Dr Brian Pennie on Why High Achieving Women Are Addicted to Stress (And How to Break the Cycle)

Hi, Brian, and welcome back to the show. Good to see you.

Brian (00:38)
It’s great to see you, Lucy. Delighted to be back. Really looking forward to this conversation.

Lucy Gernon (00:42)
Me too. OK, so let’s just jump straight in then. So for anybody who is listening, who doesn’t know your story, can you give us a quick introduction to yourself and walk us through your journey from addiction to neuroscience?

Brian (00:55)
Yeah, I suppose when people hear of my story or hear elements of it, they do think addiction straight away. I was addicted to heroin for 15 years. Well, as we’re going to touch on today, that was just a coping mechanism. I was just medicating. I was numbing myself from trauma, from anxiety, crippled with panic attacks and anxiety as a kid. And I found

solution and that’s the funny thing like about addiction people think it’s not a solution oh it’s a solution in the moment if it takes away the pain it’s a solution it’s just not a solution that works long term so I was a functional heroin addict for many years working as a graphic artist but the world just closed in and I suppose I don’t think there is a stereotypical heroin addict or addict for

matter but I start sort of

losing traction, losing family members in terms of people pulling away. I lost my job, I lost everything and my world fell apart. But thankfully that was the catalyst that I needed for change because when I fell apart, I ended up having a seizure, a very violent seizure in a hospital.

shook me to the core so much, left me thinking I was brain damaged.

where I just had this sort of, I will never forget sitting in the hospital just saying to myself, I can’t do this anymore, I can’t fight this anymore. It was resistant reality, was fighting anxiety for so long. And it was a moment of letting go, a moment of surrender where I just stopped fighting. And it was like I felt peace for the first time in my life, Lucy. And that just opened up a space for me to…

just become human again and luckily enough when I went to a detox facility to get off heroin I found meditation, Eastern philosophy, psychology and I was just bitten by the bug of learning, of education and I wanted to know more and it just took me on a journey. I went back to do a degree in psychology and ended up doing a PhD in neuroscience.

Lucy Gernon (02:57)
Wow. my goodness. So like rewind there a little bit. So obviously, I mean, you were on my show before and we got such an amazing, amazing response. But I’d love to dig in a little bit more around, the you said it was a solution to the pain that you were feeling. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about you were saying you were having anxiety and panic attacks. What was really behind that?

Brian (03:20)
Yeah, so I had an operation as a baby. It’s quite shocking for people to hear this, especially mothers. But before 1985, infants did not get a general anesthetic when they went under the knife for surgery. So I had something called intestinal malrotation. My intestines were twisted. So I was literally opened up on an operating theater a few weeks old, given ethanol on a suit or to pacify me. I was given a local anesthetic for the area of the incision, but I was also put in this

crucifix style apparatus to stop me squirming. So I literally had an operation, an invasive operation without a general anaesthetic. I was awake. And I sort of grew up with this phobic fear of my heartbeat, my breath, my pulse and complications from the surgery. My mom and dad, unfortunately, were also alcoholic. So I did compounded fears and anxieties, horrified of my own in our body. Like I was 35 before I could go to sleep.

without having to tell you really loud because if I heard my heartbeat, my breath, my pulse, I would have like an anxiety attack. So just this agitation, this fear, it turned into this worry and fear of death, fear of my parents dying because my dad was a big drink driver and I think they were the real drivers but…

I’ll bring it back like there’s one expert, I’m sure you’ve heard of Dr. Gabor Omate, Lucy. So I had the absolute pleasure of working with him on a documentary that I told in 2020, last year, 2025, it was released. And Gabor sort of, he read me book, I couldn’t believe it. Like I just wanted to meet this guy once in my life. And he he read my book and gave me a psychoanalysis based on my own journey.

Lucy Gernon (04:54)
No, I’m happy for you.

Brian (05:01)
And he shared another trauma with me because he asked me when I had this terror of the anxiety, the fear, mean, mom and dad drink driving, says, who did you speak to that about? And it was nobody. I kept it to myself. So he thinks the greatest trauma I had that I was all alone. I was isolated. I didn’t speak to anyone. And in that terror, I was looking for a solution. What came along? The anesthetic I never got as a baby.

heroin and drugs, that was my solution. And for a while it was a solution, it took the pain away, it just wasn’t a long term solution. that’s a really key thing, like alcohol, if you’re feeling really stressed from work and you got home with a couple of glasses of wine or a bottle of wine, in that moment it is a solution. Now it will wake up the next morning, the anxiety will be worse, it will become addictive over time if you keep doing that, because behavior, that’s where reward is repeated.

But in that moment there is a solution and that’s what makes it insidious that these coping strategies can really grip us over time.

Lucy Gernon (06:05)
Yeah, and my God, there’s so much I want to ask you there. So first of all, I got a vision of you as a baby, having this done. And I hear you then talking about how it obviously impacted you not want with the heartbeat. Like, do you remember that or is it that the stories you were told, do you think fed into that? Why do you think that you felt that? Or was it just like a hidden trauma in the body?

