In part 1 of this episode, we discuss the importance of reframing goals to be present-focused, which helps individuals value healthy habits in the moment, with speaker, trainer, and coach George Anderson. George introduces the DASH framework (diet, activity, sleep, hydration) as a quick-win strategy to build routines and boost energy, sharing specific examples of positive results from his clients. Additionally, George explains how his Mindset Boost app's self-diagnostic assessment can identify areas for cultivating different mindsets to improve performance and growth.

Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast.

We're thrilled to have George Anderson here today. Welcome

George. Thank you for coming along.

Great to be here.

Thank you and George. You're a performance coach, and

you help individuals and organizations as they think

about their own performance and the energy and focus and mindset

and all of those things that will help them be essentially

better and more successful, and we're going to unpick that in

the discussion today. So very much looking forward to that, as

is customary on the Growth Workshop Podcast, we like to ask

our guests a sort of interesting question, I guess, to kick us

off. And today, what we'd like to understand from you, George

is, if you could choose two people to be on your personal

board of advisors, so those who would advise you in your

personal life, who would those people be, and why? And they can

be anyone from celebrities, well known people, individuals that

only you know. Who would those two people be?

I love this question because it it's

something that I know I'm going to take away from and reflect

even more deeply on after the podcast today, when you ask me,

but I think I have got a couple but one person who actually is

on my virtual board of advisors already. And one person who is

somebody who I would, I would love to have access to his

brain. The person who already know is a guy called Jerry Duffy

who has been, I've worked with him many years. He's a speaker,

and he's, he used to be very, very successful endurance

athlete as well, and he didn't do so much of that now, but he

was the first person I ever came across who had done a ridiculous

ultra endurance challenge. Did 10 Iron Mans in 10 days, which

is just like the mind boggling. So I got in touch with him, and

I interviewed him, I got to know him, and we became close

friends, and he actually inspired me to then go and do my

first big Ultra challenge, which is sounds nothing in comparison,

but I did 10 marathons in 10 days a couple of years later,

and Jerry was very much instrumental in coaching and

inspiring me and mentoring me through that process. And he has

been very helpful to me over the years as I've been building my

business as well. So it's the very kind of sage advice I get

from Jerry.

And what about the second person?

Well, the second person is a bit of a I am

a bit of a fan boy of and it's another podcast host Andrew

Huberman from the Huberman lab, and I've been listening to his

podcast for the last few years, and just absolutely love his

approach. Is the way he's so methodical about obviously,

very, very clued up. If anybody is a fan of the human lab,

they'll know he's very, very detailed. I love the questions

that he asks, and I can just imagine him being an advisor and

just calling me out on anything that didn't quite make make

sense and and just ask me those important questions that I'd

have to really stop and think and give you a proper

consideration to. So yeah, Andrew human, he'd be my second

board of advisors.

That's brilliant, it sounds like a great balance, and

it's almost, I guess, linked back to what it is that you do

and how you help people in those two sides of things. I know when

we first met, you were sharing with us the connection between

physical well being and mental well being and and how important

that is. So maybe you could just describe for the audience,

George, a little bit about what you do and how you help people.

And then I know we've got a kind of fun, fun exercise, as it

were, that we're going to go into around Jonny and my own...

Slightly nervous, may I say...

I came into doing what I'm doing now, which

is, as you said, helping individuals, teams,

organizations, with performance. And there are many different

facets of performance. It could be around resilience, could be

around motivation or mindset or even one of the big things that

I spend a lot of time working with people now on, which is

energy. How do you create that? That energy, physical, mental,

emotional energy that gives you this foundation so that you can

access those tools of resilience and mindset and motivation. And

I came into this through the route of personal training,

which I started off doing 20 plus years ago, worked with lots

and lots of clients, and I really found that the people who

were best able to stick with the changes that they were making

were the ones who weren't just connecting what they were doing

to their goals in the future, but rather to the impact it was

Having on them right now, like when they were exercising a bit

more, eating a little bit better, sleeping a little bit

more as well. They were just feeling better, and they were in

a better mood. They had a better outlook. They were more

optimistic. They had better relationships. They were telling

me these things, and 20 years ago, I didn't really fully

appreciate or acknowledge the significance of it, but I just

noticed that they were the ones who are the most motivated, and

found it easiest to stick to those, those habits. So that's

what I try and bring now to the audiences and teams that I work

with.

