How to Train Your Brain for the AI Era

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What if the key to thriving in the age of AI isn’t smarter technology — but a smarter relationship with your own brain?

In this episode of Leading People, Gerry Murray talks with Dr Jon Finn, founder of Tougher Minds and author of Train Your Brain for the AI Revolution.

Jon has spent more than two decades studying how the brain drives performance and wellbeing — and how we can train it to stay focused, energised, and adaptable in an AI-saturated world.

Together, Gerry and Jon explore:

• Why brain science, not algorithms, will define the next generation of leaders
• How Brain State Intelligence helps you shift from distraction to focus and flow
• The habits that protect attention, motivation, and mental energy
• Why your inner technology — your brain — is still your ultimate competitive edge

It’s a practical and hopeful conversation about leading yourself, staying human, and using AI without losing focus or purpose.

Curious?

🎧 Listen and discover how to train your brain for the AI era.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Welcome to Leading People with me, Jerry Murray.
This is the podcast for leadersand HR decision makers who want
to bring out the best inthemselves and others.
Every other week, I sit downwith leading authors,
researchers, and practitionersfor deep dive conversations

(00:22):
about the strategies, insights,and tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing: short episodes
that deliver practical insightsand tips for immediate use.
Whether you're here for usefultools or thought-provoking
ideas, leading people is yourguide to better leadership.

(00:49):
When I studied psychology in the1990s, we didn't really talk
much about the brain.
Neuroscience was still in itsinfancy.
A few years later, as I movedinto personal development and
coaching, I started to noticethat some of the tools I was
using seemed to workastonishingly well.
But I didn't really know why.

(01:10):
There was a piece missing.
What was actually happening inthe brain?
Was there science behind it?
So in 2016, I decided to fillthat gap.
I signed up for a 10-dayclassroom course in applied
neuroscience.
Back in the good old days whenwe still sat together in a room,
scribbling notes and debatingideas.

(01:32):
We not only studied how thebrain works, but also had to
design our own brain-basedinterventions.
That experience changedeverything for me.
I became a practitioner of brainand behavior change, and ever
since I've woven those insightsinto every training and coaching
session I run.
It's transformed the impact ofmy work and the results for my

(01:56):
participants.
So whenever I meet someone who'spushing our understanding of the
brain even further, I'm keen toget them on the Leading People
podcast.
My guest today, Dr.
John Finn, has spent over twodecades researching how the
brain drives performance andwell-being, and how we can train
it to thrive in a worldincreasingly shaped by AI.

(02:19):
He's the founder of TougherMinds, author of Train Your
Brain for the AI Revolution, anda returning guest on leading
people.
Together we explore how to stayfocused, energized, and
adaptable in the age of AI, andwhy mastering our own inner
technology might be the mostimportant leadership skill of

(02:41):
all.
Dr.
John Finn, welcome back toleading people.

SPEAKER_00 (02:47):
Delighted to be back.

SPEAKER_02 (02:49):
Thanks, John.
When we last spoke, and it wasactually back in early 2023,
about your book, The HabitMechanic, we explored how habits
shape performance andwell-being.
And now you're back with a newbook and a new focus around, I
think it's called Train YourBrain for the AI Revolution.
And this kind of asks what howwe can stay human, adaptable,

(03:11):
and effective in a world whereAI is rapidly changing how we
work and think.
But to start, John, let's remindmy listeners about your
background and then let's segueinto what led you to write this
new book and what problems wereyou seeing in leaders and
organizations that made youthink we need to train our
brains for this next era.

SPEAKER_00 (03:33):
Yeah, sure.
So I've worked in the fields ofresilience, performance
psychology, leadership,organizational change for over
25 years now.
And I've got three degrees inthose areas, including a PhD.
My professional work started inelite sport, where I worked in
professional football, rugby,cricket, golf.

(03:56):
And then seeing a problem, achallenge around very talented
young athletes not alwaysfulfilling their potential at
senior level.
I completed my PhD on the juniorto senior or academy to first
team career transition.

(04:17):
And what I felt was the maineffect variable in that, which
was emotional regulation.
That work then got picked up ineducation, which took me into
education.
Um so I went to work for someprivate schools to set up their
performance psychologycurriculum.
And then that program got a lotof coverage, and we would teach
parents what we were teachingthe kids, or teach parents how

(04:39):
to support their kids, and theparents ended up saying, Can you
come and work in our business?
Because what you're doing herefeels much more advanced than
what we're doing.
And that was then me moving intothe business world, and then we
had real success in the city ofLondon and America, but we knew

(05:01):
that when we left the building,um, some of that impact we were
having started to dissipate.
So that's why we wrote The HabitMechanic, which was the Habit
Mechanics a playbook, it's notsort of a typical New York Times
bestseller where it's one idearepeated ten times.
It's it's an end-to-end playbookof how to become a habit

(05:22):
mechanic and also then how tobecome a chief habit mechanic,
our leadership program.
And then it was about twosummers ago I was in the London
Science Museum, and um mypartner was looking at
something, I'm not sure what shewas looking at, but um I ended
up looking at the books, and Isaw a book on the shelf called

(05:42):
The Genius Makers by a New Yorkuh Times journalist called Caird
Metz.
And it's essentially the storyof the people behind neural
network AI.
Um and Jeffrey Hinton, the theLondon-born academic, is the
protagonist of the story.
And what really interested mewas the understanding that this

(06:07):
neural network AI is based on isdesigned to work like brains
work.
And in fact, the technology isnot particularly new, it's been
around since the end of WorldWar II.
We've just never been able toget it to work before, and
that's what Hinton was able todo.
But anyway, so although this isquite interesting because I know
a lot about how brains work, andthen I just followed AI and

(06:30):
started to use it, started tosee is the hype real.
Then we started to encourage ourclients to use it, and
essentially the thing that Ifound most powerful about AI, or
find most powerful, is itsability to personalize learning,

(06:54):
but also its ability to do someof the work for you that only
you used to be able to do, orthat another human would have
had to do.
So I see it as like an extensionof the brain, and it's the first
time in human history we've gota technology which is more like
a species that can actuallythink and do cognitive things

(07:19):
that up until this point inhistory only humans have been
able to do.
And when we traditionally thinkabout helping people to change
their behaviour, we know thattraditional approaches are
broken because they get stuck inthe knowing.
They think that if we can getpeople to know what they need to
do, they'll be able to do it.

