Episode 173 12:56

How to Hack Your RAS for Millionaire Mindset & Scaling Strategy

What if the questions you ask yourself are shaping the opportunities you notice? When your default is “Why is this so hard?”, it can be difficult to see a different way forward. This episode examines the reticular activating system, or RAS, and how changing your focus can help you move beyond familiar patterns towards more deliberate decisions about growth.

In this solo episode of The Billionaire Brain® Podcast, Dawn McGruer explores how to replace unhelpful questions with prompts that direct your attention towards solutions. She outlines a daily practice of recognising three pieces of evidence that support your goals, alongside detailed, sensory visualisation. Her seven-day challenge brings these ideas together through one dominant question, a morning evidence check and a micro visualisation.

For female founders scaling their businesses, this is a practical introduction to bringing greater intention to what you notice and how you respond. You’ll leave with a framework for shifting from reacting to problems towards recognising progress, spotting possibilities and taking purposeful action towards your next stage of growth.

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Episode Highlights

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  1. 01:08What the RAS is and why it matters for entrepreneurs
  2. 06:42How your dominant question shapes your entire reality
  3. 12:10Daily micro actions that retrain your brain for success
  4. 17:55Using sensory visualisation to build new belief systems
  5. 23:40Why evidence based thinking transforms momentum
  6. 28:12Your seven day RAS challenge

Full Episode Transcript

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This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.

So in today's episode, we are diving in to one of my favorite ever brain-based hacks. Now, this is all to do with how to train your reticular activating system, your RAS, so that it's actually working for you and not against you. This is a really interesting topic because we've probably been aware of our reticular activating systems for many moons, but maybe just not labeled it. So if you think about what that means to you, it's a bit like if you've ever felt that you're missing opportunities or kind of getting stuck in the same patterns, then this episode will literally change, and it will rewire the whole way that you think and the way that you decide on things and ultimately the way you, you know, you're going to scale.

But your reticular activating system is a bit like the red car syndrome. You've probably heard about that, that as soon as we put something into our conscious, we become uber aware, and we start to see it all the time. It's like, Oh my goodness, red cars. Now you say it, I've never seen so many red cars because we're tuned into it.

And part of this is because 95% of the time we spend our lives on autopilot. We are literally just swishing through lives unaware. Now what happens is, is that because 95% of actions are coming from our subconscious, we are not aware of things. So hence that, you know, we're in our subconscious, we're driving to work or wherever, you may pass 400 red cars, but because you're in your subconscious, you're not aware of them.

As soon as we put them into your conscious, your brain, your reticular activating system is looking out for them. And what it's trying to do is it's trying to go, Oh yeah, I've seen some red cars. Here you go. I'm passing that information into you, and it's now in our conscious mind.

So what we need to decide is that what is your dominant question? And what we're asking here is that your brain is literally obsessed with answering questions that you feed it. So most entrepreneurs don't even realize half of the time that they're running these sort of terrible default questions all day long. Now, what sort of questions do we say to ourselves?

Well, it'll be things like, Oh, why is this so hard? Or it could be, Why do I keep getting the wrong clients? Or, Why is this happening to me? And guess what?

What happens here is that your reticular activating system will go and find that exact evidence and go back and build on those beliefs, and they'll strengthen them and strengthen them because that's the question we're asking. So what we're trying to do is to shift into millionaire mindset. Now, what happens here is you need to do an upgrade, and your whole questions will need to change because if we keep asking the same questions, we'll keep getting the same answers, and we'll still keep building those beliefs. Now, that's not the belief system that we want to lean into.

What we want to do is ask things like, It could be, How can I make this easier? or Who already has a solution that I need? or What's the next easiest thing that I can do today? Any of these questions that are leading into the positive of you achieving your goal are the right questions.

So what happens is, is your reticular activating system will filter. Your reality, and what it's trying to do is it's kind of running patterns to find matching answers. And if you think about it, like your brain's running an algorithm, and it's like, well, what do I already know that answers this question? What proof, what evidence do I have?

And then suddenly, like, you're seeing opportunities that perhaps you were completely blind to before because you're asking different questions. You are consciously conditioning your brain into a new narrative. So your brain's looking for different things. So if you're always looking for the negative in a situation, guess what?

You will always find the proof and the evidence and the answers that will support that. But if you're looking for the positive, guess what? The opposite happens. So we just want to change this narrative and make sure that you are leaning into this correct dominant question.

So the next step, I guess, is then like, how are we going to prime your reticular activating system, and how is this going to happen on a daily basis? Well, this honestly is where most people will fail. They set big goals, but they don't give their RAS the proof it needs to believe those goals are already in motion. And this is the problem, because if it can't believe it, then it can't change the narrative.

So what I want you to do is take micro actions, and these micro actions are on a daily level. And what we're doing here is we're retraining it. We're priming your reticular activating system to do the job that we need it to do. So I want you to state.

Three pieces of evidence, okay? And what we're looking for here is that these pieces of evidence must already support the fact that you're moving towards this goal. And what we're trying to say to our brain is, well, look, this is already happening. This is our reality.

