Alright, Reader, let's roll.

I was talking with a new friend the other day—someone I met through social media who has an interesting backstory. Not long ago, he was hit by a vehicle while cycling. For a few minutes, it killed him.

Then he came back.

From that experience, he's developed three questions that he randomly asks people on phone calls, while riding his bike, in line at the coffee place:

1. What's the hardest thing you've ever done?
2. Was the juice worth the squeeze?
3. What did it teach you?

My friend's questions have gotten 383 responses so far… and they got me thinking about the hardest things I've had to go through. Not the worst—the hardest.

And what struck me was this: After eight years of thinking I had my shit together, after eight years of dry sobriety, I had to admit that a significant portion of me had been operating on autopilot. There were patterns I couldn't see, motives I wasn't examining, stories I was telling myself that had absolutely nothing to do with reality.

I was basically living a double life, running two different operating systems simultaneously while maintaining the appearance of having things figured out.

Huzzah... We've arrived at #3 Shift Happens. Cue up that yoga instructor from central casting telling us "thank yourself for honoring your inner content creator. We get to do this." (Did someone forward this to you and you're keen for more? Subscribe ​here​.)

The Circus Inside the Operating System

What I learned was that there's an underlying operating system running beneath our conscious operating system—what neuroscientists call the Default Mode Network. Using an ocean analogy, the DMN is 20 meters below the surface. It's constantly maintaining our sense of self, weaving our experiences into a coherent story, and running background simulations of how others see us.
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I have spoken with enough psychologists, neuroscientists, and clients to learn that none of us is as self-aware as we want to believe.

Here's the thing, Reader: the DMN doesn't give a damn about your actual capabilities. It's still running programs from when you were 12, or when you bombed that presentation in 2018, or when someone told you that you "think too much" or "need to be more strategic."

At around 11 or 12 years old, I made a conscious decision to lock down my emotional energy. There was volatility at home, financial stress, uncertainty. I'd been an anxious kid with big emotions, but I became uncomfortable with uncomfortable emotions. So I started training myself to compartmentalize everything.

Once you train that stuffing muscle, you get really good at pushing things down. Pack it away. Get over it. Put on the calmest of exteriors. Move on.

Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving along.

But here's what I didn't realize: my Default Mode Network was continuously updating my self-model based on this new data. "I am someone who doesn't feel," it decided. "I am someone who handles everything through thinking."

For much of my professional life, I was the guy who brought calm presence to chaos. My Myers-Briggs, which I only take with a grain of salt, was INTJ—heavy on the capital T thinking. I'd ingrained that into my identity. It was a point of pride to be the guy who might save the day.

That compartmentalization was a strength… until it became a liability, like a chronically strained muscle.

Nobody needs a superhero. But nobody told me that either.

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The Stories We Tell (That We Don't Even Know We're Telling)

Most insanely capable people I work with have a similar pattern. They've built something substantial through talent, perseverance, and a particular set of strengths. But somewhere along the way, the Default Mode Network started running programs that have absolutely nothing to do with their current reality:

• "I need to prove I belong here" (despite a track record that clearly shows they do)
• "I can't let them see me uncertain" (despite uncertainty being part of leadership)
• "I have to be the one with answers" (despite the best leaders asking better questions)
• "If I slow down, everything falls apart" (despite speed often creating the very friction they're trying to escape)
• "I'm not doing as well as I used to; I need to push harder" (despite still only having the same hours in the day and working past capacity)

My DMN was constantly constructing an autobiographical narrative where I was the calm, rational problem-solver. It was running social simulations where others needed me to be the reliable one. It was generating future scenarios where showing emotion would equal weakness.

All of this was happening below conscious awareness, but it was driving my behavior (and identity) for decades.

I came across this quote from Marc Lesser's book Finding Clarity that captures what I'm getting at:

"The fulcrum of human development is how we approach changing limiting and mistaken beliefs and shifting our identity. If we shift one small misunderstanding about ourselves, our identity, and even our whole world might shift. We might change from someone who writes to being a writer, from someone who is impatient to a good listener."

Sometimes the hardest shift isn't changing what you're doing. It's about shifting your awareness of what's actually running the show underneath your conscious decision-making.

Two Lines of Sight

Back when I coached cycling, I'd talk about training two kinds of vision. Out of your peripheral awareness, you needed to see what's immediately around you—potholes, other riders, traffic. But you also had to train your distance vision—what's up the road, what bigger obstacles are coming.

I realized there are two lines of sight we need in our regular lives too. One eye is scanning the externals—market conditions, relationship dynamics, upcoming deadlines. The other eye needs to be looking internally at what's actually running the show underneath.

Most insanely capable professionals get really good at scanning the externals for threats. We're data-driven, strategically minded, operationally focused. But the internal line of sight? That's where we miss the most important information, the stuff we store in the shadows.

The Default Mode Network is a circus with a bunch of monkeys pulling the levers of our motives, our thinking patterns, our behavioral instincts. It's largely self-serving and self-directed. We can't really see or hear it at a conscious level, but it's running our lives.

That's where our actual ground truth lives—not in our CV, accolades, or strategic plans, but in the unconscious operating system that determines how we show up.

What's Actually Running Your Show?

Here's what's particularly insidious about this: the more capable you become, the more sophisticated your Default Mode Network gets at manufacturing the story.

You're not failing. You're not incompetent. You're insanely capable. But you might be operating from an outdated operating system that's creating unnecessary friction.

Do you know what a really talented music producer does?

They help artists find their voice, their identity, their sound without imposing their own identity on top of it.

Most of us are trying to be our own producer while we're still figuring out what our voice actually is. We're coaching ourselves based on the operating system we think we have, not the one that's actually running.

The more experienced we are the more we're convinced our operating beliefs are accurate and true... even though they may no longer work.

The Default Mode Network doesn't go away. But when you start to see it, when you develop that internal line of sight, you can begin to work with it instead of being unconsciously controlled by it.

You start to notice when you're operating from conscious choice versus unconscious programming. When you're accessing your full range of gears versus just grinding in the familiar ones.

Strategic resets begin with shifts in awareness, perspective, and story.

That juice, Reader, is worth the squeeze.

Four Questions for Tuning Internal Sight

If any of this resonates, here are four questions I use to tune my internal line of sight. Try answering these at the same time each day:

1. What's one thing I believe about myself? (You'll notice it when your inner voice uses phrases like: "I should...," "I am...," "I need to...," "I've got to...")
2. Who or what started that belief in the beginning?
3. How can I let go of or reframe that one belief to better serve me?
4. What's one thing I can be grateful for right now?

The shift isn't a one-time event. It's an ongoing practice of checking whether you're operating from conscious choice or unconscious programming.

Shift → Observe → Adapt → Repeat.

Whether you're accessing your full range of gears or just grinding in the familiar ones.

One more power question for you:

What patterns keep showing up in your professional life that might be coming from your Default Mode Network rather than your conscious choices?

Shift happens,

Bryan

PS - For whatever reason, Murray🐈 and I typically learn more about life, business, and creativity from music and art documentaries than we do from annoying business and productivity books. Here's a long, but great, video interview with Adam Duritz on the story of his band, Counting Crows. Pay attention to his distinction between the hobbyist and the artist. WATCH HERE.