Brian (06:26)
It was a hidden trauma in the body. Like as they say, like the body keeps the score. like I feel I’ve bulletproof mental health today. Like I really have great mental health. I’ve done a lot of trauma work on myself, but every time I talk about the story, I still feel the urge just to rub the scar on my belly. That’s like over 45 years later. So the body keeps the score. Now I was always afraid of the scar on my belly, afraid of my body, but I didn’t really know why, to be quite honest. And it was only in 2020 when I was

writing me book that I was going it was a memoir so I was going into many of the details of me life I mean mom started telling me I knew I had this operation when I was younger I saw the scar okay I knew I had it but it was only when I had the conversation with me mom and she went into the details of what actually went down and I can’t remember where they came across the research of pre 1985 infant surgeries

and it was based on this weak neurological evidence. So I went down this rabbit hole and I ended up speaking to surgeons who implemented these surgeries and I looked at the research and it was crazy. It was only in 1985 when a woman found out that her baby had open heart surgery while they were awake, that there was this outcry and she was saying, what is going on? the medical practitioners were like.

my God, what have we been doing for the last few years? was like the 1940s research never caught up in real time and it was just this massive outcry. I’ve spoken to so many people that had surgeries pre-1985 but at the end of the day, if any baby has a surgery, even with a general anaesthetic, the pain and perceived abandonment of being in a hospital if the mom and dad goes home, all of that is traumatic so there’s multiple factors at play there.

Lucy Gernon (08:12)
my goodness. OK. my God. Like. That’s just like I’m feeling the trauma and it wasn’t even me, like even hearing that story. And then like, I then you’re growing up in an environment that sounds like was a little bit like mentally. I mean, you know, environments can make you feel psychologically unsafe. And if you’re, you know, worried about your parents and all of that. and this is something I love to kind of talk about is is the impact that childhood.

Brian (08:29)
Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (08:38)
experiences have on us, because sometimes I think, you know, they talk about big T and little T like big trauma, little trauma. A lot of people disregard those little traumatic moments that were like, you know, chronic throughout their whole lives. And they’re like, yeah, but I wasn’t raped or like I wasn’t abused. I shouldn’t feel that way. Like, what is your take on on that piece?

Brian (08:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, do you know what? I hate the way we sensationalize things. I always think of Jaws, the shark killer. It’s the biggest killer and people got so freaked out about it because it’s very sensationalist. But if you go on holidays to the sun and you’re getting in the sea, the biggest killer, 33 times kills people more than shark attacks, is coconuts falling from the trees. But nobody talks about that because it’s kind of boring, you know that way. And I think even heroin gets a lot of press.

is like heroin addiction that’s really bad but there’s many weird addictions that are way worse than some people’s heroin addictions that’s just the nature of it and yes obviously a big trauma like an operation or abuse sexual physical abuse a car crash that can be absolutely horrific and terrifying but sometimes the more insidious traumas and the more insidious addictions like smoking addictions can be more difficult to treat because

We play mind games where it says, we rationalise, that’s not that bad, I’m not as bad as that person, it can’t be that big a deal. But like, if you have perceived abandonment as a child and all of a sudden, you create a narrative and a worldview around that, that you’re not good enough, you’re not worthy. If my parents didn’t want me, what have I got to offer the world? And I’ll tell you what.

that can be a hell of a lot worse than several other big T traumas that people talk about. I always remember Gabby Bernstein, she talks, speaks about trauma, she’s a brilliant speaker around this stuff and she talked about a little lion that she had a crush when she was about 12 years of age and the boy said to her, you’re not very smart, her crush said, you’re not very smart and she said it burrowed into her head and became this huge thing.

And she stayed away from academic pursuits up until her 40s, not thinking she’s smart enough because of this off the cuff statement. And some people might say, a little 12 year old kid saying, you’re not smart, how was that trauma? It became a trauma because it festered in there. So our psychology has a big part to play in that as well in terms of how we condition ourselves over time. And we’ve got to sort of look at it from that perspective. Everyone’s trauma is different, but can be equally.

destructive even if it doesn’t look that way.

Lucy Gernon (11:19)
Yeah. my God. Absolutely. And I think as well, like you said there, ⁓ you said the word perceived. So like she perceived in that moment. It meant X. I’d love to hear your like I’ve done so much work on myself as a child. I think my inner child and all of that. And I think when you realize that in my opinion, most adults are looking back at their life and all of these things and they still see life through the lens of their childhood self.

And when you’re able to, you know, do the work and you’re able to take a step out of that and actually view situations as your adult self, like more logical, more rational, you’re going to probably see that the people who inflicted quote unquote those things on you.

just like, unless it was like a big event, I’m just saying in general, there were just people, if it was parents just trying to do their best, or if it was like that boy or that girl who.

said something like you said, it was just an off the cuff comment. And I think I wish more people understood that it’s normal. And as humans, we every single human on the earth has those little things like that have become something. But when you’re able to actually go back and look at it as your adult self, I think you’re going to see things very differently. And I know for me, when I was able to do that, it just it took me a while. It took me a lot of a lot of therapy, but it it has completely set me free from that just with that lens. So.

But yeah, I’m curious to hear your take on that piece too.