(07:40):
But we know that what bigcompelling sets of data from
neuroscience and behavioralscience have shown is that most
of what people think and do mostof the time is automatic or
semi-automatic.
Don't think of a white elephant.
You don't have to, it's alreadyin your brain.
We're so it's so automatic.
So we know that at least 98% ofwhat we're thinking and doing at

(08:01):
any given time is subconscious,and often it's just a hundred
percent.
So we know we knew that we hadto help people to rewire their
habits, hence the habitmechanic.
And our formula for doing thatwas two-part formula.
One is help people to understandhow their brain actually works
in a science-based but practicalway, and then two, help people

(08:24):
to understand how to usebehavioral science so they can
actually rewire and reprogramthe destructive habits they've
got and build more super habits,and that's what made you a habit
mechanic.
But from I think now AI is apowerful third part of that
equation because we can use AIto outsource things, jobs, tasks

(08:50):
that we would have normally hadto use our brain to do.
The biggest barrier for behaviorchange is willpower.
Willpower doesn't explaineverything about behavior
change, but it's the conduit tochange needs effort, and that's
where people typically falldown, is they just don't have
the mental mental capacity topersist with doing the things

(09:14):
that they want to do, whetherthat's going to bed earlier or
eating more healthily or notprocrastinating or um being a
better leader, etc.
So I think that AI is soprofound that we actually
created a new scientific fieldcalled human AI performance

(09:35):
psychology.
And this is what we'repassionate about driving
forwards, and we think that thekey to thriving in the AI era is
to develop what we call brainstate intelligence, so to really
understand how our brains work,so that we can actually
understand how AI works at ahigh level, and we can get the

(09:56):
most out of our own brain byco-working with AI and forming
human AI teams.
That's a summary, Jerry.

SPEAKER_02 (10:05):
That's pretty there's a lot in there now that
we're gonna unpack over the nextuh half an hour or so.
Um let's start with a kind ofconundrum that you set out here,
which is that the uh kind of inthe book, and this is this idea
that the real challenge isn'tthe artificial intelligence,
it's the human intelligence.

(10:26):
And and what do you what do youmean by that, or what risks you
see if we don't deliberatelyupgrade how we use our brains
alongside the AI?
On Leading People, the goal isto bring you cutting-edge
thought leadership from many ofthe leading thinkers and
practitioners in leadershiptoday.

(10:48):
Each guest shares theirinsights, wisdom, and practical
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ourselves and others.
Please subscribe wherever youget your podcasts and share a
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SPEAKER_00 (11:12):
Yeah, so AI, neural network AI, is just designed to
work like our brains.
So if we don't understand howour brains work and the kind of
things our brain is capable ofdoing, we're not going to be
able to properly understand AIand the things that it can help

(11:32):
us with.
But essentially, we're moving toa world where it's it's becoming
much cheaper to use AI to docertain cognitive tasks than it
is to employ humans.
And we saw this in theIndustrial Revolution, where
industrial machines made itcheaper to execute physical

(11:56):
labour, some forms of physicallabour, than to pay humans.
So where humans are only goingto be valuable to their own
lives and to their businesses ifthey can do things that the AI
can't do.
So for me, humans have to get wehave to get good at two things.

(12:18):
One is really learning how touse the AI well.
It's a bit like driving asnowmobile.
Once you learn how to drive it,you're gonna go up the mountain
faster than you ever thoughtpossible.
But two, it's being able to turnup every day and do the mentally
complex, the strategic, the highhigh-impact problem solving that

(12:41):
AI is not um able to do.

SPEAKER_02 (12:47):
Okay, so um I'm actually making some notes
because there's a lot of richstuff coming out.
Um so there might be peoplelistening to this who might be
trying to balance out this ideaof AI being a brain enhancer
versus AI being a brainreplacer.
You know what I mean?
So, and I'm hearing a bit likeyou're really tending towards

(13:10):
the enhancement aspect whereit's going to help people use
their brain more effectively.
Is that if that what I'mhearing?

SPEAKER_00 (13:18):
Yeah, so let's let's break down brain function in a
bit more detail, and that willhelp to frame um that
understanding.
So we think of the brain asbeing a bit like a battery, a
rechargeable battery.
It literally is our brain runson chemicals and electricity.
And we in every 24-hour period,our brain only has so much

(13:43):
charge, only so much energy, andit operates in three core
states.
It operates in the rechargestate, which can be sleep, but
also non-sleep recharge.
So in every 24-hour period, youneed to do some recharge.
We have a medium charge brainstate where we are doing fairly
habitual, busy type of work, lowcognitive effort, uh, very

(14:08):
addictive to our the limbicregions of our brain.
Um, and then the third brainstate is the high charge brain
state.
This is where we are doing ourmost mentally complex thinking,
high impact uh thinking,strategic thinking.
And this is where AI can help.

(14:32):
So there are broadly twodifferent types of AI.
One is LLMs or generative AI,and this is uh the sort of
commercial names for those arethings like Chat GTP and Claude,
and there are other moreindustry-specific ones.
We can use LLMs and generativeAI to co-work with us on our

(14:56):
high-charge, high impactthinking tasks.
So, for example, instead of ittaking maybe four hours to write
a report for a new client, maybeyou can do that in one hour if
you co-work well with an LLM.
And then the other core form ofAI is agentic AI.

