it dramatically, right?

Another level. Yeah. We're we're really trying to productize product productize bleeding edge science. So there's a lot of times where, you know, you have really smart people in academia and they they figure this stuff out, but it takes 10 years to get in your hands, make it marketable. Yeah. Exactly. So we said, "Hey, what if we just actually fund the research ourselves?" um our top neuroscientist, he literally has a dual um uh he's MIT and Harvard, right? He has a dual program and uh super super smart guy and what if we just hired him instead of some other company, right?

And he can do that all that work here. And it's through that kind of production by finding that value and organizing it and then distributing it to people that we can stay on that bleeding edge. And that's how we're making focus even better. We have, you know, really cool stuff with wearables soon. Um, and just continuing to push that edge of this is what known science is. How can we apply it and get into people's hands faster? What do you mean wearable? Yeah. So, there's wearables are really exciting because they track your HRV, they track your heart rate, they track your, you know, your skin temperature.

And from that we can start creating even more enhanced models of well what's going on personally for you and how are you responding to this music individually based on the biometrics. Yeah. Writing. Well and there's really cool stuff like some wearables coming out right now are um like there's EEG headsets that are coming out that um are in headphones. Um Apple Apple just came out with um um the blood u HR um heart rate in in headphones. So the whole technology is now starting to evolve and we are playing with a lot of things so when it finally comes out that we can just start using it and giving that to people quickly.

Now you you had an idea already of like what percentage of the people um said they either have ADHD or think they have it. So you have a good hold on on that. How do you have any idea like uh do military people how many military people use this? I could see like snipers. I could see like fighter pilots. I could see, you know, athletes. I could see snowboarders. Like do you do you have an idea of like the people that like is there a big is there a genre of people that like maybe you didn't see and you're like, "Yeah, there's a lot of people that use it." Are you seeing stuff?

Yeah, there's a lot of high performers that use this for sure. We I know for certain we are um on the um International Space Station because we got asked from NASA to put um a special download mode so they could only download load it once and then bring it up because they don't have you know lot a lot of bandwidth. Um we have a lot of professional poker players that use us uh because you're sitting down for hours for hours and you don't want to give tails away.

That's one of the number one. Interesting. you have to pace yourself. And like I have a few friends that are um pretty high up in the rankings and what they'll do is they'll do focus and then they'll relax and they'll modulate it themselves. Yeah. Depending. So cuz you can't just like that's like a common thing that people just try to ramp focus for 8 hours a day and some people can do that but the normal person really can only sustain that for so long. Oh interesting.

So you need relaxed to focus. a better a better strategy would be dip in and out. So if someone really I'm glad you brought that up because I think somebody could be listening to this and go like oh cool I'm going to slap this on and listen to it all day at work. So what would be so let's say you have a job an accountant right so laborious like just plugging numbers away all day or something like that or maybe an engineer or something how would you typically and I know that there's individuals but I mean typically recommend like how to use that through the whole day of of work.

Yeah. So I think first thing is always starting with momentum makes everything a lot easier and we'll get into this with tips and tricks and stuff later but really it's thinking about your day in focus blocks right so for me personally I'll do like a 90minute focus block in the morning of some of my most challenging work right and then I will dive into more of a relax or recharge block which allows me to you know just kind of downregulate I'll reset And then I'll use some of my maybe more um laborious or kind of monotonous work and I'll put like a different type of uh music on and get back into it to just try to crush it.

And I actually try to gify it a little bit, right? So, you know, there's some time where I'm I'm just trying to do my best and trying to have my deepest work and others where I am like, okay, I got 60 minutes. Let's see what I can do. Right? And I think it's finding what strategy works effectively for you, right? And really trying to be curious around, you know, what that works. So for the accountant, for example, it would be, okay, what do I have to do?

And and maybe like I'm not an accountant, so I'm not sure, but think about it in like, okay, this normally would take me, you know, x amount of time. I'm going to try to shrink that down to 60 minutes. I'm going to try to like bang through it in a in a way that one I'm rewarded at the end because I collapse time, but two, um, it makes it, you know, as more as exciting as you can, but you're still entertained and able to kind of get into that flow to do it.