Brian (12:46)
Yeah, it brings me to a line. It’s like a mental model, a thinking tool. It’s called Handlin’s razor. Don’t attribute to malice what is better explained by ignorance or stupidity. Like sometimes like our parents are that they don’t get a playbook. They do things wrong. And I think one of the biggest joy, I would say joy in my life, like I’m in an amazing relationship with my mom and dad today. But one of the biggest successes of my recovery, if that’s what we want to call it, is that I don’t hold any bitterness.

or

regret or resentment because my mom and dad they done the best job they could do with the tools and the history that they had they were phenomenally loving like you know they just couldn’t show it a lot of the times and it’s really interesting bringing this back so I’ve done a lot of work myself and so much comes from childhood but I had a conversation with my dad yesterday I was in my sister’s house and she does a bit of work for me and my dad came in and he gets a he gets annoyed he lives in he collects me sister’s kids collects them a 20 past two

rushes home for a half to my parents home. But we’re saying, why are you rushing home? Because the people, they live in front of the school and the people drive down the road and park sometimes and block me dad in. And it gets, it really gets him. He was a taxi driver for years and say, you’re literally rushing home to nearly fight with these people. And my dad, when he’s in traffic, he gets really angry if someone pulls over

something on the road.

and I was trying to tell him yesterday, he that you’re in our child, like he struggled with bullying, I don’t know how mild it was, he struggled with bullying when he was younger, but when somebody does that to him in life today, and he’s in his 70s, he’s perceiving someone to get one up on him, and what do do when we’re afraid? act.

with anger and I think that’s a real thing with anger. It’s usually cloaked in fear. It’s our inner child. That’s the person getting triggered is my dad as a 10 year old kid who was called Toopence. He always talks about that. says, his name is Penny, but he called him Toopence. And it’s like, you can still see it in him, know, but we’ve got to let that stuff go. It’s the inner child being triggered, that part of you being triggered and manifesting itself in the moment. we really need to get some perspective on that.

Lucy Gernon (14:44)
Yeah.

And how would you recommend somebody, know, are there any exercises that you recommend somebody can do to begin to do that?

Brian (15:06)
The biggest exercise I have in my life, the most powerful exercise I have in my life is, and I don’t really do it anymore as a practice, because I think it was so important in the early days that I’ve nearly internalized it. And again, I think it’s another big element of my wellness today. But it’s an ability to self-observe. And when I talk about self-observe, you can call it mindful self-observation, but it’s an ability to observe your top parts.

how you feel, emotions, your bodily sensations, what is actually going on. So it’s often that I would get triggered. I don’t know if you can hear my little puppy barking in the background. Hopefully you can’t. But I can hear it. Well, I can hear that in the background now. So we’re bringing it to the podcast in case you can hear it. But like I can feel that there’s like a little bit of an irritation, there.

Lucy Gernon (15:44)
No worries.

Brian (15:57)
when you stop, I can’t change that and stay on this podcast in the moment. So I was able to observe that without letting it build. So could work there’s a little bit of a rotation, let it go.

Imagine I had an ego and a sense of self that I’m the best podcaster out there. I’m so good when I’m on podcasts and all of a sudden I’m feeling I’m going to make, I’m going to look stupid and get intense. What do I look like? And I start getting this self-serving dialogue that doesn’t serve the ego that I have or something like that. Well, all of a sudden that thought pattern will get the better of me and I won’t even know what’s going on. So when the ability to catch these emotional hijackings, these maladaptive thought patterns, which will manifest as bodily sensations.

That is the goal, I think, to bring awareness into your world, how you sort of

associate or react to environmental challenges as well. And I think that’s one of the biggest things we can get and what we can do and whether that’s traumas like bodily sensations play a massive role in that as well.

We’ve got to become masters of our own inner world, psychologically, emotionally and biologically, to be able to manage ourselves better in the world. It all starts on the inside and then it can flow from the outside. That’s a really powerful practice. And what I say is just spend a couple of minutes a day sitting with yourself, observing those thoughts and emotions.

Lucy Gernon (17:15)
Yeah, ⁓ I love that. Like I remember being I’m really I’m really into spirituality and coaching and neuroscience and bring it all together. And I’m like, OK, I get it all now. And I remember when I when I first was taught about this this concept of like observing yourself, I couldn’t get it. Didn’t understand what I meant. What do you mean observe myself? It made no sense to me. But then my my coach trainer said, just imagine that there’s like another you floating up.

Brian (17:24)
Yeah, sad.

Lucy Gernon (17:44)
you know, or sitting on your shoulder, just watching you, but doing it with curiosity and not judgment. So if you go into self observation with judgment, you are going to find fault. You are going to start kicking yourself. You’re going to start saying, I shouldn’t be feeling this way. Blah, blah. Whereas if you go into that practice with curiosity to try and go, OK, what, what, why am I feeling this way? And I think as well, like I was I love tuning like you mentioned there, Brian.

If you tune into your body and you feel any discomfort, that is a sure sign that you are out of alignment with who you really are. You’ve either become hijacked by your inner critic, just like your dad, you know, or an ego, one or the other. If you’re feeling frustrated, anger, fear, like that’s not in alignment with who you really are. That is not like who your true self is. And I think when you start to grasp that and you, you know, you do the work and you understand that.

Brian (18:26)
Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (18:38)
You know, you are not your thoughts. You are absolutely not your thoughts. Your thoughts. I believe your thoughts come to you as opposed to you producing them. I kind of believe it’s nearly like you’re nearly getting hijacked by some sort of a test from the universe to like see if she is he or she going to actually break this. And like since I started to do that, I’m able to catch myself. I’m able to ground in situations of people that I used to want to.

defend myself and the ego and, you know, like family dynamics and old friends and all the ones that really trigger you. I can stand there now for the most part in my power safe because I know that I’m I’m coming from a good place. Whereas before I would have needed to like defend and that all that didn’t I didn’t learn that from a book. I didn’t learn. You can’t learn that by reading. You’ve got to learn that by actually practicing it.