(15:18):
Agentic AI is excellent atautomating the our medium charge
tasks.
So it's very good at doing thekind of tasks that we do,
typically doing our mediumcharge work.
So that instead of us gettingbogged down with this endless
busyness, we can start tooutsource some of that to the

(15:41):
agentic AI.
So we free up time from um doingless busy work, we accelerate
our ability to do high charge,high impact work, get more of it
done, feel better aboutourselves, and that then frees
up more time for high qualityrecharge.
So it's not about one replacingthe other, it's about using

(16:06):
working together as a team andhumans leveraging AI to, as you
say, augment themselves, butalso automate some of the things
they would have used to have todo um manually.

SPEAKER_02 (16:23):
So so just as an example, I I take my youngest
daughter to the train stationevery morning, and when I get in
the car and open up mynavigation app Waze, it asks me,
Do I want to go to the chainstation?
So it's already figured outwithout me having to put in
where I want to go.
It kind of said, Well, this iswhat you've been doing.
I think this is where you wantto go.

(16:43):
Is this where you want to go?
Is that is that an example ofone of these sort of very more
medium charge, almost slightlysemi-unconscious things that you
would have to do, but your AI isjust doing it for you, and we
have loads of experiences ofthat in our day-to-day.

SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
You've you've got it.
So that is this language ofagenci and agents is new, but
you've got Waze is uh anavigational agent.
Um, if you think about bankingnow, we all have banks in our
pocket in an app.
We don't go to that physical, orthere's not as many physical

(17:17):
branches anymore.
So some industries, some sectorsare way ahead on the agentic
piece, but the breakthrough withneural network AI and the vast
amounts of mil of trillions thathave well, the trillions that
have been invested into thedevelopment is is putting that
technology into everybody'shands.
So you don't have to be um abank to be able to get that

(17:40):
tech.
You can access it often for freenow.
And the scalability means thatbusinesses of all shapes and
sizes can use it to do thingsmore efficiently and
effectively.
So, yeah, there are lots of umtechnology hasn't just this

(18:03):
technology hasn't just emergedin the last you know 12, 24
months or whatever, 72 months.
It's been coming for a while,but it's really accelerated in
the last couple of years becauseyou've got these massive
companies um that have emergedand the massive investments that
have gone into them.

SPEAKER_02 (18:21):
Yeah.
And one of the things thatoccurs to me, I got a couple of
things coming out of what you'resaying there, is um the the
this, you know, when you look atthe those three core states, of
course the recharge is is whenit's really downtime, but the
other two states of medium andhigh charge, um, I've been a
pretty as I would say I'm an II'd like to claim I'm a bit of

(18:43):
an early adopter with thingslike ChatGPT, not just using it,
but asking it to automate thingsfor me.
Once it's done a few things forme, I'll say like what would the
prompt sequence look for that ifwe had to do it over and over
again and you know play aroundwith that.
There are times actually, um,and I find it I I have to say I
find it to to have it as a sortof companion, a sparring

(19:05):
partner, a sort of helping meclarify things, I find it very,
very useful.
Uh I still don't like to have itdo things completely for me,
like uh cognitive things likewriting for me and that, but
it's kind of useful sometimes tohelp me get my ideas sorted and
that.
However, the one point I wantedto make, and then I wanted to
segue a little bit into one ortwo other questions, but most of

(19:28):
us are dealing with more andmore data, more and more
decisions, more and moredistractions than ever.
And I sometimes experience that.
I find if you interact withsomething like the ChatGP, let's
just use that because people arefamiliar with that.
A lot of people are feelingafter a while, it's like, holy,
holy moly, holy shit, right?
It's it's there's a lot comingat me now.

(19:49):
How how am I going to deal withthis?
And one of the things I'veworked on is making sure that I
get the contextual prompting,the so that it doesn't just
throw loads of stuff at me,which just actually doesn't help
me in the end because it itoverloads overloads my capacity
to process.
So so what can you know leaderswill probably be be asking their

(20:12):
people to do this, but what canwe all do to deal with uh and
prevent cognitive overload andstay adaptable in this AI
accelerated environment?
You're listening to leadingpeople with me, Jerry Murray.
My guest this week is Dr.

(20:32):
John Finn, founder of TougherMinds and author of Train Your
Brain for the AI Revolution.
Coming up, John explains howbrain state intelligence can
help leaders and teams shiftfrom overload and distraction
into focus and flow.
And why learning to manage yourmental energy may be the

(20:53):
ultimate advantage in the AIera.
Stay with us.

SPEAKER_00 (20:59):
We need to get brain states intelligent, and this is
the key to understanding ourbrain and our three brain
states, and working onoptimizing how we use those
three brain states.
Because if you're really wellrested, you're gonna be able to
get into your high charge statesmore easily, and you're gonna be
able to deal with higher volumesof data, for example, because

(21:23):
your brain is going to be moreum flexible and powerful.
So what many people are doing isthey're trying to use they're
trying to do high charge typeactivities on Chat GTP when
they're in a medium charge brainstate, and that's why they're
feeling overwhelmed.

(21:43):
So we've got to match the rightbrain state with the right task,
and that's why thinking about AIin those core categories of
LLMs, high charge, co-work withit on that, medium charge,
agentic, outsource that kind ofwork so it frees you up.
Um and I think that for me, Ijust think of chat GTP as being

(22:07):
like a consultant.
Um, and people people forgetthis stuff designed to work like
us is based on how we work.
So people say it makes mistakes,so do humans, it hallucinates,
so do humans.
He's biased, so are humans.

