From Scattered to Supercharged: Unlocking Focus & Flow with Anthony Palacin
Struggling with focus, burnout, or chronic procrastination? You’re not alone—and you’re not broken.
In this episode, Anthony Palacin, a former bipolar patient turned Mental Health Engineer, shares the neuroscience of flow and how you can naturally overcome mental clutter, reclaim your energy, and boost productivity—without relying on willpower or medication.
Learn how your brain chemistry is influencing your behavior, how to trigger flow states on demand, and why traditional productivity hacks might be sabotaging your progress. Packed with actionable insights, this is your permission slip to stop forcing and start flowing.
Top 21 actionable insights from flow a pdf
(click the free pdf button)
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Transcript
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Difficulty, focusing procrastination, distraction, struggling with overwhelm exhaustion, burnout, constant urgency, and rushing.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: doubting your abilities to reach your goals. Our next guest is here to share his perspectives on ending mental clutter and procrastination. Naturally, hi and welcome to the uworld, order showcase podcast where we feature life, health, transformational coaches and spiritual entrepreneurs being the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, the coaches alchemist on a mission to help
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: coaches and entrepreneurs, amplify their voice, monetize their mission and get visible leveraging podcasts. And the huge audience we have over on the Gnostic TV network.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Today we are chatting with Anthony Pellison. Anthony is a mental health engineer, having recovered from his own bipolar diagnosis and quit medicating himself. Naturally he teaches focus and mental health awareness. Welcome to the show, Anthony, it's great to have you with us.
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::Anthony Palacin: Thank you for having me.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You are so welcome. So are you ready for the big question.
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::Anthony Palacin: Suit my way. Okay.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What's the most significant thing in your opinion, as individuals, we can do to make an impact on how the world is going.
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::Anthony Palacin: I think one of the biggest things we can do is grow our self compassion and our compassion for others, because at the end of the day. Everything that happens happens for valid reasons, and get curious about what those reasons are. It'll lead to the most amazing insights. And when we grow that for ourselves when we grow it for others, then we'll just make the world a better place.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, I love that answer.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So your your main focus is on helping people rediscover themselves.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Is that fair? A fair assessment.
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::Anthony Palacin: So many, so many different things,
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::Anthony Palacin: rediscovering themselves, or the way that they approach their work or their work life balance. And as a part of that. It's training people to become as effective as possible
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::Anthony Palacin: in terms of their productivity, their focus, their energy levels.
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::Anthony Palacin: all of that going hand in hand with
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::Anthony Palacin: physical and mental well-being. So it's it's really a holistic transformation.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So you mainly work with people who struggle with focus and attention. And
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: sometimes we call it Adhd. But you're not diagnosing anybody or treating any illness. But that's the label that we tend to put on people who struggle with in these areas
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: is that a fair assessment.
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::Anthony Palacin: It's a fair assessment. And one of the things that is
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::Anthony Palacin: just a symptom of this 21st century world that we've created is the amount of technology has
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::Anthony Palacin: increased exponentially, which means that the amount of stuff that we have to pay attention to, to think of, to keep track, to reply to
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::Anthony Palacin: all of this is just exponentially more than what our brains were designed to handle. We still have medieval brains. We still have ancestral brains, but we're operating in a world that is just way more demands than what it can handle. So it
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::Anthony Palacin: it's leading people, even if they don't have Adhd to have Adhd like symptoms in some of my training as a coach. They called it attention deficit trait.
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::Anthony Palacin: It doesn't mean you have, Adhd. It's just you struggle with attention because the world is designed that way. You are. You are living in a world that is pulling your attention everywhere.
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::Anthony Palacin: And and this is a battle that we we have to fight. We have to adapt to this new world that we are creating.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So what are some symptoms of somebody that might be struggling with attention? Deficit symptoms.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I mean, we, we say these terms, but they have meanings, and and how? How do you define them?
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::Anthony Palacin: It tends to be quite creative people, smart people who have a lot of ideas. There's a lot going on in their head, and they're constantly jumping from one thing to another. Sometimes it leads to procrastination, sometimes it leads to difficulty focusing, but
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::Anthony Palacin: it's
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::Anthony Palacin: it can. And there's also a hyperactivity piece that can be in there that may or may not. The tricky thing with Adhd is. It's such a wide variety of symptoms because there's attention.
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::Anthony Palacin: There's hyperactivity, and there's impulsivity.
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::Anthony Palacin: And on top of all of those things which are more
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::Anthony Palacin: behavioral, then there are emotional aspects like irritability, or being very sensitive to rejection. There might be sensory aspects, being very sensitive to different stimulation, whether it's noise, whether it's lights, whether it is textures or flavors things like that. Yeah. And one more thing that I think is really, really characteristic.