Wow. Brilliant. Love to as we dive into the

conversation, I'd be curious to think about how long it takes

some individuals to get there, and I know for my own, my own

journey as well. I think, I imagine, lots of our listeners

are probably in the same boat where actually it's quite hard

to connect what you're doing right now to how you how it's

really making a change and a difference in your in your life,

and it's maybe easier to look back over time and reflect on

how that feels. So it's I'm curious to explore that a little

bit further, but I think we'll do that after after first. First

of all, we look at the results of mine and Jonny's own

performance mindset survey. So on George's website, there is a

link to the performance mindset score. And Jonny and I, just

before we started recording this podcast, undertook the survey,

and we have our performance mindset scores.

It's 48 questions, and the website is

bygeorgeanderson.com.

That's subliminal, By George. By

George...

48 questions, takes about five to seven minutes to

complete, and then what comes back is a score. We're about to

tell you the score, what we've got back, and you're gonna,

we're all gonna watch George's reaction when we give our score.

I'm intrigued this because I was watching you

do it and seeing the changes of expression on your faces as

well, and even like you were even complaining about how you

said it would take five minutes...

So we're about to read out our scores, and then

George, you're gonna give us a little bit of coaching on these

scores as we go through over the next few minutes. Who's gonna go

first?

You are, Jonny.

Ah, right? George, the response here, so my overall

score out of 100 is 67.

Well, it's okay, right? It's not a

disaster. But we go into the four different mindsets as well.

So what tell us what the mindset score results were for the

individuals as well.

So I'll start with the lowest stress advantage

mindset, which when doing the questionnaire was was one of the

things that I thought about the most. 58% adaptive resilience

mindset. 63% growth mindset, should be better. 71% and then

self leadership mindset, which I you know, when answering the

questions felt right, was 76%.

I think, probably worthwhile briefly

explaining what each of those four mindsets are slightly from

the bottom, that stress advantage mindset really is this

a set of kind of thought processes around how you

perceive pressure and stress, and it doesn't mean you have to

Enjoy the feeling of stress, but those with a higher stress

advantage mindset tend to to thrive and to form better under

pressure, because it's almost the signals are that him, I'm

rising to the occasion here and and the way you frame stress can

really make a significant difference to how you then

perform when you are under the pressure of deadlines or You've

just had some kind of rejection or setback, and you really need

to get that deal through. That can really make a difference.

Unpacking a little bit. But just for the listeners,

stress concerns me. Stress actually builds anxiety in me.

So when I read the question, because of the history of

anxiety and depression in my family, I looked at the

questions going, I don't want to be anywhere near that word

stress, so I wonder if it has any of that impact.

Interesting, because it does actually make a

difference the way you frame the word stress, and even thinking

about the word pressure might be more aspirational to you. It's

motivational. So this is pressure, and I perform under

pressure. There's the wonderful Billie Jean King quote that

pressure is a privilege, and seeing that, okay, I'm in this,

but I've got an opportunity here to there's a reason why I'm in

this situation with this pressure, because I can do this.

So that's the first one. What was next? Some stress

advance....

Adaptive resilience design set 63%.

Yeah, this is really your ability to manage

and navigate and adapt to change. So when things don't go

the way you wanted them to, or things happen around you, and it

could feel like it's happening to you without your consultation

or consent, there's that kind of change. And when you have a

strong adaptive resilience mindset, then you'll probably

find that you get to a place of acceptance. And all right, I

still have to like it, but this is the this is the situation.

What do we do with this? You'll get to that point faster when

you have this stronger, adaptive resilience mindset.

That's really interesting. I call it the

quadruple. In the last recent years, I got engaged, got

married, had a kid and got a dog. Oh, I moved house, so I did

the five, yeah, not particularly great at change, and how I've

survived that. But that's a really interesting point. That's

something I do want to work on, is that change piece so we're

really keen to dig into that later on. The next one growth

mindset, 71%.

Yeah. And one of the things that often

surprises people about growth mindset is it shows up in a lot

of different aspects. It's not just the belief that you can do

something if you were to put the effort in. Now, that's our usual

understanding of it. But often when you think about how it

applies to say, receiving feedback, maybe critical

feedback. If you have more of a fixed mindset, then you're

probably more likely then to take that personally, to maybe

discount what the person is saying if that you don't

particularly like them, or you don't have that respect for

them, whereas if you have a growth mindset, you still might

initially have that response, but you're more likely then to

go away and think about it and take the kind of the nuggets of

gold from it, if indeed there are any. So it's really about

looking at where growth mindset shows up in a lot of different

aspects of life, but 71% so that's a pretty decent, decent

score for that one.

