Why can't we do the things we say we are going to do?

Podcast Episode 8

In this episode of Tiny Shifts, Andrew Nunn shares the core ideas behind his leadership keynote speech, Mind the Gap. Drawing from his work speaking on stages across Australia, Andrew explores one of the biggest questions facing leaders, teams and individuals:

If we know what we need to do, why do we still struggle to do it?

This episode breaks down the hidden gap between intention and action. Andrew explains how our behaviour is often driven not by logic or knowledge, but by the stories we tell ourselves, our need for psychological safety, and the mental shortcuts our brains use to protect us from discomfort.

Using examples from performance psychology, cognitive bias research, stress mindset studies and his own experience as a keynote speaker, mentalist and new father, Andrew shows how leaders can better understand resistance, fear and follow-through.

He also shares a practical tool from his keynote — the GO Method — designed to help people interrupt automatic behaviour, respond with more awareness, and take action aligned with who they want to become.

This episode is for leaders, teams, speakers, professionals and anyone interested in mindset, behaviour change, communication and performance under pressure.

What you’ll learn in this episode

Why people often fail to follow through, even when they know exactly what to do
How leadership performance is shaped by identity, beliefs and internal stories
What cognitive dissonance is and why discomfort often blocks change
How the brain uses biases and heuristics to stay safe and conserve energy
Why your belief about stress can change how stress affects your body
A better way to handle performance anxiety before speaking or presenting
How to reframe fear as preparation rather than a threat
A practical framework to help leaders move from awareness to action

Key topics covered

Leadership mindset
Behaviour change
Cognitive dissonance
Stress beliefs
Performance psychology
Identity and self-story
Bias and decision-making
Public speaking anxiety
Communication under pressure
The GO Method
Personal growth
Mindset shifts for leaders

Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome back to Tiny Shifts

00:30 – Becoming a father and a major life perspective shift

01:45 – Why this episode matters and the question behind Andrew’s keynote

02:10 – Why do we know what to do but still fail to do it?

03:35 – Introducing the idea of “Mind the Gap”

04:20 – The role of magic, perception and audience reactions

05:20 – Cognitive dissonance and why discomfort matters

06:40 – The three things inside the gap: stories, safety and bias

07:05 – How identity stories shape behaviour

08:10 – Anxiety, ADHD and the danger of over-identifying with labels

09:20 – Why changing your story can change your experience

09:45 – Safety, resistance and fear of discomfort

10:25 – Steven Pressfield and the idea of resistance

10:50 – Stress research and why beliefs about stress matter

12:35 – Performance anxiety and the problem with trying to stay calm

13:05 – A better way to reframe fear before speaking

14:10 – Difficult conversations, meetings and internal stories

15:00 – Why this is not about denial or fake confidence

16:00 – How the brain uses shortcuts to protect you

17:00 – Biases, heuristics and the illusion that we are objective

18:10 – Why smart people are often better at rationalising bias

19:20 – Making hidden bias visible through live audience experience

20:00 – Why change is so difficult in daily life

20:20 – Daniel Kahneman and automatic thinking

20:50 – Introducing the GO Method

21:10 – G = Ground yourself

21:30 – Procrastination, avoidance and the stories we tell ourselves

22:00 – Time, mortality and Oliver Burkeman’s 4,000 Weeks

23:00 – Why fear often increases when something matters

23:35 – O = Override

24:20 – Pattern interrupts and the role they play in behaviour change

25:00 – Using identity and language to break old habits

26:00 – Applying the GO Method to health, leadership and everyday decisions

26:45 – Final reflections on the keynote, the podcast and the book Andrew is writing

