Welcome to the Elevated Edit Podcast.

I'm your host, Blakely Ramsey, and the goal of this podcast is to discuss all things personal development, wellness, and the art of editing your life in an elevated way.

From mastering morning routines to mastering your mindset, we're going to sift through the noise and empower you to take Elevated action.

Make sure you catch the show notes for all the details.

Enjoy the show.

If you have tried four different project management tools and still feel like your brain is on fire, it's not that you're undisciplined.

It might be that you are trying to solve an emotional identity level problem with logic.

In today's episode, I'm bringing in a concept from the book Alchemy that has completely changed the way I think about systems and time management and productivity for forever.

Now, I don't know what kind of relationship y' all have with AI, but I am using AI recently to really push me outside of my comfort zone, to force me to think from a different perspective.

And so I will ask ChatGPT.

I'm like, hey, can you give me journal prompts that are going to make me think outside of the box?

Or can you show me a perspective on something that I am really convicted about that might change my mind?

And it's not always going to work, but it does sometimes challenge me to think, hmm, why do I think this way?

What, you know, limiting beliefs do I have about this situation that caused me to think like this?

And so one of the things that I asked Chad GPT recently, I said, please recommend some books for me that are going to force me to think outside of my comfort zone.

That might make me a little angry, that might make me a little uncomfortable, like, I am ready to grow.

I never want to be one of those people that is stuck, stuck in their comfort zone and is saying things like, well, that's just the way we've always done it.

Like that to me is like the biggest ick.

And so I'm always wanting to grow, always wanting to improve, and always wanting to get better.

So one of the books that Chat BT recommended to me is a book called Alchemy.

Now, now that I have finished the book, I really wish that it had a different title because I do think the title turns a lot of people off.

So the full title of this book is Alchemy the Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business and Life.

And when I first heard this, I was like, oh, that's a little witchy.

Like super straight on magic.

No thanks.

Hard Pass.

But I was like, blakely, that was specifically what you asked ChatGPT for, so please just give it a try.

And it was written by Rory.

It's a hard thing for me to say.

Aurora Sutherland.

And now that I finished the book, I'm like, wow, that really had nothing to do with magic and dark art, but it did make me think about the world and business and branding and messaging in an entirely different way.

And I'm not joking you, I have, like, I always start a section of my notes app when I am reading a book, just so that way, when I'm done with the book, I can go back and review things that stood out to me, things that I learned.

And I'm not getting to the end of the book and going, wait, I don't remember anything from that book.

I hope I'm not the only one who can relate to that.

But I took so many notes when it came to this book in terms of my coaching program, because it really opened up my brain in ways of like, wow, no wonder some people are so opposed to productivity or time management coaching, you know, because I.

A lot of it is very logistical.

A lot of it is very like thinking with our.

The logic side of our brain and thinking very, you know, ABC, 1, 2, 3, black and white.

And so a lot of people think, well, if I can just find the perfect planner, if I can find the perfect app, then I'll finally being a.

I'll finally be able to execute.

You know, you might have experienced that before where you're like, man, if I could just find that one little hack, that one little trick, I know that I can be the woman who finally executes.

But what I learned from this book, and one of the crazy things about so many coaching programs is we ignore the limbic brain or the lizard brain where our real chaos lives.

And when you think of it from this perspective, very few people are lazy.

We're just emotionally overloaded, especially with technology and apps and AI and all the different options that we have.

It is really no wonder that we're overloaded.

Overloaded.

I am actually doing a lot of research and a lot of study on cognitive overload right now, and it is wildly fascinating.

You know, there's a lot of people that are like, oh, well, AI is going to take all of our jobs and blah, blah, blah.

And yes, AI is going to take a lot of the quote unquote comfortable jobs.

You know, if you were just regurgitating information or if you were checking things off of a list, your job probably isn't going to be safe for the next five to 10 years.

That's just full transparency.

And with that, you know, the rise of Internet saw how many new jobs?

And, you know, every.

Every revolution that we have, new jobs surface, old jobs leave, new jobs surface.

And so there's going to be so many new jobs that come out with AI.

But one of the things that I am nervous about when it comes to this is everyone's cognitive overload.

You know, we're like, oh, well, AI can do everything for us.

But really, AI, at least from my perspective, is just giving us a lot of freaking options.

And a lot of those options don't put the limbic brain into thought, into play.

They go, okay, this person is, you know, like a calculator, or this person is like a computer.

And at least thus far, AI is really not able to realize that it is speaking to a human being who is not always logical, who is thinking with that limbic brain.

And that is what I really loved about this book.

To me personally, it felt like the merge between what is AI not understanding and how can service providers be different?

Now, in this book, Mr.

Sutherland talks about how the opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.

