The Mindform Podcast

What if the self-doubt you've been trying to fix is actually proof you care? And what if the harder you work to outrun it, the worse it gets?

In this episode, Frank sits down with Dr. Jill Stoddard — clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker, ACT trainer, and author of Be Mighty and Brace No More — to unpack why imposter syndrome is misnamed, misunderstood, and why the conventional advice to "just build your confidence" tends to backfire for most people.

Dr. Stoddard makes the case that psychological flexibility — not confidence — is the real antidote to self-doubt, fear, and avoidance.

Topics covered:

• Why "imposter syndrome" is a flawed term — and what the research actually says
• The gap trap: why waiting until you feel ready keeps you stuck
• How acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) builds resilience without toxic positivity
• Pain reprocessing therapy — how the brain creates chronic pain and how to rewire it
• Speaking truth to power: Jill's personal story and her upcoming podcast We the Sunlight
• Why discomfort practiced in small ways builds capacity for the big moments

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🎙️ This is Episode53 of the Mindform Podcast, hosted by Frank Lawton.

🔗 Find Dr. Jill Stoddard:

• Website: www.jillstoddard.com
• New Podcast (Sept 2025): We the Sunlight
• Books: https://jillstoddard.com/books
  • Be Mighty
  • Imposter No More
  • The Big Book of ACT Metaphors

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.
Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if the relentless drive to know everything, control everything, and fix everything is actually making you less human? And what if the path to wisdom, meaning, and flourishing begins not with more answers — but with a deeper relationship with the unknown?

Frank sits down with philosopher John Cottingham — Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading and Honorary Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford — whose latest book The Humane Perspective (Oxford University Press) is a bold call for philosophy to reconnect with lived experience, emotion, and spiritual reality. John argues that our culture's obsession with left-brain detachment — from academia to AI to tech utopianism — is cutting us off from what makes us most human: vulnerability, transcendence, and the humility to acknowledge our limits.

Topics covered:

• Why philosophy's obsession with detached logic misses the point of being human
• The "epistemology of involvement" — and why being porous is more powerful than being critical
• AI, tech billionaires, and the dangerous fantasy of total control
• The longing for transcendence and why even a well-fed, comfortable life leaves us yearning
• What Augustine, Aquinas, Freud, and Jung all agree on about self-knowledge
• Why religion is a practice, not a theory — and what that means for non-believers

The Humane Perspective by John Cottingham — Oxford University Press

 johncottingham.co.uk

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.
Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if everything you've been told about managing anxiety is making it worse? What if the kindest thing you can do for your kids — or yourself — is to stop trying to fix the feeling?

Dr. Alissa Jerud is a psychologist, Penn faculty member, and author of Emotion Savvy Parenting. She specialises in anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD, and emotional regulation, using her ART framework — Accept, Regulate, Tolerate — to help people build a fundamentally different relationship with discomfort.

In this conversation, Frank and Alissa explore why our instinct to soothe anxiety is the very thing that sustains it — and what it looks like to actually let it be.

Topics covered:
- Why anxiety misfires — and why that doesn't make it your enemy
- The exposure therapy process: what 10–20 sessions really look like
- The "fly at the picnic" analogy that reframes everything about acceptance
- Why popular anxiety advice in the media is doing more harm than good
- How Alissa's own parenting struggles transformed her clinical practice
- What it means to be the "rock" for your kids without fixing their emotions

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Emotion Savvy Parenting — Available here: https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Savvy-Parenting-Alissa-Jerud/dp/1032544945
Learn more at: alissajerud.com

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects. Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if the goal system you've been taught is only half the story?
What if the reason you keep falling short has nothing to do with discipline, and everything to do with your tools?

Kjerstin Klein is a serial entrepreneur, certified athletic trainer, third-degree black belt, and health and business consultant who built a goal management system out of pure necessity as a neurodivergent person who just needed to get to the bus on time.

Her framework, the GRIP (Goals, Requirements, Issues, Plan), isn't just a goal-setting tool. It's an iterative, self-correcting map that reveals what you actually want, why you keep getting stuck, and what to do about it.

• Why SMART goals measure progress but can't tell you why you're failing
• The four reasons we avoid doing the things we say we want to do
• How the GRIP model exposed a client who hadn't called his mother in three years — all in the name of success
• The Five F's of Flourishing — the domains every fulfilling life needs to balance
• Why nine times out of ten, people don't actually want what they think they want

Connect with Kjerstin Klein:

📧 Email
KjerstinKlein@gmail.com

🌐 Website
https://devatasolutions.com/

📖 Get a GRIP on Goals
A practical guide to the GRIP Method, available on Kindle and paperback.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0893M1XMM

📘 Facebook Page – Devatas Solutions
https://www.facebook.com/DevatasSolutions

🎙️ Goals Gals Podcast Series
The first episode in a 12-part series that walks through the GRIP Method using a real-life goal-setting journey.
https://soundcloud.com/kjerstin-klein/goals-gals-intro

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.

Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if our obsession with rules is making everything worse? What if philosophy isn’t exclusive to university hallways?

Barry Lam — philosopher, documentarian, and host of the Hi-Phi Nation podcast — joins the show to explore the collision between abstract ethics and the messiest corners of real life.
His book Fewer Rules, Better People makes a provocative case: rule systems kill excellence. From criminal justice to airport security, the institutions we’ve built to be fair have become machines that punish good judgment.

We also discuss strange and  true stories of philosophy in action:
    •    The gamers who helped stabilise mRNA vaccines
    •    Soldiers navigating unjust orders — and what philosophy says they owe themselves
    •    A woman who genuinely believes she’s the reincarnation of Anne Frank
    •    People falling in love with AI chatbots — and whether that love is real
    •    Why lottocracy might be a more honest democracy than the one we have
    •    What (if anything) you owe your past self

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Pick up Barry's book Fewer Rules Better People at wwnorton.com/books/fewer-rules-better-people and check out his documentary podcast Hi-Phi Nation at hiphination.org

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects. Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

Frank sits down with Arie Kruglanski, one of the world's leading experts in human motivation psychology, to explore a framework decades in the making. After being invited to study the psychology of terrorism post-9/11, Arie discovered that terrorists, world leaders, and everyday people share the same core drive: the need to matter. He calls it the quest for significance.

His model centers on two forces: bigness — the drive to achieve, compete, and be seen — and smallness — the need to connect, belong, and be vulnerable. Too much bigness leads to burnout, conflict, and isolation. Too much smallness breeds feelings of worthlessness. Balance between the two is where human flourishing lives.

Arie draws the thread from romantic love to geopolitics, showing how the same psychological dynamic that breaks a relationship also starts wars. The antidote he points to is simple but powerful: pursue significance not for personal glory, but in service of something larger than yourself.

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.

Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect’s Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

In this episode Frank sits down with Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable, to explore his latest book Beyond Belief, a science-backed manifesto on how our beliefs shape everything from our motivation to our suffering.
Nir opens with a framework that reframes how we think about beliefs entirely. Most of us confuse facts, beliefs and faith, and that confusion, he argues, is the root of most of our personal and interpersonal problems. The real insight is this: beliefs are tools, not truths. And like any tool, the question isn't whether they're correct, it's whether they're serving you.
The conversation covers why motivation isn't a straight line but a triangle, why positive thinking and manifestation are not just ineffective but actively harmful, and what athletes actually visualize that makes the difference. Nir also draws on the neuroscience of perception to reveal why none of us are seeing reality as clearly as we think we are.
See as they explore the invisible beliefs quietly running your life, the science behind why none of us see reality clearly, and a simple but powerful four question process you can use to dissolve the beliefs that are keeping you stuck and start building ones that actually serve you.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this episode of The Mindform Podcast, host Frank Lawton speaks with coach, author, and podcast host Nick Day about his powerful framework for understanding and working with fear, which he calls The Fear Equation. Nick opens up about a life-altering traumatic event that catalyzed a deep inquiry into the role of fear in his life — and how it had disguised itself as wisdom, prudence, and even respect.

Through personal stories ranging from career paralysis to family loss, Nick illustrates how fear often masquerades as logic or care, subtly stopping us from living fully. He introduces his formula — Fear = Anxiety + (Uncertainty × Imagination) — and breaks down how these components work together to create internal barriers.

Nick also shares his practical B.O.L.D. framework for moving through fear: Breathe, Observe, Label, and Do — tools he uses himself and with clients to help turn fear into a compass for growth. Together, he and Frank reflect on the cost of avoiding fear — what Nick calls "the fear tax" — and how choosing courage, even in small moments, can change the trajectory of a life.

This is a grounded and vulnerable conversation about the mechanics of fear, the courage to act, and how to live without regret.

Find out more about Nick Day at t4mcoach.com

 

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.

Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect’s Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

In this deep and vulnerable conversation, neurodivergent therapist Michael MaeRhys joins Frank Lawton to explore the sacred journey of personal transformation. Drawing from his lived experience, therapeutic work, and spiritual influences like Jungian psychology and The Alchemist, Michael shares how many people live on subconscious autopilot—shaped by trauma, cultural expectations, and inherited patterns—until they begin to hear a deeper internal call.

This “summons of the soul,” as he calls it, demands courage, discomfort, and the letting go of egoic identities built for survival and social belonging. Together, Michael and Frank examine how fear keeps people from answering this call, how relational fields—like therapy or secure partnerships—can make space for growth, and how suffering is not something to be avoided but integrated.

Michael also introduces his developing framework of “virtue ecology” and the concept of prohairesis—a consciously chosen, morally aligned life—as key to becoming who we’re meant to be. Whether you're on the edge of change, stuck in comfort, or seeking your next phase of growth, this episode offers a powerful invitation to listen deeply and live courageously.

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.
Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect’s Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

In this engaging and thought-provoking episode, Dr. Dean Burnett — a neuroscientist, a lecturer, a podcaster, a science communicator, a comedian, and an author — joins Frank Lawton for a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of emotions, the limits of logic, and the quirks of the human brain. Dean shares his deeply personal journey from a working-class Welsh village to becoming a prominent voice in public science — with a few unexpected detours, including embalming cadavers and performing stand-up comedy.

Dean reflects on how growing up amidst emotional struggle and social hardship sparked a fascination with neuroscience and mental health. He critiques the limitations of the scientific skepticism movement he once embraced, recognizing how emotional detachment can morph into superiority and exclusion. Together, they explore the profound complexity of emotions — how little science truly understands them, and why suppressing them in favor of logic alone is both misguided and inhuman.

The conversation turns to the neurological and practical benefits of mindfulness and meditation, which Dean explains using vivid metaphors — likening the brain to a restaurant with a neglected greenhouse. He makes a compelling case for embracing emotional literacy, humility, and curiosity in both science and everyday life.

Dean’s bestselling debut book, The Idiot Brain, celebrates its 10th anniversary in January 2026. You can explore his work and updates at www.deanburnett.com.