What is up? I'm Grace Beverly and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast-shaped guide book on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing, because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

What is up and welcome back to Working Hard? Today I am speaking with Dr Tara Swart, a world-renowned

neuroscientist who helped some of the most successful people train and rewire their brains.

Let me list her qualifications for you quickly so you can understand what we're getting from this. She has a medical degree from Oxford, a PhD in Neurofarmacology from King's College, London, and she lectures at MIT's Business School. She's also the author of the Sunday Times best-selling book, The Source. Since the release of that book in 2019, Tara's career went from strength to strength publicly, whilst behind the scenes she was going through what she called the toughest time of her life after the loss of her husband in 2021. In the wake of those years, she's released her new book, The Signs, which is all about following your instinct and the magic of hidden messages, as well as dealing with loss. What I really wanted from this episode was a neuroscientist's approach to reaching your goals, planning your future, being able to

develop resilience and being able to get to where you want to go. And what Dr. Swart really held

true in this episode is how important a few things that I would never have expected are in terms of

actually reaching your goals and building the type of life you want to build. There are parts of this episode I never would have guessed and will be taking forward into all of my goal setting and planning and vision boarding in future. Also, if you're feeling off track, stuck or you're someone struggling with a hard time, such as experiencing grief, this episode is perfect for you. Before we jump in, why don't you follow us on this

podcast platform that you're listening to this episode on? The deal is you give us a follow,

and then I'll keep posting a valuable episode every Monday to help you start your week off strong.

Dr Tara Swart, are you currently been working hard or hardly working? Working hard.

Yeah? Very hard.

Yeah, well, I spent a year writing my new book and then the book promo was really intense. I was back and

forth to L.A. had to do like breakfast TV, radio or the newspaper stuff. So yes, I am looking

forward to having a bit of a break. And do you always have this kind of, I guess,

always on working hard setting, or do you like to see things as kind of push and pull? I mean,

having been a medical student and in the era that I was, I would say I'm very much a work hard,

play hard kind of person. So that's kind of ingrained, didn't you? And you feel like you can balance a lot of that. Yeah, I would say I'm very much a work hard, play hard kind of person. So that's kind of

ingrained, didn't you? And you feel like you can balance a lot of that. Yeah, I've got a really strong work ethic, but I'm also very social. And at first, in my career, it was, you know, times of feast and famine, but now it's continuous. Right. Yeah. No, I think it, I don't know, kind of comes with the territory. It's always one of those things where it's like, the better you're doing and kind of the more successful you feel in that moment, also the more chaotic it is. You want to get more and more and more of that. At the same time, you need to balance how you're approaching everything and not burning the candle at both ends. But it's hard. It's really hard. I was trying to take a sabbatical before the pandemic and it just never happened because of the momentum in the business,

but I do take long digital detoxes over Christmas and New Year. Okay, that's great. How long

approximately? Two to four weeks. God, I love that. And this year I'm doing four. Crying retail

business. Could never be me, but I, I'm such a

big believer in learning your seasons and knowing what, particularly in different jobs, you know,

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