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Introduction
Hi, this is Doug Thorpe, and you’re on another episode of leadership powered by Common Sense. My guest today is a gentleman named Mitchell Weisburgh. Mitchell is a great authority in this space, among many other things. We’ve had a great run up in the green room here. So, without further ado, Mitch, welcome to the show.
Doug, thank you so much for having me. And I love this idea of common sense. my, you know, it’s just that my grandfather used to talk about a Will Rogers quote, and I and I, I’m probably going to butcher it, but, he, you know, Will Rogers called it horse sense. and, you know, it’s. And that was a stable thinking, it’s what asses don’t have. and it’s what keeps a horse from betting on a man.
There we go. I like it. I like it a lot. Well, Mitch, give folks a little bit of background on your journey and how you got into the great work you’re doing now.
Mitchell’s Journey: From Education Technology to Sensemaking
Okay. Well, I’ve. I’ve run a few businesses, and the most recent business before mine shifting was I was advising education publishers on how to expand into schools. And I’ve been doing that for about 15 years. And the my whole purpose of getting into education was that, you know, education should be the gateway for all kids to be able to live successful, happy lives, you know. And, and I felt that technology could help with that. And I was advising firms on my, you know, background and instructional design and, and, and systems. And after 15 years, I’m taking a look and I’m saying, you know, education is not preparing kids any better than it did 15 or 20 years ago. So I’m really not having the impact that that I wanted to have. And at that point I get an email from a university in Niger, not Nigeria, but it’s one of the poorest countries in the world. And that’s 2017. And the email says, we would like an education technology entrepreneur to talk to our undergraduates about education technology.
And I’m thinking, well, first of all, you know, our education technology is going to be very different from theirs. And then, you know, something that’s not what’s going to help these kids. These kids have to start understanding how successful people think, how we how successful people look at situations, how they come back after failure, how they motivate others to follow them. That’s how that’s really what kids should be, should be learning. And so I, I emailed back and said, I don’t think that sense making or sorry, I don’t think that education technology is going to benefit these kids. But if they learned sense making, which is how successful people make sense of the world, that would really help them. And then they responded and they said, well, you know something? Why don’t you come out here for a semester? And I’m like, I don’t think I want to come out there for a whole semester. And so we agreed that I would go out there. we were talking in July of 2017, so I would go out there in February of 2018 and I would teach a two day workshop.
I would teach it twice. There would be 60, 70. I’m calling them kids, but they’re 18 to 25 years old. You know, there’d be 18 to, you know, 60, 70 kids in each one. And then like, you know, like all entrepreneurs, it’s like, you know, you see a problem, you come up with something that’s that, that you think is going to work. You lay it out and at some point maybe somebody says, do it. And then it hits you like, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? And that’s basically what I was in July of 2017. It’s like, I’ve never done this before. You know, I’ve taken courses. you know, I, I teach a lot. You know, I, I advise a lot. So I read 11 books and I read books on psychology, on neuroscience, on cognitive science, on selling, on influence, on military strategy, on economics, all these different fields.
The Three Elements of Sensemaking
And it’s like every field has a, you know, a it has proven methods of how you succeed. But each one is a little bit different. And nobody was nobody had really put it together. So I tried to put this together into basically three elements. one is how the brain works and how we tap into how we could tap into our resourceful parts of the brain, even though we end up in fight and flight mode so often. second is how we should be looking at situations, because we very often look at situations as, you know, there’s one right way to do something. We’re going to do it and it’s going to be successful. And anybody who disagrees with us is wrong. And how many times does that work out? You know, if it’s a big if it’s a it’s a big opportunity or if it’s a big problem, the first thing you do never works. And so you shouldn’t be thinking you’re going to come up with a solution. You should be thinking differently. Like, what can I try so that I can learn? And then the third thing is like, how do we how do we pull other people in? You know, we no matter what we do, we’re going to be working with other people, and some of those people are going to get in our way.
