Episode #72:

Your Brain's Golden Hour of Efficiency

October 13, 2022

Shownotes:

Episode #72: Your Brain's Golden Hour of Efficiency

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About the Episode:

Do you know that one time of your day when you know you'll be on fire?

You're hyper-focused and able to knock things out quickly.

Well, my friend, that time of the day is referred to as your golden hour.

On this week's podcast, I teach you the 3 steps to harness that time, add fuel to that fire, and skyrocket your efficiency.

Get your free copy of the 5 Step Ultimate Guide to Stop People Pleasing here.

Coaching for Latina Leaders

About the Podcast

Leadership ability is equally distributed but opportunity to lead is not. This podcast is for all women, those that identify as leaders and those that don't, yet. You'll learn how to let go of guilt and self-doubt so you can show up with confidence everywhere you go. No more questioning if your idea is good enough to share, if it's worth it to speak up, or if you're a good enough leader. All that self-critical B.S. stops now. Listen in as masterful educator and Harvard grad physician, Dr. Vanessa Calderón, teaches you how to let go of the things standing in the way of your success as a leader. Get ready, this podcast will accelerate your personal and professional growth.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón, MD, MPP has over 20 years of leadership experience. She is a Harvard grad, ER physician, Life and Leadership coach, and a mother of 2. She's a first generation Latina and is dedicated to uplifting her community. She's the founder of the Latina Leadership Accelerator, where she uses education and coaching to support the personal and professional development of women at all stages of their lives and careers.

Leadership Accelerator

Is a 12-week Life and Executive Coaching program that will help you execute at a higher level, thrive in all areas of your life, and improve your self-compassion. You'll be able to:

• Improve your productivity by 60%
• 10X your Emotional Intelligence
• Have more time for the people you love
• Cultivate an unwavering sense of self-compassion

The next cohort starts in Fall 2022. Learn more and join the waitlist here.

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Full Episode Transcript:

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72. Your Brain’s Golden Hour of Efficiency
SPEAKERS
Vanessa

Vanessa 00:00
Welcome to coaching for Latina leaders, the only podcast dedicated to the advancement of Latinas at every level of life with your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Latina with over 20 years of leadership experience, Harvard grad physician and mother of two.

Vanessa 00:19
Hello, my friends, today I am teaching you about your brain's golden hour of efficiency. That's right, there is a time of day when your brain is ripe to get stuff done when you can use your brain to its highest capacity. So before I teach you this concept, let me remind you of the Life and Leadership accelerator program. It's my professional development and coaching program, open to all professionals, especially the busiest on the go with a super rigid, tight schedule. That's who this program was created for. So if you identify as that super busy professional, I want to encourage you to check out the Life and Leadership accelerator program.

What we do in the program is teach you how to be your most effective self, how to get more done in less time, and how to have more time for the things that matter to you. Whether that's you know, a hobby that you've been wanting to pick up traveling the world spending time with people that you love, whatever it is because at the end of your life, what's going to matter, not how much money you made, not the credentials behind your name, what will really matter is how you spent your time and that you spent your time aligned with the things that matter to you with your values. And that's exactly what we teach you to do inside the accelerator.

So go and check it out. It's VanessaCalderon.com/join again, VanessaCalderonmd.com/join, join today and get started immediately. And guess what we just did, we just made the program a lifetime access program, which means you pay once you get access for the rest of your life, any updates, any additions, any extra bonuses that I add to the program, which I do often because I love creating stuff for all of you. All of that you get access to after you join us once. So go and check us out VanessaCalderonmd.com/join, and you will learn all about the program there. And you can join us today and get immediate access to all of the awesome modules, the content and coaching.

Vanessa 02:25
Okay, my friends back to today's subject, which is the golden hour. Okay, so most of you probably know that your brain tends to have a time of day when you are the most productive. If you are a morning person for you, that's probably really early in the morning before 10 am. But some of you are night owls. And if that's you, maybe your golden hour of productivity is late in the night. What time your golden hour is matters less. What matters more is that you know when your golden hour is, and you protect that time, so you can use it for you to be your most effective self at that time.

Vanessa 03:05
So I'm going to teach you three steps to get the most out of your golden hour. And if you're not totally sure of when your golden hour is for you, that is okay. What I want you to do, though, is just beyond yourself this week, and pay attention to when you realize that your brain is the most productive when you get the most done. Okay. All right. So for me, for example, my golden hour is early morning. So really early in the morning, even if I get up at five or 6 am, because I'm a morning person, I'm the most productive before probably about 11 am I get a ton of stuff done. Okay, so let me share with you three things to get the most out of your golden hour. So step one, though, is to figure out when your golden hour is okay, once you figure that out if you already know great if you don't just pay attention this week, and try to figure out when your brain is the most productive. Alright, so number one, I'm gonna teach you three things to get the most out of your golden hour.

