Is Your Survival Brain Sabotaging Your Success?

Andy Goram (left) and Mitch Weisburgh (right) discuss how to take back control from your survival brain

In this latest episode, Mitch Weisburgh offers a simple but powerful explanation as to why your survival brain might be sabotaging you: your brain is wired for survival, not success.

There’s a moment most of us recognise.

You’re in a meeting and someone challenges your idea. You feel it immediately. A tightening. A flicker of irritation. A sudden rush of certainty that you’re right and they’re wrong. You respond quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly. Later, you replay it in your head and think,

"That wasn’t my best self."

What happened there wasn’t a failure of intelligence or experience. It was biology.

The Survival Brain and Why It Takes Over

Under pressure, your brain shifts gear. The part designed to keep you safe wakes up fast. It scans for threat and reacts before logic has fully entered the room. Decisions are made on feeling, and reasoning often arrives afterwards to justify them.

That’s not a flaw. It’s how we’re built.

But the survival brain is excellent at protecting you. It is less helpful when you are trying to collaborate, influence, create or grow. It narrows your thinking. It reduces curiosity. It makes you defensive. It disconnects you from longer-term goals in favour of short-term protection.

In modern workplaces, very few situations require you to fight, flee or freeze. Yet the wiring remains.

Why Certainty Can Signal You’re in Survival Mode

One of the most thought-provoking ideas in my recent conversation with Mitch was this: certainty can be a clue.

“When you are absolutely sure of something… that's a sign that you're in your survival mind.”

That does not mean you are wrong. It means you may have stopped listening. Growth depends on openness. Fulfilment at work depends on perspective. Strong relationships depend on the ability to stay curious, especially when challenged. So, if you notice yourself becoming rigid, defensive or unwilling to explore another view, that may not be confidence. It may be protection.

Moving From Reaction to a Calmer Response

During our conversation, I described the shift as moving from a reaction to a calmer, more reasoned response. That is the real, intentional work that we're looking for when taking on our survival brain.

Sometimes it begins with something simple. Noticing what you are feeling. Pausing. Catching your physical state. Breathing more slowly. Taking a short walk. Allowing the surge of stress to settle so that the more reflective parts of your brain can re-engage.

From there, different options become available.Curiosity returns. Empathy softens the edge and the ability to think and reason replaces the immediate defence.

Why This Matters for Personal Growth at Work

If we spend most of our working lives in survival mode, we cannot collaborate properly. We struggle to innovate. We take feedback personally. We protect our ideas instead of improving them. Over time, that erodes not just performance but fulfilment.

And this podcast has always been about helping people build more fulfilling work lives.

And that begins with awareness. With recognising when your operating system has defaulted to protect rather than progress, learn and grow.

Go Deeper: Understanding How to Stop Your Brain Sabotaging Your Success

In Episode 141 of Sticky From The Inside, I sit down with Mitch to explore this properly. We unpack the survival brain, the resourceful brain, why capable people still get stuck, and what you can do in real time to shift.

If any of this feels familiar, the full conversation will give you depth, practical insight and perhaps prompt a few uncomfortable, but hopefully useful realisations.

You can listen to the episode below, or read the full transcript that follows.

And if you enjoy the conversation, please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to yours, including YouTube. Each conversation is curated to give you confidence that the things you are experiencing, are being experienced by others. To give you some helpful advice and insight from experts, and to set us all on the path to be a little bit better than we were yesterday, and even closer to enjoying a fulfilling work life and meeting our fullest potential.

Full Transcript

[Andy Goram] (0:10 - 3:13)

Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out. I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tons more success for everyone. This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.

Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it. So, if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on. Okay then, let's start somewhere simple today.

There are times when we all get stuck from time to time, even really smart people, maybe even especially really smart people, not because they're incapable of finding answers or solutions to things, but because work, pressure, expectations and responsibility have a real habit of narrowing how we think. What tends to separate people isn't whether they get stuck, it's what they do next when they do. Some people push harder, grip tighter and hope effort alone will get them through.

Others learn how to pause, reset and assess a more resourceful way of thinking, even when things aren't going to plan. My guest today believes that difference is everything. Mitchell Weisburgh is the creator of the mind-shifting method, a neuroscience grounded approach that helps people move out of reactive survival mode thinking and into a more resourceful, resilient and collaborative way of thinking and leading.

And he's on a mission. Mitch wants to equip five million people with the tools to think clearly under pressure, stay with difficult work without burning out and work effectively with others, even when those relationships are challenging or triggering. And this isn't about mindset hacks, it's about learning how to access the right part of your brain at the right moment.

So leadership stops feeling like the white knuckle ride you're on all through the day. In this conversation, I expect we'll explore the invisible ceiling holding many of us back when it comes to thinking, unpack Mitch's mind-shifting methodology and look at what becomes possible for individuals, teams and organizations once survival mode is no longer running the show. Mitch, welcome to the show, my friend.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (3:14 - 3:20)

I didn't know we were going to talk about any of that. I'm sorry. Oh my gosh. I'd better mindshift, right?