Some of them are going to disagree with us. Some of them are going to resist us. Some of them are going to compete with us. Some are going to try to harm us, some we just won’t like. And our natural methods of dealing with those, very often make the situation worse. Sometimes they help in the short term, but usually in the long term that they don’t help things like rewards and punishments. And very, very often they have no, you know, they, they don’t have an effect at all. But there’s 70 years worth of research on what really works when you’re dealing with other people. So I pulled all that information. I put it into a two day course. I flew out to Niamey, Niger. I start the the two day workshop. And by the way, the the official language in these here is French. So these people had studied English, but I, you know, I built the course so that I could do a little bit of teaching. Then they would break into small groups and they would work together, and then they would come back so that they could get, they could actually try out the materials in, in French.
And then at the end of the two days I’m like, and that’s sensemaking. And they stood up and cheered it, and it was like, oh my gosh, this is this is hitting a nerve that we’re not teaching kids and we’re not even we’re not teaching adults either. And yet when people start learning these, they just see, oh my gosh, you know, this is, this is going to change the way I approach my career. This is going to change the way I approach my job. This is the way I’m going to change the way I approach my friends and my families and my interests and, and, and you learn to become grounded and make much better decisions and not react, you but to take information in and, and choose a response that’s going to help you instead of reacting in a way that, may satisfy a short term need, but is not going to get you where you know, where you want to go.
The State of Education and Critical Thinking
Yeah. You know, you packed a lot in there, and there are many things going through my mind.
Number one. I, I have a great sympathy and empathy for the state of education, particularly here in the US, because a couple of my kids are educators, and they’ve, my daughter’s been at it 23 years, something like that. her husband is likewise an educator. And every time we get together, I hear the war stories of what they’re going through and, and the frustration they’ve got because, none of what’s going on is ultimately what they signed up for. But they’ve been in the system so long now, and with the way the retirement process works and all of that, they’re they’re kind of stuck.
And you go into education because you want to make a difference. That’s right. And so there’s there’s such an attraction to and when it works, you know, even though the systems are against you, when it works, it’s like you get this, this jolt of happy hormones. It’s like I just made a difference in a kid’s life, you know?
That’s right. That’s. And that is exactly what does keep them going.
the other thing that came to mind, you, you talked about the learning with this group, and, that reminded me of a situation several years ago. I had a young lady approached me and she said, I’m thinking about homeschooling my kids. What do you think is some of the most important things I need to teach them? And I said, critical thinking, number one. And she looked at me and she goes, I don’t know what that is.
That was all.
Right, you know, mind blown. So now we’re having a generational hand-off of a lack of knowledge of critical thinking and and how to get there. and I, I do see that, and I, I guess I come full circle with my logic here that I think, you know, part of what I’ve talked to folks about and we have discussed this before on this show, is when you do look at education systems, and I’ve heard it around the world, actually, not just unique to the US, but there’s a certain kind of programming that goes on, starting with the very basics.
A very young child shows up at school and what are they? They’re curious. They haven’t experienced the world yet.
And they love school.
They love it because it’s this constant absorption of opportunity and ideas. And what do we do? We immediately.
Start with.
Sit down. Be quiet. Shut up. You don’t ask the question, you know. And that just stifles that whole creativity. And even if they get a chance to put a little project together, they might get condemned and ridiculed and told how wrong it may be. But you know that that effort and fail is one of the most powerful learning processes that we can experience. Yeah.
Yeah. And in business, you know, like so I know, you know, we’re we’re going off to education. But all of these principles apply to entrepreneurs to, medium business owners to, to team leaders, to team members as well.
Leadership and the Need to Change Your Mind
Absolutely. And and and yes, thanks for bringing us back on the mainstream here. That’s exactly right. And and that is, I think, the takeaway here.
