Can You Feel What I'm Thinking?

In Person, Leigh Anderson’s “The Paramedic Mindset” reveals why technical competence becomes the foundation for human connection, particularly when stakes are highest. His framework of physical, psychological, and social wellbeing offers a blueprint for anyone working under pressure.

In Principles, Lisa Cron’s “Story or Die” digs into the neurological reasons why narrative trumps instruction every time. Her core insight cuts through storytelling theory: if you want to change what people think, change what they feel first.

In Problems, a scammer’s sophisticated psychological manipulation shows how influence techniques can be weaponised through fake email chains and manufactured authority.

In Perspicacity, a Tasmanian furniture ad demonstrates how repetition without creativity creates memorability for all the wrong reasons.

Get ready to take notes.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:30 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
The Paramedic’s Guide to Human Flourishing

Drawing from Leigh Anderson’s journey from professional rugby aspirations to emergency response, The Paramedic Mindset offers hard-won wisdom about performing under extreme pressure. Anderson’s framework centres on four pillars: competence, physical wellbeing, psychological wellbeing, and social wellbeing.

The competence foundation proves crucial. Anderson argues you must become so technically proficient that execution becomes automatic, freeing mental resources for the human elements of your work. This echoes David’s mobility instructor Roley Stewart’s teaching: competence before confidence, creating a cycle where skill builds confidence, which enables greater risk-taking to develop further competence.

Anderson’s approach to mental health particularly resonates. He distinguishes between mental illness (diagnosable conditions) and mental health (the broader spectrum of psychological functioning). Poor mental health doesn’t mean depression; it means languishing rather than flourishing. As Anderson notes, prevention beats cure, and actively maintaining psychological wellbeing prevents sliding toward clinical concerns.

13:30 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
The Neuroscience of Narrative Power

Despite its occasionally patronising tone, Lisa Cron’s Story or Die provides compelling scientific backing for what storytellers have known intuitively: narrative literally changes brains. Cron’s research explains why stories engage our complete attention in ways that instruction cannot match.

Her two core principles prove immediately practical: to change what people think, change what they feel first. To change what they feel, tell stories that connect with their existing agenda. This framework transforms every business interaction from a request for action into an exploration of connection.

Steve and David tested this immediately in their consulting work. Rather than launching into solutions, they began conversations by identifying what clients genuinely cared about, then positioning recommendations as pathways toward those exis