[Andy Goram] (3:20 - 4:12)

... Don't you dare do that to me, Mitch. Although I knowing you as, as well as I do already in the small time I've been together, I don't think that would matter.

I think we'd still have a great time. I think whatever we end up talking about, it will be great. Mitch, I'm very, very interested to hear about your methodology today.

Um, I, I know, and certainly the older I get, I think the whole thinking process that I go to is hampered by lots of different things, maybe a bit of cognitive decline, but also confidence and stuff, you know, and other pressures definitely getting away. So I'm all ears to hear about your way of thinking and how we can tap into that. But before I get all excited and start bombarding you with pressures on that, do us a favor, Mitch, will you just give us a little bit of a better introduction to you and your background and all that good stuff?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (4:12 - 9:10)

You made me sound so good. Now I'm going to mess it up. I know it.

Okay. Uh, so, so I think first of all, you know, you look at me, I'm obviously not in my twenties, you know, I'm, I'm 72 years old. So I, I've done a lot of things and, you know, a lot of curves along, along the way.

I would say that my early career, I was involved in instructional design and systems design. I began, uh, teaching and developing a company that taught people how to use computers. Uh, from that, you know, I could see the writing on the wall and, and, uh, made money doing that.

And I was like, so what do I want to do in my next life? And I felt, you know, the education should be the way that all kids get a chance to live a great life. And we could see, you know, around the world that education was failing kids in so many different ways.

They weren't prepared to be adults. And I looked and was like, wow, you know, around 2001 or so, you know, technology could really change education. And so I embarked on working with education publishers, schools, uh, teachers on how do you introduce technology in a way that really helps kids develop as human beings, curriculum, systems, whatever.

And I look around like 16 years later, like 2017, and I'm like, you know, something we're doing not, we're not doing any better job than we did 15, 16 years ago. Kids still aren't prepared to be adults. So like what's going on?

How come everybody's, um, how come we're doing the same things we were doing before just with technology? Why are, um, why are kids feeling so much stress? Why are teachers feeling so much stress?

How come they're not prepared to work? How come they're not prepared to be part of our communities? And I just, you know, I felt, well, you know, something, let's, let me take a step back and see how successful people actually navigate.

And so to spur myself on, I, you know, I volunteered to teach a two-day workshop of college kids, well, university around the world, but in the U.S. we call them college kids, but university kids, um, something that I originally called sense-making and I now called mind-shifting, you know, let me commit to doing a two-day workshop on this. And that gave, and then I had six months to figure out how I was going to do that stupid worksheet that I got myself into doing. Right.

Uh, so, so in my fashion, you know, I just, I, I read books on sales strategy. I read books on economics, which is really a form of decision-making, right. Psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, military strategy, coaching, you know, all these different disciplines.

And it was like, you know, everybody's got, you know, their one way of doing it, but if you pull them all together, there's really, there seem to be three different elements. One was how do you really take control over your own mind? How do you look at situations so that even if things don't go right, you still remain resourceful and you're continuing to improve.

And how do you deal with people who are basically all idiots except for you? Right. Uh, so, you know, how do you interact with other people in order to move forward?

So looking at those three different elements, I put them together into a two-day workshop. I teach it in, uh, I taught the workshop twice in, in, in a university, 60, 65 kids each time. And at the end of the each two-day workshop, the kids stood up and cheered.

And it was like, yeah, it was like, okay, so this, this is what, this is what I was made to do. You know, um, it, this is teachable. Most people don't realize that they don't do it.

So that's a, that's a hurdle is like, how do you get people to realize that they're not being resourceful, resilient, um, and collaborative. Um, and then, uh, and, and people can learn it. So, uh, so since 2018 or so, that's what I transitioned.

And it was like, there's so much, uh, divisiveness in the world. People have so much anxiety, people have, you know, fears, they're unengaged. Um, you know, but if we could get a critical mass of people to be engaged, to be able to deal with what they previously called failure to all always be, no, I always know how to get back to being resourceful, to be able to work with people, even when the people get in the way they're wrong, they're, uh, they're obstinate, but still be able to move forward with others.

Wouldn't that change, you know, everybody's demeanor, wouldn't that lead us all forward? So it was like, okay, that's my mission. How do I do that?

And that's what I've been trying to do since 2018.

[Andy Goram] (9:11 - 9:28)

Wow. And I'm really looking forward to unpacking it. I can't imagine actually the feeling that you probably got when that first group stood up and cheered at the end of a, of a seminar and you finally feel maybe, Hey, I found my calling.

I found my purpose. That, that must have been a pretty, pretty special moment.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (9:28 - 9:42)

There's an energy that you feel when it's like, oh my gosh, I really hit the mark. And look at these people. They're, they're realizing that they are a lot more powerful than they ever knew before that they could, they can do more.

...

[Andy Goram] (9:42 - 10:05)

Absolutely fabulous. And so you've mentioned that the three elements of resourcefulness, resilience, and collaboration, and you've explained a bit where they came from. Why is it that those are the three really key elements? Is it the way that they combine together to get the end result?