So we can get them back to that original thought there. The idea of if you want to make a difference as a leader, you might have to change your mind about things. And that is, you know, it’s a multi-layered question. I think, you know, first you start with just fundamental. Some people call it the paradigm you’re coming from. You know, what is your worldview? What are your beliefs? What are your, you know, behaviors that you’re bringing to the table? And is there an opportunity to think differently about the challenge in front of you and as a leader? More importantly, are you willing to take in information from others around you? And have you been able to build an environment where that’s encouraged, not discouraged?
Understanding How the Brain Works
So, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, I would love to give a little bit of background into how the brain works and why we’re sure of things. That’s why we react in a certain way. and in, you know, a vastly oversimplified model, you can think of the brain as having kind of a lower part and an upper part, the or a survival part and a resourceful part.
your survival brain, which is generally called your limbic system, was evolved, started evolving in the earliest animals that could move. And the purpose of that brain was to keep the organism alive so that it could reproduce. So if you think about it, that part of the brain has to very quickly take in a limited amount of information to decide what to do for survival and then focus the entire organism on whatever it is that’s been decided, that part of the brain activates in like 2/100 of a second. So in in a second it can cycle through. Is this a danger? Is this not a danger? Should I do this? Maybe this is going to work. Maybe I should do this. And so it’s relying on things that it already knows how to do without thinking very often. Fighting, you know, fleeing, freezing or the, you know, the three initial things, relying on things that we’ve always done or habits or things that we’re fluency in or, copying what other people in our group are, are, are doing.
And it comes to those conclusions in less than, you know, very often less than a second, less than two seconds. And then the other part of the brain really started evolving with mammals. and that’s our resourceful part of the brain. It’s kind of like on the outside, the, the, the cortex or specifically the prefrontal cortex, which is kind of right here. and that’s the part of the brain that does critical thinking, that does creativity, that can empathize with another person. That’s executive function. you know, that’s the part of the brain that we like to think about that makes us that makes us human. But that part of the brain wakes up in 2 to 3 seconds after stimulus. So now think about it. When your limbic brain, your survival brain wake, you know, comes to a decision in less than a second. And then your, your, resourceful parts of the brain, your prefrontal cortex says, oh, here’s the situation. The decision is already made. And so what happens is that prefrontal cortex is called upon to come up with a justification or a Rationalization of what our survival brain has already come up with.
So generally when you ask a person, you know, why did you go to this college? Why did you start a business this way? Why did you have your career? They’ll come up with a reason. But really the reason was that their their link system, their survival brain looked at something, thought it was a threat or not a threat, came up with something that it could quickly do and then sent to their prefrontal cortex. Okay, now rationalize this in the prefrontal cortex, rationalize that that limbic part of the system is binary. So things are either yes or no. It’s either a danger or not a danger. You’re either right or you’re wrong. There’s nothing in between. And when that gets challenged at all, it regards that as a danger. And so it then starts flooding your, your, your brain with these, fear hormones, your cortisol and adrenaline, those hormones, you know, enhance our ability to react to danger, but also inhibit our ability of the prefrontal cortex to, to activate.
So the prefrontal cortex is incapable of critical thinking. It’s incapable of being creative. It’s incapable of taking in new information that contradicts what we’ve already decided on. and so it’s basically just rationalizing and focusing on whatever the action was that the limbic system has decided on. What are the implications of that is that whenever you are 100% sure of something, that’s your limbic system.
Communication Techniques for Leaders
Interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. Well, you know, much of what you’ve said there, I have used in some of my own coaching, and I use a very simple and practical, suggestion for my clients. So take all that that you said. And from a leadership standpoint, to me, the the first immediate challenge is when you are talking to one of your people, what are you as a leader saying or doing that is triggering that limbic system to go fight, flight, fear, freeze, you know? Yes. No.
Yeah, that’s just it. If you’re a leader and you’re talking to a person, and that person is suggesting something different from what you’ve already decided on, it’s not like you’re actively thinking what you’re going to do.