(22:28):
So, you know, when you'reworking with this thing, it's
only like working with anotherhuman.
Um, it knows a lot more aboutyou than lots of things, but a
lot less than you about otherthings.
But the power of it, it's cheap,it's evergreen, it's 24-7
available.
Most people have worked withconsultants, they make mistakes,

(22:50):
they're not perfect, they'reoften very expensive, they're
not available when you needthem.
So this is this is how um why aiis so powerful.
It's uh it's not magic, it'sit's it's it's it's very cost
effective.
But again, we can't get the mostout of the tech if we don't know

(23:12):
how to get the most out ofourselves, and that's why high
that's why brainstorm'sintelligence is key, and that's
why I train your brain for thatevolution, and that's why we're
working with businesses to helpto create what we call
brainstead intelligent cultures,which is we see as the lean
sigma six for the AI era.

SPEAKER_02 (23:32):
Right.
Um now I will remind thelisteners that one of the things
you emphasized a lot in yourhabit mechanic book was the
importance of your nutrition ordiet, your exercising and your
sleep as basically ways ofkeeping your body and mind in a
healthy state, isn't that right?

(23:52):
Yes.
So it what you're saying here isadding when you're gonna deal
with this kind of AI stuff, isit now has it's it's another
element that that has tocomplement or you have to use
those three things of nutrition,exercise, and sleep, but in a
more AI um contextual uh way.

SPEAKER_00 (24:11):
Yeah, so they're gonna be core pillars of the
recharge piece.
So core good quality sleep isgonna be the central pillar of
high quality recharge, then whatwe put into our body, nutrition,
that has to feed, nourish,nourish, help our brain to

(24:31):
replenish itself, get rid of allthe toxins.
We've got to use exercise in theway it's intended, so we're
designed to move around andsolve problems, good social
connectivity as well.
That's all going to feed intogood healthy brains, so you've
got that great foundation.
Most people, so in chapter eightof Train Your Brain for Their
Evolution, we have um what wecall the human II readiness

(24:54):
brain state assessment, so itallows you to um measure your
brain states and you get ascore, and it gives you a sense
of where your balance is acrossyour medium charge, your high
charge, and your recharge.
But if you want to get good highcharge, yeah, you absolutely
need to nail your sleep, yourdiet, your exercise, your social

(25:17):
connectivity.
So you've got really robust corebrain function because you're
well rested.
Most people are and they'reoverwhelmed.
In the UK, right now, we've got5,000 people a day, a day being
signed up on the sick, um,mainly with anxiety and
depression.

(25:37):
That's poor, that's all drivenby poor core brain function
because people are overwhelmed.
And unfortunately, um for manypeople, AI is having that
effect.
If it's not, it's another thingto overload them.
So there's that tension betweencompanies expect it, expect the

(25:58):
AI investments they're making toimprove efficiency and
productivity.
But many people say it's slowingme down, it's overloading me.
But it's not a tech problem,it's a brain function problem.

SPEAKER_02 (26:11):
Yeah.
So you you talked earlier uh afew minutes back about putting
the tech the AI tech ineverybody's hands.
The thought came into my head,what about the future?
Are we going to have AI tech ineverybody's brains?

SPEAKER_00 (26:27):
There are biz there are companies working on that,
but putting a chip insidesomeone's brain can do different
things, right?
So um already there is that kindof technology to start dealing
with um certain prefrontalcortex diseases, Parkinson's,
etc.
Um I think we're a long way fromcognitive control, we're much

(26:55):
closer to physical control,because understanding which
parts of our central nervoussystem drive which movements is
much easier to map.
Whereas cognitions spread acrossyou know hundred billion neurons
and trillions of moving parts ismuch more difficult to

(27:19):
understand.
So yeah, I think um we're veryclose and if not already there
with with some types of AI.
Um but I think I think um Ithink that AI technology is much
more human than we'reunderstanding because most of

(27:42):
what humans do most of the timeis not conscious, it's
automatic, it's driven by it'sdriven for efficiency.
But also I think that AI is along way off from being able to
think and solve complex problemslike uh a real expert, because

(28:03):
it really, it really I I don'tsee any time soon where it can
get the context of a situation,um, you know, 360 degree, what
is going on right now, not justin front of the screen, but in
the world, what data am Iseeing, am I experiencing, um,
and what have I seen in thepast?

(28:24):
AI doesn't feel like it'sanywhere close to that because
ultimately it's learning fromdata on the internet, right?
Which often can be out of dateand just gets out of date faster
than ever before because theworld moves so quickly.
Um so I don't see it as a threatto human intelligence, I see it
as a way to outsource lots ofthe things that we don't

(28:45):
actually like doing anyway, andhelp us to do the things that we
do like doing faster, moreeffectively, um, which is gonna
make us feel better aboutourselves at the end of the day
instead of feeling like I'vebeen busy all day, I haven't
achieved anything, I'm rubbish,I'm useless.

(29:06):
And then you can't switch offand you don't sleep properly,
and you get into a viciouscycle.
So again, that's why going backto the brain states idea for me
is is so is so central.

SPEAKER_02 (29:19):
Yeah, I read it, I was reading an article in The
Atlantic magazine a few daysago.
Um, it was one of these oneswhere a leading academic in
psychology or neurobiology, Ithink it was, was kind of
putting out his challenge toanother academic.
And the whole uh thesis of whathe was talking about was that

(29:39):
many scientists have beenpredicting that we'll be able to
understand things like the DNAof intelligence, you know.
And this guy's argument was thatwe're still a long, long way off
understanding intelligence,whether there are genes, etc.
So from a from the biologicalpoint of view, the there may
still still be a lot of sciencethat hasn't been or stuff that

(30:03):
hasn't been discovered yet thatthat whether you could develop
the AI capabilities around that.
Because I was thinking you weretalking about taking data on the
internet.
And then the thought came intomy mind was what would happen if
AI was taking data from yourbrain and working with that and
building its own neural modelsbased on that.
It maybe it could get there oneday, but at the moment it seems

(30:26):
there's constraints around justwhat uh biobiology and people
who study neuroscienceunderstand about the brain
anyway.
Would that be true?

SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
Yeah, you know go to well go to London and go do a
neuroscience course for three orfour days and you'll soon
understand as we'd understand alot of it you know what's going
on in there.
And um but the AI will help usget there faster in terms of
understanding how our brainsactually work and what are the

(30:55):
core mechanics.
You know just even being able todistinguish brain matter is very
difficult because it all looksthe same even though it's not um
but I think that yeah readingcognitions for me feels very
challenging um there is some oneof the Star Wars spin-off shows

(31:18):
where they show this uh thislike mind reprogramming machine
which I find fascinating they'retrying to eradicate all the
neurons connected to thethoughts about the empire
they're trying to rehabilitatethe imperial um guys who've just
kind of surrendered after therebels won but you know if you
start zapping neurons inpeople's brains that feels quite

(31:42):
dangerous to me because neuronsare all interconnected and you
might take one out that's gotsome resonance of something bad
but equally it's got a lot ofgood stuff in it.

SPEAKER_02 (31:51):
So although it it does it does sort of um make you
wonder there's a maybe a fewprominent leaders in the world
today would love to experimentwith that because they they'd
say well it's a magic magicformula you know you can inject
bleach into people so why notjust zap their neurons and stuff
like that.
I mean that's the danger thatsomebody begins to oversimplify

(32:13):
what can be done um and andthinks that it's just a magic
wand and this is all going tojust happen the way they want
it, right?

SPEAKER_00 (32:22):
Yeah I think the I think I'm right in saying that
the some of the COVID vaccinesreally benefited from earlier
versions of neural network AI interms of you know churning
through the the data and lookingfor patterns etc and we're

(32:43):
seeing great leaps in medicalscience so it's good at working
through large sets of data andfinding patterns it's not going
to be it can't really make senseof what's going on in someone's
brain we can't read thosebrainwaves right it's it's not
it's not possible to do rightnow it's not like a heartbeat

(33:04):
it's a complex set of ofbiological processes but I think
ultimately people need to feelAI proof and um then by feeling
AI proof you're not going to bescared of AI.
You're gonna learn that actuallythis is a tool you can use for

(33:25):
the better.

SPEAKER_02 (33:27):
Maybe we should now sort of get into a little bit
more of the practical stuffbecause now we've reassured
everybody out there that itwould it's unlikely to take over
our brains completely and thatwe can really work with it as a
complement to our ownintelligence.
Let me ask you a question if youwere to design like three AI era

(33:48):
habits building on your yourother book on the habit mechanic
but if you were to design threeAI era habits that every leader
should master what what mightthey be and why those ones?

SPEAKER_00 (33:59):
Depends what you how you define a habit but I think
the core habits that we want tobuild are what we call
intelligent self-watching andintelligent planning habits.
So these are things that we dodaily that help us to step back

(34:25):
and think about our behavior,what we're thinking and doing in
a way that's connected to ourbigger goals but in a way that
helps us to improve what we'redoing every day so we can
achieve our bigger goals faster.
So one habit would be and I talkabout this in chapter one of the
habit mechanic which is thedaily tea plan so you ask

(34:46):
yourself the question how welldid I do my best to be at my
best and achieve my goalsyesterday you'd ask yourself
that question at the start ofthe day you give yourself a
score out of 10 10 means youwere perfect one means you
failed you're probably somewhereon that continuum then you'd say
okay what's one tiny thing andthis is called the tiny

(35:07):
empowering action plan what'sone tiny action one tiny
empowering action I can do todayto give myself the best chance
of getting a better score todaymight be going for a walk at
lunchtime um eating a piece offruit with breakfast creating a
plan for the day whatever it isand then step three is you write

(35:27):
down why so that's a goodcornerstone habit.
Number two, I would reallyencourage people to and we call
this the willpower story to planout their day in relation to the
tasks that they need to do butalso the brain states they need

(35:48):
for those to complete thosetasks in and then which parts of
the day are most suited to thattype of brain state so many
people have a bit of a slumpearly afternoon.
It's kind of human to do that sowe might want to plan to do our
medium charge more of our mediumcharge work in that zone many

(36:09):
people like to do their cleverwork first thing but they get
sidetracked by emails etc soplanning ahead to actually get
that done and spend that one ortwo hours doing that.
So we call it the willpowerstory and then you would also
put into that plan sleep dietexercise what time you're going

(36:30):
to go to bed etc and then thethird thing I'd encourage people
to get in the habit of doing iswriting an end of day written
reflection starting with a threeto one so three helpful things
about the day three positive orhelpful things or as many as you
can and then one thing you cando even better tomorrow so

(36:52):
that's going to help you toprocess the day acknowledge what
you did well but also give you abetter chance of doing better
tomorrow like um be in bed 30minutes earlier tonight than I
was last night you know whateverit was something like that.

SPEAKER_02 (37:12):
Okay.
So I think those are those arethree very practical things that
uh anybody listening to this nowcan start to explore immediately
actually I was listening toanother podcast of was it
yesterday, the day before withJosh Josh Burson who's quite
well known in the uh HR worldand also is doing a lot of stuff
today around tech and AI and hewas commenting on the economic

(37:36):
factors and how organizationsare kind of struggling at the
moment to figure all this AIstuff out.
In some cases they're they'renot hiring people so it's
creating all sorts of concernpeople are are worried that
their jobs are at risk and youknow all those things we hear
about and read about in the newsand and I think the kind of way

(37:57):
he was conveying this is thatwe're we're at this sort of
pivotal moment whereorganizations and their leaders
etc are trying to figure thingsout in some cases they some
sectors like tech sectoroverhired after COVID and and
then they're scaling back butthen they're deciding not to put
people in because they're notsure whether they need to put

(38:19):
people back into certain jobs soit's creating a lot of
uncertainty in the labor market.
And what what I wanted to askyou about was that the whole
kind of trust and psychologicalsafety aspect of the AI world
and you know many AI typedecisions may feel opaque or
even dehumanizing in somecontexts.