I'm gonna unveil the next one, and then Matt

would be great to hear about your score, and maybe George,

you could, you could take us through, maybe. Some ideas

around how to develop. You know, the fourth and final aspect was

self leadership mindset, which I thought was a really interesting

bucket to unpack. 76%.

Yeah, I find this shows up quite heavily in

the sales community. That has been quite strong because

effective, high performing sales leaders and professionals, they

tend to have to be self sufficient and and resourceful

as well. And these are all some of the characteristics and

traits of someone with a high self leadership or strong self

leadership mindset. I think entrepreneurs tend to have quite

a lot of this as well. Don't wait to be told what to do,

hanging around and hoping that somebody else will do it. So

when you're ready to just this is the way we need to move. And

I'm just going to take action on it. That's usually an indication

that you're going to have a fairly strong self leadership

mindset.

similar to Jonny I looked at when I see the word

stress, I don't take it as and I love your reframing of it to

pressure, because I think I see stress as the the negative

stresses, the stuff that's outside of your control, the

stuff that or that feels outside of control, not always outside

of your control.

Yeah, the original research into this came

out probably started around five or six years ago, with a lot of

research into the the mindset of the Navy SEALs. And as you can

imagine, they probably had very strong stress is enhancing, or

stress advantage mindset, versus the stress threat mindset, which

is where you see all stress as being bad. Got to avoid it, got

to mitigate it, try and try and stay away from stress, because

it's bad for us. And there's been a lot of research into the

impact that seeing stress as a potential positive, something

that's going to elevate our performance to deal with

whatever it is that's in front of us, how that has an impact on

our health metrics, but, but this is the first time believe

that it's been studies how it impacts your your performance

from a mental perspective. So actually, it can open you up to

making better quality decisions, to seeing things more clearly.

And in the Navy SEALs study from a few years ago, it was shown

that actually they were perceived to be better recruits,

potential recruits into the SEAL teams by their colleagues and

also by the commanding officers as well. And they perform better

on a lot of other benchmark tests as well, like obstacle

courses and problem solving tasks also, and the only

differentiator was this, stress is enhancing, or stress

advantage mindset. But the word stress absolutely just like you

were saying a moment ago. There, Jonny, that it's it can feel,

not triggering. But actually, we all have that experience. It's a

natural phenomenon we need to have that it's our brains and

bodies getting ready for action. But what do you do with that?

How do you pass it? How do you understand it? And then do

something with that? Just the way you think about stress can

have a really significant impacts on what that performance

and what those decisions and behaviors then turn into being.

I think I can see, I see a lot of that in myself just

completing this, and I think it can definitely relate to that. I

think that that sort of mindset, the the next for me was 79 on

growth mindset. So I think that had me coming out as medium.

Did you, when you were working through the

questions, really think about how, where, how they were a part

of the growth mindset? Because sometimes, as I said, growth

mindset can show up in all sorts of different ways in our lives.

But the way the questions are designed is to sort of maybe

just get you thinking about, I never really thought about how I

approach these different situations. Did you notice any

of that as you were going through?

Definitely a couple of questions that I had to kind

of reread and really think about that. Yeah, absolutely.

Because I think even just with the app, with the

score app, there the questionnaire, it can be useful

because it brings awareness, and that really is the purpose of

doing this. And when we talk about mindset, it's all very

well and good having the tools and the frameworks and so on,

but you need to create the awareness of it in the moment as

well. So if you're thinking to yourself, oh, well, every time I

encounter some kind of a change, somebody shifts the goal posts

or is the target, and now we've got a bigger target. I know that

I normally start thinking this, or I start thinking, oh my

goodness, why they're doing this again? Or that's not fair, if

you know that, that's how you normally think, even if you get

on board in the end, then the next time you go into those

situations, having that awareness, you can be more

intentional about it. Think, Okay, well, that still doesn't

feel awesome to have that happen to me. But how can I better

process that and think differently in that moment, so

that I can actually then perform better externally, but also

think and feel better inside my own head as well?

It's interesting. You mentioned that there,

George, one of the things that, you know, I was always searching

for the, you know, what does EQ mean? What does IQ mean? You

know, emotional intelligence. I always was searching just for a

simple, simple approach. And I like, I like this approach where

I've heard it before is, you know, self regulation, self

awareness, or self awareness and self regulation. And you sort of

describe that a little bit by going through the questionnaire.

