May 22, 2025 • 12 mins
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Episode Description
Most leaders want to change. Few do.
In this short walking episode, Dr. Jon Finn reveals why lasting change requires more than motivation — it demands the right Brain State.
You’ll learn:
- Why “behavior” isn’t just what you do — but what you think
- Why up to 100% of your actions are automatic (and how that traps you)
- How to break the willpower cycle and access your high-charge brain state
- And how AI tools can help you reduce cognitive overload and focus your energy where it matters most
🎧 Listen now and start thinking better, leading smarter — and finally making change stick.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello Habit Mechanics .
It's Dr Jon Finn here I amwalking to the office, which is
why I'm already slightly out ofbreath Just coming to the top of
a big hill.
Hope you're well.
I want to talk about behaviourchange and why it's difficult
and why AI can help us to do itmore efficiently and more
(00:28):
effectively.
And I want to start by talkingabout the word behaviour.
What does it mean?
We often associate it with badbehaviour so somebody behaved
badly.
But in psychology, behaviourjust means everything that you
(00:49):
think and do.
So whatever you're thinkingright now is the behaviour, and
most of our behaviour isautomatic or semi-automatic.
So you're able to speak toyourself in I'm assuming english
, automatically, right, usingperfect words and maybe less
(01:14):
perfect sentence structures, butmeaningful, automatically.
It's on autopilot.
In the same way, when I said,don't think of a white elephant,
it's already in your brain.
You don't have to consciouslythink about it.
So one of the bigmisconceptions about the word
behavior is that it's about whatpeople do physically.
(01:37):
It's not.
It's also about how they.
And what we've found reallyhelpful is the best unit to
break behaviours into is habits.
And when I talk aboutautomaticity, most of what we
think and do is automatic.
We're talking between 98% ofwhat you're thinking and doing
(02:03):
at any given time, all the wayup to 100%.
Sometimes it's completelyautomatic.
You're not thinking consciouslyat all, most obviously when
you're sleeping.
But people say often I wasn'tthinking clearly, I was just an
autopilot.
So our automaticity has thelevel of automaticity that we
(02:28):
have has been surprising toscientists, and this is the work
that people like danielkahneman thinking fast and slow,
of thinking fast and slow famehas made his career off right.
So looking at what he calls um,he calls heuristics, which is
(02:49):
basically thinking habits.
So that's behavior.
So we're always behavingbecause we're always thinking
and doing, and the thing that wethen need to understand is look
, how do we start?
If I recognise some of thethings I'm thinking and doing
(03:11):
are not all that helpful for me,I'm just taking my jacket off
so that it skews the crumple.
So you may have completed, forexample, the human AI readiness
assessment in chapter 8 of Trainyour Brain for the AI
(03:33):
Revolution.
Or you may have just done adaily T-plan.
Today, ranked yourself out of10, how well did you do your
best to be at your best?
Today, ranked yourself out of10.
How well did you do your bestto be at your best, or you may
have done using another, anotherum one of our many self
intelligent, self-watching tools.
(03:56):
So you recognize there are somethings I'd like to change.
So that's the first step tochanging your behavior is
self-awareness is recognizing,and that's quite difficult.
Step to changing your behaviouris self-awareness is
recognising, and that's quitedifficult to do because our
brains are so automated.
We're not really designed tothink about ourselves in that
(04:17):
way and that's why people areattracted to coaching and
therapy, because it gives themthat way to reflect and think
about themselves and think aboutthemselves.
We kind of saw that mindfulnessboom maybe 10 plus years ago
now.
Things like apps like headspaceand calm and things came out
and they're really aboutself-awareness, getting you to
(04:38):
think about yourself.
So now that's just the startingpoint.
Knowing what we'd like to dodifferently is very different
from doing it.
Behaviour change is difficultand it's difficult because you
need cognitive resources to doit.
In simple language, you needwillpower and that means you
(04:59):
need to be in a high chargebrain state and that's it.
We're back to it again at whichbrain states.
You cannot change your behavior, you cannot be at your best
consistently if you do notunderstand brain states and,
again, no one else is talkingabout this, and this is why
we're saying that the hybridmechanic approach, the new human
(05:23):
ai performance psychology coachfor training up there.
They are unique in what theyunderstand because if we want to
be at our best, we have tounderstand our brain states and
if we want to start to changebehavior, we've got to get into
the high charge brain state, andthat is difficult to do.
So I think we've allexperienced reflecting, whether
(05:44):
that's in a training session ora chat, and then deciding yeah,
I do need to do somethingdifferently, I'll definitely do
it, but by the time I get to theend of the day I'm so exhausted
that I never do it, and then Idon't sleep very well.