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::Anthony Palacin: Adhders tend to only want to do what they really like to do and what they're really passionate about doing what they really enjoy doing. So
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::Anthony Palacin: when I was in high school I was the biggest procrastinator in the world. I would stay up all night playing either video games or online poker.
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::Anthony Palacin: because I didn't know it at the time. But I was just seeking that dopamine. I was seeking that flow state and school. It's whatever I'll do it at the very last minute of the deadline, because that is also something that's going to raise your dopamine level dramatically. You need that as an Adhd, or you almost need that high pressure in order to do something that you don't want to do.
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::Anthony Palacin: So. So that's another characteristics that I would say.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hmm, so talk a little bit about the flow state when?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: when people get into it, and and why? Why? It's so important with people who are struggling in other areas of their lives
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to to be able to understand what it is and how to maybe
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: use it in other areas of their lives.
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::Anthony Palacin: Yeah.
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::Anthony Palacin: So
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::Anthony Palacin: I want the person who's listening to think back to their childhood or some kind of work activity that they felt so immersed in that time would pass by without knowing how much you could spend 3, 4 h doing that activity fully focused, feeling like you lose your sense of self, your sense of time, the activity itself feels effortless
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::Anthony Palacin: when you come out of that activity. You go. Whoa!
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::Anthony Palacin: Did I spend 3 h or 4 h doing that.
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::Anthony Palacin: That's a flow state.
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::Anthony Palacin: And what's amazing is as of the last 50 years or so we have now neuroscience cutting edge research that is helping us understand the mechanics of getting into this state of consciousness, not only for activities that we naturally get into a flow state for, but also for other types of activities using different techniques.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, that's really fascinating! What what kind of techniques are those.
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::Anthony Palacin: So some of it is related to the activities themselves. If they are activities that are really interesting to us, that we're passionate about that we have a strong sense of purpose, and those activities relate to our purpose
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::Anthony Palacin: that tends to be a high flow trigger. But other than that, there are some mindset
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::Anthony Palacin: kind of ways of looking at it, some belief ways of looking at it, some spiritual ways of looking at getting into a flow state and the the core of what I teach is productivity neuroscience related. So it's about understanding that there's a cycle of flow. We're not in flow all the time, and the goal is not to be in flow all the time.
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::Anthony Palacin: There are things that trigger flow. For example, novelty, risk, uncertainty. This is where the dopamine of procrastination comes in.
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::Anthony Palacin: and there are other things that are blockers to flow.
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::Anthony Palacin: So things like having fixed mindsets, things like distractions, interruptions.
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::Anthony Palacin: all sorts of things. So it's minimizing the blockers. It's understanding the cycle.
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::Anthony Palacin: It's mapping your day in a way that is flow aligned and using the productivity techniques
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::Anthony Palacin: to get into flow when you need to, and to also recover your brain mentally in order to get back into a state of full focus as quickly as possible.
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::Anthony Palacin: So all of this combined.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Interesting. You were talking about the dopamine of procrastination. I don't think I've ever considered that as really
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's really interesting to me, because
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the just the act of not of putting something off
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: also triggers. The idea that you're going to get a rush at some point.
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::Anthony Palacin: So there, there's that psychological idea. And in flow, one of the most potent
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::Anthony Palacin: flow triggers is something called the challenge to skill ratio, so that it's basically the balance between the challenge that you have. So the task that you need to accomplish and your level of skill. So procrastination lives in the area where either you're too skilled for the task, and you're kind of bored by it, or
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::Anthony Palacin: you're too unskilled relative to the task, and you're feeling overwhelmed.
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::Anthony Palacin: So where you, where you are actually productive and in a flow state, is when there is a good match between the level of challenge and your skill.
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::Anthony Palacin: So one of the things that procrastination does that people are not aware of is as the time
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::Anthony Palacin: that you have left to do. The task decreases the amount of risk and the amount of pressure increases which makes the challenge higher. So you have less time to accomplish the same task. That means the challenge to skill. Ratio is becoming tuned to fire up that dopamine, and that's where we get that last minute rush of motivation. Or if it's for big pieces of work
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::Anthony Palacin: I remember in in high school I would always leave essays till the last day, and I would stay up all night doing an essay, because I just couldn't even start. I was too bored about the topic that I didn't want to start.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's so fascinating. I know people on the other end of that spectrum that you know they never put anything off. They just they get all the bad stuff done first, st and then they go and do the things that they want to do, which is just a different.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just different way of wiring in your head.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's really fascinating.
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::Anthony Palacin: It absolutely is. Yeah. And the the way I teach productivity is, there are no fixed
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::Anthony Palacin: techniques. There's no right or wrong way, but there are principles to follow that are more or less biologically aligned. So
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::Anthony Palacin: there, there is always a trade-off to something. If you procrastinate a lot.
