Lead With Influence
Lead with Influence is about influencing positive change — in yourself, your relationships, and your leadership. Hosted by executive coach Matt Norman, each episode distills insights from decades of experience helping people communicate with impact, lead with humility, and build trust across differences. These short, thoughtful reflections will help you grow in self-awareness, develop emotional intelligence, and show up more powerfully in your work and life.
Lead With Influence
Why Your Brain Fears Meaningful Work
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, we explore why we tend to avoid the very things that could move our lives and careers forward. We unpack a real-world example of avoiding networking and how that pattern was broken—not through motivation, but through structure and consistency.
We walk through a practical framework for getting unstuck: clearly naming what you're avoiding, building non-negotiable systems that force action, and using accountability to stay on track. The conversation highlights a simple truth—short-term discomfort is often the price of long-term opportunity.
If you’ve been putting something off that actually matters, this episode will challenge you to stop waiting, start acting, and let disciplined action compound into meaningful results.
Right now, there is a task like one specific, highly important thing that would just fundamentally upgrade your life or your career.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. Everyone has one.
SPEAKER_02Right. You know exactly what it is. It probably just um slashed right into your mind as you're listening to this. And you are actively, almost strategically, running away from it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's uh it's kind of wild how we do that.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell It is. So today we are looking at why our brains treat our absolute best opportunities like, well, immediate threats, and more importantly, how to actually rewrite that programming.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell, which is such a universal quirk of human nature, you know. We are not talking about like forgetting to take out the recycling here.
SPEAKER_02No, not at all.
SPEAKER_00We are talking about building these elaborate mental obstacle courses specifically to avoid doing the one thing that could actually um move the needle for us.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Exactly. And that is the core mission of our deep dive today. Yeah. We are pulling insights from a really brilliant article by Matt Norman. It's titled, uh, What Meaningful Thing Are You Avoiding?
SPEAKER_00It's a great piece.
SPEAKER_02It really is. Because the piece completely bypasses your standard, you know, red-of-the-mill productivity hacks and goes straight for the psychological jugular. So whether you're a busy executive trying to build a new division, or maybe a freelancer hunting for clients, or just someone trying to get your personal life in order, you have this blind spot.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell We all do, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02Okay, let's unpack this. What is the actual neurological difference between regular lazy procrastination-like leaving laundry on a chair for a week and actively avoiding something meaningful?
SPEAKER_00Right. So it entirely comes down to how your brain calculates emotional stakes and well, survival.
SPEAKER_02Survival, really.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, literally survival. When you put off holding laundry, your brain is just, you know, conserving physical energy. It recognizes a mundane low-stakes chore and just says, ah, we can spend these calories later.
SPEAKER_02Right. The stakes are zero.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. But when you avoid something meaningful like pitching a new client or having a hard conversation, you are usually trying to protect yourself from emotional friction. Your brain processes the potential for rejection or failure, or even just the raw discomfort of stepping outside your established identity as an actual physical threat.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Wait, so our brains are literally equating sending a scary email to like what running into a predator in the wild?
SPEAKER_00I mean, in a way, yes. It's a phenomenon related to hyperbolic discounting.
SPEAKER_02Okay, what's that?
SPEAKER_00So our brains evolved to prioritize immediate survival and immediate rewards over um distant, abstract benefits. So when you face a task like proactive networking, your amygdala, which is the brain's threat detection center, registers the immediate social friction and vulnerability as a danger.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, so it just shuts it down.
SPEAKER_00Right. Meanwhile, your prefrontal cortex, which logically knows, hey, this networking will help your career in five years, it just gets completely drowned out by the alarm bells.
SPEAKER_02Which perfectly sets up Matt Norman's own confession in his article. Right. Because he is this highly successful professional, but he openly admits he had a massive glaring blind spot, which was proactive networking and business outreach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. He was entirely avoiding the process of reaching out to build new connections.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell And he was very self-aware about the why.