Are they really very, very separate things? I mean, just help me understand a little bit as to why those three, why now?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (10:06 - 12:28)

So I think any model and a model saying it's resourcefulness, resilience, and collaboration, any model is false. Any model is an oversimplification or a simplification of real life because real life isn't like that. But this is a very helpful model.

So you can focus on a group of skills and concepts, and then you can focus on another group of skills and concepts, and then another one. And then combined, they basically cover virtually everything that we do. Cause you know, everything starts in our brain.

Okay. So that, you know, so understanding how our brains work and how we get stuck, how we get at, you know, why we get angry, why we go into fight or flight and the other things that our, our survival brain does, you know, that affects everything. And then, uh, so many, so many times we, we, we start things and we guard, you know, like, oh, they're wrong because this is the right way to do it.

Or, um, I did this and it didn't work. So I failed. And so how do you go into situations so that despite the fact that people disagree with you, that the first thing you do doesn't work, that you're prepared to take that information and move forward.

That's another set of skills, but that also affects what's going on in your brain. Right. And then, and then no matter what we do, you know, we became the alpha species on our planet because we work together and there's so many different aspects about people, human beings being social animals, but that, but they also get in our way.

You know, they, they disagree with us. They argue with us. They, they try to compete with us.

They try to harm us. Um, they get, they get angry with us. Maybe we don't like them.

And yet, you know, if we could convert those situations into situations where despite all of that, we can still move forward and accomplish things together, then that gives us a lot more power. But that has to do with also the way we approach situations. And it also has to do with how, how we understand how our brains work.

And so all three of those really, you know, you can't, you, you, you can't separate them, but for the purposes of learning skills, it's convenient to be able to separate them because you can, you can concentrate on, on discrete skills.

[Andy Goram] (12:28 - 13:17)

I love that. That that's, that's really, really clear. There's a couple of things before I get you to try and unpack this mind shifting method.

And then maybe we can take a look at how specifically we can use that in some different scenarios. I'm a massive fan of neuroscience and psychology, not an expert by any stretch of measurement, big, big fan. Um, I, I love understanding more about that.

So answer me this with, with your set of skills and knowledge, why do you think so many capable high performing people still get in this stuck situation, still feel stressed when that happens? And I don't know, end up being reactive beasts as opposed to reasoned, thoughtful people. What, what, what's going on?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (13:17 - 15:23)

You know, the, uh, the studies have pretty much shown that there's really no correlation between how successful a person is and how educated they are versus how resourceful, resilient, or collaborative they are. That's a different set of skills. And certainly, you know, if you're resourceful, resilient, collaborative, it leads, it leads to more success, but you can be really, really successful and be, you know, hard driven and opinionated.

Um, look at our politicians around the world. Um, you know, I would not call them particularly resourceful or collaborative. It's like my way or the highway.

Right. Um, but are, you know, if you, if you really look at them, like, do they look happy? Do they, you know, they may have outward signs of success, but do they look like they really feel successful?

And, uh, you know, I look at them and it's like, no, they're, they're trying to make up for their gaps. And if they could, they, and I believe, you know, they'd be even more successful if they could be more resourceful, resilient, and collaborative. Um, and you mentioned, you know, the neuroscience, I was in a meeting with a bunch of other people and this one woman gets up and she says, I'd like you to, you know, to just, I'd like to introduce you to Mitch Weisberg.

He knows more about neuroscience than anybody I've ever met. And I'm like, uh, no, I am not a nurse. So like I started with like, uh, you know, I'm not a neuroscience and yes, I've, I've, I've read a lot of books and I've talked to a lot of people and I've incorporated, but I am not a neuroscience.

And it was a good thing I said that because the first question from somebody said, well, I am a neuroscience and boom, you know, it's like, so I've tried to build in cognitive science and neuroscience and psychology, you know, into the concepts and the actions that, uh, that I think that people find very helpful, but I'm not, I'm not a neuroscientist.

[Andy Goram] (15:23 - 15:44)

That's absolutely fine. I mean, I think that the topics are just fascinating. And I think in, when we think about performance, they play such a massive role in, in how we operate.

I think it's, it's great to get different perspectives on these things. Um, and so let's get into your mind shifting methodology. I mean, this isn't a really tough question.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (15:47 - 15:47)

Okay. Come one, come on, give me a tough question.

[Andy Goram] (15:47 - 15:58)

... It's not a tough question because I'll just want to understand really what it is at its core. What are we talking about here, Mitch?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (15:59 - 16:58)

Uh, I look at the brain as having two parts. Okay. There's, there's survival parts of the brain and there's the higher order parts of the brain.

And so, and the survival parts of the brain generally are called your limbic system. And that's the part of the brain that first, uh, started evolving in the first animals that could move. And it, and the job of that part of the brain is to keep the animal alive, right?

Multicelled organism or whatever. So it has to be able to decide, is this something that puts me in danger? And then what do I do to, uh, uh, to avoid the danger or to overcome the danger?