Brian (19:07)
Yeah

Yeah, really is a doing thing. And it really brings me back as well. Like if somebody was listening to this and they’re struggling with the concept of self observation, like if I think of myself 15 years ago, I had thoughts like an anxious addict. My bodily sensations were dolls of an anxious addict. I looked like an anxious addict. I felt like an anxious addict. But the same Brian today is still looking in the mirror.

I don’t look, feel or think like an anxious addict. So how can that be who I was? Like, it’s something that’s very different from moment to moment, certainly day to day, month to month, year to year. Our thoughts and everything changes so much. So it’s not who we are. So that’s self observation piece and it comes into the higher power spirituality piece. There’s something else there. It’s that higher self.

Lucy Gernon (20:17)
Yeah, 100%. And I’m curious, like just to kind of shift gears a little bit. So I obviously work a lot with high performers, high performing women in leadership and entrepreneurs in particular. And one pattern that I noticed because I was there myself is that I see that some people can, it appears like they are and they tell me as well, like they’re addicted to work, like they’re literally addicted to work. They’re addicted to stress. They’re addicted to feeling like

difficulty is like is the norm for them. So do you think people can actually become addicted to stress?

Brian (20:52)
100 % addicted to stress, addicted to anxiety. it’s like, we start to play word games as well. Like, are you addicted to the stress or are you addicted to the work that creates the stress? It really is a bit of both. But let’s just peel back addiction, like addiction at its core.

is like the definition of addiction is continued use of a behavior or a substance despite harm to self or others. So can you become addicted to self or addicted to stress? Well if the stress is causing problems in your life and let’s be clear there is good stress, bad stress, again there’s variances of that as well, but if that stress is causing problems in your life and you can’t stop the behaviors that are creating that stress, by definition.

you are addicted to that stress. And there’s nearly an element of getting addicted to the adrenaline rush that goes with that as well. But what else can we get addicted to? The ego is an addictive entity in itself. Like if you’re struggling with self-worth issues and all of a sudden you’re getting this incredible self-worth and praise off of other people because you’re doing great in your job, well that in itself is addictive and the ego’s gonna feed itself in terms of you’re doing brilliant, keep on doing that. And another really powerful behavioral principle,

very few powerful principles in psychology. Psychology can be a bit lost on a scientific basis. think they’re getting away from what the study of psychology really is because they’re trying to make it so robustly scientific. But a really powerful principle in behavioral psychology is behavior that’s rewarded is repeated. So if that stress and the behaviors that go with it are getting rewarded, true prayers, true self-

self-prayers, external prayers, financial gains, let’s talk about the finances around that as well, well that can become addictive. But I think…

One of the bigger challenges we have as well is that we’re usually chasing things that are not worthy of being chased like status games, like we love status as human beings, it’s bounded in our evolution. So if your status is being elevated because of the stress and the work that you’re and the stuff you’re putting yourself through, that can become addictive as well. So there’s multiple different facets of this of where it can become addictive. But again, peeling that back.

it’s the awareness. You’ve got to be able to manage yourself and observe yourself to be able to change that process. And one other thing I’d in there as well, Lucy, is that like my job is very cyclical. I get really busy at certain times of the year and then it slows down at Christmas and the summer. So for me, right, I need, I’m going to get stressed. Stress isn’t entirely bad, but you can have ebbs and flows within it as well. Times to push.

and times to slow down. But you’ve got to the awareness of that to be able to monitor that and get off that treadmill.

Lucy Gernon (23:41)
Yeah, 100%. And like I’m thinking here as well about a lot of the women that I would work with, right? They’re high achievers, they’re high performers. And one thing I hear consistently is exactly like what you said. It’s the need for external validation and it’s the need for recognition. I had a client, I’ve had a good few clients like this, but there’s one come into mind and she had said that she didn’t…

She was the vice president in a very large organization, two kids. She was working 70, 80 hours a week. She was working at the weekends and she was doing it. You know, she had this drive to do it. And thank God she broke it. And three and a half years later, she’s like a new woman as in she was and she’s continued it like she hasn’t regressed. But she said the biggest part of it was that she she wasn’t she didn’t have time to enjoy the financial rewards that were actually that was being generated by all of this work. So

Brian (24:26)
Yeah, brilliant.

Lucy Gernon (24:37)
You kind of lie to yourself, I think, sometimes as high performers, like if you’re either an entrepreneur or if you are in business, if you’re working in a corporate and you’ve got, you know, my shares coming in and my salary, that kind of thing. You can lie to yourself and tell yourself, OK, I’m doing this for my family. I’m doing this for my retirement. And when I retire or after this project or next year when then I’ll slow down. But in my experience, like that that never comes and.

When I read that book, Ronnie Ware’s book, The Seven Top Regrets of the Dying, I don’t know if you’ve read it, but it was life changing for me. Like when she was talking about the fact that the top regrets of dying, the first one I believe was I wish I had lived a life true to myself and not, you know, kind of people please and change who I was. And then the second was the second or third one was I wish I hadn’t worked so much. And it just makes me very sad that

Brian (25:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (25:34)
with this whole addiction to being busy and addiction to stress. I wish people could see like we’re on this beautiful earth. We have one chance to actually, you know, enjoy it. So what would your tips be for people who are resonating with this right now? Like what would I you said, obviously, obviously self-awareness is obviously the first step.

Brian (25:53)
Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (25:55)
Like, what would you say in terms of like the neuroscience behind it? It goes back to rewiring the brain, right? So how what are the steps after self-awareness to begin to take back that control so people have time to enjoy this beautiful one and only life we get to experience?