SPEAKER_00He was. He notes that he is naturally introverted. His schedule is already packed with immediate demands. And crucially, scraping through LinkedIn to drum up cold conversations offers absolutely zero immediate neurochemical reward.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell It is all friction, no payoff.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02He literally says he gets no dopamine hits from LinkedIn, which is hilariously accurate. But his attempted escape route is what really caught my attention because he's a modern professional, you know, an optimizer. So he did what we all try to do when faced with friction.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell He looked into using an AI agent.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Yes. He tried to get an AI to do his networking for him. He wanted to just automate the vulnerability right out of the equation.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell What's fascinating here is that this specific urge, you know, to automate the discomfort highlights a massive modern crisis we can call the dopamine deficit.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Okay. See more about that.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, technology has deeply conditioned us to expect a frictionless world. You double tap a screen, you get a rush of social validation. Right. You click a button, food arrives at your door. We are trained to expect an immediate emotional or neurochemical return on investment for like every single action.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell And networking is just the opposite of that.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Completely. So when you face a meaningful task that requires slogging through a dopamine desert, your brain revolts. We falsely believe that because tech can automate our groceries, it should be able to automate our human relationships.
SPEAKER_02I hear you, but let's be real for a second. Isn't tech just giving us what we actually want? Oh. I mean, if an AI could eventually do my networking seamlessly, mimicking my voice and setting up meetings, why wouldn't I use it? Aren't we just waiting for the technology to get good enough to remove this friction entirely?
SPEAKER_00It is a really tempting thought. And Norman actually hit the logistical wall first. LinkedIn's privacy policies strictly prohibit automated outreach bots, but then he hit the philosophical wall, which I think answers your question. Okay. He realized you cannot outsource a handshake.
SPEAKER_02Wow. You cannot outsource a handshake.
SPEAKER_00Right. Human connection, which is the actual foundation of business and personal growth, is built on mutual vulnerability and trust. An AI cannot be vulnerable, it cannot risk rejection, therefore, it cannot build actual trust.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell That is such a clarifying way to look at it. It is almost like trying to hire someone to go to the gym for you.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yes, exactly. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02You can pay them, they can sweat, they can lift the heavyweights, but you are not going to get the cardiovascular benefits. The friction itself is the mechanism of growth. You cannot automate the benefit if you bypass the resistance.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Exactly. And that leaves us in a very uncomfortable reality. If we cannot outsource the friction to an algorithm and our dopamine expectations are fundamentally broken by modern convenience, we are just backed into a corner.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell We have to override our own biology to do the hard stuff.
SPEAKER_00We do.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell So how do we actually do that? How do we transition from diagnosing this broken math in our heads to actually, you know, executing? Norman writes about coming to terms with playing the long game and treating personal effort like compound interest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And his solution was structural, not emotional. He did not go to a retreat or wait for a sudden burst of extroverted inspiration.
SPEAKER_02Because that never comes.
SPEAKER_00Right. Instead, he built an architectural constraint into his week. He created two recurring non-negotiable calendar blocks. The first block was dedicated solely to curating a list of people to contact, so just the research phase.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And the second block was dedicated to the actual execution, sending the messages. He holds himself to a strict minimum number of contacts.
SPEAKER_02I want to pause on that because I know anyone listening who follows productivity trends is like very familiar with time blocking. But here is the reality check Norman includes that separates this from standard advice. Most weeks, absolutely nothing major happens.
SPEAKER_00Nothing at all.
SPEAKER_02He forces himself to sit down, sends the messages, and he might get a polite thanks for reaching out, or some vague promise to grab coffee next quarter. It is a slow, quiet, completely unglamorous grind.
SPEAKER_00And that quiet grind is exactly why time blocking usually fails for people when they try it for meaningful work. If you are operating on that modern dopamine thermometer looking for immediate validation, you will absolutely delete that calendar block by week three.
SPEAKER_01Oh, 100%.
SPEAKER_00But Norman persisted, and the payoff he shares is the perfect illustration of compound interest. He reached out to an acquaintance during one of these routine, boring blocks. Two weeks later, out of the blue, that acquaintance's wife sends Norman an email saying her entire department needs his specific skills.
SPEAKER_02And it turned into this massive, highly enjoyable project doing exactly the kind of work he loves. Right. And the profound realization he shares is this. If he had given in to his avoidance on that specific Tuesday, if he had just deleted that one annoying calendar block because the vibes were off, that massive project never would have materialized.
SPEAKER_00If we connect this to the bigger picture, this is the core thesis of Norman's argument. Avoidance is basically a predatory loan.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, a predatory loan. I like that.
SPEAKER_00It provides you with a tiny bit of short-term relief in the moment, but it charges exorbitant interest on your future. You are buying 20 minutes of comfort today with the currency of your long-term potential.
