Change Wired

What if your greatest strengths are secretly holding you back as a leader?  In this illuminating conversation with Dr. Martin Dubin, we uncover the hidden blind spots that prevent even the most successful leaders from reaching their full potential and making forward progress.  We all have blind spots, patterns we don’t notice in ourselves that limit our growth.In this episode of Change Wired, Dr. Martin Dubin, clinical-psychologist-turned-entrepreneur-turned-leadership coach, and author of Blindspotting: How to See What’s Holding You Back as a Leader, shares why blindspots are often the flip side of our greatest strengths, and how leaders can build self-awareness to avoid getting stuck in default behaviors that no longer serve them.  🔑 Main Takeaways  The 6 Blindspots Leaders Face:  Identity – when your role evolves but your self-concept doesn’t  Motive – not seeing the true drivers behind your decisions  Traits – overplaying strengths until they become weaknesses  Emotions – failing to recognize and regulate your own or others’ emotions  Intellect – relying too heavily on one type of intelligence  Behavior – blind spots in communication, influence, and priorities  Strengths become blind spots when they’re overused in the wrong context.  Metacommunication (communicating about the communication) is a powerful way to clear misunderstandings and align intentions with impact.  Five things only a CEO can do: select the team, shape culture, set strategy, decide priorities, and manage key relationships.  Small tweaks matter more than big transformations - like adjusting decisiveness with guardrails or changing the timing of important decisions.  📚 What You’ll Learn  How to uncover blind spots in your leadership and career.  Why emotions are data and how to use them to guide decisions.  The four kinds of intellect leaders should balance in teams.  Practical strategies to align identity, behavior, and motives with the roles you aspire to.  How to use the Blindspotting framework inside your organization to build more effective teams.  📝 Resources   Book: Blindspotting: How to See What’s Holding You Back as a Leader  Blindspot Assessment: https://www.blindspotting.com/assessment  Website: martindubin.com  Connect with Marty on LinkedIn  👤 Marty's Bio:  Martin Dubin is a clinical psychologist, serial entrepreneur, business coach, and adviser to C-suite executives and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. He founded and sold a multimillion-dollar health-care company, served as Vice President at Anthem BCBS, and later became a partner at RHR International, working with Fortune 500 leaders and top venture capital firms.  Marty’s latest book, Blindspotting distills decades of experience into a practical framework for identifying and overcoming leadership blindspots.   Want to grow as a leader faster? Been stuck and not sure why?Tune in and start blinspotting!  Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

Why do our intentions so rarely transform into consistent actions? What prevents our aspirations from becoming achievements?  The answer lies not in willpower or knowledge, but in a crucial missing link that's often overlooked in our pursuit of consistent behavior change.  In this enlightening exploration of human motivation, we uncover the fundamental truth about why behavior doesn't stick until we see the connection between what we need to do and what we deeply care about.   While Simon Sinek popularized "starting with why," we rarely apply this principle to the small, daily actions that ultimately build the next level of ourselves.  Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and years of coaching experience, we examine why educational systems and workplace training programs frequently fail to engage learners. The brain simply doesn't prioritize information or actions without understanding their relevance to our personal values and aspirations. This explains why we can memorize facts for tests but quickly forget them, or why we initially commit to fitness goals but struggle to maintain them.  Through practical examples, we demonstrate how connecting habits like quality sleep, nutrition, and movement to deeper values, such as being present for your children, advancing your career, or maintaining independence as you age, transforms these actions from obligations into priorities. This isn't a one-time exercise but requires ongoing reinforcement, like taking a shower or brushing your teeth.  Whether you're struggling with personal habits, leading organizational change, or simply curious about human behavior, this episode offers a powerful framework for making change stick.  By repeatedly drawing bright lines between your actions and your deepest values, you'll find yourself naturally motivated to do what matters most - no discipline struggles required.  Ready to bridge the gap between your intentions and actions? Listen now and discover how practiving your "why" can transform everything.    Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