Your limbic system is saying, this person is putting you down, they’re disrespecting you, and you need to put them in their place. Yeah. And you know, like and I’m verbalizing this, it’s a non-verbal thing, but it’s basically saying you’re being threatened. Attack back. You’re right. They’re wrong. And so it’s not that you’re thinking these things, it’s that that’s what your your survival brain is doing to you. What you do have the capacity is when you understand that your survival brain works that way, you can start thinking, wait a minute, I’m thinking this person is wrong and I’m right. Probably that’s because of my survival brain. Why don’t I focus in a little bit? I wonder what they’re seeing that I’m not seeing. And you could start asking yourself questions to open yourself up. And by asking those questions, you’re just you’re you’re combating the the effects of the of the survival brain. You’re dampening the effects of the cortisol and adrenaline. And you’re you’re building on your capacity. You’re being curious.
open, maybe even playful.
Right. Well, the technique that I recommend leaders consider is when they are having discussions, whether it’s with an employee, a customer, a vendor, a stakeholder, whoever the classic Mo right now that that people get into your you’re having a dialogue with somebody, you hear them say something and you say, yeah, but blah blah blah. You know, you know, and it’s that. But that becomes the trigger word that I believe and I studies, I’ve read do in fact agree that that’s a trigger that does activate that limbic brain saying, all right. You know, now we’re in protection mode. I’ve just been challenged the but is the challenge the the pivot that is helpful is to say yes. And there’s something else we need to talk about.
Yep, yep. yes. But I’m going to disagree with that. No I’m just kidding okay. Because you know, you could you could just see very quickly in your face as soon as my. Yes, but it’s like this person is challenging me, right? And everything that yes meant nothing because the.
But it just indicates that what I wanted to say was what I was going to say and is going to discount everything that you said. But what you said was absolutely right on its, you know, the verbal habit we get into of. Yes, but it kind of inflames the situation. Yes. And here’s an additional thing. Or, the technique that, you know, I talk about in my book is, is a variation of. Yes. And which is the what I like about that. So you say something, you know, that other person is probably going to say a yes, but to whatever you said. And so you’re going to be tempted to say, this person is challenging me, but if you can like back out of that and say, you know something, I know that that’s the that’s, you know, a human animalistic survival response, but I’m going to be above that. And so you so you concert in what they said and then you come back with, you know, what I like about that is and you repeat something that you found helpful in what they said.
And then you open up. And, you know, I was also thinking, and so you’re adding to that idea and that’s just a variation on your. Yes. And.
Right. I think at the root of it is, is the whole idea of keeping it inclusive and bolting on and adding on to the discussion rather than chopping it up. And, you know, ex no on this one and yes, on that one. And you know, keep it going that way.
And my guess is that when you get when you’re coaching leaders and you teach them those techniques, they become much better leaders because they don’t feel like they have to be right all the time. They’re involving they’re they’re they’re people and they’re building a team, and they’re going into one of the later stages of of, you know, being an organization, not being a one man shop.
Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
Right? Totally, totally agree, You know, and I guess I’m going to ask you while we’re on this. To me, this bleeds into the hot topic that still is is out there in the business world, the idea of emotional intelligence.
So this whole ability to as an individual for as a leader to rise above what your limbic brain is trying to grab you and, and take you, you know, out of the situation rising above that, you know, the the very essential meaning of emotional intelligence, as I understand it, is simply that awareness, you know, elevating the awareness of where you need to be and and properly and more productively assessing the situation you might be in. And ultimately, in this case, what we’re talking about controlling that natural response mechanism and say, no, we don’t need to do that right now. Let’s, let’s, let’s keep this discussion going.
Yep. And nobody keeps you know, nobody gives us a driver’s manual on how to drive our brain. You know, we just. We think that we know, you know, how to think and how to critically think, but the. But, you know, when you start understanding, as you said, you know, emotional intelligence, how does the limbic brain stop us from making the decisions that would really help us in the long term? And then how do I back out of that, so that I can tap into my own resourcefulness and the resourcefulness of the people around me? That’s real emotional intelligence, right?
Yeah.