SPEAKER_02That is heavy.
SPEAKER_00It is. Meaningful capital, whether it is relationships, health, or skills. It has to be built manually, over time, in the dark, before you ever see the light of the reward.
SPEAKER_02Here's where it gets really interesting, though. When I read about this rigid calendar method, forcing yourself every single week to sit down and do the very thing your brain is screaming at you to avoid, my mind immediately goes to burnout.
SPEAKER_00That's a valid concern.
SPEAKER_02Like if we just ruthlessly force ourselves to do things we hate via a brutal calendar block, aren't we just creating a miserable routine? How does this not just grind a person into dust?
SPEAKER_00That is a critical distinction, and it hinges entirely on the word meaningful in the title of his article. Okay. Burnout rarely happens just because we are working hard or doing difficult things. Burnout typically happens when we are forcing ourselves to endure friction for things that are entirely disconnected from our core values. It is the exhaustion of meaningless friction.
SPEAKER_02So it's the difference between running on a treadmill facing a brick wall versus like running up a mountain to see a sunrise.
SPEAKER_00Precisely. What Norman is practicing is productive discipline. He might hate the immediate process of cold outreach, but he deeply, genuinely values the result, the connections, the exciting client projects, the intellectual growth.
SPEAKER_02So the goal changes the nature of the pain.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. The meaningful nature of the ultimate goal acts as an anchor. It gives the friction a purpose, which is what separates productive discipline from soul-crushing burnout. You are enduring the toll booth because you actually want to go to the destination.
SPEAKER_02That reframing changes everything. The discomfort isn't a sign to stop, it is just the price of admission. So while Norman's issue was LinkedIn networking, I want to pivot and think about the listener's life right now. How do we take this framework and apply it to whatever task flashed into their mind at the start of this deep dive?
SPEAKER_00Well, first, we have to acknowledge how diverse these avoidance targets can be. Norman lists several incredibly relatable examples. It isn't just about business.
SPEAKER_02No, his list is a total gut punch. He mentions avoiding a difficult, lingering conversation with a colleague or a partner. He mentions putting off working with a coach or a counselor.
SPEAKER_00Returning to a place of worship.
SPEAKER_02Right. Restarting an exercise program you abandoned six months ago. Or even just doing something purely for yourself, like signing up for a class or planning a vacation.
SPEAKER_00Whatever that specific thing is for you, Norman breaks down the escape route into three highly actionable steps.
SPEAKER_02Okay, let's hear them.
SPEAKER_00Step one is fundamental. Name the avoidance. His phrasing is you can't conquer what you won't confront. You have to explicitly state what you are avoiding and the exact reason why.
SPEAKER_02So for him, it was stating, I am avoiding outreach because I am introverted and rejection feels awful.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02But I have to challenge this step for a second. There was a school of thought suggesting that if you confront your fear and explicitly list all the reasons you are scared, you might just hyperfixate on the anxiety, like you give it too much oxygen. Does naming it actually disarm it, or does it just make the fear more real?
SPEAKER_00It absolutely disarms it, and then neuroscience backs this up. An undefined fear is like a blurred image in your peripheral vision. Okay. When your brain's threat detection system, that amiddle we talked about earlier, sees a blurred shape, its default evolutionary setting is to assume it is a predator. It spikes your anxiety to keep you away from it. The vague dread feels insurmountable.
SPEAKER_02Because your brain is filling in the blanks with like worst-case scenarios.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. But the moment you name the fear, I am not making this phone call because I'm afraid they will think I am unqualified or I am not doing this paperwork because the formatting is tedious, you force your prefrontal cortex to take over.
SPEAKER_02The logical part.
SPEAKER_00Right. You put the blurred image into sharp focus. Now it might still be an ugly picture, it might still be a tedious task, but your brain recognizes it is just a logistical hurdle, not a predator. You shrink a looming emotional monster down to a manageable size.
SPEAKER_02So what does this all mean? We force the rational brain to take the microphone away from the emotional brain.
SPEAKER_00That's a great way to put it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so we name the fear. We see it as just a stack of paperwork or an awkward 15-minute chat. That leads to step two, put it in motion. Norman writes that motivation is unreliable, but discipline is a system. You have to make the action small, scheduled, and non-negotiable, rather than waiting until you feel ready.