And I, and I need to come to those decisions on very little information really quickly, take action and focus my entire organism on that.

[Andy Goram] (16:58 - 16:58)

Yeah.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (16:58 - 21:17)

So there's that part of the brain and I'm going to come back to it, the limbic part. And then there's the, uh, the higher order or the resourceful parts of the brain. And generally those are in the prefrontal cortex, you know, like right, right up here.

Uh, and those are the parts of the brain that are curious. And I know you've had a number of guests who've talked about the value of curiosity. They allow us to do the critical thinking.

Uh, they allow us to do the, uh, the innovation. They actually allow us to connect with other people with, you know, empathy, uh, that's executive function. All of those are in the higher order parts of the brain or the, let's say the prefrontal cortex.

Now the limbic parts of the brain, because they're so focused on survival and they have to react so quickly, they wake up in like two hundredths of a second. It's like, boom. Okay.

And they're evaluating it. Is this, is this a, am I in danger? Am I not in danger?

What should I do? And in, in generally in less than a second, they come up with something that, that we should do. And the types of things that they come up with, I've broken down into five different types of actions.

And we're familiar with fight, flight, freeze. Okay. And those are protective mechanisms.

And then there's, there's the things that we already know how to do well. So things we're fluent in our habits. And so, uh, so I know really well how to, how to drink, and I can be talking to you, hold an idea in my head.

And it's just like, that's, that's my limbic brain. I don't have to, I don't really have to think about that. Those, those are the habits or the fluencies.

And then the, the fifth thing is mimicking what others do. Human beings are very social animals. We're not the only social animals, but when we're around people, we're around others, especially others who we feel are like us.

We tend to see what they're doing, learn from it, copy it. Okay. And we tend to do the same, same types of things.

So that the limbic parts of the brain are saying, Oh, is this, you know, what should I do in this situation? Am I in danger? And it picks up fight, flight, or freeze, which might be something that we have.

We, we, it's a habit that we have or a fluency we have. It might be something that we picked up because the people around us are doing it. And it locks into that.

Once it's locked into that, it says, okay, I've already decided this is what we have to do. If anybody happens to ask, Hey, a prefrontal cortex, give me the reason why I'm doing this. The decision was already made.

It's an emotional reaction to whatever the situation is. And then the, the prefrontal cortex is sure. I'll give you a reason you're doing this because, you know, let's say you've chosen what university you're, you're going to, you're going to this university because you've researched it and it, uh, mostly aligns with the types of things that you want to do.

And you're going to make great connections, but the decision was made by your limbic brain. That was, that's just the rationale. And by default, that's the way our brains react.

And, and the, the crux of really the, the, well, everything stems from this, but the, the, the resourcefulness parts of, of mind shifting are to realize when a decision is being reached from our limbic brain, which tends to be as a result of the way we feel very often. So how are we feeling? And then to quiet those parts of the brain, to release the stress hormones that they're kind of flooding our brain with, which limit the effectiveness of our prefrontal cortex, and then to tap into our resourcefulness, which allows us to be curious, explore things, empathize with other people, align our actions with our long-term or higher level goals, and to persist in things, even when things go bad and be prepared for things, for things going wrong. So that's really the core is recognizing when we're limbic mode, taking that pause and then accessing our prefrontal cortex and being resourceful, curious, playful, uh, in order to, in order to be able to really come up with things to do that align better with what we really want.

[Andy Goram] (21:18 - 21:34)

So, I mean, if I was to try and summarize, which is very, very dangerous for me, because if I had got this wrong, I look like an absolute fool, but it feels like trying to move from a reaction to a calmer, more reasoned response.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (21:34 - 24:05)

Exactly. Exactly. And when you do that, you know, there's three types of mechanisms that we have in order to do that, plus a fourth one.

But the three mechanisms are sometimes just realizing that you were in limbic mode. Like, you know, I might say something and you might think I agree with this, or you might think I disagree with this. And, you know, you reach a decision, it's like, well, wait a minute, I'm doing that from a limbic standpoint.

Let me rethink that, you know, just that realization may be enough. The second thing is, you know, uh, sometimes we can just open our minds up with, uh, internal talk. So it's like, that would be, you, you, you have to really begin with the realization, the self-awareness that, oh, I'm in limbic mode.

Gee, you know, something, what is it that Mitch just said that I could learn from, even though I think it's wrong? Or what is it, how could Mitch be 10% right? It's not like, uh, get out of limbic mode because, you know, then you're, you're like, no, I'm not, what are you talking about?

I'm not in limbic mode yet. Just get out of, relax. No, I can't relax.

You know, you know, you can't, you can't fight it, but you open it up with things like, gee, I know, you know, Mitch is probably wrong, but maybe there's something I could learn from him. What could I learn from him? So it's opening up, um, conversation.

And then the third thing that we can do for ourselves is we can, uh, change our focus, uh, distract our minds. Uh, you know, I, I know I'm a little bit, uh, wound up right now, instead of like listening to Mitch's words, why don't I just listen to the tone of his voice and just think about, you know, is he loud right now? Is he speaking fast?