SPEAKER_00 (38:41):
So how can leaders build more trust and
psychological safety when atechnology like AI sits between
people their tasks and decisionsI think you've got to make
people feel AI proof and weactually created a um a
certification called the AIproof professional for that

(39:02):
reason because if you thinkabout AI and what our brain is
programmed to do AI isinherently threatening it's um
so we know that the core driverof of our behavior is survival
um and there's obviously umphysical violence threats we're

(39:30):
trying to avoid but also there'ssocial status that we're trying
to preserve and you know theparts of our brain that remind
us about our social status areliterally hardwired hardwired
into the parts of our brain thatum tell us we're thirsty and
we're hungry.
So I'm gonna lose my job is thisthing smarter than me am I

(39:51):
relevant anymore we heard astory from um a Swiss bank that
we know they gave 50 of theirtech people a two month trial on
um an AI app, an AI tool theydidn't say what it was they just
said it's a rocket you can'targue with it it's it's a

(40:11):
brilliant tool after two months25 of the 50 hadn't even turned
it on of the 20 20 of the 25that had turned it on didn't do
much more than turn it on butfive people used it like it was
going out of fashion and theyproduced 16% more output than

(40:33):
everybody else and what we weresaying is is that the hidden
factor there is the cognitivedrain on those people that
didn't even turn it on becausethey're thinking what if I don't
turn it on even if it's notconscious right so I think first
of all we've got to manybusinesses have rushed into this
they've rushed into rolling outthe AI or they've they've bought

(40:55):
it and that as you're talkingabout psychological safety which
is key because if we don't feelsafe our brains don't work or
the part of our brain we need towork does it's not working gets
wiped out by the limbic regions.
So we need to people to feelsafe and again that's why I keep

(41:17):
saying it but brain stateintelligence for me is the key
that that's what the conclusionthat I came to is that if we
don't understand ourselves wecan't understand AI and
therefore we're not gonna evertrust it and therefore we we're
gonna get left behind becauseit's going to become such a big
part of what we're doing.
So our goal in creating human IIperformance psychology um which

(41:42):
is a a new scientific disciplinewe've created is to use that to
help people to better understandthemselves and how they're and
how AI works and how theyinteract together and help
people move towards creatingtheir own human II team to start
with.
So for me Jerry you working withchat GTP that's like a human AI

(42:04):
team and then scaling that upbecause we're making the
transition from teams of humansto smaller teams of humans
working with AI and theessential skills for the humans
in the human AI teams are thatone they are experts at getting

(42:25):
the most out of the AI but twothey can consistently do things
think in a way solve problemsthat the AI can't and that's
difficult for most humans to doright now because they're
overwhelmed.
So we've got this perfect stormof just at the point where we
actually need our brains to beworking really well humans are

(42:46):
more overwhelmed than everbefore and I liken it to so so
our metaphor for teams isthey're climbing up a mountain
top of the mountain is is thegoals and there are five core
things high performing teams doum which I unpack in the habit
mechanic but where we know theconditions on the mountain are
getting stormier and stormierand that for many people the AI

(43:10):
is acting like a heavy rucksackthat's actually slowing them
down.
That's what people are reportingwhereas if we get the brainstet
intelligence right we can usethe AI like a snowmobile that
speeds us up the mountain.
So the metaphor for human AIteams is everyone's got their
snowmobile and they're workingtogether to get up the mountain.

(43:32):
But this will happen by magic Ithink we're going to start to
see um teams of human AIperformance psychology coaches
in businesses actually helpingpeople to understand their own
brain and how to get this brainstate intelligence culture
working so that they can peoplecan get their brain working

(43:55):
really well understand how touse the AI and supercharge
engagement health happinessperformance and I think it can
create the world that everyonehopes for um and and built into
AI are variable reward systemsthe LLMs so they're addictive

(44:15):
right and because that's why ourbrain is addicted to variable
rewards gambling uh BF skinnerswork this cut again comes back
to brain state intelligence andrecognizing what are the things
that I need to get done toprogress my goals in my life but
also the team's goals and theorganization's goals and of

(44:38):
those things which are highcharge tasks which are medium
charge tasks so it's creating amore sophisticated language
around how we operate every daywhat we can do what we need to
do in relation to using ourbrain states and whether AI can

(44:59):
actually help us.

SPEAKER_02 (45:00):
Again trying to do a high charge task with AI in a
medium charge brain state youmight be seeing lots of copy
going up the screen but you'reprobably not progressing in
solving the complex problemyou're trying to solve or create

(45:21):
the kind of thing you're tryingto create yeah I mean I
personally my own experience isthat knowing when I can do
focused work and and knowing howto set aside the time for it and
also knowing that interruptionsactually um create this reset in

(45:41):
the brain which is also notefficient.
So being able to not just sayI'm going to focus on something
just making sure that I canfocus on something for an hour
or two if I need to.
Of course we probably can't gomuch more than the two hours of
really focused attention withouteven breaks and that but uh I I
I I would agree with you on thatcompletely you know yeah and

(46:04):
then what sits behind the brainstates is what we call
activation levels which is aconcept I introduce in the habit
mechanic and activation isreally about neurotransmitters
and if we can really understandactivation everything we do
every day has an optimalactivation level from going to
sleep to doing our high chargework so it's about matching the

(46:28):
the right activation level withthe right task.

SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
So often why not because we're overwhelmed um so
that's absolutely key um so yeahyou know back to that
overarching point understandingour brain how it works how to
get the most out of it is moreimportant than ever because we
now have a competitor that cando things that up until now only

(46:53):
humans have been able to dowe've seen it before in the
Industrial Revolution you knowwatch an old film watch an old
documentary look at the numberof human beings it used to take
to do many of the manual jobsnow that are done with just a
small team of humans and bigpowerful machines um it wasn't
that long ago if you just watchsome of the Michael Palin

(47:16):
documentaries uh you know whenhe's around the world you see
these enormous um numbers ofpeople I suppose in these almost
uh pre-industrial um societiesso we've seen this before but on
the physical side now it's thecognitive side um and and I I

(47:37):
actually like um AI I think AIcan do for human health
happiness and performance whatsports science did for the
physical development of eliteathletes that's where I began my
professional journey and we cansee the sort of the physical
performance levels whether it'sstrength speed how high you can

(48:01):
jump how long you can endurancethey're all off the chart
compared to where they were 20years ago the DNA hasn't changed
but the conditioning has andit's more science it's it's
based on science.
For me, I think AI and theability to outsource brain power
and the need to learn more aboutour own brains can take our

(48:22):
cognitive health happiness andperformance to a new level which
is going to ultimately makepeople feel healthier happier
and at their best more often andI think that's what people
ultimately want.

SPEAKER_02 (48:35):
So given that it's if it's early days in AI like if
you were to ask somebody forcertain types of jobs that AI
are doing today for like sevenor eight years experiencing it,
you probably haven't got manypeople who could put put yet put
that on a CV or resume.
Even though it is still earlydays in AI what sort of examples
could you share from the workyou've been doing so I guess

(48:58):
you're taking your this umextension of your first work on
the the the habit mechanic andyou've been exploring how it
works in a more AI contextualworld and what sort of examples
are you you could you shareabout working with maybe teams
of people or in the last year orso where you've been testing
this out and noticing thedifference that it's making yeah

(49:21):
so one really good example is umEva Eva Hart who's an American
attorney and she started doingone-to-one coaching with our
head of coach and Andrew Fosterjust as we were really starting
to integrate some of these AIinsights into our approach it
was about this time last yearand Eva Eva's starting point was

(49:49):
on the laptop till 1130 12 everynight trying to get up at five
in the morning can't thinkstraight just in this doom loop
now she finishes work by fiveo'clock every day at home
cooking with the kids and theand the family she got in

(50:09):
January she got a$70,000 uh paireyes and offered equity in the
business um and now she'sactually she's an attorney in
New York now she's sitting inthe California bar so she was by
getting her brain state sortedout getting brain state
intelligent and then starting tolayer the AI tools in it just

(50:33):
accelerated her performance umso that's the starting point for
a team is that you've got to geteach individual working on
themselves in that way becominghabit mechanics becoming brain
state intelligent um and thenwe've seen similar you know

(50:54):
similar examples where peopleare just able to go much faster
one one really interestingexample from me is that I wrote
the Habit Mechanic um I think itwas published in 2022 it took me
a long time to write youbringing everything together um
in that final sort of 18 monthsor two years no neural network

(51:18):
AI available it's all done withbrain power with my own brain
power but you know you also haveeditors and you get people to
read things for you you're rightum then fast forward to train
your brain for their evolutionloads of different AI tools
available um and it's just likeworking with an editor but it's

(51:43):
cheaper it's evergreen it'savailable 24-7 but we actually
worked out for the audiobook wewere able to create the
audiobook for train your brainfor the air evolution 17 days
faster and 90% cheaper than forthe habit mechanic because um we

(52:07):
use some AI technologies to helpus to do that.

SPEAKER_00 (52:11):
And then what you're also seeing if you look at
sectors like sales and marketingwhich are possibly slightly
further ahead than some othersectors in deploying certainly
agentic AI data shows that someof those businesses are going to
market with new products thisyear at 2% of the cost they were

(52:32):
last year.
So they're saving 98% 2% of thecost 2% saving 98% of the costs
and that's data from a companycalled Winning by Design who are
a leading sales training companyand their clients are people
like Uber Adobe they're uh SaaSspecialists they work with about

(52:56):
25% of the world's biggest SaaScompanies you know so generating
copy sending out emails umanother client I have is in
Texas he says that by the end ofthis year no um car um
dealership in the US will have ahuman receptionist it will all

(53:21):
be AI so you'll be speaking toan AI and you can't even tell so
a lot of this stuff is movingmuch faster than we even thought
it would back in January umbecause you know people always
look at the problems but thereare so many positive use case

(53:42):
examples as well where it reallyis accelerating things.
Yeah so that's a scattering ofexamples we've got now we're
starting to work to scale thisout across organizations from
helping the C-suite to becomethe champions training teams of
human high performancepsychology coaches and we've
actually created like a martialart belt system white belt to

(54:05):
black belt um for people tobecome bread state intelligence
like Lean Sigma 6 basically andwe have a digital training
program to do that.
So this is still very earlydoors um but the early data
we're seeing is really reallypositive and I think what's also
quite empowering is it doesn'tmatter where your brain state we

(54:29):
call it profile is right now youcan change it quite rapidly you
know and we sort of work in 30day cycles and in train your
brain for their evolutionthere's a four-step process so
that goes around a 30 day umperiod of time you you can make
big improvements just by gettinga better understanding and
building a few new habits um soif you're struggling don't worry

(54:54):
because you you can just changea few little things and you can
get back on track really quicklyand the AI is really helpful.

SPEAKER_02 (55:02):
Right.
So coming to the end John andyou've shared lots of great
ideas tips and even practices ifthere's one way of synthesizing
that into a couple of sentencesso that whatever our listeners
can take away from thisconversation what what would
that be?