Ever feel frustrated when people don't seem to "get" what you're saying? The gap between what you mean and what others hear isn't about your words - it's about metacommunication, the powerful yet often overlooked dimension of human connection.  This episode unveils the science behind why we're frequently misunderstood.  Astonishingly, research shows only 10% of our meaning comes from our actual words, while 30% derives from tone and a whopping 60% from body language. When I deliver feedback like "Your presentation lacked technical depth," the way I frame it completely transforms how it lands - as crushing criticism or as supportive guidance.  Metacommunication is communication about communication, the signals that tell others how to interpret your message. It's what separates a comment that breaks trust from one that builds it. Through vivid examples and research-backed insights, I break down why even smart, articulate people struggle to be understood, and why simply knowing about metacommunication isn't enough to master it.  The heart of this episode is a practical 5-point checklist for effective metacommunication that you can implement immediately. Each element builds on the next, creating a framework that works whether you're leading a team, building relationships, or navigating difficult conversations.  Being understood isn't everything, but it's the first step to anything meaningful.  Master these techniques, and you'll transform not just how you communicate, but how you connect, influence, and lead.  Ready to be understood - truly understood - for perhaps the first time? Listen now, and discover the metacommunication advantage that changes everything.    Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

What if your greatest strengths are secretly sabotaging your success?  This eye-opening exploration delves into the fascinating paradox at the heart of personal development - how our natural talents, when overused or misapplied, become the very blind spots holding us back.  We'll explore the concept through analyzing my CliftonStrengths 34 report - not just learning to see how your blind spots can hold you back but also how you can build simple systems to prevent that from happening.  Drawing from Martin Dubin's groundbreaking book "Blind Spotting" and my personal revelations from the Clifton Strengths Assessment, I share how my top strengths - Learner, Strategic, and Activator - create both extraordinary opportunities and unexpected challenges.  As someone who thrives on continuous knowledge acquisition, I've had to recognize when my love of learning becomes an impediment to action or creates friction in relationships. My strategic thinking allows for rapid pattern recognition but can appear as criticism or confuse others when I don't properly explain my thought process.  Most revealing is my Activator tendency, turning thoughts into immediate action propels progress but leads to hasty decisions I later regret. The practical systems I've developed to counterbalance these tendencies have transformed my effectiveness.  Unlike weaknesses we can typically identify, blind spots remain invisible without external reflection. That's where tools like coaching, assessment instruments, and even AI assistants become invaluable mirrors, revealing patterns we cannot see ourselves. The beauty of this approach lies in its elegance - you don't need to fundamentally change who you are, just create strategic guardrails that harness your natural talents while preventing their downsides.  Share, review, and consider discussing this episode with friends or family to help each other identify blind spots and build systems for more fulfilling, rewarding lives.  What strength might be holding you back without your knowledge?    Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

Have you ever found yourself wondering why you keep making choices that don't align with your goals, despite your best intentions? The answer might surprise you. And it's not about willpower or discipline.  What happened when my family's Wi-Fi unexpectedly died during my parents' visit revealed a profound truth about human behavior. My father, who had been refusing physical activities for days due to arthritis, suddenly suggested a bike ride.  Behavioral scientists have a term for this phenomenon: choice architecture. Research shows that modifying your environment is dramatically more effective at changing behavior than simply trying to exercise more discipline.   This isn't just theoretical, governments worldwide have implemented these principles to encourage everything from increased savings to healthier lifestyles, not by convincing people intellectually but by making the desired choices easier to make. The most powerful environmental factor? Your social circle. The people you surround yourself with shape your decisions even more strongly than your physical surroundings, which explains why joining a group with respected peers is more effective than any solo willpower effort.  The most common mistake I see among intelligent, accomplished individuals is overestimating their capacity for consistent willpower. No matter how smart you are, your brain is fundamentally designed to conserve energy, which means you'll almost always default to the path of least resistance.  The solution isn't to double down on discipline but to strategically redesign your environment so the right choice becomes the ONLY available choice.  Share this episode with someone who needs to hear this message and help us create more positive impact by rating and reviewing the podcast on your favorite platform.  Let's get wired for change!  Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