28:15 – Subscribe, share and what’s coming next

Transcript Editor Embed

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00:01:996|Andrew|Welcome back or welcome to the tiny shift podcast. am your host, Andrew Nunn. This is episode number eight or seven. I realized that I have fallen behind a little bit. do apologize. So the last few weeks have been pretty crazy. So obviously at the start of the year, I committed to doing a podcast and then I became a father. So huge news, super exciting. It's been a crazy few weeks to be honest.
02:06:170|Andrew|in this episode, exactly what I stand up on stage and deliver to the leaders, obviously without the sort of experience, but I want to break down the sort of idea, concepts. So hopefully by the end of this episode, you understand that the core question I'm trying to sort of get people to question right now is this. We know what we need to be doing. We know the goals, we know the habits, we know the systems, but why can't we do it?
03:39:308|Andrew|intelligence even, I think it's the stories we tell ourselves, not just that, not just those stories, but there's a gap between our expectations and what happens and what we do. So where we want to be in our life and what we're doing on a daily basis. And I want to highlight this gap, bring awareness to it. And I call it mind the gap. That's what my keynote is about. Today we're going to be delivering that.
06:02:574|Andrew|So I try and demonstrate and show people this cognitive dissonance and this is an automatic response that happens. It actually feels quite uncomfortable. It's like a, I call the term, coined the term sort of wonderfully uncomfortable when it comes to magic. But this happens when you're learning something new, you know, when you're trying to sort of learn a new task or take some piece of information and try and assimilate it and trying to get inside of your minds. And it can be quite difficult.
08:29:871|Andrew|is that anxiety is part of you. So then when you go throughout the world, you're going to respond in certain situations with this level of anxiety. And it's so fascinating how your beliefs and the stories you have can have a profound impact on your experience. And we just have to look at things like the placebo effect to fully understand it.
10:23:920|Andrew|pieces of research that have been done. And one of them is in terms of there was 30,000 people who were asked two questions in the last 12 months. Have you experienced levels of stress? And then people go yes or no. And then they did some follow-up questions and essentially they would follow up with these people.
12:38:234|Andrew|Did a research, Harvard research essentially was talking about how performance anxiety before you step on stage, and I'm sure I've spoken about this in previous episodes, but before you step on stage, that idea of fear and how to handle it, a lot of people's advice would be just take deep breaths, take deep breaths and be calm, just calm yourself before you go on stage.
14:41:485|Andrew|Your mind just adapts a little bit differently. Your approach, you feel a bit calmer and you can deliver something that's a bit more authentic. It's not about, this is an important point. This is not about being delusional. Okay. It's not about being like denying the situation.
17:03:972|Andrew|Well, that conscious awareness is about 40 bits of information. So in order for you to make really quick decisions in these moments, because the truth is we can't make decisions like slow decisions. Your brain has evolved to make really quick decisions for a reason, to survive, to keep you alive.
19:21:384|Andrew|and, this time when they demonstrate the magic, I want them to think about those cognitive dissonance, how they're trying to grab onto things that are comfortable and what are the biases that come into play. And then finally, to wrap it all up, with my, my sort of I try and deliver something that's practical, a tool that they can take away.
21:43:450|Andrew|go, I know what, this is a problem that future me can deal with. Future me will be able to lose weight. That's what we sort of rationalize of ourselves. We decide that now doesn't matter. And Oliver Berkman in 4,000 weeks, he demonstrates this beautifully with a picture of every single week on a chart and you color them in.
23:51:232|Andrew|And if I can, I'll place that video in here so you get to watch it. And she talks about this thinking about your thinking, you need to think about your thinking like a scientist, you need to question it, you need to judge it. And this is what this is about. This Go method is a real practical tool that you can implement straight away to sort of help them.
25:50:702|Andrew|We need to stop before you get to that point and you rationalize yourself out of it and you need to be like, Yippee, I'm going to be healthy for summer or Yippee, I'm, you know, going to, I'm a healthy person or, or whatever it is, you know, you're the goal that you've got the reason, whatever reason you're trying to lose weight, if that's what you're trying to do. but it's about doing that interrupt that override.
28:20:304|Andrew|like yourself. if you again, if you did take anything away from this episode and you think it's helpful, insightful, and as somebody who you think could really help it, please subscribe, please like, or share it with a friend because the only way I'm going to be able to grow this podcast and get more, I want to bring some guests on is if we have more subscribers. So that's one thing I've noticed. So make sure you are subscribed.

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