Dan, you were you guys you were talking earlier off air that there's like a workout mode you're coming out with. Yeah. Yeah. Explain this. Yeah. So, uh, why wouldn't it just be focus? Well, you know, it's really funny. So, you know, I've been on here a few times and we've talked about it and we have a lot of people that write in and they tell us we they use Focus and uh you know that works, right? But the the interesting thing about Focus is it's literally made for desk work.

It's made to be you know, you're in front of your computer still and yeah, you're it's we have all these things that we're not getting into. Like we actually make it so it sounds like the music's coming in front of you to direct your focus even more. Um, and then we're trying to make it so that you kind of don't even hear the music after a while like you guys have said. It's just Yeah. Yeah. So, we're doing a lot of techniques. Um, we're at we're, you know, changing.

We're making it so that there's not strong salience like differences in sound, right? We're just trying everything is designed about just getting you into that state. But workout is the complete opposite of that, right? So, we said, "Hey, what if we flipped it on its head?" We actually started um experimenting on this in the medical side of the business for some pain management and we discovered that if are you guys engineering music to reduce the perception of pain? We have a few things that we're researching.

Um and that's one of we uh we have some really cool stuff. We we actually and a quick on the side of the medical we we actually did a clinical study where we woke people up from anesthesia faster and got them out of the hospital and there's there's you know a lot of people um you know they look at our science we have a lot but you but you know there's always a question is this is placebo and you know if you look at the double blind and you kind of excuse all that stuff even if you go further there can't be a placebo if you're asleep right and in this we were able to get people out of a hospital after anesthesia 30% faster, right?

Instead of waking up and you're like kind of drunk, you're actually coherent and you can just, you know, you're like, "Oh, wow. That was great." Wild. Um, really, really cool stuff. That's a That's a whole another thing. Anti anti- drunk. Play this. You won't feel the music. This episode's brought to you by Massy. These are digestive enzymes for fitnessminded people. Break down your food easy so your digestion's better and assimilate those proteins, fats, and carbs more effectively. Go to masszymes.commindpump. masssyme.com/mindpump. Back to the show. So talk about this workout one cuz I'm tripping right now.

My mind is spinning cuz I'm already thinking in my head. So how's it different? You could change how someone perceives pain, exertion. you could improve uh the perceptions of um pleasure, which would just make the workout Yeah. way more awesome. We're trying to add more dopamine, like way more than focus, right? Where it's distracting. We're trying to add a lot of texture and a lot of um you know, events that basically take your energy away from how much like maybe pain you're in, right? but also at the same time by uh adding stimulation which allows you to have that that muscle connection right that we're all trying to get right um and we started experimenting with this actually been something in the making for like four or five years uh and it's close enough now where it's not I'm not we're not putting our metal and saying it's as good as focus or sleep yet but we are uh releasing beta and we wanted to release beta actually with you guys because of the relationship that we have.

So people listening can go and try. Yeah, they can go and try and um it's been crazy. So I uh wanted um to, you know, get get fit and I started doing, you know, a bunch of uh different diet, but I realized I really needed to start doing some cardio. Um and my friend signed me up for a Hyrox. And I don't know if you guys know about Hierrox, but it's basically a running competition. Yeah. What are you thinking, dude? Yeah. full on circuit. I I was like, I'm going to try it.

And I basically I was like never a runner, never thought I was going to be a runner. I don't understand runners. And my experience was always running was the most monotonous thing. It was boring. Right. When we started when I started playing with this and testing it, I now am a runner and now I can run six miles. Explain what you mean. You're just not bored like you're just Yeah. But what's happening is we're adding this energy of the music and now I can run where I'm not it's it's funny cuz we're not at like the music is something that's you know you're it's just guiding you right and eventually you reach the same point where you're not really listening to it anymore but it's kind of like just this giving you it like the best way I can describe it is kind of like drinking a preworkout the entire time you're working out and you feel this thing instead of feeling the pain and like, "Oh, I want to stop." And all this stuff.