Ever wondered why changing habits feels like an uphill battle?What if culture change, product design, or even personal transformation wasn’t guesswork but a process as reliable as engineering?In this episode of Change Wired, I sit down with behavioral scientist, author, and “empathetic scientific activist” Matt Wallaert to talk about the science - and the humanity - behind designing change that actually happens.We get into everything from M&Ms to meeting culture, VR boxing to corporate ethics, and why fuzzy words in leadership are killing your results. Matt breaks down how all behavior results from competing forces. Matt demonstrates how small environmental changes can create massive behavioral shifts.Perhaps most fascinating is Matt's insight into organizational change. While companies obsess over changing customer behavior, they often neglect internal behavior design. "Fuzzy leadership language" about wanting "more engaged employees" or "better culture" fails because it doesn't translate to specific, observable behaviors. Matt provides a framework for creating workplaces where people thrive by applying the same rigor to internal behaviors that companies apply to customer acquisition.Whether you're looking to transform personal habits, lead organizational change, or design products that genuinely improve lives, this episode offers effective frameworks for making behavior change systematic, ethical, and effective.We dive into:Why defining specific behaviors is the missing first step in almost every change effortThe difference between naïve behavior change and evidence-based designHow to think about promoting vs. inhibiting pressures (and why it matters more than motivation)Real-life examples from parenting, product design, and internal culture changeEthics in behavioral science: intention–action gaps, autonomy, and long-term thinkingHow leaders can stop hiding behind values statements and start engineering cultures that workIt’s practical. It’s funny in places. And it might just make you rethink the way you design… everything.BIO, Links & Resources MentionedMatt’s Website: mattwallaert.com Free Behavioral Science Course: SIDE Model Training (recently made free)Matt’s book: Start at the End: How to Build Products That Create ChangeConnect with Matt on LinkedInFor almost 20 years, Matt Wallaert has been applying behavioral science to practical problems.  After leaving academia, his career as an executive lead from startups (Thrive, Churnless) to the Fortune 500 (Microsoft, CapGemini) and back again, before founding BeSci.io (Behavioral Science in organizations), where he and the world’s most experienced behavioral science leaders help companies grow applied behavioral science capabilities within their organizations.These days, Matt is the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Oceans, helping to bring high-quality job opportunities to international markets so that talented people don’t have to emigrate to grow. More about Matt Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

The ability to adapt and change has never been more critical than in today's rapidly evolving world. Yet most of us unwittingly sabotage our own cognitive flexibility through one common mistake: keeping yourself stuck in unhelpful thought patterns.  And it starts with sleep...  Sleep isn't merely rest, it's when your brain performs its most sophisticated work.  During those precious hours, your neural networks physically restructure, processing new information and connecting it with existing knowledge. Research consistently shows that sleep-deprived individuals significantly underperform on learning tasks, regardless of whether they involve physical skills or mental concepts. By sacrificing sleep in the name of productivity, you're actually preventing your brain from developing the very flexibility needed to navigate complex challenges, learn and find the most effective solutions.  The most powerful tool for breaking this cycle of not sleeping and being stuck in outdated belief patterns is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT, the basics of which you will learn today). The revolutionary insight of CBT is recognizing how our thoughts directly shape our ability to change and solve novel problems - and how questioning those thoughts can transform it.  Ready to transform your sleep and unlock your cognitive flexibility and learning potential? Tune in, question your thinking and get ready to change.    Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

Let's unlock the secret relationship between your biology and psychology that determines your energy levels, mood, and ability to create meaningful change in your life.   How's your energy each morning? Before coffee? Your ability to have a great sleep most nights? Without meds, Netlix or booze?  THAT determines your quality of life more than anything.  Discover the science-backed morning ritual that naturally optimizes your energy without caffeine or sugar. This simple practice signals your brain's internal clock to produce the perfect cortisol pattern: high in the morning for sustained energy and gradually decreasing to support restful sleep.  Learn why most people experience the opposite pattern (low morning energy, high evening alertness) and how this disrupts everything from immune function to cognitive performance.  You'll also learn surprising energy hacks including the proper timing for melatonin supplementation, how grapefruit naturally extends cortisol effects, and why morning hydration and movement amplify your energy activation.  This episode bridges cutting-edge neuroscience with actionable steps anyone can implement immediately. Whether you struggle with morning grogginess, afternoon slumps, or evening insomnia, these biological interventions create the foundation for optimal performance, mood, and fulfillment.  Ready to charge your biological battery correctly? Your brain, body, and goals will thank you.  Want to transform your energy cycle?  Try Angela's seven-day protocol and experience the difference. Connect on Instagram @AngelaBrainBodyCoach or email info@yourbestculture.com to continue your journey toward optimal energy and meaningful personal growth.  Let's dig in!    Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