It's actually raises your self awareness. And then when it

comes to a scenario where you have to be a bit more. Adaptive

or things change actually. How do you self regulate your mind

set to actually adapt to that scenario? But if you're not self

aware in the first instance, how are you going to then regulate?

Exactly and it works the other way as well, not

just looking at the times where you might find yourself

disintegrating towards a lower performance mindset, but but

actually looking for those moments where you you actually

do really embody and embrace that growth mindset, or that

stress advantage mindset, those times where you have felt that

pressure and felt good like you were performing. Because when

you can go back in your mind to those moments and those

responses, you can really savor those experiences and think

through them very deeply, and then they become almost this,

this cape of like superpowers that you can put on and say,

Well, I'm that's the kind of person that I am, rather than

defaulting to, well, I'm always like this, because actually, no

one is 60, 50% for the stress advantage mindset. And so

there's still going to be a lot of occasions where you, you, you

do default towards feeling really good in that stress and

pressure environment, so focusing on those and then

creating this sense of identity and capacity potential to be

like that and to respond like that again in the future.

Yeah, and I know we'll come on to talking about

mindset in general in a moment, and those tools that we can put

in place to sort of help with this the other the next one for

me is 85% self leadership.

Are you feeling that that sounds about right for

for you, and the work that you do, the kind of way you approach

things?

A lot of compliments are given to Matt to

your face. But also a good sign of a great leader is someone

that doesn't always get the compliments to their face. So

your peers regularly mentioned to me how you're really well.

You've got a great process, you've got a great discipline in

what you do, but you're across everything, and you've really

got that self starter approach. One of the things when we first

started working together was, wow, where's this man come from?

You know, you've got high aspiration, high motivation. So,

yeah, I mean, that's that feels right, right?

Because how often do we like systemize

getting that kind of feedback and that reflection, and

certainly when the things that are related to our strengths,

our character strengths, when somebody can reflect that back

to us and it's like, okay, no, I sort of intuitively, no, I'm

pretty good at this. But when you know that other people are

seeing it and experiencing as well, that's really powerful,

not just for you and for you, but for other people around you

as well. Because you're probably going to, you know, make sure,

make sure you you do more of the thing that comes quite naturally

to you, and recognize that as being one of your superpowers.

Yeah. And I think it's always nice to, sort of to

hear that stuff as well. And I think it just reinforces the the

way you see that, and the way, you know, especially when you

catch yourself, and you mentioned in those, in those

sort of slightly sort of somewhat sort of destructive or

negative moments, and actually being able to turn that around

in something that's that's a little bit more productive. And

then finally, the adaptive resilience mindset at 90 now, my

wife will attest the fact that I love change. Okay, I'm like, a

change fan, so I guess I'm probably least surprised by that

one despite the fact that it's very high and very you know,

someone changes plans last minute. No stress. We crack on

roll with it. Yeah, yeah. I encourage it, much to my wife's

annoyance.

What about bringing change into your life

voluntarily, like changing your habits or or things? So that's a

feature as well is it?

That's a feature as well all the time. And that can

make me sort of somewhat impulsive sometimes as well. And

I think there's a sort of linkage there. I'll tell you a

semi boring story. I don't like to wake my wife up in the

morning if I've got to get up early to go to London for a

meeting or to go somewhere for a meeting, or something like that.

So I use one of those, like wearable alarm clock things. And

I've tried, probably, I don't know, five or six different

options in the last month. And, you know, some might say that's

kind of impulsive, but part of that's me inviting more change

to find the perfect solution. And I think it's just I'm always

willing to kind of try stuff and like and I always see myself at

the sort of front of the bell curve that really makes it I'm

definitely an early adopter, so I was the first person to get

one of those flippy Google phones, which was just

absolutely rubbish. But it didn't matter. I just want to

try that. That looks cool. I'm going to try it. And I think

that's just my, yeah.

It's interesting with change, because

some people will do really well with bringing change into their

lives, and some people still find that hard, like they want

to change. Want to change habits, or they want to change

processes, or even like service providers. And some people can

find that really hard to do that, because I'm just so used

to it, even if they're deciding to do it. Changing career is

another great example. I want to do this and then really

struggling with a change, and then you've got the kind of

change that really the adaptive resilience mindset is more about

which is this, when change is happening around you, or it's

happening and it's not ideal for you, then that's different

again. But I think most people are either good at one or the

other, rather than being necessarily good and leaning

into both of them. So the fact that you've got that and. Um, or

maybe the fact that you are so ready to bring change into your

life, it's almost inoculated you against it, so you're so used to

it now. So when then change happens and it isn't in

alignment with the plans you've got these mental processes and

and structures to to deal with that and get on board really

quickly.