It kind of gets you through this p that that first like five minutes of cardio where you're like, "Oh, I can do this." And this is this is interesting to me because anybody like I mean I wouldn't call myself a runner, but I've ran a lot in my life. And uh you have that the first 10 minutes and then you hit what most people call the runner's high. And that's it's like once you get past that, you break that kind of first sweat, you hit the 10 minutes, all of a sudden the run becomes so much easier.

It would be so cool to see uh a study. Yeah. Like like I I know because I've ran enough times that it's about 10 minutes for me. It to know that I could get there in five would be like a a huge deal. That's the goal. So that would be dope to be able to go like, you know, and get your runner's high in half the time. Well, if you can induce cat, you know, catakolamine production or dopamine production, you probably can induce uh endogenous um canabonoid endockinabonoid production, which is what happens.

That's part of the the runner's high is their body's actually producing canabonoid. Like you've obviously felt that, right? Like I know you're not a big runner, but you you run you run and it's like it's like that once that kind of first sweat and I after 10 minutes like the first 10 minutes it's like I don't want to do this. This sucks. And then after that it's like oh I could go for another hour. I got to add to this though, Dan, because someone who's never experienced Brain FM is like, "Well, yeah, there's music that'll do that to me." Like, I'll listen to my favorite song or that, you know, the, you know, for me it's like like Rocky four montage music, you know, and you get the chills and that's not what we're talking about.

Wrecking Ball, right? We're not for Justin, it's Wrecking Ball. Wrecking crushes. It's uh that's not what we're talking about. it it this isn't bringing you back a memory that's giving you a feeling or that's motivating you because you're like, "Oh, I like this song." Although the music's good. It's the the sounds themselves get the brain to operate in a way that mirrors what you would see in a scan if you were looking at someone who's enjoying their workout. Totally. Or who's focused on, you know, reading something that they really like or who's meditating or whatever.

So, it's literally telling the brain through sounds, and sounds have a very profound effect on the brain if you just know how to engineer them. It's making the brain operate as if you were, which then makes you What about That's a lot more deliberate, too, with the workout version of it. Like, it wants to get your attention and to get you focused on these sounds more to distract from what's going on with Yeah. your paint signal. Yeah. So, you know, those those patterns that we talked about because, you know, sounds there's there's so many things inside of that, right?

Inside of those sounds, there's a lot of how the music is comp, you know, compositionally, if if you like it, you know, whether it's EDM or it's, you know, heavy metal or whatever. But inside of that is that pattern that we talked about before. And remember that we can adjust that pattern per user and per track. And when you're working out, you already have a lot more blood flow going on. So we can ramp that up even higher, which gives you that effect even more. Um, another way to think about what we do is plugging in and plugging out, right?

When you focus, when you work out, you're trying to plug in. You're trying to get jazzed up. You're trying to to do something, right? And then you when you want to relax, you're trying to plug out. You're trying to not be anxious on flights. You have too much energy. And what we're doing is again we're shifting those patterns that shift blood flow. So we're shifting blood flow into your prefrontal cortex and we're shifting blood flow out of your prefrontal cortex which allows us to regulate you how you feel and enhance you know your goal.

Have you guys ever um had any studies or tested like stress hormone responses with this? We haven't done um stuff like that. Um that now that we have this nature paper and we we were successful. Um and it's kind of cool because we're a small company. It's it's like winning the Oscar and like not many companies do this. We're like an indie film winning something. Um but now we're like, "Okay, we've done it. What's next?" Right? And we have a lot of different, you know, ideas and things that we want to do our next study on.

Um most people don't realize that this study cost us a million dollars, right? So it's not when you turn on the fMRI machine, it's quarter of a million bucks. Plus, you got quarter million every time you just turn the fMRI. You better make sure this is a good study going into it. Well, you have controls, you have people, you have placebo, you got to it's all you got to do it the right way because at the end of the day, we want conclusive evidence that what we're doing works and we want people to trust us and we can say, "Oh, yeah, do this and all these great things and users." And that's true.