And so, or, you know, that's one way of doing it. Or let me concentrate on my breath or let me take a five minute break or a two minute break. Let me take a walk, take a walk in nature, listen to some music, exercise.

And that gives our, our bodies a chance to flush out the, uh, the stress hormones that were riling us up and then allows us to then access our prefrontal cortex to say, well, how could I get curious right now? Or how could I get playful? Or how could I, how could I empathize?

So those are the three things that we can do, the self-awareness, um, asking or saying things to ourselves that open up our brain or, uh, giving, uh, changing the focus or meditation, something like that.

[Andy Goram] (24:05 - 24:10)

So these are the three principles that you, I guess, you cheat, you teach, you educate in the, in the mind shifting method.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (24:10 - 25:11)

Exactly. I call that the self commander. Yeah.

And then a fourth thing is that sometimes we just can't do that for ourselves. You know, sometimes we're really, you know, wound up and, and we talk to somebody that we trust. So, uh, you know, if, uh, you can talk to a therapist, you can talk to a friend and it really helps to have a person that you can talk to or people that you can talk to who are already familiar with the terminology.

So you talk to somebody and say, I'm, I'm really wound up. And they might say, well, you know, you think you might be in your limbic mind right now. Um, and, uh, well, gee, you know, something to let me walk you through a breathing exercise, or let me walk you through a visioning exercise to help you out of it.

And, or, or let me just listen to you. Why don't you just describe and, and, and get out of your system so that you, you know, you're able to then be more resourceful. So that's the, so the, the, the fourth thing that we can do is talk to somebody who is good at coaching us.

[Andy Goram] (25:11 - 26:31)

Yeah. So we're looking at a confidente, a coach, some sort of guide on that in that respect to help us kind of walk through some of those things. Okay.

Fabulous. So if that is the mind shifting method, I think in the introduction and looking at your, your work, I'd like to ask to have a little look at three scenarios maybe where we can apply the mind shifting method to help people get out of this survival mode that you talk about. In particular, I think things that might really resonate with people listening are getting unstuck.

There's plenty of us that must have got to a point where we're like, well, where do I go now? And then battling to change your mind, battling to change the thought. Then I think there's something where when things get really hard and difficult and testy, how we can stay with that, how the mind shifting thing can kind of I guess, the resilient part of pushing through and trying to maintain our confidence in going forwards with something is tough.

And then I think really the thing that will touch everybody is working with triggering people, I guess, cooling our jets on the reaction that we can just feel bubbling up inside when we're dealing with some of these people. So can we have a look at how you would use the mind-shifting methodology in those three scenarios, Mitch?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (26:33 - 28:31)

So there's two books. There's three different areas and two of the books are out. So the first book is on the resourcefulness.

That's stop your brain from sabotaging your happiness and success. And then the third book is out, which is on working with others. And I haven't yet written the second book.

But the resourcefulness, the reason I'm bringing up the book is that there's 50 different techniques in the book. So one of the techniques is around visualization. So one technique is to visualize, let's say sometime in the future, what is it that you really want and what is it going to feel like when you get it?

And so you're thinking, I don't think I can get a PhD. So it's like, well, okay, now what, what will it be like? Let's just say I got the PhD.

What would it be like if I have the PhD? How will people react to me differently? What will I feel like, uh, when I get the PhD, how am I going to celebrate?

Am I going to, you know, who am I going to go out to dinner with? What are we going to order? Uh, when I think about having the PhD, what were the times in getting it that I was stuck and I overcame it anyhow, and how did I overcome it?

And, and the, the more things we're able to visualize, the more getting that PhD becomes real to us. And that's, you know, that's one, one of the ways that we can, um, unstick ourselves is by imagining that we're successful and not just, not just imagine, oh yeah, yeah, I got my PhD, but really hone down and ask like, like 12 or 15 questions about what was it like once I got my PhD and what was it like getting it that led me to this point.

[Andy Goram] (28:31 - 28:44)

And this all builds confidence and experience for the next thing that comes along, right? You're just, you're feeding the brain with more resources, more confidence, more experience, right? By doing that, by doing that, the review piece afterwards.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (28:44 - 29:40)

Well, so there we go, you know, like, sorry, it's just, you know, it triggers something as you said that. Okay. Is that, you know, we, you know, I mentioned, you know, with the limbic brain and there's five different things and what, you know, five different ways that it comes up with things to do.

And one of the ways is things that were fluent in and you build fluency by practicing something. So, you know, people say, oh, the brain is, is just like a muscle. It's not just like a muscle, but it does have some things that are similar to muscles that the more you do something, the more you burn those pathways and the easier they are to do.

So when you visualize, you know, how you did this, you're basically, you're, you're burning those pathways as if you were doing it. And so you're building your fluency. And when you've done visualization a few times, then it becomes second nature, like, oh, I'm stuck.

You know what I'm saying? Let me visualize again, you know, how I can be successful, successful, uh, doing this.