Brian (26:12)
Yeah, so I’ll answer that in two different ways. I want to answer the neuroscience piece as well and then another practice that I implemented in my own life that really speaks to that. But in terms of the neuroscience piece as well, I think for women especially in the workplace, when you look at the lack of equality in terms of opportunities and stuff like that, there’s an injustice there. It’s not fair. And there’s certain things that actually trigger our nervous system. There’s a lovely model out there. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the scarf model.

So it’s status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. And if any of those things are triggered in your environment, your nervous system will be actually triggered. So if your status is lowered, someone walks into the room as of higher status, all of a sudden you feel lower straight away, your nervous system will respond. But that sense of injustice as well. So that can nearly drive people to work harder, to nearly fight back of that sense of injustice as well.

But what we forget in the midst of that is what is truly important. Like it’s great if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re earning great money and you’re stressed and you’re really busy. You upgrade your car, you upgrade your house, you’re buying new clothes, you’re going out to fancy restaurants. But the most addictive thing after heroin is a monthly salary. You’ll just upgrade your lifestyle and become addicted to these things.

you’re addicted to the stress, they both go hand in hand, you have to keep on doing it, to keep this lifestyle going, and it’s all about status games and ego, which doesn’t actually serve you. And it comes back to that five regrets of the dying. I remember hearing this line once, the only people that will remember the long hours and the late nights and the long meetings in 20 years time are your kids.

What do our kids want? Like I asked myself that question. If you were at your own funeral, what would you want your loved ones to say about you? Your kids would want to give, he gave me his time and he gave me his presence. They might enjoy those words, but that’s what kids want, your time and your presence. You might laugh and say, yeah, they want your money as well, but they’re just buying things that they don’t really want either. It’s the experiences and the moments. That’s what they remember.

So something very tangible and practical. was only on the Brendan O’Connor show talking about this the other day. It’s over there on my wall. It’s my life in weeks it’s called. And it’s grounded in this idea of memento mori. This is this sort of, it’s a Christian slash stoic Buddhist philosophy. And it means remember you must die. And people are a bit freaked by this. So I don’t want to remember I’m gonna die, but it’s a call to action to.

actually live. Remember that your life is fleeting, it’s transient, we only have a certain amount of time on this earth. So what you want to do, do you want to spend it being stressed and working 60, 70 hours a week or do want to spend it with your loved ones? So I have this calendar on my wall, like it’s all of the weeks of my life and every Monday I walk over and I…

sign off another week of my life but I take a couple of moments and say right how did I spend next week and how am I going to spend the following week? Am I going to spend time connected with loved ones? Am I going to do work that truly lights me up? Am I going to do stuff that really aligns with me? And there’s this difference that I often think about it’s this idea of real values versus junk values and junk values are the values that are not worthy of being valued because they’re not

connected to anything that’s important. And it’s like your phone Snapchat, kids value that. It’s a junk value. Money for the most part is a junk value. If you’re trying to buy new toys, new stuff, new clothes, chasing those pleasures, it’s a junk value. The opinion of others for the most part, it’s a junk value.

But one thing money can give us, and this is where you talked about that earlier on, like you can say you’re doing it for your family, there’s an element of truth in that as well, because money can give us security, opportunities, experiences and memories, but we’ve got to get balance over that. Like we really need to have balance over that. I think this little memento more thing, remember you must die.

So you don’t become one of those regretful people in your 70s and 80s or 90s hopefully that say I regret this and I regret that. So instead of saying I wish I’d done that in your later years, you’d be saying to yourself, wow, look what I’ve done. You know that way, so you really reflect on what’s important before you die. And I nearly think the greatest gift I ever got was like an ego death nuisance. It like I died before I died. That ego was just disintegrated and all of a sudden it gave me

level of awareness that I continually have to work on but I’m always asking myself what’s important? But you know what the world’s always trying to pull me off course the temptations, the lures. Our brains don’t care about contentment and happiness. Our brains care about avoiding pain and chasing pleasure. So it’s a constant walk in progress, it really is.

Lucy Gernon (31:04)
⁓ I love this. this calendar that you did? Like, can you buy this calendar? I think I need it.

Brian (31:09)
You can, it’s called, it says on the top, My Life in Weeks. There’s a brilliant, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can get them on the internet. Tim Urban, I came across the concept by Tim Urban’s work. So if you’re writing Tim Urban, My Life in Weeks, he has a great blog on it as well. It’s really great.

Lucy Gernon (31:12)
I like them. I’ve actually seen them. I know the one. Yeah. Yeah.

OK, amazing. Oh, my goodness. It’s so funny. was a couple of things coming up for me when you were sharing that the first one is there’s a really powerful positive psychology exercise called the legacy exercise where you you basically you think about the legacy you want to leave. Like I do this in my kickstart to my program where I get people to imagine like literally like if you’re if you’re driving right now, don’t do this. But, you know, imagine that you are at the end of your life and you are looking back on your life.

What do you want that to look like? Like, what do want people to be saying about you? What do you want to have achieved? Massive question I had to ask myself is, you know, what would be your top regrets? And my top regret, one of my top regrets was like not being present for my family because family was number one for me. And I realized when I did positive psychology training that I was chasing just like so many, was chasing status.

I was chasing validation. wanted success. I was working my ass off. I do whatever it took because if I hit this goal, this revenue goal, then I’ll have made it. But then I joined. I’m fortunate enough to be in some amazing communities with some amazing CEOs and entrepreneurs who are making millions and millions and millions. And one thing that keeps coming up over and over is what’s enough? You know, what is what is your figure? And there’s data out there that shows that

Brian (32:50)
Yeah. What’s your number?