You can't force humans to thrive—you have to design for it.”  ~ Anish Padinjaroote  What if the secret to building a thriving workplace culture that builds great companies and humans wasn't about control, but about intentional design and extreme trust, spreading things that work like a virus?  Welcome to a fascinating conversation with Anish Padindrarote, a workplace architect with 23 years of global experience.Anish shares a revolutionary formula for culture change: daily behaviors multiplied by leadership actions, divided by system friction. This simple equation unlocks profound insights into why some workplace cultures succeed while others struggle despite good intentions. His approach challenges conventional wisdom, suggesting we design systems for the 98% of employees who want to contribute meaningfully, rather than focusing on controlling the problematic 2%.  During our conversation, Anish unpacks why most organizations fail at scaling culture, revealing how we should think of culture as something that's "caught, not taught" – requiring contagious behaviors rather than cascading policies. You'll learn why treating employees as adults remains revolutionary in corporate environments and how verbalizing values as actions rather than nouns transforms abstract concepts into lived experiences.  One of the most powerful moments comes when Anish describes the difference between creating a "manicured garden" versus a "regenerative forest" when it comes to culture. The former barely survives storms, while the latter thrives through adaptation and deep-rooted strength.  In the age of AI, Anish offers crucial perspectives on what makes human contribution uniquely valuable and how culture serves as the operating system that enables human-centered approach to work for humans and business.   Whether you're leading a team of five or an organization of thousands, this episode provides practical wisdom for creating magnetic cultures where both people and performance flourish.  🛠️ Some practical tools you’ll learn about:  Weekly Town Halls for scaling trust and transparency  People Advisory Model for transforming managers into leaders  Living Values playbook (with real-life behavioral examples)  Culture Index Score: an emerging framework for measuring cultural health  Microcultures and Culture Stretching vs. “Culture Fit”  Ritual design as behavior design for scaling transformation  ... and more!  Anish's BIO:  A workplace architect and strategist with over 23 years of experience across four continents. Anish, has transformed organizations from nimble startups to global enterprises across Banking, Retail, Energy, and Tech.  He has mastered the art of building high-performance, people-first cultures that drive real business results. From founding a behavioural science + AI startup to seamlessly integrating post-merger teams, he specialize in creating environments where talent thrives and innovation flourishes.   Connect & Follow:   🔗 Anish on LinkedIn  Read Anish's thought-provoking posts on leadership, culture, and the future of work.   If you’re a leader navigating transformation, don’t miss this episode.  Listen now. Reflect later. Grow always.  Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

Feeling stuck in your career or business path? Or unclear? That frustrating thought, "I want to work on interesting projects, and I'm not doing that right now" - might be your wake-up call for change.  This episode unveils four powerful questions from behavioral scientist Matt Wallert that will transform how you approach your next professional chapter. Rather than randomly trying new opportunities, these questions create a framework to filter what truly matters to you. I walk through each question while sharing my personal answers to show how this process works in practice.  The answers will connect to your lived experiences and pain points you've encountered. For me, it revealed two driving themes: helping unlock human potential that's left unexplored and fixing systems that harm rather than help - this method will help you understand driving themes of your life. Understanding these core motivators has changed how I evaluate opportunities.  This framework works equally well for individual reflection or as a group exercise with teams or family members. Try these questions yourself, then share them with someone navigating their own transition.  Time to tune up your career GPS! Tune in!    Text Me Your Thoughts and IdeasSupport the showBrought to you by Angela Shurina Behavior-First, Executive, Leadership and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant