In this conversational interview, the speakers explore how imagined experiences can translate into real performance improvements and how people can rewire their subconscious programming to unlock greater potential. They begin by citing a classic study from Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho‑Cybernetics where basketball players who visualized free throws improved nearly as much as those who physically practiced, illustrating that the subconscious often cannot distinguish imagined from real experience. The discussion then shifts to why adults in the West are rarely taught to imagine or be curious, leading to resistance and desperation when trying to adopt these skills. The core of the conversation centers on the creation and purposeful use of alter egos (e.g., “Playful Dad,” “Hollywood Mike Z”) to grant internal permission, shift energy, and rewire limiting beliefs. They describe how NLP and hypnotherapy can bypass conscious resistance, integrating conscious and subconscious minds into a unified “integrus” state. Practical tactics such as a transition buffer (a 10‑minute pause before moving between work and home) are presented as ways to consciously switch personas, moving from a “doing” mindset to a “being” mindset where actions flow naturally from identity. The dialogue also introduces Gay Hendricks’ “Upper‑Limit Problem,” likening self‑sabotage to an internal thermostat that caps how much love, money, or success one feels deserving. By reshaping identity and embedding new feelings into the nervous system, clients can raise this thermostat, making growth feel less hard. Throughout, personal anecdotes (e.g., the speaker’s wife’s trauma triggers, a client named Tiffany) illustrate how bodily signals and subconscious programming influence behavior, and how intentional rewiring can transform both personal and business performance.
Chapters
When we create those alter egos, it just gives us permission and much more internal freedom. And then we start figuring out how to rewire the beliefs and the energy to support that.
It's so powerful. I mean, you referenced real quick the, um, the free shooter exercise. I read that about that first in Dr. Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics, and he told the story, for those who don't know, of They literally did a study with 3 groups, you know, that were basketball players. One group, they said, practice actually your free throws every day for a certain number of time. The other group, um, was to not practice at all for the same amount of time for a few weeks. And the other group was to practice in their mind. So imagine themselves making a certain number of free throws and then come back in 3 weeks and see who's better. And the people that actually practiced were the most better. Um, they had improved by like 23%. But the people that did, and the people that didn't practice, didn't get any better. So that makes sense. But what's fascinating is the group that just imagined the free throws in their mind, instead of the 23% improvement that the actual practicing people did, they had a 20% improvement. So it was like almost the same amount of physical improvement just imagining themselves making the free throw. And the point being is, you know, your, your subconscious mind, your mind can't tell the difference between a real or imagined experience sometimes, which is powerful for the positive or negative. So I just was highlighting that for people that aren't familiar. And when you start to unpack that stuff, you're like, no, that's crazy. But then you start to see, you know, like Olympic athletes, I look at when the Winter Olympics are happening and the skiers are up there in the top or even the gymnasts in the Summer Olympics, like you see them like their eyes closed and they're kind of bending their body, they're going through the twists and the flips they're gonna do when they hit the vault in their mind and they're pre-experiencing it. So that it becomes muscle memory. And it's like you can actually get benefit from imagining things in the, in the mental realm that translate into the physical realm. That connection, when I saw that, that made me really stop and think maybe there's something to this. And what you're saying, which I think is maybe hard for some people to start out, is how you said, you know, you got the highways built already. How do you create this new landscape? And I think adults in America, at least, and definitely in the West, but that's specifically in America, we're not taught to imagine. We're not taught to be curious. Like curiosity is beat out of us. Imagination is beat out of us once you're an adult. And so those are skills that don't seem useful in this modern era. So it's actually hard. It's not hard for kids to do this. And it's not hard for us to do this when we were kids, but for some reason, this is like, this feels weird. This feels awkward. I joked with you, if my wife bumped into us during our VIP session in Nashville, she would've looked at me, what are you guys doing? There's music playing, my eyes are closed, are closed, but I'm allowing myself to not think like rational Graham, like business owner Graham. You know, this is how marketing works, this is how you write. It was like, can we just imagine what could be and start to use that part of the brain that's maybe a little dormant? So maybe talk about like, where do people get stuck there? And when you work with people, does— is there resistance to even like go to this place of imagination? Are they like, how is this going to help me? Or do you find that people are so desperate that they're ready for, for whatever?