Lucy Gernon (32:52)
people will always say two to three times more than what they have. So whether you have 10 grand or 20 grand, you’re going to want 60 grand. If you want 60 million, you’re going to say, I don’t know, maybe like a hundred. There’s no ceiling. And then I heard what’s her name, Kim Kardashian, billionaire. And she said, I’m so afraid to stop working in case it all goes away. So with all of that perspective, I was like, what am I actually hustling for? Even when I arrive at, you know,

Brian (32:58)
They didn’t know that.

from me

Yeah

Lucy Gernon (33:22)
I’m going to want the next thing. So that really gave me perspective to go, OK, now it’s time to really lead with your values. You’ve got to slow down. It’s why I changed my podcast. It’s why I did a lot of things last year, because, you know, life is precious. Like, and I think if your family or or your friends or whatever your top values are, if you live in alignment with your values, like what you do, Brian, what your days and weeks. And I love I’m going to get that so I can ask myself that question. Like, you know, am I living in it?

in alignment with my values or on my back Jason again. I think that’s a really, really, really powerful exercise. I’m definitely stealing from you.

Brian (33:58)
Yeah it really is and I think it comes in a big theme of my life ⁓ recently, Lucy, was I realised I was just too busy and even though I’ve been practicing this, I got some great opportunities. We were chatting beforehand, I remember it was

August 2024 and I said I need to clone myself with the amount of work I have and then all of a sudden I got this opportunity to do a big TV show documentary on RTE where I was going to meet Gabor Maté and people like that so I had to say yes and then with a challenging year last year personally with members of the family as well and I ended up taking five weeks off this Christmas and I really wasn’t very privileged to do that to be able to do that it’s the nature of the job as well but I said I really need to slow down and

What I’ve really found this year, when an opportunity comes my way, I’m very clear on my priorities and my values. And where I used to say yes to things that are like six out 10, seven out 10 if it was to actually rate them, I’d say, right, if I’m saying yes to that, what am I actually saying now? So it’s probably like family members spending time with loved ones, friends. So it’s like that reframe has really helped me to make decisions.

and me to align a practical way to align with the values as well because life just gets busy things come at us and we get disconnected from ourselves as well. So I think reconnecting with yourself is brilliant and it’s that self-care piece, it’s that self-reservation piece, spending time with loved ones, slowing down, getting off that treadmill and you need that perspective. You really, really do. I think that’s key.

Lucy Gernon (35:37)
And like, it’s OK to say no, I think that’s the thing. I asked you to do this podcast a few months ago and you were like, just too much on and I totally respect that. You know what I mean? Like, I think that’s what’s really important, like that you understand guys like, you know, say, for example, this example, I’m sure I’m a Brian. I could have felt all rejection and gone, my God, he doesn’t want to come on my podcast. Or I could be like, well, he’s just really busy at the moment. It’s nothing got to do with me or what I’m thinking of. And, you know, we’ve been able to make it happen since.

Brian (35:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (36:07)
But I’d love to understand the neuroscience a little bit behind rejection, if you’re able to share a little bit on that, because I think the fear of rejection is huge for a lot of people, which is why people, they you mentioned at the start about a lot of the reason you became addicted to heroin is because you didn’t verbalize it and you didn’t you kind of internalize it all. And I’m wondering

Was there a shame? Was there like a fear of like being rejected or what drives that? And how does the brain kind of process that?

Brian (36:42)
Rejection is one of our most visceral biological components in the body. Like if you think of this from an evolutionary perspective, what was really important, like when we lived in tribes of 150 and 200 people, and that’s how our biology evolved, you needed to be useful in the tribe. If you were not useful, well, what’s the point in having them around? And status games plays a big role in that as well. Like if you were…

closer to the top of the hierarchy within that tribe, well all of a sudden you had better options around food, reproduction, you just had a much better life. So being useful was really, really important. But if you were of no use to the tribe, and let’s say you got to the stage where you were nearly rejected out of the tribe, but if you went back 10, 20, 30 years ago and you got rejected from the tribe and you were out in the wilderness on your own, you’re dead.

So from the evolutionary perspective, rejection is like death. it’s even public speaking is a bigger fear for people than guns in America. Like that does not make sense. Guns kill. There’s a lot of guns in America and guns can kill you. But people fear public speaking more because it’s that sense of rejection, abandonment, self-worth, not good enough, uselessness. And these are huge psychological concepts that are grounded in our sense of self, grounded in our biology.

And that’s why rejection, the fear of rejection. I’ve reframed rejection. I remember I interviewed Amy Huberman, the actress Amy Huberman years ago, and I wasn’t going to ask her for the interview. And the first thing I said was, God, I wasn’t even going to ask you, Amy. I’m delighted I did. And she said, sure, if you don’t ask, the answer’s always no. And I remember thinking, oh, OK, so I was pre-rejected.

Like if I didn’t ask Amy for the interview, that might as well be rejection. We’re just playing word games with it. So I was pre-rejected and it was only when I asked and gave myself that fighting chance that I was actually in the game. So I started to think about when I reach out to people now and say, we’re pre-rejected, it’s only a yeah. I only have a chance of a yes if I actually ask. And even though I’ve done that reframe, when I do get rejected sometimes like we all do, hurts. You can feel that visceral thing. It’s like, ugh.