Yeah, I'd say that's probably reflective again, just

change organizations, organizational things. I spent a

lot of my career in startups as well, where change is very fast.

The point around change is really interesting. We

run a large number of projects, and these projects can be number

of years. And the type of work that we do is sales and

marketing transformation work, where, fundamentally we put

processes, we put systems in place. Yeah, okay, but let's

talk about people, and this is what we're talking about. Is

performance, the way that projects live and die, is by

change, and whether change goes well. We just talked about Matt

there having that score. What are some of the things that you

can do as an individual to develop your resilience to

change, or if we unlock that bucket a bit more? Because I

reckon our listeners, just in general, our clients, could

really value some of your ideas around how we can help people

change or be more adaptive to it.

Yeah, that's a great question. There's a couple

of parts to that as well, actually, because I think, as a

leader, if you have a very high adaptive resilience mindset,

then it can almost be frustrating when the rest of

your team don't come with you quick enough. So I think as

sales leaders, it's important to recognize that just because

you're really good at something doesn't necessarily mean that

the rest of the team aren't you need to maybe coach them or

support them as they get up to speed. Being involved in the

change process as well seems to have a really, really positive

impact on someone's willingness to adapt and acclimate to it. So

if you feel like you've contributed, you've been

listened to, and your worries about the change understood,

then again, even if it's still going to happen and it's nothing

has changed about the change, you're more likely to feel like,

All right, okay, people understand me and what the

challenges are now, rather than things are just happening to me

without my consent and consultation. But also, I think

there's something about just finding ways to get used to

change even small things. Sometimes, when I'm teaching, I

use the fun example. They get up in the morning and you go to the

fridge and there's no milk, so you can't have your Weetabix,

which is a usual Breakfast has, oh my goodness, I can't believe

I can't have my breakfast. Someone's used up all the milk

again, right? And some people will genuinely be like

completely derailed by having something small like that. So if

that's the sort of thing that would normally take you out,

but, but what is it? Where are those small opportunities for

for recognizing that there's a little bit of change here that's

okay, I've got this not, not going straight into the big

stuff, big seismic systemic changes in the corporate or the

business units that you're operating in, but the little

changes, and then just being with it and thinking, okay, how

can I move through this? How can I get to that place of

acceptance faster? And actually it's okay and things aren't as

they were. I can't have my Weetabix. I'll have to have my

peanut butter on toast this morning instead. But that's

okay. Change is good for me, and you start building up this

belief that actually I can do it, and then the mindset is then

transferable to these other domains, these other areas,

these other bigger challenges and changes that do then happen.

So what I'm hearing from there is that it's about

that the small things lead to the big things. And maybe

businesses are able to help others and individuals

understand that in their day to day life, that actually could

become more resilient to that adaptation. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, it comes back to that word cultivation.

So, you know, we don't just become resilient or become

better at change or get a better mindset. It doesn't just happen

like that. It happens over time, and it takes effort, but we can

do it. So if you're not very good at change at the moment,

and you you go on and say, well, in the next six months, I'm

going to really try and work on this. And I know people who have

done this, and they've just got significantly better at working

through change and adapting much faster, but giving yourself that

permission just to take a little bit of time and and to get

better and generally cultivate that that resilience, to

cultivate that mindset around change. And I think that links

into something else which is really key as well, which is

about being intentional about it in the first place. So we

gathered awareness that what his mindset is. Well, how can I each

day show up as somebody who's just a bit better at managing

change and looking out for those incidences through the day and

recognizing how does that make me feel? How am I responding and

how could I respond differently in the future? The small things

lead to the big things.

Appreciate you sharing that what you're sharing

is going to help not only people listening to this, but actually

just that ability. You're referencing things that you can

control effectively, which is your mindset. You go to the

fridge, right? What's the alternative? Rather than

throwing hissy fit and say, Oh, where is the milk? Sounds a bit

like me at home, actually. But you know that that aspect. Is

really interesting.

That is a fantastic place for us to end today's

conversation. So thanks so much for joining us, and we hope that

you join us again for part two of this conversation.