So I’m guessing if there’s somebody if they’re still listening to us or sitting there going, those guys are whacked. You know, we are. They don’t.
Right? They’re right. We are whacked. So there you go.
There. They’re saying they don’t get it. I am the way I am. I’ve learned the hard way. This is how you do this work or this is how this industry runs and this is what we need to do. And you know, I’m I fundamentally and I don’t mind saying it publicly. I’m sad for those people, I really am, because I find that the world is such a bigger place. You know, there’s so many more possibilities and ideas out there for that. Do you have any words of wisdom for that guy that’s kind of locked in on what he thinks and believes about everything around him?
Helping Others Change
It’s it’s it’s a hard thing because, you know, as you know, having coached people that we can’t change other people we can. We’re responsible for the way we act and the way we think.
We can provide some conditions so that make it easier for another person. It’s kind of like a coaching or co regulating. But in the end analysis, they they’re the only ones who can open up their minds. Now If they’re looking at whatever their situation is and saying, you know something? I’m really happy with my business. My business is doing what I want to do, that I’m working with the people I want to work with. I’ve got the customers that I want. I’ve got the family that I want. I’ve got the friends that they want. If they’re happy, well, that’s what life is all about. So if all those things are going right and they’re absolutely sure, you know, like on those, you know, that’s that’s great. Okay. My guess is there’s a certain ambiguity there. And you’re thinking, you know, I’m doing all these things right. Yeah. But you know, these idiots that I’m working with, they’re just stopping my business from going forward. And these customers, they’re just wrong.
They don’t understand what the real problems are. I’m the one who understands the problems. And I could just. I just like to say if is if is if you’re noticing these ambiguities, these things that aren’t fitting into your model, then then it’s time to probably use somebody external to help the coach you or prod you into how to think about these things a little bit differently so that you can get into the state of, you know, something, you know, yes, there’s challenges in my business, but I’m with a great bunch of people and we’re and we’re doing well. And, and, and things are going well with my family and things are going well in my personal life. So I think very often you need an outside person to, to help you, but you yourself have to come to the realization that, you know, some things aren’t working and somehow or other, you know, I have to, I, I want to change because I want to be more fulfilled, and, and more powerful and be surrounded by the people that I want to be around.
Managing Different Types of Team Members
Right. Well, and I think there’s somewhat, at least from my humble opinion and, a reality out there in the world. And I’m getting ready to talk about workforce management and the very broad brush generalization I’m getting ready to say, and I have said it before, and I get mail when it happens, but that’s okay. my observation is if you’ve got a team of any size, all of your people fall into buckets. It’s it’s you might think of it as a little bit of a bell curve, but I don’t see it as being quite that, dominant in the middle. And what I’m saying is everything is divided into thirds. A third of your people are going to be rock stars. They’re going to be your A players, your high performers, self-motivated, self-starting. Give them a task. They’ll they’ll do it better than you can ever imagine, etc. then you’ve got the middle group that they’re okay. You you can define a job to them, give them a task, and they’re going to deliver.
And, you’re seldom going to see them go really the any kind of extra mile, but they’re going to be solid. You can generally rely on them, which on one hand is not bad. Back to your person that’s happy with their their job, their family, their life situation. And and they just choose to operate in that middle zone. Great. More power to them. Then you got the last third. And those are the guys that are they’re going to challenge everything. Challenge systems, rules. Customers are always going to be a fight and a challenge. And, you know, that’s where from a leadership standpoint, thinking about and dealing with all three segments is where some of the art of leadership really comes in, right? it it’s not all science when you’re trying to deal with people in those different areas. What I tell leaders, number one, you can’t forget the first group. You can’t forget your aid players. You can’t take them for granted. That’s the worst thing you can do.
Because if they’re salespeople, you can’t reduce their compensation. That’s like, I can’t tell you how many. I mean, you’ve probably seen how many times that you’re thinking, oh my gosh, these salesperson, they’re earning more than I have than I am. I have to either cut their territory, I reduce their commissions. It’s like, no, you want to reward them because you want them producing even more, right?