Vanessa 04:02
Number one, protect it protect your golden hour. So when you can, if you have the luxury to do this, leave this time free of meetings or other mundane tasks that are not going to require innovation or creativity. Because I want you to think of this time as the time that your brain is ripe for things that are going to require a higher metabolic load. And a metabolic load means that your brain really needs to use that energy to pump stuff out. So for writing, for example, creating things that are you know, really like difficult for you if you have like a program that you need to draft or for me, I use it for writing my podcast episodes out, for example. So or if I'm teaching anything new in my program, this is the time that I use to really tackle all of that stuff. Anything that I need to use my brain that is going to require a higher metabolic load. So you want to protect your golden hour and you want to leave it free of mundane tasks. So I really want to encourage you not to use it for things like emails, if you can not to use it for things like scheduling meetings, in leaving it free of those things if you have the luxury to do so.

Vanessa 05:14
So you protect your time, that's step one. Step two, you want to schedule super thinking tasks. So I kind of already alluded to this, but you want to schedule super thinking tasks into your golden hour. So you want to use this time, again, to tackle any projects that are gonna require you to be deeply focused or creative, because those are the things that require us to use a higher metabolic load of our brain, which means it requires more brain power or brain energy. So you want to make sure you schedule those things during your super thinking during your golden hour. So I'm super intentional about this. And I don't schedule any meetings in the morning before 10. When I can I leave all that time free of meetings, and I schedule all my big things in there. So all my big things are scheduled before 11 am. Anything that requires super thinking, creativity, innovation, and writing. Again, if I'm teaching something new, if I'm drafting podcast episodes, if I'm writing out programs or projects, that's when I do it. And then I leave my afternoon, when I know that my brain is no longer going to be its most effective self, I leave that for other things that don't require a high metabolic load, like drafting emails, or sitting through meetings, stuff like that.

Vanessa 06:30

Okay, so the first thing you do is find out when your golden hour is, second, protect your golden hour, so leave it free of things that don't require a high metabolic load. The third thing is to schedule super thinking times and schedule all your super thinking tasks inside of your golden hours. And the last thing is really important, and that is celebrating your accomplishments. So if you use your golden hours, well, what you will notice is that you become way more productive, and your productivity will skyrocket. And you're also going to feel pretty tired after you're done. After you're done with your tasks, you will feel tired, because you are using your brain now at its highest capacity. But no big deal. Feeling tired, after you've done a bunch of stuff is totally normal. After all, we are not robots, we are beautifully complex human beings with awesome brains. But this is a thing though, when you feel tired, your brain associates that with pain instead of pleasure. And our brain does whatever it can to avoid pain. So to ensure that your brain doesn't subconsciously keep you from utilizing your golden hours at their max, you want to take a few minutes to celebrate your accomplishments.

Vanessa 07:45
So every time you're done with your golden hours, I want you to just think about how you can use this time to celebrate yourself. And the celebration can be quick and easy. It can be two minutes. So a simple, you know, good job saying a Good job to yourself with a big smile, giving yourself an actual pat on the back. So for me, for example, my love language is words of acknowledgment and affection. So I will literally tell myself out loud, I will say a good job, Vanessa, I'm so proud of you look at everything we've accomplished. Or I will give myself a big hug like I am doing right now. But you cannot see because this is a podcast. So I will do those two small little actions, it takes you to know, less than two minutes. But these small little actions release those feel-good neurotransmitters in our brains. And these are the things that our brain and our body need to continue to use this time in a way that serves us. Because now what's happening is we're using our golden hours to their max, and we're accomplishing a bunch of stuff. And as soon as we're done, we are now releasing really good neural hormones in our brains. So that next time we want to plan something for that time, our brain is now going to associate that with those feel-good hormones, so it's going to help us be even more efficiently next time.

Vanessa 09:02
So those are the ways that you can start using your golden hour to its mask. Okay. So as you think of your weeks ahead, I want you to ask yourself two things. Number one, how will I best utilize my golden hour to be more efficient? How can I protect my golden hour? What kind of tasks makes sense for me to put to schedule during my golden hours? And the last one is this? How can I creatively celebrate all of my accomplishments? A lot of us want to gloss over this last one, we don't think it's important. But let me tell you celebrations are incredibly important. And doing it intentionally is incredibly important and on purpose. Because our brains love to stick to the negative and if you don't celebrate what your brain will remember instead is how exhausted you are the last time you did this. It'll be like yeah, you don't need to use your golden hour again this week. Let's save it for next week. But if you start releasing those dope that dopamine those feel-good hormones in your body You're gonna want to start using your golden hour more and more effectively. Okay, my friends, I hope you enjoyed that episode and I cannot wait to see what you accomplish with your golden hours and the US

Vanessa 10:18
Hey, if you love what you're learning, then you've got to check out my free Ultimate Guide to stop people pleasing, where I teach you a simple five-step process to stop saying yes. When you really want to say No, you'll be so glad that you did. There's a link to the guide in the show notes. I'll see you next time.