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::Anthony Palacin: the upside is, you've had a lot of time to think about the thing in the background, whereas if you get the task done right away and submit it and close it and call it a day. You might be missing out on some precious time that your subconscious can work on that task. So there really is a trade off, and
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::Anthony Palacin: the whole the whole philosophy behind flow as I teach it, is to find that sweet spot in the middle ground that works for you
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::Anthony Palacin: and applies to each specific task, and is in alignment with your values and your lifestyle goals.
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::Anthony Palacin: While still increasing, your efficiency overall and your ability to focus.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that that's really fascinating. I've never thought about it in these terms before it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And then it's not just like it's not a thought process. It's a whole. It's your whole body process. When you start talking about dopamine that's chemical, it's released into your body. You actually your body
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: chemistry changes when you're in these situations, and same with the flow state, I'm pretty sure that there's some chemical that's released that causes you to be able to focus so intently that you lose track of any of the distractions around you. You're just in this space.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's like your own little bubble where you can just do whatever the thing is you're doing. And it's like you're channeling almost.
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::Anthony Palacin: There's a lot of similarities between the flow state and spiritual and mystical experiences, and in terms of neurochemistry
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::Anthony Palacin: flow actually releases a cocktail of positive neurochemicals. We can get into that if we want. But it might be a little overwhelming.
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::Anthony Palacin: The point is, it's basically your body's natural
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::Anthony Palacin: internal pharmacy that the most positive cocktail of neurochemicals you can get is from flow, and the recovery period after flow, when you kind of go back into self-care to rejuvenate, replenish your brain's chemistry.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So what are those chemicals? Do you know offhand.
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::Anthony Palacin: Yeah. So
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::Anthony Palacin: a lot of flow is about understanding the flow cycle in the flow state itself. It's driven by dopamine. So it starts with dopamine, but it also releases anandamide. And
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::Anthony Palacin: oh, gosh! There's another one that slips my mind, so I don't wanna wait
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The toast.
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::Anthony Palacin: Oxytocin is coming after the flow States. So
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::Anthony Palacin: norepinephrine comes in the struggle phase, the kind of learning actively paying attention, phase, dopamine in the flow state
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::Anthony Palacin: in between the 2. There's a release phase where your brain releases nitric oxide, and this is kind of similar to starting a meditation. When when your brain is in more relaxed brain waves
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::Anthony Palacin: and then flow. Is dopamine anandamide. Oh, gosh! It slips my mind, apologies.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You're good, you're good. That's so fascinating. And it's it's so interesting how our bodies are driven by so many different chemicals that happen, based on thoughts that we're having.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thoughts drive our chemicals, and then our chemicals cause our bodies to be a certain way. And if you're all tense, you're not going to be able to be in the flow state, because
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you have a different set of chemicals going through your body, and your body wants to do something different, and no amount of telling yourself you're going to do. It is going to change it.
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::Anthony Palacin: Exactly so. 1 1 of the things that is great
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::Anthony Palacin: about looking at inner work and healing through the lens of productivity is, we can say that any
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::Anthony Palacin: symptom that we're looking at, for example, procrastination or difficulty focusing
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::Anthony Palacin: is gonna be due to a mix of
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::Anthony Palacin: a certain amount of skills that can be trained just through learning, education, and practice.
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::Anthony Palacin: and the other piece is the unconscious material. So this is where the fears live. This is where I'm not good enough lives. This is where perfection lives all of these things. And you can't really know the balance between lack of skills
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::Anthony Palacin: versus the inner deep stuff until you've trained the skills.
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::Anthony Palacin: or at least you have an idea of what skills are trainable and how much you can train them, so that you can then understand. Okay, now, when I look at procrastination after I've trained flow, I notice that I only procrastinate on my taxes, or I only procrastinate when it has to do with an emotional topic.
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::Anthony Palacin: and that gives you huge insights for your life, for your healing journey as well.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, information is always so helpful in trying to cultivate a life that you enjoy living.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So how do you help people? Is it one on one? Is it groups? How does how does all that look.
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::Anthony Palacin: It's 1 on one at the moment. There's also an online course which is available. And
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::Anthony Palacin: yeah, that's those are the 2, the 2 ways. I have a weekly email as well.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Okay, and you offer the top 21 actionable insights from flow.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's a Pdf, you want to talk a little bit about that. How how that would help people.
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::Anthony Palacin: That's correct. So
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::Anthony Palacin: a lot of mainstream productivity is all about forcing yourself with discipline, with willpower, or it's about prescribing fixed techniques like wake up at 5 Am. Or start with your hardest task. This kind of thing.
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::Anthony Palacin: The insights from flow neuroscience are really about realigning your productivity with your body. And it's it's not about
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::Anthony Palacin: prescribing specific techniques, but it's about it's about learning principles.