[Andy Goram] (29:41 - 30:55)

I'm a big fan of the visualization. So I did a very, very powerful visualization or someone did it on me a long time ago in my very first exec potential kind of program where they weirdly saw something in me. And the lady who did a group visualization exercise, um, I still work with today, like years later, the, the lovely psychologist, Maggie, Maggie Evans.

Um, if you're listening, Maggie, that picture, I, I still have, right. And it's a very, very powerful piece. I've worked in other organizations with a whole bunch of athletes who talk about the power of visualization a hell of a lot.

In fact, on the radio, you do, oh my goodness me. One of our most famous athletes from back in my day, a guy called Roger Black, who was a 400 meter runner recently had some real heart problems and went through open heart surgery. Now he was on the radio the other day talking about using the visualization techniques he'd used as an athlete to really pull through his recovery with, you know, a major, you know, aortic valve replacement operation.

And, you know, speaking very candidly about the, the power of that visualization things. And I think in, in the resourcefulness area, you know, visualization alone is hugely beneficial, right?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (30:56 - 32:41)

Yeah. There's, it's just, it's not exactly the same, but it's really, you know, I'm just an incident that, that happened to me is, um, I was out visiting, uh, my brother-in-law and his family in, in Colorado in the summer. And his daughter who was like 13, 12 at the time said, you know, uncle Mitch, you know, you always do something with the boys, but you never do anything with me.

So I'm like, ah, okay. Well, what do you want to do? I want to go horseback riding.

And she was a great horseback rider. So I was like, okay, no, I'm not a great, I'm, I'm, you know, I, I, I can get on a horse. You can cling on, you'll be fine.

Right. But, okay. Which is what I figured.

Okay. So we get on these horses and we're, we're going for about 45 minutes and we get to the fence and I'm thinking, oh, now we're going to turn around. And she, and she, and she says, this is where we start.

Okay. So she opens, you know, she gets off the horse. Thank, thankfully I didn't have to get off the horse.

She gets off the horse, she opens the fence, we go through the fence, she closes it. And then we get to this gully and it's like, it's dry. Okay.

But it's one and a half meters down, one and a half meters across, and then one and a half meters up. And I'm looking at this, like, you know, and I'm looking at the bottom and she says, Mitch, you know, just relax for a minute. Just look at that tree.

That's where you want to end up, right? Right at that tree. She says, look at that tree.

And then she goes slap on the butt of the, of my horse and it just jumped. And she says, you know, and I wasn't ready, but I was looking at the tree and we just jumped and we landed on the other side, right next to the tree. And then she, you know, and then she goes, she says, if you're looking down on the bottom, that's where you're going to end up.

If you're looking across where you want to go, that's where you're going to go. And that's basically what visualization is.

[Andy Goram] (32:41 - 33:05)

There you go. Love it. Something as simple as that, hey, having a big impact on our brain.

Um, I would really like to get your thoughts on the triggering people thing, right? And how the mind shift method can really help with that. Because I think that's something people can relate to a lot working with people that don't see the world quite the same as I do.

And it causes me some problems. How, how do we approach that with your, with your methodology?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (33:06 - 36:32)

I like to start with understanding what happens when people trigger us and we get triggered, what the brain does. Because we tend to mimic, that's one of the five different responses of the limbic system. We mimic other people.

And in terms of being with other people, we pick up really their emotional feelings towards us more than even more than the specific words. So when a person says, uh, you did this wrong, those words aren't necessarily the triggering, but what's the triggering is our feeling they're attacking us. Okay.

And so when a human being detects that another person is attacking them, they will attack back. They'll go to fight, flight, or freeze. And that escalates.

And, and we don't think about that because it happens in these, you know, two 100s of a second before our other, the other part of the mind wakes up. And so those situations where we're triggering and then they're triggered, and then that triggers us even more. And that whole escalation happens.

And we don't even think about it. What we try to do in mind shifting is develop the habit of thinking I'm being triggered. And then the habit, I'm not going to let this person control my emotions.

I'm going to control my emotions and what emotion do I want here? And then what do I want to happen out of this conversation? And by developing the techniques of understanding that, okay, I'm going to remain calm and I am centered.

Eventually their mirror neurons are going to pick up on that. And more times than not, they're going to become centered and calm and resourceful also. And I think that one of the best ways of doing that is to make a game out of it.

So you need the self-awareness first. You need to understand I'm getting triggered right now and I'm getting upset and use those, that self commander to calm yourself down. And then to think, you know, something, if my goal was just to connect with that other person, can I say five things in a row that just connect with that other person and calm them down?

And if I can, and it doesn't work, oh, you know, like, and they're still not calmed down. It's like, okay, I, you know, I won that game. I got better at it.

I wasn't able to calm them down. Fine. Now I can get triggered or whatever.

But, you know, as you become better and better at that game, where it's not just five things, it's 10 things that you can do or 12 things that you can do, then you're wearing them down. And, you know, also understanding that there comes a time where you can just say, you know, something, I'm not getting what I want out of this conversation. Let's stop this conversation.