So the next day I never do itor I start and then I fail.
It's because you're relying onwillpower and willpower is
depleted because your brainstate balance is out of whack.
(06:05):
So and people say willpower isoverrated willpower is what it
is, it's the conduit to change.
So we need it in the firstinstance to put the effort in to
make meaningful change to thesort of behaviors that we need
to change to be healthier,happier and our best, like
(06:26):
sleeping better, eating better,exercising more regularly,
managing stress better, be moreconfident, be more focused
before managing pressure, betterbehaving in a way that helps us
to be a better team member anda better leader and a better
parent, or whatever it is wewant to do.
They all require willpower asthe initiator of change.
(06:48):
We can only access our highcharge brain states where
willpower lives if we get thatright balance of brain states,
the right balance of brainstates, the right balance of
recharge, medium charge and highcharge.
And this is where AI is sorevolutionary, because for the
(07:10):
first time ever, we havetechnology we can use to
outsource the tasks that wecomplete every day that only
used to be completable by humanbrain power.
So we can outsource some of themedium charge work that we do
every day.
We can outsource it to AI.
So just a tiny example insteadof having to manually book in
(07:35):
every single call, you use atool called Calendly which just
does it automatically for you,and these tools are becoming
more and more powerful everysingle day.
So we've got the automationside of AI we can use to
essentially reduce the amount ofbusy work that we have to do
(07:58):
and the volume of it and thenwhat we also have and that's
going to make it easier for usto get into high-charge brain
states.
Then what we also have isaugmented ai, so or ai that
augments our high-chargethinking.
So it's almost like, if youthink of, when you first learn
(08:21):
to ride a bike it's quiteeffortful because you've got it,
takes an awful lot ofconcentration and and your
body's not really attuned to themovement, so you put
stabilizers on right.
Um, generative ai is like that.
It's like stabilizers for yourhigh charge thinking, and
generative AI is like that.
It's like stabilizers for yourhigh-charge thinking.
So it means you can actually dohigh-charge thinking more
(08:42):
easily and therefore you can domore of it.
And we need to get into thathigh-charge brain state to do
our clever, high-impact work,which makes us feel good about
ourselves.
Sup, you might be thinking whereare you going with this, john?
Does AI help me to eat better?
Does it help me to manage mystress better?
Well, it can, directly andindirectly.
(09:04):
Obviously, there aretechnologies now we can use to
track and monitor these things.
But what it's allowing us to dois get a better balance of
brain states so we can outsourcesome of our medium-charge work.
We can augment and superchargesome of our high charge thinking
, and that free.
(09:25):
That means it's easier for usto do more high quality recharge
or spend more time in our highquality recharge brain states.
So if you look at the brainstate profiles in chapter nine
of train your brain for the airrevolution you can get a free
(09:46):
copy off the website then you'llsee what I'm talking about.
It gives you a better balanceof brain states.
So you may currently be acrossthe bear where you've got very
little capacity to do highcharge work, which is where the
the change is initiated.
(10:08):
Where we work on ourselves aswell as do clever work at work.
It's the brain state we used towork on ourselves as well.
So to resist that temptationnot to eat the food, to get to
bed on time, to resist thetemptation to say that thing
that we know is unhelpful, toresist the temptation to
procrastinate, we need ourhigh-charge brain state to help
us to do that.
(10:28):
So by striking a better balanceacross our brain states, we're
going to free up more of it.
So that's behavior change.
It's why brain states are socentral.
Brain state balance, especiallybeing able to consistently
(10:52):
access our high charge brainstates and um, it's how ai can
actually help us to strike abetter balance, and what I'm
talking about here is human AIperformance psychology.
That is a new field ofpsychology we've created.
We are pioneering this fieldand we're doing that because we
(11:16):
want to empower people to thrivein what is a complex period of
human history.
But I think there's massivepotential to help us to get a
better balance of brain statesand when you do that, you get
massive results and I'm seeingthat all the time.
(11:44):
There's a very small case todaywhich I can't go into too much
detail in, but I got a lovelytext on Sunday from someone who
I just talked this to on thephone on Friday, and they're
basically the thing they weretrying to achieve.
They broke the record.
They'd never been able to dothat thing before and just by
understanding their brain statesand activation levels which is
(12:09):
the thing that sits behind thatthey just said it completely
changed their ability toessentially perform to their
potential.
So that's just with theknowledge initially, but that
person was very highly motivatedand they have a lot of the
other nine action factors goingfor them.
But anyway, I just wanted toshare that on my walk to work,
(12:30):
I'm conscious of not getting runover.