That’s right. And the the problem is, if you mistreat them in any way, shape or form, they’re going to be the first to go. Why? Because they can. And you know, they’ve got the resume and the horsepower to to convince somebody else to take them in. The middle group is still you know, some people ask me, well, shouldn’t I work to elevate them up to the first group? Well, yes. I think you definitely need to be on top of assessments and development plans and all of those things to see how they’re doing. But I hate to tell you people that’s likely not going to happen.
Every once in a while, you’ll get somebody that’ll rise out of that group. Maybe it’s a live situation for them or something, or a light bulb going off. A certain degree of maturity that kicks in and then they they go, oh, I think I could do more here. I think I will step up, but that’s more rare than it is common. And so I think it’s a it’s a challenge to think about applying a lot of time and effort to develop those people into a players, not to give up on them by any means. But I’m just saying don’t create a false hope that that’s going to happen. And then the the last group is the one where, you know, it really is a challenge. And, trying to see how you can mitigate the, the, the slips and fails and things that aren’t happening as you need them to be. And you might go so far as to go back to the Jim Collins thinking, you know, do I have the right people on the bus and, and and be proactive in making that happen? Because if you don’t deal with that bottom third the right way, you’re going to impact the top third.
Right?
Right.
When they go on Apple theory. Right. Yeah. You know, one right. One rotten apple can affect the infect the entire bunch. Right.
Closing Thoughts and Contact Information
Right, right. So totally true. Well, Mitch, I think we’re about up on time for today. Tell folks the best way to get Ahold of you.
so basically. Well, I have the website mind shifting with Mitch com so people can reach me there. my book is mind shifting. My first book, mind shifting. Stop your brain from sabotaging your happiness and success. So that deals with the, the techniques and the science behind how you quiet your survival parts of the brain in order to tap into your resourceful parts of the brain. And my second book will be out in November 2025, and that’s on conflict and collaboration. And that’s all about how we the effective ways that we can work with others when we’re selling them, teaching them, coaching them, you know, dealing with people who may or may not agree with us and we may or may not like, but where we know we have to accomplish some things and we just can’t get rid of them, we can’t walk over them.
We have to find ways of working with them. But all of that, you’ll find out on my website. Mind shifting with Mitch Comm.
Great. Well, as always, folks, we’ll have that link in the show notes and also a link for the book. So, be sure to check that out when you get to a safe place where you can look at the show notes. But, one last time, Mitch, thanks for sitting in. Really appreciate the dialogue here.
Yeah. Doug, thank you for a really interesting conversation. And, I have to say, you know, your your customers to get the type of coaching from somebody like you. They’re very lucky.
Well, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Well, folks, I want to remind you, we do have a video version of this show over on YouTube channel by the same name. Leadership powered by common sense. Hop over there. Check out our archives. Let me know if you’ve got an idea of it for a topic or a guest that we should be talking to.
I would love to hear from you and get get your take on what’s going on here. If you need anything from me. Go to my website at Doug Thorpe and there’s a opportunity for a free discovery call. I’d love to meet with you one on one. Just chat about your situation, see what’s going on. But with that, we’re going to wrap this up. Say goodbye. Go out there and make it a great day.
Guest Info
Mitchell Weisburgh helps high-achieving leaders escape survival-mode traps that sabotage creativity and resilience. Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and strategy, he created the Mind Shifting Method—a practical system for rewiring the brain for calm authority and collaborative success. Through his courses, books, and soon-to-launch app, Mitchell equips leaders to operate from strength—not stress—and build legacies without burnout.
Links
- Website: mindshiftingwithmitch.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mweisburgh
- Instagram: instagram.com/weisburghm
- Twitter/X: x.com/weisburghm
- Substack: substack.com/@mweisburgh
Connect with Doug Thorpe
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougthorpe/
- Doug Thorpe Website: https://dougthorpe.com/
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- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dougthorpe_com
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