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::Anthony Palacin: principles like the fact that there are biorhythms. And how often you should take a mental break. What does a good mental break look like a lot of people
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::Anthony Palacin: between a couple of tasks. If they have 5 min, they're gonna check their emails. They're gonna respond to texts. And to a certain degree.
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::Anthony Palacin: there's there's validity in that. But from a brain performance perspective, you're shooting yourself in the foot because you're going from a cognitive task to another cognitive little break to another cognitive task. And you're just you're just running on adrenaline basically cortisol, your
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::Anthony Palacin: not giving yourself the mental recovery to be more efficient. So then, what happens? After 90 min, 2 h, 2 and a half hours, you start losing efficiency. You start getting distracted. You start looking a little bit all over the place, and and you just waste time and energy.
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::Anthony Palacin: Those texts could have waited, or those emails, or that social media could have waited.
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::Anthony Palacin: And it's really about sharing the niche knowledge that isn't really
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::Anthony Palacin: known yet, because the science of flow is so new. It's really something from the last few decades
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::Anthony Palacin: that we've just been uncovering. And it's really necessary in the 21st century.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, people used to do that naturally. You you they were called rhythms in those days
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: where you got in the rhythm. And you did things and different. You weren't always doing the same thing every every day, because you had seasons, and you know a season required certain kinds of work, and then it changed over the season and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: day to day, as the seasons, progress and moon cycles are like that, too, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: for women especially, but for all of us as human beings, we experience different shifts as the moon cycles shift.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and things are better done at certain points in the in the cycles rather than trying to just think, we're going to do the same thing every single day, every day of our lives, and we're going to be really good at it, and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that never works.
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::Anthony Palacin: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And it depends on what part of of the world you're in. But of course, navigating life seasonally and navigating your daily
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::Anthony Palacin: flow based on the sun. This is something we spend so much time indoors. We spend so much time sitting down.
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::Anthony Palacin: The human being as a biological entity is so disconnected in the 21st century from its biological roots that this isn't just leading to focus and
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::Anthony Palacin: productivity problems. It's leading to mental illness in parts is definitely a contributing factor.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I wonder with little kids how how much of an impact this is having? Because, as adults are
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: like different generations mature, and they start having children of their own, and then they start passing on.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: either through DNA or just through behavioral expectations. They're just. The change is so is happening so quickly that it's hard for little kids to really figure out how how they fit in.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: especially when they, you know, they've got school. And it's so important that you know, they have 9 million hours of education during the day. When really kids are designed to be outside playing.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you can learn everything you need to know in 3 years.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Exactly. I've proven it with 3 different children. So I know what I'm talking about here.
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::Anthony Palacin: Yeah. And and it's it's so hard because the world that we're living in is so stressful. On one hand, we all need our stress relievers. Whether that's a glass of alcohol, or whether that's a show on Netflix or playing a game on a smartphone. And especially I have a lot of compassion for parents.
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::Anthony Palacin: Kids, kids are seeing other kids with smartphones. And it's it's having this
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::Anthony Palacin: effects of, you know, you don't want your kid to be the one that doesn't have one or or doesn't fit in, because they're
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::Anthony Palacin: not like the others, but at the same time, being like the others, is
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::Anthony Palacin: toxic to the yeah. It's part of the problem. It's toxic to the brain. It's just so hard to go against the grain of society. Really. What what is needed are paradigm shifts in consciousness.
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::Anthony Palacin: And that's that's part of the reason that I'm sharing about flow. It's 1 little piece of the puzzle of doing the best that you can in a world that's difficult to keep up with and stressful. Just already maximize the skills based on the principles to be in alignment with your body as much as possible.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I love that. So how can people get to work with you?
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::Anthony Palacin: So you can connect with me through my websites, and by by going there you can find the top 21
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::Anthony Palacin: actionable insights from flow. Pdf, it's really a comprehensive
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::Anthony Palacin: overview. I guarantee that whether you're a busy mom or an entrepreneur making 6 or 7 figures, there will be one or 2 insights at the very least, that you haven't come across before, just based on the fact that flow is a new neuroscience.
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::Anthony Palacin: And so that's 1 way. You can also connect with me on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin feel free to send a message comment on some posts. I'm here to talk with people I'm here to serve.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today, Denny.
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::Anthony Palacin: Thank you so much for having me.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To learn more about Anthony, and to find the top 21 actionable insights from flow, which is a Pdf. You can find that over on www. pallason.co.uk, and I'll be sure and put that link in the show notes below. Thank you for tuning in with us today. If you have a podcast or you're interested in starting one
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to get your message in front of our huge and active audience, be sure to reach out to us at jill@gnostictv.com. We love to help spiritual entrepreneurs and coaches, amplify their voice and monetize their mission, and offer a variety of ways to do this on the Gnostic TV network platform join us for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency. And remember.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world, start today and get.