We have, you know, four plus million users using us. But what's even more powerful is if you want to look at the study and want to look at it and and read it yourself, you can, right? Um, and that's what we want. We want to be the leaders um in this new functional music category um and really help people just, you know, be their best. Yeah. I just immediately think about performance and I'm thinking about like getting into that sympathetic state as quickly as possible. But then also like after I'm done like being able to recover in parasympathetic state and kind of shifting that how you know if there's a way to do that musically through you know your guys product.

There's a lot of ways to hack what you guys do. Uh people with digestive issues listen to meditate or relax while you eat. uh wake up in the morning, I'm groggy, put on a little focus or maybe now the workout. Like there's a lot of ways to use this to kind of move through the day because you you don't you're not always going to be focused or at least that's not ideal. You're not always going to be relaxed. That's always not ideal. But there are moments when those are ideal states of mind.

Are you guys because there's a lot of fMRI studies on we can look at a brain and we can pretty reliably predict whether or not that person is feeling a particular way with at least the major feelings. One of them is like being in love. Another one is euphoria. Have you guys looked into engineering music to try to induce some of these? Because I could see my I would be very interested like, oh, this is euphoria. I want to see what this feels like. Have you looked at some of this stuff, too?

Uh, right now we're we're kind of really focused on activities, right? Cuz we want to like I would love to make everyone euphoric, but if I'm assuming if if I had a euphoria button, I just press that thing all day, right? Um, so addicts, let's go. Uh, I I think really, you know, the first thing is just trying to enhance and and get people to um, you know, unlock that part of themselves. That's what we hear a lot of people say is that they're like, once I get going, I'm I'm unstoppable, but I need that button to start.

And that's where a lot of people start with us in the morning. They they put on a motivation track. They put us on a deep work. And you know, eventually we want to make the soundtrack that if you wanted to, you could listen to us 24/7. We don't expect that necessarily, but we actually already have people um that listen to us every night for focus or sorry, every night for sleep, right? They start their day um you know, they use us for relax, workout, you know, there's so many other things there.

And there's also these really cool use cases that still are being used by people that were not really intended for. Um, so for example, a lot of people solve their focus problem and maybe maybe they don't need sleep, but they have a brand new baby. Yeah. And they're like, you know what? I not I'll put sleep on. And now they put it every night for their kid. And that those moments are the really cool times. So you guys are okay now playing it on speakers. I remember for a second they were like, "It has to be on headphones." But we experimented on the speakers and it works too.

Yeah, it's it still works on on, you know, we're always learning new things, but it if you want the highest effects for focus and for workout, speakers are are going to be not as high as headphones, but it still will work. But for relax and for sleep and all those down states, because it's so slow, this waveform, you can put on speakers no problem. Oh, well that makes sense cuz you always were talking about how you would play it for Max. Oh, yeah. Always. That's how we use it.

I've always used it through a speaker even when we were told we're not supposed to talk about it like that. I was like, it works. I mean, obviously, if you put noise cancelling headphones so there's no other distractions and you're only getting that input, it makes sense. That's the highest level you can get. But it's super effective with a little Bose speaker putting right towards you. Are you able I don't know if you're a even able to comment on this but do you guys have parents uh who are using it for their kids uh who are struggling with school and hey I don't want my kid to have to go on medication are are you getting users yeah we get a lot of users that do that we have so we have um lot of people that want to use this as a first uh reach rather instead of going right to medication they're saying hey let's try this first um and people write in they say oh my gosh this there's a huge difference um we have this we have teachers playing this in classrooms off of speak over speakers, things like that.

Um, we also have um what's really interesting too is people that are or kids that are very neurodeiverse, right? So, you're talking that they have autism or um you know, other kinds of learning disabilities and they put this on and they're like night and day. Um we we it's it you know again there's so many interesting things like we have a lot like an autistic community of people that use focus to go out to go to parties because it helps regulate how they feel which allows them to be more social and and things like that.

I have family members I need to I need I can't believe I haven't introduced this to that would that makes a lot of sense. Wow that's remarkable. And you're you have a friend that you have you recommended? No, I have literally why he was talking to him like I'm so gonna send that to them and get their son on it before they even consider doing something like that. And I could just see that that's one of the things that they like getting him to sit down and do homework and sit still for like 10 15 minutes is really tough.