SPEAKER_00And this raises an important question about a massive sociological shift we are living through right now. We have been so deeply conditioned by modern culture to believe that our internal feelings must perfectly align with our external actions.
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. The whole good vibes only thing.
SPEAKER_00Right. We wait for inspiration to strike, we wait for the right vibe or for our energy to be perfectly calibrated before we tackle a hard task. Norman completely rejects this. Relying on motivation is a trap because motivation is fundamentally just a fleeting emotion, heavily dependent on how well you slept or what you ate for breakfast.
SPEAKER_02The analogy that immediately comes to mind is sailing.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I like where this is going.
SPEAKER_02Relying on motivation is like relying entirely on the wind to cross an ocean. If the wind blows, it is magical. You glide effortlessly. But if the wind dies, you are just stranded in the middle of the sea, completely at the mercy of the weather.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Discipline, building a system and putting it in motion is like having an actual motor installed on that boat. You might prefer the poetry of sailing, but when the wind inevitably stops, you fire up the motor and you keep moving forward.
SPEAKER_00That is exactly what his calendar blocks were. They were his motor. Putting it on the calendar did not magically make him want to network.
SPEAKER_02The wind wasn't blowing. But he moved anyway.
SPEAKER_00Yes. The system provided the structure to execute regardless of the internal weather. The action creates the momentum, and ironically, the feeling of motivation usually arrives after you start doing the work, not before.
SPEAKER_02Which brings us to the final piece of the puzzle. Step three. Tell others about your results. Accountability. Norman advises taking this newly scheduled commitment and explicitly telling a peer, a spouse, or a mentor about it.
SPEAKER_00Accountability is the ultimate hack for bypassing our own capacity for self-deception. It turns a private, internal struggle into a shared external commitment.
SPEAKER_01Why is that shift so crucial, though? Is it just the fear of social shame?
SPEAKER_00It is a combination of social pressure, yes, but more importantly, it is reality testing. When your struggle is entirely private, negotiating with yourself is dangerously easy. Tell me about it. You can rationalize skipping your calendar block, let yourself off the hook, and literally nobody will ever know. The only consequence is a vague sense of personal disappointment.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Which we are all very good at ignoring.
SPEAKER_00Very good at it. But when you have to look a mentor or your partner in the eye on Friday and report whether you did the thing you promised to do, the dynamic fundamentally changes.
SPEAKER_02You've tethered your personal integrity to the completion of the task. You are no longer just letting down your future self, a person who is, frankly, very easy to ignore. You are letting down someone standing right in front of you.
SPEAKER_00Precisely. You are building an external scaffolding to hold you up when your internal discipline wavers.
SPEAKER_02So to bring all these threads together from this deep dive, the core lesson from Matt Norman's experience is a brutally honest equation. Avoiding the hard, meaningful stuff buys you a few fleeting minutes of comfort today, but it completely robs you of your biggest opportunities tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00That's the truth of it.
SPEAKER_02You cannot outsource the friction of human growth to an AI, and you cannot wait for the wind of motivation to push you forward.
SPEAKER_00You have to step up, name the avoidance to disarm the amygdala, put a non-negotiable system in motion, and share that commitment with someone else. That is the only way to break the cycle of the dopamine deficit.
SPEAKER_02So here is my challenge to you, listening right now. Look at your schedule today, not next week, today. Think about that one meaningful thing we talked about at the very beginning of this conversation. Pick just one microscopic action related to it and put it into motion using Norman's three steps. Name exactly why you were scared of it, schedule a 10-minute block to start it, and text someone right now telling them you're going to do it. Turn on the motor.
SPEAKER_00And as you map that out, I want to leave you with a final thought to mull over. Something buried in Norman's article really struck me. We spend so much time talking about avoiding difficult work or hard conversations. Right. But Norman points out that sometimes we actively avoid things we genuinely want to do, like taking a cooking class or finally planning that dream vacation.
SPEAKER_02Which makes no sense on the surface.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. If our avoidance mechanism is sometimes just about dodging the short-term logistical discomfort of researching flights or filling out a registration form, what does it say about us? How much actual joy, how much pure happiness and personal enrichment are we leaving on the table every single year just because the planning phase feels a little annoying? Are we really willing to sacrifice our own happiness just to stay perfectly comfortable?
SPEAKER_02That is a staggering question to end on. How much of our own joy are we sacrificing on the altar of short term comfort? Man, thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive. We will catch you next time.