Maybe we'll come back to it and maybe not, but it's, it's counteracting your own mirror neurons, which are trying to copy what the other person is doing. And then being calm, resourceful and empathetic to get a connection with that other person, even though probably the next three or four things they say without even thinking of it, they would normally trigger you to be angry also.

[Andy Goram] (36:32 - 37:26)

Yeah. I think this is what's really interesting about the education piece, because if I think about like, like recently the scarf model, David Rock's scarf model about how we respond to social threat and reward the sort of the, the five pieces around status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. I think if you couple that kind of understanding about some of the triggers we might have, and then how somebody is reacting, actually playing your game takes on a different level because there's a bit here about understanding, well, what triggers are they being hit with that in something that I've said that makes them react like this or, or, or what, what, what are my triggers specifically that are now being triggered and why, why is that? So come back to your kind of self-talk opening up piece is like, well, a little bit of knowledge here about what could be going on actually can help fuel that, that, that shift.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (37:26 - 38:33)

Yep. Once you're, once you've shifted, then some of the techniques that you can use is to try, you know, I would call it, you know, non-directional conversation. So conversation, not about the topic that you're really talking about, but out a topic that really interests the other person.

So first you've got to get yourself into the resourceful state of mind. But from that, you could, you know, if the person is interested in sports, you could talk about sports. If the person is interested in art, you can ask them questions about art or, uh, some other hobby that they have.

They can ask them about their family. And so those tend to deescalate the situations. So, you know, non-directional conversation, you can come up with ways that you can compliment them.

So you're, you're, you're complimenting their strengths. It's like, you know, something you're, you, you've obviously done a lot of research on this and I can see that you feel very passionately about that. I think that's wonderful.

That's not saying that you agree with what they're saying, but that diffuses some of the tension because they're not expecting you to say anything nice to them. They're expecting that you say, what are you, some type of an idiot? How'd you come up with that?

Right. You know.

[Andy Goram] (38:33 - 38:33)

Normal response, right?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (38:34 - 39:24)

Right. Okay. So, so, you know, so strengths based comments are, are also helpful.

And then, you know, open comments about, um, yeah, I think you need, you need to have the, uh, the connection with the other person first, but the, you know, open comments where you're being curious as to what they think is going to happen, what they want to happen and whether the thing they think that they should be doing or whether the thing that they did is leading to the things that they really want and helping them explore their own ambiguity about what it, whatever it is that they're saying.

And so the general technique behind that is something called motivational interviewing, which is something that social workers and psychologists have been using to help people change behavior.

[Andy Goram] (39:25 - 39:30)

Yeah. I think that's, that's an, that's an entirely other topic, a motivation interview. And that's a fascinating, right.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (39:30 - 39:38)

We have another two hours, right? If only we did Mitch, if only we did, I think you've been going since four o'clock in the morning.

[Andy Goram] (39:38 - 40:59)

So like, listen, I, cannot complain about it because what, what this sort of stuff gets me to do is, is sit me in front of people like you. It helps me learn new things. It helps me get a sense of firmament that the things that I believe in hold the air and try and help other people with.

I'm not on my own, which is, which is, which is huge. It's so important to feel part of a group of people, right. Who were trying to help the world.

I genuinely believe that, you know, at this point, Mitch, I think it's like 140 something episodes, right. And every single one of those, for me, that conversation has been an absolute pleasure and a gift to just listen to other people's perspectives. And just every single conversation helps you grow a little bit more.

And that's not meant as some sort of glossy, glib sort of statement. That's genuine. I wouldn't be doing 140 episodes if that wasn't the case of it. I, what I would really like to get your thoughts on before, for I regrettably have to sort of wrap up conversation up.

And maybe this is the first of several conversations we'll have in the future. Mitch is we've, we've looked a lot at the, the individual, but I, I can, I'm imagining a place in my head about what it would feel like if a full team was tapping into the same kind of shift. What would that be like?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (40:59 - 41:12)

... Yeah. That's the goal.

And so, uh, you know, just in terms of the shift, what, and, uh, you know, I'm saying these things and it sounds like I'm selling the book, the books or whatever, but that's fine.

[Andy Goram] (41:12 - 41:13)

That's okay.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (41:13 - 41:48)

But around, okay. But around the books, uh, we've developed book study guides so that a, an organization could bring in the book and have book study guides. So you have a whole group of people who are grounded in those terms.

And once you have the people who are supporting each other with those terms, everybody is co-regulating everybody else. And so the whole demeanor, um, the, the, uh, the environment, the culture changes. Yeah.

[Andy Goram] (41:48 - 41:51)

You're creating an ecosystem then aren't you really, where everybody can kind of find.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (41:51 - 41:52)

And that's what I'm trying to do.

[Andy Goram] (41:52 - 42:28)

Brilliant. Yes. And I applaud your work, sir.

And I'm fully, fully supportive. So please don't ever apologize about pushing literature or books that are going to help people pass through some of this stuff. That is, that is largely a lot of the point here.