I find both. I think people, there's often resistance, but there's also often desperation because they don't know, like they know they're stuck, but then their brain again is where I go back to, it's their programming. Even with my wife, my wife had a crazy traumatic childhood and so there's a lot of triggers like today before, you know, we got, she was late for our daughter's school meeting to get her review. And our daughter's only 2. So it's not a big deal. It's not like, yeah, but guess what? She started getting all stressed, lashed out at me, running out the door, frantic energy and all the stress. And, and I didn't take it personal because I recognize it's her programming. She's literally— and while it's way better than it was before, it's like half of what it was before. She would have had a panic attack before. And yeah, right. And because she was running late, she hates being late because she got in trouble as a child. So the programming that was kind of seared I'm in trouble. I'm a bad mom for showing up late to my daughter's report card review thing. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, she's 2 years old. What are they gonna say?
But I didn't tell her that though.
Like, babe, this is stupid. Why are you flipping out?
That's not gonna work.
Exactly. It's not gonna work. That wouldn't work either. My programming used to say that. It does. But, uh, and that leads to fights, and my programming has been rewired mostly. Um, But so we have to remember, so our brain is wired to keep us safe, not to make us thrive.
Mm, so the people— that again, it's so powerful.
Our brain is wired to keep us safe but not to make us thrive. So the people that master any game they're playing— master oneself, master game of business, master marriage, master parenting, whatever— they've learned to master themselves And if you come from, well, we all come from some junk. We got some junk in the trunk. So we have to clean that out and rewire. And that takes a lot of intentionality around your conscious beliefs, but especially your subconscious. Because 99% of our thoughts are subconscious and we have 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day. One of the other big hurdles that we have to overcome is 90% of my thoughts today are the same thoughts I had yesterday.
Wow.
And then 90% of tomorrow's thoughts are going to be a repeat of today's. So there's a problem, right? Yes. But how we get to rewire is we gotta— and that's why hypnotherapy is also really important. That's why what we do in NLP is— so I— we bypass some of your conscious thoughts and we created integration. Because when we are in disintegration or disharmony, internal disharmony, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, etc., said a house divided against itself cannot stand. Well, I want your conscious mind and your subconscious mind to be integrated in integrus, as well as all the other parts of you. So if you have Grateful Graham, or I have Magic Mike and Badass Mike Z, and, uh, you know, weak ass, you know, my other persona, Weak Ass Willie, right? I have these other guys in Hollywood Mike Z, and I also have Playful Dad. So I gotta know, like a good, you know, basketball coach, I gotta know who to put in in what situation. And one of my mistakes, for example, in managing my own alter ego is I would be listening to a podcast because I'm like, grow, learn, conquer the world, whatever, right up until the minute I'm supposed to hang with my wife and daughter. Yeah. So I walk in and I'm like, I've got the energy of I'm going to knock some stuff out, right? I'm focused and intense. Doesn't work.
Yeah.
So I got to flip. And now I have the habit of before I walk through the door, ideally the last 10 minutes, if I'm driving home, play some music, whatever, that shifts me into playful dad. And so I'm connecting and I'm playful with my, my daughter. And then so when we create those alter egos, it just gives us permission and much more internal freedom. And then we start figuring out how to rewire the beliefs and the energy to support that.
That's so good. Yeah. So like, I love that example, especially of like working up to the moment in the day. I think it's a very— like, having some time of a buffer to— someone said it years ago— to land the plane. Yeah, right. Like, you don't want to— if you're at 30,000 feet, you don't just jump out and be like, all right, I'm home. Like, let's just land the plane. And whether that's 10 minutes in your work day, or if you, if you have a commute, using that. Like, for years I didn't have a commute. I worked in, in the office or in my garage where I had a studio. And so it literally was just walking from the garage into the kitchen. And so I was like, no commute. So I had to give myself 10 minutes.
Yeah.
To either like, sometimes it was to do some light reading or something fun I wanted to do, but a lot of times it'd just be to sit. And I think John Acuff said this years ago, like there was like the pause that refreshes. And he would just like, like take a deep breath before he like opened the door, even, even for a few seconds, like, wait a second, I'm entering a new space. It's not the same space. And I love how you put it. I can't even really show up as the same part of me in this world. It's not that there's a, a bad part or a good part, or, or even a work part or a home part, because there— it's, it's all integrated. But there is a way of thinking, in this moment, I have to show up more fully as the, you know, playful dad, you know, attentive husband. And instead of thinking— this is how I used to think, Mike, and you've helped me shift this thinking even in this conversation— I used to think, okay, when I go home now, I have to do certain things so that Shay's happy, the kids are happy, or even if it's not for them, because this is the right thing a husband or dad does. I was focused on the actions. Yeah, but you've helped me shift it as to, no, how would a loving husband and loving father show up? Who, who is that person when he comes home who's not worried about work because he trusts God's got it and he did what he could today, and now he's closed the door and there's another day to fight it? So he's not worried. If I were that guy and I wasn't worried about work and I'm just happy to be home, who would I be? What would I be like? And then it's not about the actions as much as it's about the identity. And then I show up differently, and they can tell the difference, and I can tell the difference. And that's been powerful.
Yeah, and it's shifting from doing to being. When I am being this person, I am this person, then the actions, the doing comes naturally. If I am playful dad, then I'm naturally going to be more playful. So it's just shifting a switch in my brain and my energy so I shift into that. And then we can, we can learning, learning to master it. So like when I'm showing up on a podcast now. Like, my— I want to be Hollywood Mike Z. That's my more playful, entertaining, high energy, because I'm so calm. Like, yeah, off the camera I'm too calm and I need to tune it up, right? So, um, anyway, so yeah, spot on. It's like that, in essence, you're describing the doing versus the being.
One of the things that I loved about working with you, and maybe this is something that you do in your, um, as you call it, neural rewiring Um, and, but if it's not, it's okay too. Is in business, let's talk about like in business, a lot of times we think in the rational mind of like, okay, I need a new strategy. Um, we need, so it's real simple. Like you need more leads, you need, you know, higher prices, you need more offers. And we're thinking about, and those are all wonderful things. These are all dials we can dial up. Um, but one of the things that blew me away from I, what is it? I'm blanking on his name. Um, The Big Leap, the author.
Oh yeah, yeah, Gay Hendricks.
Yeah, Gay Hendricks. Yeah, so The Big Leap, when I read that book, I, I kind of first understood what he, he called the upper limit problem. Yeah, right. And it was like, you, we have this internal thermostat, is the language he used, which was helpful for me to understand of this is kind of the ceiling of how much love you feel like you deserve, how much money you feel like you deserve, happiness you feel like you deserve, and you don't know it's there, but we all have it. It's all set different places. And when you bump up against it, you will subconsciously self-sabotage. Yeah. To bring it, the thermostat back down to whatever that level is set. So no matter how much strategy you have, if I got on Oprah's show and she sent me a million leads per month to buy my book or my courses, I would somehow subconsciously not be able to handle if my, if my thermostat was like low, I don't deserve more than a million dollars a year or whatever, sure, I would somehow self-sabotage that success. And it, it's like putting fuel into a broken system or has a leaky bucket or whatever you want to say. Do you find that the work you do is helping people raise that thermostat on like, look, you need to—
if you—
if it's on a business client, like, you're thinking too small in terms of your impact you can have, the amount of money you can make. Or I find this too, people who, like you kind of alluded to with Tiffany, your client of if it's going to be successful, it has to be hard. And so if they find that they're crushing in business and it's kind of effortless, there's this weird guilt of like, this shouldn't be so easy. And I felt that years ago, and I got over that as quickly as I could. And I don't feel bad. Somebody at a Bible study last night said, hey, you've been working hard this week. I was like, not really. I'm doing good stuff, but it's not hard. And I'm very intentional about that. But I struggled with that for a while. Um, do you find that like that's some of the work you're doing is helping people raise that thermostat?
100% because it comes down to an identity as well. Like Tiffany, for example, what's her body saying? Your body will not let you hurt itself unless you're like a Navy SEAL and you can bypass and you know how to cut off your own hand, right? Please have to be an extreme like to be able to bypass, but a normal, healthy functioning adult. So Tiffany's saying it's hard. So more growth means more hard. And if her body is already saying, I'm tired, which it was, I was like, her body's going to say no.
Yeah.
So, that's what we part— and she sent me a text today. It's like, at the beginning, "What if it's easy?" is what she wrote on a new board. And so, and then it's an identity, back to the upper limit problem. So, if my identity is here, it's like an invisible ceiling. So, if I want to get up to the next level, then my body The thing I have to rewire into your nervous system, not just what you say, but it has to be in your nervous system, how you feel about it, because memories are encoded according to feelings.