And at first when I heard that, I was like, okay, I think I understand what that means.

The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.

But he goes into so many examples in the book about how, you know, often there is a logical answer, There is an answer that's going to make sense, and then sometimes that is not always the option that's chosen, and it turns out even better.

And he just goes into a plethora of ideas and examples in the book about how this plays out.

But one of my favorite examples was where he talked about placebos.

And he said, you know, a placebo doesn't work because it makes logical sense.

Like, there really, truly is no logic behind a placebo.

But the brain believes them, and that's why they.

And it's often these illogical things that work so much better than the logical one, than the one that is calculated, that you can, you know, find from a spreadsheet.

It's those illogical things that really work.

And this applies to business so much across so many different industries, because sometimes the most powerful ideas or the powerful systems, they're not the ones that make sense on paper.

They feel right emotionally.

And I just loved this because it was such a reminder that no matter what technology, no matter, you know, how many spreadsheets or how often you, like, think about a problem.

At the end of the day, if your business and your company relies on human beings, you cannot always think logically.

You cannot always think, okay, my customer is going to do A and then they're going to do B and then they're going to do C.

They might think about A and then they're like, oh, what about Q and what about Y?

And it's like, then you're, you're stuck feeling, oh, well, my, my product wasn't right or my checkout wasn't right.

But really there's all of these other illogical reasons why something might not work or why it might work.

And you can see this across businesses where you're like, you know what?

That is such a random business, like, how did that work?

And it's because they are talking to that limbic brain.

They are using this illogical way of thinking, an illogical way of marketing and branding, and it is speaking directly to someone's limbic brain.

And I, I just thought that that was mind blowing and so amazing.

And I think this is why a lot of quote unquote systems are failing.

Entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs who are emotional.

And the reason why is because logic based tools assume so this is where the computer is assuming that the human being is also a computer.

So, you know, we think in a linear way and we think very logically and very specifically.

So these logic based tools are assuming that consist and rationality and low emotion are part of our process when it comes to making decisions.

But at the end of the day, that's not how most solopreneurs operate, specifically female solopreneurs.

I have said before, and I've honestly made people kind of mad when I say this, but I'm like, the thought of a female president does make me a little nervous because depending on the time of month, I might hit that nook button, baby.

Like, you never know.

And so this to me just like ties back to that how, you know, we do know the logical answer and we know the logical reason, but we are not logical human beings.

We are often emotional and irrational and inconsistent.

And that is so important when it comes to thinking about your time management and your systems and your processes.

You can't just go, okay, well on paper this makes sense.

On paper this should work.

And what this leaves a lot of women, I've noticed, it leaves them feeling guilty and it leaves them with a lot of inconsistency when it comes to following a planner, following a calendar, following a program, which then leads to a lot of burnout or you See women that try to adapt themselves to the system rather than adapting their systems to themselves.

And this is just not a great way to operate.

Operating from a place of guilt and a place of burnout is going to smother your creativity.

You're just not going to feel good.

And that's not what business is about.

At least not over here.

And that is why I just enjoyed reading this book so much, because I felt so good about my coaching program knowing that it is so one on one and it is so custom and it is built around how women naturally think, how they naturally work and how they naturally process.

And that's going to be different for all of us.

Like the way that I process and the way I think, it's going to be wildly different from you.

There's not a right or wrong way.

Yeah, on paper there might be a logical way to do it, but at the end of the day, none of us are logical creatures.

That's just not how we operate.

Now, y' all know that I'm never gonna give you information and not give you something that you can actually use and walk away with.

That is the point and the goal of every single one of these podcast episodes.

So let's talk a little bit about emotional systems that actually work.

And these might sound awful to you if you are very logic brained, but if you are someone who is very emotional, like, I have learned that I am not super logic brained.

I don't think black and white, I don't think like one way.

I'm constantly like, oh, but what about this, what about that, what about this, what about that?

And most of it depends on my mood that day.

Have I worked out?

Am I hungry?

Is it that time of month?

All of those factors really go into my decision making.

And as a result, I have really had to ensure that the systems that I follow, they have flow and they are custom to me.

I can't, I am not someone who can go, okay, you know what?

This is my time blocking system and I'm going to do the same single thing every single day.

Like that makes me feel so closed in, it makes me just feel claustrophobic and I can't process that way.

So let's look at some different emotional systems that work.

This first one I have been diving into and that is ritual, ritual over routine.

So a routine is going to look like, okay, every morning at 9am I'm going to do this.

Every, you know, Tuesday at blah blah, I'm going to do this, this, this, and then it's like, very routine.

It's very.

On paper, it's very black and white.

It's very, you know, you've got to check this off.

Boom, boom, boom.

Which works in theory.

On paper, that is an excellent idea.

But what I have found is a ritual works better for me.

