Terri Maxwell teaches the Success Switch, a 90-second breathing practice that shifts your brain from fight-or-flight to calm focus. Name the feeling, take four deep breaths to trigger dopamine and serotonin, then claim your desired outcome. She uses it to start leadership meetings at her company to prevent reactive mistakes under pressure.
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Wow, that is so powerful. Again, very, very simple. It makes sense, but it's really in how you implement it. So what about in high-stakes environment? For me, in the military, but startups as well, tech, crisis response, speed does matter a lot at times. But how do leaders balance urgency with intention without burning out their teams?
Yeah, great question. It really comes in conscious space, creating the space Um, if you really think about it, when you're in a state of urgency— so, you know, I had a situation as a child where my parents had too much to drink and they were fighting and the knives came out and it was going south really fast, and my nervous system got hijacked really quick, but I was calm on the outside. And I use that as a reminder to people that, you know, you can get your nervous system jacked up, but with just a few deep breaths what I call the success switch, you can calm your nervous system down and then you can respond rather than react. And that's how you move forward with intentional urgency, is really making sure that you're regulating your nervous system through breathing, or what I call the success switch. And that by regulating yourself, you're able to see clearly— we should turn right, we should turn left— so that you can make an urgent pivot, which I think right now Having a sense of urgency intentionally, I think, is very important in business because there's so much coming at us. But if you do that from an unregulated nervous system state, you're going to make mistakes and you're going to lead your team astray. And by just simply breathing and getting yourself calm before you react, you make better decisions.
That is so powerful. Yeah, because I think most people, they just react to everything that is happening. They don't actually take the time to respond. Respond. And I'm glad you're talking about breathing. Some people, they do meditation, prayer, or whatever works for them. But that is so key though, because many times, especially now in 2025, there is so much happening and the world seems to be changing around us so quickly with emerging tech and all of that. So as a leader, what would you recommend for leaders to kind of remain calm and kind of find their center in the midst of all of the chaos around us? What, what type of activity do you recommend?
Yeah, we actually do this with our team all the time. It's called the Success Switch, um, and, uh, it's ABC. So it's real simple. I like to keep things simple. So A stands for awareness, and, and you just use the prompt, the truth is I feel, and whatever comes up is basically what's in your subconscious and in your nervous system. So if I said the truth is I feel frustrated, That's basically what my nervous system is reacting to. And I may on the outside think everything's fine, but that whatever I say, the truth is I feel whatever is in my subconscious is going to be there. So, oh, okay, I'm frustrated. Great. And then you go to step 2, which is to breathe, and it's just 4 breaths in through your nose real deep and out of your mouth 4 times, nice and deep.
Wow, that calms you down.
Yeah. And then you do it the second time. And what's happening is your brain is sending hormones, dopamine and serotonin, into your bloodstream, which is calming everything down. You do that 3, 4 times. So real simple. And after the fourth time, you'll find you just have like this space. And then C, which is the third step, is claim what it is that you want. So, you know, I, I claim that we're going to move forward and we're going to be successful or whatever the, whatever that is.
Yeah.
And there's a little guide on the Succeed On Purpose website under resources for that to walk you through the steps. But it's so powerful. We teach it to every employee. We use it in our leadership meetings. We'd start everything with what we call the success shift or switch. And it switches your brain out of fight or flight and into the place where you can actually create success. So I call that the success switch. It's very quick. It takes just like a a minute and a half. And you turn on the parasympathetic nervous system. And then, all of a sudden, you get out of the fight or flight, and now you're in the rest and digest. And now you can see your way through to the other side.
That is really powerful. And for those who practice gratitude every day, I think it's a great way to do it while you are breathing because it brings you into awareness of what really matters in the moment and not be distracted by all of the stimulus and signal out there. Wow.
And if you think about it, fight or flight kind of puts you in this sense of urgency where your world is really small. But when you do the ABCs and the Success Switch, what happens is all of a sudden it creates space.
Yes.
Now it's like, wait a minute, I can see my way through this crisis. I can see my way through this situation in a very calm way. And by teaching, in our cases, teaching our employees and our leadership team to do it, every meeting starts with that just minute and a half. Wow. And then we can approach the business at hand, which can be anything from how are we going to onboard these new clients to how are we going to get results for these clients in a much more calm way.
Wow. And also all of the work you've done with businesses, helping them scale and grow. So from your vast experience, What do you think is the most dangerous lie leaders tell themselves when growth stalls?