So I'm approaching some busyroads.
So I hope that's got youthinking.
If there's ever any questions,let us know busy roads.
So I hope that's got youthinking.
As ever, any questions, let usknow um.
Remember you're only one brainstate habit away.
Hello Habit Mechanics .
It's Dr Jon Finn here I amwalking to the office, which is
why I'm already slightly out ofbreath Just coming to the top of
a big hill.
Hope you're well.
I want to talk about behaviourchange and why it's difficult
and why AI can help us to do itmore efficiently and more
(00:28):
effectively.
And I want to start by talkingabout the word behaviour.
What does it mean?
We often associate it with badbehaviour so somebody behaved
badly.
But in psychology, behaviourjust means everything that you
(00:49):
think and do.
So whatever you're thinkingright now is the behaviour, and
most of our behaviour isautomatic or semi-automatic.
So you're able to speak toyourself in I'm assuming english
, automatically, right, usingperfect words and maybe less
(01:14):
perfect sentence structures, butmeaningful, automatically.
It's on autopilot.
In the same way, when I said,don't think of a white elephant,
it's already in your brain.
You don't have to consciouslythink about it.
So one of the bigmisconceptions about the word
behavior is that it's about whatpeople do physically.
(01:37):
It's not.
It's also about how they.
And what we've found reallyhelpful is the best unit to
break behaviours into is habits.
And when I talk aboutautomaticity, most of what we
think and do is automatic.
We're talking between 98% ofwhat you're thinking and doing
(02:03):
at any given time, all the wayup to 100%.
Sometimes it's completelyautomatic.
You're not thinking consciouslyat all, most obviously when
you're sleeping.
But people say often I wasn'tthinking clearly, I was just an
autopilot.
So our automaticity has thelevel of automaticity that we
(02:28):
have has been surprising toscientists, and this is the work
that people like danielkahneman thinking fast and slow,
of thinking fast and slow famehas made his career off right.
So looking at what he calls um,he calls heuristics, which is
(02:49):
basically thinking habits.
So that's behavior.
So we're always behavingbecause we're always thinking
and doing, and the thing that wethen need to understand is look
, how do we start?
If I recognise some of thethings I'm thinking and doing
(03:11):
are not all that helpful for me,I'm just taking my jacket off
so that it skews the crumple.
So you may have completed, forexample, the human AI readiness
assessment in chapter 8 of Trainyour Brain for the AI
(03:33):
Revolution.
Or you may have just done adaily T-plan.
Today, ranked yourself out of10, how well did you do your
best to be at your best?
Today, ranked yourself out of10.
How well did you do your bestto be at your best, or you may
have done using another, anotherum one of our many self
intelligent, self-watching tools.
(03:56):
So you recognize there are somethings I'd like to change.
So that's the first step tochanging your behavior is
self-awareness is recognizing,and that's quite difficult.
Step to changing your behaviouris self-awareness is
recognising, and that's quitedifficult to do because our
brains are so automated.
We're not really designed tothink about ourselves in that
(04:17):
way and that's why people areattracted to coaching and
therapy, because it gives themthat way to reflect and think
about themselves and think aboutthemselves.
We kind of saw that mindfulnessboom maybe 10 plus years ago
now.
Things like apps like headspaceand calm and things came out
and they're really aboutself-awareness, getting you to
(04:38):
think about yourself.
So now that's just the startingpoint.
Knowing what we'd like to dodifferently is very different
from doing it.
Behaviour change is difficultand it's difficult because you
need cognitive resources to doit.
In simple language, you needwillpower and that means you
(04:59):
need to be in a high chargebrain state and that's it.
We're back to it again at whichbrain states.
You cannot change your behavior, you cannot be at your best
consistently if you do notunderstand brain states and,
again, no one else is talkingabout this, and this is why
we're saying that the hybridmechanic approach, the new human
(05:23):
ai performance psychology coachfor training up there.
They are unique in what theyunderstand because if we want to
be at our best, we have tounderstand our brain states and
if we want to start to changebehavior, we've got to get into
the high charge brain state, andthat is difficult to do.
So I think we've allexperienced reflecting, whether
(05:44):
that's in a training session ora chat, and then deciding yeah,
I do need to do somethingdifferently, I'll definitely do
it, but by the time I get to theend of the day I'm so exhausted
that I never do it, and then Idon't sleep very well.
So the next day I never do itor I start and then I fail.
It's because you're relying onwillpower and willpower is
depleted because your brainstate balance is out of whack.
(06:05):
So and people say willpower isoverrated willpower is what it
is, it's the conduit to change.