So my Friday resets have been something that I've done for several years now.

But here lately, I've been trying to just feel so good.

So I used to, before I learned about the limbic brain and I learned about all of this, I would try so hard.

I was like, okay, every Friday at 1 o' clock, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to do this exact thing.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And it's all going to be perfect and everything's going to be wonderful.

And now I make it into a ritual.

I light a good candle, I will have some espresso.

I will do it at a time that feels good to me.

It might be first thing in the morning, it might be in the evening as I'm closing up.

I make it a ritual instead of a routine.

And for me, that feels so much more powerful.

I'm much more reflective, I'm much more excited.

I'm excited to look back on my week, and then I'm also excited to look forward and see what I have coming up for the weekend, what I have coming up for the following week.

And for me, and this might help you as well, think of things that you need to get done every week as rituals instead of routines, and see if maybe you can add in like a cute blanket or something that's going to make it feel a little bit more luxury or something that's going to make it feel better for you, whatever that looks like.

If that means doing your Friday reset in a bubble bath, then you do it.

And that is just going to help our limbic brain so much.

Go.

Okay, I am safe, I am calm.

I am excited to do this.

And so, like, let me show up and be excited in the best way possible.

Second thing that really helps is signals over schedule.

So this could look like.

And this is actually something that I'm working on right now.

This week, I read the book Think and Grow Rich and they talked about ensuring that you have plenty of signals around you.

And I looked around my office and I was like, I have zero signals of anything.

So having a board of directors up on the wall and this looks like printing off pictures of people that you really look up to, or pictures of people that if they were in the room, how would you be acting differently?

And I've got several people in mind that if they were in the room, I would be working my tail off.

You better believe I wouldn't be scrolling on Instagram.

I wouldn't be complaining about anything.

Like, I would be getting the work done.

And so I'm going to hang up those pictures of some very influential people in my life.

I want those signals.

For me, a good signal of a really good day for me is when I walk into my office and my whiteboard is clean and ready to go.

And this goes back to the evening before.

I'm like, okay.

In the morning, I want to feel excited and prepared, so I need to walk into a clean whiteboard.

If I walk in and there's junk left over from the day before and random notes, my anxiety instantly kicks in.

I also love a good playlist.

I have been working on creating a lo fi playlist for the office that just feels good.

It gets me inspired, it gets me in the mood and my brain instantly goes, oh, snap, that's our work music.

It's time to get to work.

And these are just execution triggers that instead of feeling so like, oh my gosh, I've got to be on schedule at 2 o' clock, I've got to turn this brain on.

And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like you can signal to your body, hey, it's time to get focused.

Or, hey, it's time to get creative.

Or, hey, it's time for me to pour out and pour into someone else.

Or it's time for me to pour into myself, for me to get coach, for me to read, for me to, you know, have whatever high level input I have.

And then something else that I have really been enjoying is proof loops.

So these are systems that make you feel like you are already the version of yourself who follows through.

And a lot of this is very, like subconscious hacking, which actually works a lot, especially if you do a ton of reading about it.

But hack into your subconscious brain and prove to yourself, like, hey, I am capable.

Hey, I can do this.

I actually went through a mini coaching session, I guess you could call it, with one of my coaches not long ago, and she was like, list everything that you've done in your whole life that would prove that you actually are capable of this.

And at first I was like, I don't have a list of anything that would prove I'm capable of this.

And so she started asking me the right questions and pulling things out of me.

And all of a sudden I was like, oh, whoa.

I actually am super qualified.

I'm very capable of this and just ensuring that you have little things here and there that not only show you that you've been capable in the past, but that you can be capable in the future.

So if that looks like making sure that you get up and you know, spend five minutes reading every morning or that you have a shutdown routine every single day, whatever it looks like, give yourself some kind of small thing that you can hold on to, that you can go, you know what?

I am feeling a little unqualified, which is totally fine.

Imposter syndrome is so freaking real.

I am actually learning that the more you do, the more you can actually feel imposter syndrome, which is really crazy.

But find something that is just like a small little anchor in your day, something that you know that you can do and stick to it.

Just that it might seem so insignificant to you.

You might be like, you know what, this isn't even worth it.

This is so pointless.

Remember the things that are easy to do or just as easy not to do.

Find that little anchor in your day, that little anchor in your routine and your schedule, just so you can build that confidence.

Muscle up, you can go, you know what, I did that thing for two weeks in a row.

If I did that thing for two weeks in a row, what else can I do?

And you might start off with five minutes.

Like you might not be able to do a 10 minute something or a 30 minute something.

And I think that's where a lot of people get so caught up in.

In a lot of the guilt comes in is they go, okay, tomorrow.

I've never time blocked before in my whole entire life.