Dan, off air you were talking about how you recent because you had you've talked you've told us your story on uh previous episodes of how you know you dropped out of high school and you had struggled with focus because you have ADHD. You said you just re realized a few years ago that you had dyslexia as well. Yes. How do you figure that out a few years later? How did that discovery? So dis there's so many different forms, right? And and actually before I get on to this, I'll just say that, you know, what we're learning or what what is not commonly told in public is that it's just a spectrum and some people are shifted this way or this way, right?

Um so I think it's it's you know really important um for people to recognize that for you know uh different kids right instead of just going to medication try this cuz they're maybe they're just here and some and not not that medication's bad but what if you use this in and medication could you take less could you do you know more you know and because this is not pharmaceutical combining it with medic perfectly safe there the only down effect of this The negative effect would be you put it on too loud and it hurts your eardrums.

There's no other our brains are designed to um eliminate a lot of things going on and that's actually one of again that pattern we're trying to get through that elimination network, right? Um and that's again, you know, why it's effective and why there's there's no downside from it. Okay. So, back to how did you figure out three years as an adult? Yeah. So, I you know, I I can read fine. Um, and numbers have always been hard for me. Um, but whatever. Everyone math is math is hard, right?

Um, and it wasn't until I I was actually I think I I might have been on TikTok or something like that and someone started talking about the different forms of dyslexia and um I was like, "Wait a second, I have that. I thought that was me having like a part of ADHD." you know, they're blended together, but I have this hard time remembering audio, right? So, um, you know, someone will quote a classic movie line or say a song or whatever. Doesn't work for me, right?

I It's so hard for me to remember facts and figures and um, you know, like sports team names and things like that, like stats. I'm not I can't I'm not a sports guy because I can't hold any of that information. And again, growing up, I just thought maybe I was dumb, right? And then finding years later that, oh, it's actually I have a I have dyslexia, it allowed me to like, you know, have a little bit more power over that. Um, and I think that's again why my story with Brain FM and, you know, selling everything I have so I could go allin as a user.

Um, you know, that's why because it's the first thing that really worked. You can get 30 days for free with BrainFm right now if you go to brain.fm/mindpump. By the way, they have a new workout mode. It changes your brain wave so you have a better workout. It really works. Go check it out. Back to the show. Okay, this is why I'm so interested in this. I had and I haven't looked into this, but now I'm going to look into it. I had a a woman that was a client of mine and she was I want to say either a psychology professor or I believe she was a psychology professor and I was talking about how so I read fine, no problem.

Numbers, I'm not good at math, but I don't think that's an issue. Yeah, it's hard. But I'm I have the most disoriented sense of direction that I've ever heard of. I've only met one other person who I would say is like me. I could literally get lost by turning around and going back around and then I don't know which direction is right, left. He needs he needs the the map quest to get out of his neighborhood. It's really bad. True story. It's really it's it's frustrating and and she said that it's a form of dyslexia.

So, I'm going to look into it to see if what's the deal cuz I also have ADD. Yeah. And and I know that there's a kind of a crossover. So there's definitely I mean some of the the most successful entrepreneurs in the world have made me feel better. Yeah. Yeah. Um Richard Branson, you know, I name a few. But you know and that's what we're like again do you have a lot of entrepreneurs that do brand? You got to have a huge huge Well, I imagine.

Yeah. Cuz it attracts it attracts people with ADD. I mean the positive thing of that because I know it's always talked about as such a in such a negative light. The positive side is that you have also the ability to crazy obsess and focus about things, right? Yeah. I mean that's the part that that's why entrepreneurs are a so much of have so many of us have that is because oh this this is could be a superpower. We also seek out novelty which makes us less risk averse which is what you need as an entrepreneur not be so afraid to take risks.

Yeah. Yeah. There's there's so many cool things uh in the whole entrepreneur landscape like uh you're novelty seeking. You are you are trying to also make up for feeling less than a lot of it, right? And that again comes from, you know, maybe maybe being told that you can't do something or you're not smart enough or whatever. And what's really one of the reasons why entrepreneurs love us so much is because to this point they figured it out, right? They're able to function by pure will alone.