SPEAKER_00 (55:23):
Yeah the key to thriving in the hue in the AI
era is getting brain stateintelligent that means
understanding your three brainstates high charge medium charge
recharge and recognizing whereeach of those are in terms of
I'm nailing it or I'm failing atit and just slowly but surely

(55:47):
improving each of those statesthey're all interconnected and
then just slowly but surely juststart to drip and try and test
some different AIs you'reprobably already using more than
you you think you are and in thein train your brain for their
evolution there's a four-stepsystem called the AI success
cycle really simple just givesyou a a daily weekly monthly

(56:10):
framework to put all this intopractice and then once you
understand how to do it yourselfyou can then also help others to
do the exact the exact samething that you did.

SPEAKER_02 (56:22):
And I I think that the key is it's learning to
coach yourself learning tobecome your own brain state
coach um not just knowing it butdoing it and putting it into
practice your brain is the mostimportant asset that you have
and it's becoming more and moreimportant um so we've we've got

(56:47):
to we've got to get our headsaround it because unfortunately
we didn't learn this at schoolit wasn't a lesson um we won't
go into schools because I thinkthat's a fascinating space right
now we need another episode it'sanother episode but but yeah so
for me it's about brain stateintelligence and um I just want
to spread that message and ifyou think that's a compelling
message spread it as wellbecause I think this is the most

(57:10):
important intelligence is thatwe understand our brains and our
brain states and that is the keyto being healthy happy and at
our best and that's that's why Iwish for everybody and I know
just like you Jerry we see whenwe work with people and we get
them to actually practice doingthe right things it transforms

(57:31):
our life so again it doesn'tmatter that's the important word
practice and deliberate practicebecause the science also shows
not just knowing things knowinghow and like if you're trying to
learn to shoot basketball you'regonna miss a lot of baskets in
the early stage but the more youpractice the more you learn from
what you're you know what's notworking the better you're gonna

(57:53):
get right and I I think theother thing we do a lot of here
is we encourage leaders to berole models for their people.
It's rather than constantlytrying to tell people stuff and
tell them what to do, show themhow a leader can perform at
their best and and this is agreat opportunity for anybody
out there listening who's in theleadership position to

(58:13):
incorporate this brainintelligence so that they're
able to not only talk about itbut they know how to to to make
it work for them so they canmodel it for their their people,
right?

SPEAKER_00 (58:25):
Yeah exactly so we want we need to be modeling this
for our people um it's not aboutbecoming an expert in ai it's
about becoming an expert onyourself and you're with
yourself every day.
We hope the the human behaviouris is is you know far clearer

(58:47):
now why we do and think thethings that we do than it was 25
years ago.
So we have no excuse um I willsay that I wrote I've written
two books about this that hadthe habit mechanic and training
brain for their revolution so ifyou're not what sure I'd start
just start with those books umbut yeah I I think it's exciting
Jarry I really think the tech isexciting um and I get the

(59:12):
pessimism and people worryingbut it's here you know the
video's worth four trilliondollars and it might only be
worth three trillion next yearwe don't know but you know that
um it's not going away and whatuh what I've seen with our own
clients and in my own life andmy family you know showing them

(59:34):
how to do it it just acceleratespeople's ability to achieve
their goals faster whether it'sbuilding a better sleep habit or
getting your next promotion ormanaging stress better or
becoming a better leader.
It's just an accelerator.

SPEAKER_02 (59:49):
So yeah it's exciting okay so um become an
expert on yourself um or maybewe can uh slightly adapt and
Irish playwright Oscar Wildesaying, be yourself, be an
expert on yourself becauseeverybody else has taken.
Um, maybe that works.
And um I like that.

(01:00:10):
And John, how can people reachout and get in contact with you?
And do you have anything, ifthey do reach out to you on the
usual platforms, do you haveanything special that you might
be able to offer them afterlistening to this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:23):
Yes, after Jerry is a hard negotiator, so he's
negotiated a special deal for umfor listeners.
So if you contact me onLinkedIn, it's Dr.
John Finn, um, and just tell meyou've heard you've heard me on
on um the wide circle Jerry'spodcast.
Leading people, yeah, leadingpeople.

(01:00:44):
Leading people, um then I willtell you about our certified
Havant Mechanic coach programmeand the very special deal we're
gonna give people.
Also, you can get the HavantMechanic, or you can you can get
the Haven Mechanic, Train YourBrain for the Air Revolution on
Amazon.
But if you go totougherminds.co.uk, you can get

(01:01:05):
the train your brain for the airrevolution for one dollar plus a
planner as well, so you can putit into practice.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:11):
Okay, and I'll put the links in the show notes.
So, as always, John, thanks forsharing your insights, tips, and
wisdom with us all here today.
Coming up on leading people.
Can artificial intelligencereally help us resolve conflict
at work, in teams, and evenacross nations?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:35):
That was one of the main inspirations behind the
book.
The AI is this tremendouslypowerful tool, and it can be
used for good and it can be usedfor bad.
And unfortunately, I think ourcurrent trajectory is going down
some not so good routes.
And so that's why I wanted towrite the book to spread the

(01:01:55):
word that there is a better wayof using it in order for us to
use it that way.
So the the premise, the corepremise, is that AI is this
tremendously powerful tool.
It can model human best practiceand then make that best practice
more widely available.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:15):
My next guest is Simon Horton, negotiation expert
and author of The End ofConflict: How AI Will End War
and Help Us Get On Better.
In our conversation, Simonexplains how AI could actually
become a force for bettercollaboration, not by replacing
humans, but by helping usunderstand each other more

(01:02:36):
deeply.
It's a fascinating and hopefullook at how technology might
just help us become betterpeople.
And remember, before our nextfull episode, there's another
one simple thing episode waitingfor you.
A quick and actionable tip tohelp you lead and live better.

(01:02:57):
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast.
Until next time.