But I'm going to perfectly time block my day.

I am going to meal prep, I'm going to get up at 5am, I'm going to work out, I am going to execute on my time blocks and I'm going to follow a schedule.

And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That takes years to get to that point.

It is truly a muscle that you have to develop.

Start off with a five minute something that you can do every single day.

Make your bed every morning.

Start so small so that you can have proof that you have proof of, okay, I can do this.

If I can make my bed every morning, what else can I do?

What else can I add on and just increase that loop every single day, every single week, add something else on.

Add on things that are going to make you feel like the version of yourself who is someone who follows through who you do keep promises to yourself.

You do, you know, stick to what you say you're gonna do.

And every time you keep one of those promises, it is going to build that muscle a little bit more.

But remember, that also works in the reverse.

So every time you go, oh, you know what?

I'll do that tomorrow.

Or, you know what?

It's already.

It's Thursday.

I'll just go.

I'll start on Monday.

Every time you do that, you're hurting yourself.

Every single time.

I'm not joking, y' all.

I have heard more excuses since I've started this coaching program than I have ever heard in my whole entire life.

I try so hard to be kind, but I am learning that there is nothing that will make me more fired up than an excuse.

We all have excuses.

I.

I am not saying that we don't have them, but if you are coming up with excuses every single day, you are holding yourself back.

That's just all there is to it.

We all have a reason not to get stuff done.

We all have a reason to not feel great about ourselves, or we didn't start off in life on the greatest path, or, you know, something is.

Whatever it is.

We all have something.

But if we wallow in our excuses, they are.

It's only hurting us.

And I am having to really qualify people into my coaching program more than I thought I was going to have to, because my coaching style is very direct, because I do want to see people succeed.

I don't want people to come into my program and go, oh, well, Blakely told me I was great.

She told me that I don't have anything I need to change and everything is wonderful.

And she just told me exactly what I wanted to hear, and it was the best call I've ever had.

That is not what you're going to leave these calls with.

But I want to see you succeed.

I want to see you do well.

I want to see you go after things that you didn't think was possible.

And I want to see you, you know, go for the moon and shoot for the stars and all the things I truly.

This is part of my little delusional brain.

I think I am capable of anything that I set my mind to, and I think that about other people as well.

And, yeah, that's just a little side tangent that's been something I've really had to stay calm and really work on myself is not getting so lit up when people come up with a thousand different excuses instead of just doing it.

And a lot of it comes from fear, which I totally understand.

But, man, when you address that fear head on and you do the thing that you're scared of anyway, there is no feeling like it.

It feels so freaking good.

My life so far in 2025 has been a prime example of that.

Every single day this year, I have done something that has truly terrified me.

And it doesn't always feel good before, it doesn't always feel good in the moment.

But afterwards, I'm like, man, I'm so glad I did that.

Like last week, I did something that I thought I was gonna throw up.

I was dreading.

I dreaded it for like four days.

I dreaded it when it was happening.

It was very uncomfortable.

It did not go well.

I was not good at it at all.

I had.

I got so much critique, so much feedback.

But afterwards I'm like, man, that felt good because now I know exactly what I need to work on.

And if I hadn't have raised my hand and gotten in front of the room and did the thing, even though I was terrified, I wouldn't have gotten that feedback.

So just, you know, keep that in mind.

Do the thing that you're scared of.

I don't even know how I got off on that tangent, but I hope that it provided some value somewhere in there.

But please remember that you might not need more logic.

You might need systems and routines that speak your emotional language.

So if you are someone who is more emotional than you are, logic, don't automatically think you know what systems and processes are not.

For me, there is totally a way for you to tie it all together.

Throw it in ChatGPT.

Say, hey, chatty chat chat.

I am very emotional and I'm not.

So much logic when it comes to execution.

Can you help me come up with some systems that are going to help me versus a logical brain person or whatever it is.

And remember that when it comes to execution, logic is just a tool.

It is definitely not the whole toolbox.

Okay, I hope you got some value from this episode.

If you are interested in a book that is kind of difficult and is going to challenge you and might make you a little mad, read the book Alchemy.

I'm not joking you.

I have changed so many things in not only the way that I plan on running my business and my brand, but in the way that I think.

And it goes so deep into marketing and branding and sales.

And there were so many times in the book where I legit was angry because I realized that I have been so sold to in ways that I didn't even know I was being sold to.

I was like whoa this book is so stinking good.

So I would encourage you to go read it and then message me on Instagram heblakelyramsey and let me know if you enjoyed the book or if that was one that you were like nope, that book was too much.

That book made me a little uncomfortable.

Okay I can't wait to hear from you.

I hope you have an amazing rest of your day and I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I hope you found today's episode inspiring and full of actionable tips.

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It See you soon.