Yeah. But now you give them a tool that allows them to go to the next level. Yeah. We just got a I I I mean I just read a um a love letter, right? We get thousands of them a week. And I just read someone and they were saying how much of a change that they've had from using Brain FM. And they're trying to create a healthcare startup that's going to try to change the world. and they're like, "You are allowing me to do the thing that I need to do so I can help people." And I thought that was really cool because I've always thought of, well, we're just trying to help people that we're trying to change the world, but we're also doing is we're helping other people compound effect change the world through the things that they make, which is pretty pretty fun.

Yeah. You guys So you guys do something interesting, which and and we talked off air. This the conversion rate you guys have is insane. So you guys let people try it out for free for a month. Yeah. For 30 days. And you were saying that the that at least half the people stick around. Yes. And just stay which for anybody who's listening like when you give away something expecting a conversion 50% is you don't nobody gets 50%. No. No. Uh I think I think uh industry rates are like 30%.

You know we do the whole thing. It's it's really interesting if you want to get into like user psychology and things like that. So, we used to give Brain FM out for free, no credit card, and people could just try it. Yeah. But then when we did that, people were like, "Oh, I'll just try it later. I'll just try it later." Because everyone has ADHD, right? And so what we did you market to those people, it didn't work. And what's really and you see this in apps a lot where you have you know put in your credit card you get 7 days or 14 days or you know for mind pump listeners you get 30.

And when we did that, our conversion rate spiked because then people are like, I have to try this before it charges me. And you can cancel anytime and if it doesn't work for you, cancel. But what we find is that people when they sign up and they're motivated to try it, they'll they'll actually sit down and be like, I'm going to try this for 60 minutes. And in that 60 minutes, their first session will be 60 or 90 or some people do it for three or four hours in their first session.

Yeah. And those people go from basically zero usage to 3 hours a day and they're still using 3, four, five. We're coming up on 10 years, you know, later. I have yet to find anybody who I've introduced it to actually tried it said it didn't work. Yes. Cuz this is what I always say to them. Wait 10 to 15 minutes. Just wait 10 to 15 minutes and then let me know. And then sure enough, they're like, what? Like this is wild. and every single one of them ends up converting.

Are you allowed to talk about um famous people or athletes or people that are using it? I mean, do you guys have users like that? Are you allowed to talk disclose that stuff or is it I I I I know we have people that have written in and and shared a lot of success, but I don't have their express permission. Okay. But I will say there's a lot of people that uh you would recognize, right? Like some some very large celebrities, some very pro aletes. Um, and I think it's it's again it's for the high performer that wants to consistently be on their their best, especially, you know, pro athletes and things like that.

Um, this is part of their repertoire. Yeah. Um, you know, I always think of Brain FM as a tool, but not a not the all solution. So, you add this with the other tools that you have. Add this with your caffeine. Add this with your energy drink. Add this you know like for me I would I would say that like the best my best hack for me is right take an elyanine drink a cold brew put on brain FM and just sit down and you're going to find this really cool effect from this energy from the caffeine and then guiding that energy from brain FM and the results are are really remarkable.

What's the pomodoro uh effect or f what is that? But I see that in your notes. And what is that exactly? So Pomodoro is this uh uh very widely known um uh method of focusing where you focus for uh I believe it's 20 or 25 minutes on and you take a 5minute break. So back and forth, back and forth. And that's really good for people with ADHD that like, you know, working on a task for 90 minutes is really, you know, hard and and and scary.

Um, the thing is though that that a lot of people think that that's the best most optimal way to work. And I would say that's really good for monotonous tasks you just have to get through. But for really deep work like developing or or um writing, we have a ton of writers, I think 90 minute 60 to 90 minute blocks is really the best because by the time you are right about in that flow state, why would you leave? Yeah. Why would you stop it? Well, I think that's that strategy was used without brain FM, right?