This is going to work. So an example of this could be something like, I've just signed a new client. I'm attracting my ideal audience. I'm getting more visible than ever before.

And what we're doing here is by doing these micro actions, we are creating new neural pathways, new belief systems, new evidence to support the success of our goal. So it doesn't matter if these are like small wins. Basically, what we're looking for is that our brain just needs kind of evidence that this momentum is actually real and it's happening. And by doing this on a daily level, then our brain's like, Oh, okay, that's fine.

I've got it. So do this daily, and what you'll start to see is that your RAS is now hunting, but it's hunting for more of the same. So meaning that you'll start to notice that these partnerships or PR chances and things like that are now happening. So you may have thought, well, why is everyone else getting all of these things?

Well, it's because they've tuned into them. They're consciously making those things reality because if it's in our subconscious, then how can we make it our reality? You know, we're not living it. So the last piece in this section is the most important, and it's about the visualization.

And I talk a lot about visualization and the more vivid you make something, the more real it is. And what we're looking for here is getting micro detail. So if you've visioned before, you'll probably be familiar with the process of really kind of playing out this movie in your mind. And this is the part where you turn on your RAS, and it's like having a heat-seeking missile almost, and you're kind of going and repointing it and going, Right, this is it.

Be aware of it, and this is what I need you to do. So your RAS is deeply connected to your senses. And what happens is when you visualize, for instance, it could be like 100K months, you don't just see it; you're making it sensory. And this is really important because if you can lean into the visualization, and it could be something like, you know, smelling the champagne as you celebrate.

It could be feeling the pen in your hand as you're signing that big contract. It could be hearing the ping of your Stripe or your PayPal notifications, you know, rolling in. Those are the things that, by creating that micro detail, is enhancing this sensory experience. So the more detailed and real this feels, the more that your RAS will actually start actively scanning your environment for the cues and the people and then the situations that match your future vision.

And this is where it's exciting because these are the things that we can literally rewire, retrain, trick our mind into believing that this is our truth, that this is our reality, and then it becomes our reality. So when you master this and you really start to lean into how your reticular activating system can help you shift from fear to opportunity, you start to, like, spot deals and opportunities and these collaborations. Everything feels easier. Everything feels more in flow.

And you stop reacting to problems, and then you start proactively creating growth around you. And you'll notice that life and business just feel more in flow generally.

Difference between an entrepreneur who hustles for years and a CEO who hits these 100K months without the burnout is that they've trained their RAS. They are consciously looking for the way forward, and they're cancelling out the white noise, and they're changing their narrative around these old questions that don't serve them. So here's the challenge to you. So I want you, for the next, say, seven days, to choose one dominant question and start really priming your RAS.

And do this every single morning with these three pieces of evidence that I told you about, and do one micro visualization, okay, to support it. Really lean into it, and remember the sensory, the smelling, the touching, the seeing. Who's there? What's it look like?

What's it feel like? You know, what are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you doing?

And the more you can lean into that, the better. So you'll start to see, and, you know, as you watch this play out, what starts showing up is very different, and you'll see a different world. And honestly, I promise you, because you'll be surprised how fast that your brain actually adapts when you give it the right instructions. And all we're doing is retraining here.

So if you want to find out more about the matters of the mind, like the power of neuroscience, like how we can use things like psychodynamics, quantum psychology, just comment the word blueprint on a social post, send me a message. You'll see in the show notes that there's a link to the free guide as well, and you'll get my blueprint. Now, in the blueprint, literally, there's like 55 pages all about how to think like a millionaire, all about how to scale like a CEO and expand like an icon. Now, everything that I talk about there, all the tools, the techniques, the practices that I've honed over the past 25 years to retrain my brain, to rewire my mindset, and take control of my destiny, and using the vast power of neuroscience to get these daily habits, to mitigate the pitfalls, to make sure that I'm telling my brain the right narrative to align to my goals to achieve success.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Do not forget to get in touch with me. Comment the word blueprint if you're watching this on socials. If you are on YouTube, and I will get the guide to you.

The link is in the show notes, so wherever you're watching, go find it. If you're on socials, you will find the link in all my bios. But this is definitely something that every single CEO needs to lean into to scale with success.

About The Billionaire Brain® Podcast

The Billionaire Brain® Podcast with Dawn McGruer, formerly Dawn of a New Era, explores the psychology, neuroscience and behaviours behind extraordinary success in business, wealth and life.

Through solo insights and conversations with founders, investors, millionaires, billionaires, authors and experts, Dawn explores how identity, thinking and behaviour shape what we create. New episodes are released regularly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

  • Episode · 173
  • Published · 11 December 2025
  • Run time · 12:56
  • Host · Dawn McGruer

About Your Host

Dawn McGruer is an entrepreneur, 5× founder, award-winning keynote speaker and Forbes Books author of The Billionaire Brain®.

With more than 25 years in entrepreneurship, Dawn's work explores the intersection of founder psychology, neuroscience, wealth, identity and business growth.