But then if you reframe it and say, sure, maybe they were busy, and that’s the reality for most people. We end up taking it personally. We take things personally. But the reality is they probably have crazy stuff going on in their lives that you don’t even know about. And there’s all you and your pity party feeling sorry for yourself that they wouldn’t come on. They wouldn’t have a meeting with you or a coffee with you when they’re trying to navigate personal challenges that is crippling them, you know? So that perspective taken, that empathy piece, and then self-compassion for yourself as well, it’s really key.

Lucy Gernon (39:22)
Yeah. And I think I think the rejection is they’re not usually rejecting you. They’re rejecting your idea. They’re rejecting the thing that you’re proposing. Why? Because it doesn’t align with their values in that moment. I think when you can think like it’s very rare, I think that I would I’m like you, I kind of go in with a pre sense of rejection. But knowing that like it’s going to happen eventually, it’s nothing to do with, you know, me and my idea. just I’m not positioning it right or it’s not it’s not the right time for this person.

Brian (39:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (39:50)
Whereas before I would have taken it like, oh my God, like it must mean this, like how much of a fucking ego do you need to be thinking? Like this person knows me so intimately that they’re going to reject my character. Like that’s just not a thing. So I think if you can reframe that, guys, it’s a total game changer. You’ll ask for things you never would have asked for. You’ll have a bit of crack with it, a bit of fun. And I love gamifying things now. Like, oh, how can I get Brian in the podcast? Or like.

Brian (40:12)
Yeah

Lucy Gernon (40:18)
How can I get this thing over the line? If you’re going to allow yourself to have a bit of fun, just don’t take it too seriously because we just take everything too seriously.

Brian (40:18)
Yes.

Yeah.

I think in the last year and a half I’ve reached out to I nearly just do I playfully do I do for the crack like I’ve reached out to Joe Robbins about 10 times he certainly doesn’t know who he is so I didn’t get rejected by Joe Robbins he’s never heard of me I’ve reached out to Brené Brown I’ve reached out to all these people that want to be maybe on their podcasts or people I really respect and one of them came through was Gabor Amate I couldn’t believe it but it was like 50 rejections but one of them came through he could have easily rejected me the

timing was just right and you know what actually happened as well his agent tried to reject me but it was something when I met Gabor in real time the first time something we resonated with each other and his agent actually says I told Gabor to he hasn’t got time to meet you but he’s actually over overruled me on that so just to let you know so that could have been another rejection that I didn’t know about nobody like ⁓ Gabor even my hero Gabor doesn’t want that to do me when it was his agent advising to do that so we just don’t know what’s going on

And we again, we create these narratives that are all about us when usually it really isn’t most of the time.

Lucy Gernon (41:33)
Yeah, and I think most people who are successful in business, you only ever see the end product, but you don’t see the rejection. Like you don’t see that you’ve reached out to 49 other people before you got that. Yes. So I think you will need to bear that in mind as well. it is, it’s very rare that somebody is an overnight success. There’s graft, there’s rejection and yeah, lot of angst along the way as well.

Brian (41:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (41:58)
So just before we kind of finish up, I do want to kind of just ask a little bit about in particular about, you know, the coping mechanisms that a lot of people use around alcohol addiction. So I would see a lot of and I was one of them. I wasn’t an alcoholic. I don’t think I was ⁓ like, you know, if I was stressed, my default was to have a glass of wine, you know, or I wouldn’t be able to go into a social situation if I wasn’t drinking. And it’s literally only in the last year I’ve been able to go, you know what?

Brian (42:23)
Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (42:27)
You can go and meet, you know, go wherever you’re going for dinner and you don’t need to have a glass of wine with dinner. I enjoy a glass of wine, you know, but it’s not like a need. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on alcohol in particular, because it is such a, it is such a crutch, especially for lot of professionals.

Brian (42:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think one of the reasons why like we say alcohol and drugs alcohol is a drug it’s just the terminology of alcohol came nearly before drugs but it’s a drug it’s just a different form of a drug but I think it’s so socially accepted that’s why it’s sort of seeped into different areas as well but if you look at nearly let’s say the benefits of alcohol and inverted commas there like it is an antidepressant it does make you anxious long term but in the couple of hours it’s antidepressant so it relaxes you and makes you a little bit more

chilled so you can be more social if you struggle socially so it nearly can serve a purpose in some ways as well in some situations the problem is that it gets abused and that’s when it becomes problematic

I would say addiction like the definition of addiction again it’s continued use of a behavior or substance despite harm to self or others so if somebody has a couple of drinks every now and then even a couple of days a week but it’s not causing any biological or relationship challenges or psychological challenges

That’s not addiction. People can drink successfully and enjoy a few drinks as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. So I think it’s important to recognise that as well. But I think when it becomes a coping mechanism, that’s the problem. if you’re using it, if you’re socially anxious and then the alcohol releases that anxiety, behaviour that’s rewarded is repeated, as we spoke about earlier on. that can become problematic. And so for some people like

addiction coping mechanisms can come from pain. Sometimes you just enjoy something and it can nearly hijack the reward system as well and your use can just get more and more and more and it can become an addictive process as well. So that can be a real problem with alcohol as well. But I think, I think the fact that

It does de-stress you. It also turns off a part of your brain. We have these inhibition circuits within our brains. It’s within the cortex of our brain. So we say like alcohol, like, and so don’t, would say, oh, it reduces your inhibitions, but it actually turns off the inhibitions within your brain. So you’d be more prone to saying stuff you wouldn’t usually say. So that can sort of make it a bit looser and a little bit happier and stuff like that as well. But it’s important to recognize that that only becomes problematic.

when you start drinking too much and the harms start coming into play. And if you can’t stop drinking when that’s going on, well, that’s when you’re going into the realm of addiction. And the reality is that there’s many high performers, there’s many people in the workplace with full blown alcohol addictions.

and that’s just a reality and because it’s so socially accepted and because we are so good at lying to ourselves and rationalizing and justifying we’ll be in denial we can’t even see that’s an actual problem and that’s why it gets so problematic.