That's typically what we figure we found is most people's tension span is really strong in the first 20 minutes and then they trail off and so you're better off bring it up. But that's assuming you don't have a tool like this. You have a tool like this and 20 minutes now becomes 60 90minute blocks that are far more successful. That's really cool. That's a selling point and a half by that cuz I've seen the studies and stuff that say that. What about uh like you know when you have a bunch of tasks to do, do the one you hate the most or the hardest one first.

Get that one out of the way. You you have in your notes that that's a myth. Explain that. No, I I was saying uh so in my notes uh a lot of people think they have to work on their hardest task first. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. The one that's the hardest first. So So that's really hard because you're basically like, "Okay, I got to write this chapter or do whatever." And what happens is you just stare at the screen, right? And one of the best ways to get started is to start the dopamine, right?

Oh, good point. That's what you want to do. So, cuz if I have to start with something that's the hardest, I'm less likely to want to start a lot of resistance. You should all I mean, so all all focus is is is very is controlling energies and energy management, right? But it's also learning how our brains and our bodies work. And while you certainly want to do your most intensive tasks on Monday morning, right, if you just cold start, just like going to the gym and doing um a deadlift, you don't just Yeah.

You don't max out, right? You got to warm it up. You got to give your your body um or your brain in this case, some dopamine. So, what I'll usually do is I go through my day and I go, "Okay, this is the number one thing I have to do. It's A, right? B, C, D, and E, right? And then I'll just do D for 20 minutes first. I get that away. I already won something. Cool. And then here's the thing. Then you lock in. Yeah, you have to lock in because a lot of people will answer those five emails they have to do and then go to start their writing thing.

But in today's world, they'll be like, "Oh, let me just reward myself by scrolling on TikTok." Ruined. Yeah. You only have 60 seconds to switch into the next activity to keep that going. So, you really want to start off with something small like an appetizer, right? Get yourself ready and but you have to stay in that focus zone and then immediately switch in that that harder task and you're going to find it a lot easier to stay consistent and build um you know, productive work. That's interesting.

What comes to mind for me when I think of like my days and it would be like uh knock out the the quick open email stuff, right? Get through my emails real quick and answer, respond, whatever. Cash out. Yep. And then that's like kind of because it's easy. It's mundane. Takes me probably 20 minutes if I do it every day. Yep. And then lock into the thing that I got to really get. But I want to be ready to go right away. It sounds like. So you don't want to delay Yeah.

minutes or a long time. It's like you want to have that big task ready to go so you can transition right into it. Totally. And you want something that you know you can hit. So you know, email works for some people cuz they're like, "Yep, like clockwork." Other people, they open their email and it's like, I don't know, it could be 10 minutes, it could be 3 hours. So, you really want to find that task that you have to do that's, you know, just like doing a warm-up rep.

How are you, how are users finding you? Uh, I mean, I know we talk about you guys, but how are you reaching out? Because I'm always tripping. I'm like I I you know, four million users is a lot, but I I'm like, why isn't it, you know, 40 million like this is so again, if you try this, if you're listening, you try it, it blows your mind. It's really weird. Well, you guys are so are you selfunded? What do you What's the funding like with you guys?

Uh we did a um uh what is it called? Uh a safe note. So like a preede funding round. But now we're we're completely bootstrapped and we're kind of we're scaling on top of that. What you see is you know companies like binary beats which have got you know hundreds of millions of dollars behind them that are probably pumping ads at a loss just so they can get people right. Well, you know what it's actually funny cuz a lot of the there there's not a lot of funding in binurial beats.

It's just there's so many copycats that they all look the same. Oh, interesting. So, when you compare us to, you know, I can name like 20 binaural beef companies, they all are, you know, basically trying to steal each other's lunch and that looks like, hey, I see. But what's really interesting, what's been helpful for us is it's still showing people that there's music made for focus and then eventually they try us too and they go, wow. And they stay with us. Um, our biggest source right now is Word of Mouth.

