Ever finish a perfectly ordinary workday feeling like you've run a marathon? You answered emails, sat through meetings, dealt with a few difficult personalities and somehow arrived at 5 p.m. with absolutely nothing left for the people or things you actually enjoy.

And the maddening part? You’ll probably do it all again tomorrow.

My dear friend Bruna De Palo, a fellow neuro nerd, neuroscience executive coach and one of my favorite humans, has a fascinating explanation for why we make life so much harder on ourselves than it needs to be. And it starts with something our brains are very, very good at: conserving energy.

Bruna's new book, The Brain Instruction Manual for Leaders, explores what happens when the way we work, communicate and lead is fundamentally at odds with how our brains are designed to function. We're burning through precious mental energy on misunderstandings, unnecessary conflict and trying to get people to do things in ways that actually make their brains less effective. Brilliant strategy, right?

Now, you know I'm all about confidence and brain science, so this conversation was right up my alley. Because when someone feels threatened, dismissed or backed into a corner, their brain responds accordingly. And good luck getting their best thinking, cooperation or confidence when that happens. The really interesting part is how often we create those conditions without even realizing it.

What I love about Bruna's approach is that she doesn't ask us to become nicer people just because it's the right thing to do. She makes a compelling case that understanding how brains work can make us more effective and leave us with more energy for our actual lives. And you don't need to manage a team to benefit. If you deal with other human beings (and I'm guessing you do), this conversation is for you.

Highlights from our conversation:

• Why an ordinary workday can leave your brain feeling completely spent
• The surprising price we pay for trying to get the best out of other people
• Why the leadership approach that once got results may now be working against you
• How understanding someone else's brain can change a disagreement without changing either person's opinion
• Where the line falls between understanding human behavior and manipulating it

Bruna De Palo is a neuroscience executive coach, keynote speaker and creator of the B.R.A.I.N. Leadership Model™. Drawing on nearly two decades of corporate experience and neuroscience studies at MIT Sloan, she helps leaders understand how the brain shapes behavior, performance and workplace culture. A faculty member at the NeuroLeadership Institute, Bruna works with Fortune 500 organizations worldwide and was recognized among Thinkers50’s Global Top 50 Executive Coaches in 2026. She is the author of The Brain Instruction Manual for Leaders. Learn more about Bruna at brunadepalo.com.

AI is pretty damn seductive. Give it a problem and seconds later it has an answer. Something you don't know how to do? It can probably help. Need to sound smarter, work faster or figure out something that would've taken you half the day? Done.

But can it make you confident? I think it can, but there’s a big catch.

I love AI. My team and I use it for everything from writing and data analysis to design and coding. I’ve even developed a rather personal relationship with my Claude. Used well, these tools can help us become more competent, better prepared and a whole lot more resourceful, all things that can absolutely strengthen confidence.

But our brains have to stay on the job.

Because confidence still requires us to evaluate information, question what we’re being told and ultimately make the call. AI can help us with that, but it can also - and frequently does - hand us a beautifully written, incredibly convincing pile of crap. It can agree with us when it probably shouldn’t. And it has absolutely no idea what that little alarm going off in your gut knows that the data doesn’t.

So how do we get all that extra competence without accidentally putting our own brains out to pasture? That’s what I’m digging into in this episode, including a few ways I’m using AI to strengthen my thinking instead of replacing it. Because the real confidence boost isn't getting an answer faster. It's knowing what to question, when to push back and when the final call still needs to be yours.

I talk all the time about how confidence is a choice- it’s the even the title of one of my books - so when someone comes along and says, “Okay, Alyssa, but are you sure it’s YOU whose actually the making the choice?” you better believe I'm listening.

Enter Paula Houlihan, fellow neuro nerd, executive coach and someone who has spent years studying what happens to our decision-making when the pressure is on. Paula was a high-performing corporate professional who thought exhaustion, stress and pushing through were simply part of being successful. Then a life-altering diagnosis forced her to take a very hard look at the choices that had gotten her there, including the ones she hadn't realized she was making.

That last part got me. Because we walk around thinking we're being perfectly rational and intentional while our brains are busy reaching for whatever worked before. That's wonderfully efficient when the old programming still serves us. It’s when it doesn’t that things get tricky.

And high performers can create the perfect conditions for that old programming to take over. We take on more because we can. We put enormous pressure on ourselves. Then, when we need more time, we start stealing it from things like sleep and taking care of ourselves, which are precisely the things our brains need to make better decisions.

Paula and I get delightfully nerdy about what's happening in the brain when pressure starts calling the shots, how to recognize when you've slipped into reactive mode and what it takes to get yourself back into the driver's seat. If you've ever made a decision and later thought, Why the hell did I do that?, listen in. This conversation may make you question just how many of your choices are really choices.

A few things you'll want to listen for:

• Why high performers can be especially vulnerable to autopilot thinking
• How to spot the moment your brain may be making the decision before you do
• Why a strategy that helped you succeed before can quietly start working against you
• The clue hiding inside those “if only they would…” moments
• Paula's deceptively small interruption that can change what happens next

Paula Houlihan is a keynote speaker, executive coach and creator of the Choice Management™ Model, which draws on neuroscience, psychology and her own corporate experience to help people make more intentional choices under pressure. A former corporate senior claims specialist with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Paula now works with leaders and organizations to rethink the habits that drive performance, burnout and change. Learn more about Paula and her work.