So we need it in the firstinstance to put the effort in to
make meaningful change to thesort of behaviors that we need
to change to be healthier,happier and our best, like
(06:26):
sleeping better, eating better,exercising more regularly,
managing stress better, be moreconfident, be more focused
before managing pressure, betterbehaving in a way that helps us
to be a better team member anda better leader and a better
parent, or whatever it is wewant to do.
They all require willpower asthe initiator of change.
(06:48):
We can only access our highcharge brain states where
willpower lives if we get thatright balance of brain states,
the right balance of brainstates, the right balance of
recharge, medium charge and highcharge.
And this is where AI is sorevolutionary, because for the
(07:10):
first time ever, we havetechnology we can use to
outsource the tasks that wecomplete every day that only
used to be completable by humanbrain power.
So we can outsource some of themedium charge work that we do
every day.
We can outsource it to AI.
So just a tiny example insteadof having to manually book in
(07:35):
every single call, you use atool called Calendly which just
does it automatically for you,and these tools are becoming
more and more powerful everysingle day.
So we've got the automationside of AI we can use to
essentially reduce the amount ofbusy work that we have to do
(07:58):
and the volume of it and thenwhat we also have and that's
going to make it easier for usto get into high-charge brain
states.
Then what we also have isaugmented ai, so or ai that
augments our high-chargethinking.
So it's almost like, if youthink of, when you first learn
(08:21):
to ride a bike it's quiteeffortful because you've got it,
takes an awful lot ofconcentration and and your
body's not really attuned to themovement, so you put
stabilizers on right.
Um, generative ai is like that.
It's like stabilizers for yourhigh charge thinking, and
generative AI is like that.
It's like stabilizers for yourhigh-charge thinking.
So it means you can actually dohigh-charge thinking more
(08:42):
easily and therefore you can domore of it.
And we need to get into thathigh-charge brain state to do
our clever, high-impact work,which makes us feel good about
ourselves.
Sup, you might be thinking whereare you going with this, john?
Does AI help me to eat better?
Does it help me to manage mystress better?
Well, it can, directly andindirectly.
(09:04):
Obviously, there aretechnologies now we can use to
track and monitor these things.
But what it's allowing us to dois get a better balance of
brain states so we can outsourcesome of our medium-charge work.
We can augment and superchargesome of our high charge thinking
, and that free.
(09:25):
That means it's easier for usto do more high quality recharge
or spend more time in our highquality recharge brain states.
So if you look at the brainstate profiles in chapter nine
of train your brain for the airrevolution you can get a free
(09:46):
copy off the website then you'llsee what I'm talking about.
It gives you a better balanceof brain states.
So you may currently be acrossthe bear where you've got very
little capacity to do highcharge work, which is where the
the change is initiated.
(10:08):
Where we work on ourselves aswell as do clever work at work.
It's the brain state we used towork on ourselves as well.
So to resist that temptationnot to eat the food, to get to
bed on time, to resist thetemptation to say that thing
that we know is unhelpful, toresist the temptation to
procrastinate, we need ourhigh-charge brain state to help
us to do that.
(10:28):
So by striking a better balanceacross our brain states, we're
going to free up more of it.
So that's behavior change.
It's why brain states are socentral.
Brain state balance, especiallybeing able to consistently
(10:52):
access our high charge brainstates and um, it's how ai can
actually help us to strike abetter balance, and what I'm
talking about here is human AIperformance psychology.
That is a new field ofpsychology we've created.
We are pioneering this fieldand we're doing that because we
(11:16):
want to empower people to thrivein what is a complex period of
human history.
But I think there's massivepotential to help us to get a
better balance of brain statesand when you do that, you get
massive results and I'm seeingthat all the time.
(11:44):
There's a very small case todaywhich I can't go into too much
detail in, but I got a lovelytext on Sunday from someone who
I just talked this to on thephone on Friday, and they're
basically the thing they weretrying to achieve.
They broke the record.
They'd never been able to dothat thing before and just by
understanding their brain statesand activation levels which is
(12:09):
the thing that sits behind thatthey just said it completely
changed their ability toessentially perform to their
potential.
So that's just with theknowledge initially, but that
person was very highly motivatedand they have a lot of the
other nine action factors goingfor them.
But anyway, I just wanted toshare that on my walk to work,
(12:30):
I'm conscious of not getting runover.
So I'm approaching some busyroads.
So I hope that's got youthinking.
If there's ever any questions,let us know busy roads.
So I hope that's got youthinking.
As ever, any questions, let usknow um.
Remember you're only one brainstate habit away.
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