It's still and it always is. Um, and what's really cool is internationally we're really starting to grow. That's cool. So, um, you know, obviously this works in any language. It's it's music, right? Oh, good point. Any any studies you want to fund or, you know, that you would love to maybe do to Oh, man. So many. Um, uh, I would love to I mean, first, I think a lot of the wearable stuff that we want to do would be really, really cool. Um, again, there's there's some really cool wearables coming out like, you know, or a ring, you have Apple Watch.

Those are those are some cool stuff. Um, but you also have um EEG stuff where it's these these things that we we actually are in all of our experiments, but now they're like putting it down into um very small form factors. Um, you also have FNERS, which is um it's a headband and it's it's shooting a laser like a like a um uh very very tiny um um penetration into your um skull your skull and it's just reading the blood flow like from like the a few millimeters in and it can estimate how focused you are.

Like there's a ton of really cool integration stuff there. I think there's also really cool stuff and like the wearable and fitness component. Like I I remember talking to you and you're like do a study with CGMs. Yeah. Right. Um and there's there's a lot there's there's actually so much, you know, and what we're trying to always balance is how do we, you know, stay focused, right? It's really ironic. I own a focus company and I need to stay focused, right? And and that's actually what's been allowing us to grow and succeed.

Um this year we've we've doubled in size. Oh, wow. Um and it's really because we're focusing on very specific um you know problems and this problem right now is how can we help people focus? Yeah. No matter where you are in the world, no matter you know where where you are in the spectrum, right? And we want to help you. And I think the next one is probably now going after people with insomnia or panic attacks. If you were to give me I'm assuming that what led you guys to that you probably put it on a pie chart and of you know say last year and said this is our our greatest pie piece of the pie.

So is that right? 70% of people that come to us um is focus right now. Wow. See that's so interesting for me cuz I'm a more of the sleep guy as far as how I use it. Although I use it for focus. So you guys 70% are focused. A big part of it too though Adam is that we you and I well most of us don't do the kind of work where we have to sit there and focus. Oh yeah. No. I what we do is in here and this is pretty engaging and you know um so but if if I was like when I used to write our content I would use no we all you know it makes sense when you know I just like what a what a brilliant thing in an era where I mean I I remember reading like just a decade or two ago the attention span of the average person and like you know what it's down to now like it goldfish yeah it used to be like a minute then it was like 30 seconds it was like 50 I think it's like 6 seconds Now you have to get grab somebody's attention and we're in this attention war, right?

Like that's more valuable than money today is grabbing people's attention. Yep. Which is also another way of saying we're distracted. Like so we're massively distracted as a as a species in a society. And so you guys coming out with something or focusing on something that helps people stay not distracted and stay focused. Here's the other thing, too. Because of the way that it's it's training the brain, even without playing the music, your brain now gets into these states easier because it's moving the blood flow, because it's conditioning the mind uh or the brain uh through these sounds.

Um you have an effect that lasts in between listening to it. So, use it regularly. You get you're more focused even when you don't use it, which I think is very interesting. Totally. Yeah. Very cool. Dan, this is great. Yep. Thanks for coming back on, man. We appreciate what you guys do. Easy to talk about you guys. Can't wait to try the workout. Of course. Yeah. For I mean for all Mind Pump listeners, if you go to BrainFm/mindpump, you guys are going to get the extended 30 days, right?

And also, uh, you can try focus, all the other activities, and you'll automatically be signed up for beta. Um, and we're looking for feedback, right? This isn't finished, but we want to hear people from cardio. We also want to hear workouts, weightlifting. I hit my PR for deadlift while listening to it. So, it works for both. And you hit uh I hit uh nothing compared to you guys. Uh but I hit uh 415. That's great. That's a big deadlift, dude. Great job, dude. That's awesome. That's awesome.

So, it's brain.fm/mindpump. Yes. All right. All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. One of the keys to fat loss is protein. It's true. If you're not eating a high protein diet, you're not going to burn as much body fat as you can. So today's episode, we're going to talk about the smartest ways to use protein for fat burn and to build muscle. You got to watch this. I wish I understood this earlier in my career. I think it was probably almost 10 years in when I started to just focus on this with clients.

I knew it was important, but I don't know how important. Yeah, I also did I knew what was important and but I also