Okay so this next part? It changed how I think about everything. You know when you want to buy a specific car and suddenly you see it everywhere? That's not the universe sending you signs. That's your brain's filter, and Dorota Kosiorek knows exactly how to use it on purpose.
Dorota is a brain coach who works with high achievers, leaders, and entrepreneurs. The kind of people who look successful from the outside but internally feel like they're always chasing the next thing. She's been that person herself, and she built an entire coaching framework around fixing it. Guys, you need to hear this.
Why High Achievers Feel Empty at the Top
Here's what Dorota nailed right away: high achievers are great at achieving. That's the easy part. The hard part is that they never stop to enjoy any of it. There's always another level, another goal, another thing to chase. And somewhere along the way, rest starts feeling like laziness.
"Very often high achievers, they're great, successful at work, at school, at uni, all their life. But they are constantly chasing something and they know something is missing."
I've heard this before, and honestly, I've felt it. Dorota's Elite Mind Coaching framework tackles this through five pillars, and two of them stopped me in my tracks: boundaries and what she calls "healthy selfishness."
She used the airplane oxygen mask analogy, and I know we've all heard it, but the way she connected it to entrepreneurship landed differently. If you are running on empty, no boundaries, no non-negotiables, no rest, you are not going to help your family, your clients, or your business. You're just going to burn out and wonder why the success doesn't feel like anything.
The other piece is that most high achievers haven't defined their "enough." So the goalpost keeps moving. You get the house, now you need the car. You get the promotion, now you need the next one. Dorota works with clients to actually name what enough looks like, because until you do, you'll keep running and never arrive.
Your Brain Runs on Autopilot (and You Can Reprogram It)
This is where it got really fascinating for me. Dorota explained that about 95% of what we do daily is on autopilot, habits, patterns, identity, wired behaviours, most of them programmed in childhood. Only 5% of your decisions are conscious.
Think about that. You're running a business, making decisions, showing up for clients, and most of how you operate was programmed before you were old enough to choose it. Maybe a teacher's voice stuck with you. Maybe your parents' relationship with money shaped yours. Maybe a cultural expectation became your internal standard for success without you ever agreeing to it.
"You can actually change your brain also in adulthood. What in the past people thought was impossible, now we prove scientifically that it's possible."
Neuroplasticity is real, and Dorota uses it. Her approach starts with awareness, noticing your automatic reactions, your patterns, the decisions you make without thinking. If you can't catch yourself in the moment, she says, analyse it after the fact. Eventually you start spotting the patterns in real time.
But here's the tool I'm taking with me: visualisation. Not meditation, Dorota is clear about that distinction. Mental rehearsal. You close your eyes and imagine exactly how you want to show up in a specific situation. She shared a study about piano players where one group physically practised, another just mentally rehearsed what they'd observed, and the results were nearly identical.
Let me say that again. The people who only imagined playing piano performed almost as well as the people who actually practised. That's not woo-woo. That's neuroscience.
Your Brain's Secret Filter (and How to Use It)
Then Dorota dropped the thing that genuinely made me gasp. I told her I've been wanting to become a mom, and lately I notice baby-related content everywhere, on YouTube, in conversations, all over my feed. I thought I was "attracting" it. Nope.
It's the reticular activating system, the RAS. Your brain processes tens of thousands of thoughts a day, and you're only aware of a few thousand. The RAS is the filter that decides what gets through. When you focus on something, a car, a baby, a business goal, you're programming that filter to surface relevant information. The information was always there. You just weren't tuned to it.
"It's not that those things are appearing in your life. You are just programming your brain to notice them. And then you're ignoring the other stuff."
This is why mantras and visualisation actually work. You're not manifesting from thin air, you're setting your brain's filter so you spot the opportunities that are already around you. For founders, this is everything. Set your focus, and your brain starts working for you around the clock.
Quick Takeaways
- Define your "enough." High achievers keep chasing because they haven't decided what the finish line looks like. Name it.
- Rest is fuel, not laziness. Set boundaries and non-negotiables to protect your energy. You can't build from empty.
- 95% of your day is autopilot. Start noticing your automatic reactions, that awareness is the first step to reprogramming them.
- Use visualisation, not just meditation. Mentally rehearse how you want to show up. The neuroscience backs it up, your brain fires the same neurons whether you do it or imagine it.
- Program your RAS on purpose. Whatever you focus on, your brain's filter will surface more of it. Choose your focus intentionally. Explore how intentional strategy can transform your business on the blog.
"It's not that those things are appearing in your life. You are just programming your brain to notice them."
