Akeel JabberInvestment Director, Horizen Capital · Investor, Entrepreneur and Petroleum Engineer

Ever wonder why you freeze or make bad decisions under pressure? 👇

25 Mar 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:57

In this short talk, the speaker explains two distinct brain modes that govern our behavior under threat. The "survival state" (also called the executive state by the speaker) is an automatic, low‑level response that activates when the brain perceives a physical or emotional danger – like a hungry tiger or an imminent deadline. In this mode the brain shuts down higher‑order thinking to prioritize rapid reaction, which means we cannot think clearly and often act reflexively. The speaker contrasts this with the "executive state," a higher‑level brain mode that enables critical thinking, creativity, empathy, trust‑building, and sound decision‑making. When we remain in survival mode for non‑physical threats (tight deadlines, difficult conversations), we make poor choices and can "crash under pressure." The talk’s purpose is to highlight why we freeze or make bad decisions under pressure by linking the physiological survival response to everyday emotional stressors.

Chapters

It's what's called a survival state, or what I call an executive state. Okay, so survival state is the part of your brain where basically it turns on when your life feels threatened. Imagine a hungry tiger in front of you about to eat you. The key thing to understand about survival mode though is your brain can't think. Remember, it thinks it's about to die. So if there's a hungry tiger in front of you and you sit there and start thinking, it might be too late. So this is why it's a function of your brain not to think in those moments, and you're reacting without thinking. So then we do the same thing when it's not a physical threat, but it feels like an emotional threat, a deadline you have to meet, a hard conversation you have to have. So because our brains are not thinking in that moment, we don't make the best decisions in those moments. This is when people crash under pressure and things like that. Your executive state is the part of your brain that turns on where you can access a lot of your brain's higher functions. We're talking things like critical thinking skills, your creativity, your ability to have empathy, to connect with someone, to build that trust comes from this part of your brain. And the list goes on and on. Your ability to make good decisions.