What I would love you to do Mitch, before we say goodbye is I've come to the bit in the show I call sticky notes, which is an attempt to try and summarize my goodness me, the, the tiny things we've scratched the surface of today, but it's such a huge impact on people into three little sticky notes of advice, Mitch. So what are you going to leave on your little sticky notes for us today?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (42:29 - 44:42)

I think the first thing is that whenever you are absolutely sure of something, you're sure there's one way of doing something. You're sure this other person is wrong. You're sure there's a right way and a wrong way.

That's a sign that you're in your survival mind. It doesn't mean that what you're sure of is wrong, but it means that you're not open to new information. You're not relating it to what you really want necessarily.

Uh, you're not, uh, you're not creative, you're not empathetic. And so it's like just that little piece of your mind that's saying, am I absolutely sure about this? What if, you know, why might I be wrong?

And so that would be the first thing is to be aware when you're absolutely sure, Hey, you're, you're, you're in limbic mode, you know, uh, open yourself up. The second would be the pause. And it's like, okay, so if I'm in limbic mode, then what could I do to be open up to, to open myself up to other possibilities.

And then after the pause, when you're working with somebody else, I'd say, learn the techniques of motivational interviewing, because those techniques are ways of talking to people that, uh, that allow you to, to align. It changes from, uh, you think this and I think that to, Hey, here's a problem and you want to do this. And I want to do this.

How can we solve the problem together? And so motivational interviewing is a way of speaking that allows you to do that. And yes, it's, it's, it's a, it's basically two chapters in the book, but you could look up motivational interviewing.

And you could also, if you're going to have a difficult conversation with somebody, you could go into one of the chatbots, like Google Gemini, for example. And you can say, here's the situation I have with this person. And here's how we normally react.

Show me how this conversation would take place if we use motivational interviewing, and then it will give you a model and it'll give you other ways of approaching the conversation that you would never have thought of on your own.

[Andy Goram] (44:42 - 45:16)

Yeah. This is the sort of stuff with AI. I'm a massive fan of all that education piece, I think is, is brilliant and giving us some guide rails.

Mitch. Wow. As I said earlier, I'm a huge fan of the neuroscience and the stuff.

I love it. And I, I really love the, the work you're, you're, you're doing. Some people look at this sort of stuff and go, well, yeah, it's obvious.

It, I didn't, obvious is such a crappy word to use because it, it's about practice, right? Common sense is not always common practice. This stuff, I think the more people can get hold of this, the more agency I think people have, the more confidence they'll be.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (45:16 - 46:26)

Can I give you an instance, which, which was really interesting to me. So this is a woman who, you know, every year or so she gets hospitalized for like two or three, three weeks because of her anxiety. And she, she read the stop your brain from sabotaging your happiness and success book.

She read it like three times and she came back and she wrote to me and she says, you know what this book has done for me? I now understand what all my therapists have been saying to me. I couldn't understand them before.

Furthermore, this gave me the ways that I can detect when I'm about to have an anxiety attack and a couple of things that I could do that have been allowed me to calm myself. And if I can't calm myself, it's early enough that I can talk to the therapists and they can do something. So I don't have to be hospitalized.

It's, you know, like, and that's the, that's the type of thing that to me, it's like, wow, you know, something, and none of this is my stuff. You know, I, I'm not smarter than the next person. So I just had the luxury of having the time to be able to pull it together.

Um, so that, you know, people have it in one, in one place that they can learn from.

[Andy Goram] (46:27 - 46:39)

Fabulous. As far as I'm concerned, as an example, enough said, absolutely done. Now then Mitch, where can people, if they want to check you out, find out a bit more about you, get hold of the books, where can they, where can they go?

[Mitch Weisburgh] (46:39 - 47:28)

Well, people can go to mindshiftingwithmitch.blog. And that's a free newsletter where I'm actually writing about the things in the books, writing about relating mind shifting to everyday situations. So you can sign up for the blog. It's one, uh, it's one email a week.

And there's, you know, you can look at the past articles also. And then related to that is, is mindshiftingwithmitch.com, which is the website. And then from the website, you can get links to purchase the books, but the, you know, uh, and the two books are on, are on Amazon.

And the name of the books, let's just clarify the names of the books. So one is mind shifting, stop your brain from sabotaging your happiness and success. That was the first book.

And the third book, cause there is no second book yet. The third book is mind shifting conflict in collaboration.

[Andy Goram] (47:28 - 47:42)

Love it. Mitch, it has been an absolute joy to meet you and listen to you. Thank you for being so generous with what you're sharing and the very, very best of luck with this quest of getting the 5 million people equipped with this stuff.

[Mitch Weisburgh] (47:42 - 47:48)

Well, you're helping, you're helping. I think we're all on the same mission, right? So, I would like to thank you, Andy.

Thank you.

[Andy Goram] (47:48 - 48:33)

You're welcome, my friend, you take care. (You too.) Okay, everyone.

Well, that was Mitch Weisburgh. And if you'd like to find out a little bit more about him or any of the things that we've talked about in today's show, please go ahead and check out the show notes. So that concludes today's episode.

I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward. If you have, please like, comment and subscribe. It really helps.

I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.

Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world.