Lucy Gernon (45:33)
And if anyone is listening and it’s resonating with them, that the default is when I’m stressed, I have alcohol and then I wake up the next morning and I am hung over and I have to work or have to mind the kids. That’s like, that is an addiction. So what are the first steps like? Because I’m you know, a lot of people will be listening going, I only have like, you know, half a bottle of wine and yeah, I have a bit of a headache, but it’s a it’s a habitual thing. What would you recommend?

Brian (45:46)
Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (45:58)
for somebody like that, is there something they can use to replace or what’s the process?

Brian (46:04)
What I would say, I’d say the fourth step is get it out of your head and into reality. Now that could be something as simple as writing down in a journal, say, right, what do I get out of alcohol? What does alcohol take from me? How much money am I spending on alcohol? What effort am I putting into my drinking? Like put it on a page because that becomes reality. Better again, have a conversation. If you have someone to have a talk with, whether it’s a life coach, whether it’s a therapist, whether it’s a friend, have a conversation, an open conversation. Don’t you think this could be a problem? Because then all of a sudden you’re making it real.

you have to do something about it and maybe it isn’t the problem maybe maybe you can just curb that a little bit and it won’t be a problem but I think the first thing to do is that is really realize that but then if you’re saying to yourself right it’s not too problematic but it could be getting there well try to replace it like you said with something else so if you come home and all of a sudden you and feel you’re feeling stressed right you value your health but you feel like having a bottle of wine

gonna make a values based decision or a feelings based decision and if you find yourself consistently going for the bottle and that feelings based decision well then you’re like well I really can’t stop this so try to replace it go to the gym go for a walk call a friend try to replace it with something else because the stress you can relieve stress in other ways it doesn’t have to be alcohol but if you can’t do that well then you’re gonna need to start having a proper conversation with yourself and other people and maybe you have to look at something a little bit deeper

what is driving this behaviour. Maybe it’s more deeply seated than the stress and the work. There could be something else going on there too. Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (47:37)
Yeah, for sure, for sure.

OK, Brian, thank you so much for today’s conversation. I can’t wait to go back to with so many goals and things. I didn’t tell you about this, but I am doing something on the show where I’m going to be asking you five and 90. So it’s like a rapid fire around 90 seconds. All right. Some of them are. ready to go?

Brian (47:53)
We’re idiots. Yeah.

Yeah, ready to go. Let’s go.

Lucy Gernon (47:59)
Okay, so

what’s one thing you wish more women would stop apologizing for?

Brian (48:05)
Oh god, 590, I’m not doing very good at this. Wanting women, people in general. Do you know what? I’m sorry for taking your time. That really just jumps out. I’m sorry for taking your time. Just own it. Own it yourself. Yeah.

Lucy Gernon (48:08)
TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, our people in general.

Yeah, love that one.

What is one thing you love to do for fun that might surprise people?

Brian (48:31)
Probably won’t surprise people. Do you know, I love messing. I love actually just annoying people, especially Natalie and me, daughter and me brothers and sisters. I love just messing and annoying people and being playful. Yeah, definitely. Isn’t that?

Lucy Gernon (48:42)
I love, could, that’s not surprising, I can tell that.

What is a life hack you wish more people knew? It can be anything, it can be a gadget, it can be like something you saw on TikTok, it can be a mindset thing, it doesn’t matter what it is.

Brian (48:58)
People notice but they don’t really believe it like if exercise was a drug we’d say it’s too good to be true Just move your body it changes how you feel

Lucy Gernon (49:06)
Love it. What do success, balance and happiness mean to you?

Brian (49:12)
In our peace.

Lucy Gernon (49:13)
Love that one. And finally, what is one of the best pieces of advice you’ve ever received?

Brian (49:20)
I don’t know if I ever got it off anyone in particular. Do you know what? I’m gonna go with it like a family mantra is and it seems so insignificant in a certain way, but it like me auntie and me mom, they always said is make the effort. Just make the effort. So sometimes you just have to make the effort and go do the opposite of what you want to do. And it’s not completely putting yourself out, but if you don’t want to go out, let’s say a family event, just make the effort. Put yourself out there and do it.

and I think that’s something that really holds our family together. We make the effort for each other.

Lucy Gernon (49:55)
Love that. Brian, thank you so much for coming on to the show. If people want to learn more about your work, where is the best place to find you?

Brian (50:03)
I’d say my website is just bryanpenny.com and Instagram, bryanpenny on Instagram. All right, and LinkedIn. Yeah, it’d the best place to go.

Lucy Gernon (50:09)
Amazing. And you do corporate talks and all those kind of things as well, don’t you?

Brian (50:12)
I’m sure

they have workshops and corporate talks and stuff like that as well. Yeah, I definitely do.

Lucy Gernon (50:16)
OK, amazing guys.

Definitely go and check him out. Brian is an absolute powerhouse of knowledge. And as you can see, I hope he’s given you lots of joy and entertainment as he has for me as well. So until next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.