What Changed? A Real Conversation About Execution Blocks and Why We Do What We Do
I recently recorded an episode of What Changed? with Dwayne Smith, and it turned into one of those conversations where the time disappears because both people are actually interested in the subject. We talked about execution blocks, how the brain responds to memories and beliefs, and what may be happening underneath the behavior we judge from the outside.
What We Talked About
What an execution block is and how to tell when one may be operating
Why knowing what to do does not guarantee that you can consistently do it
How eye position can change the intensity of an emotional response
A practical exercise for changing how your brain represents a difficult memory
The limiting beliefs we carry without realizing they are still making decisions
Why I spent years believing I was lazy or incapable when I was actually blocked
This Was Not a Surface-Level Interview
Dwayne and I spent about an hour and a half talking before and during the recording, and I enjoyed all of it. He is intelligent, curious, and currently very interested in how the brain works, which meant I did not have to spend the conversation trying to convince him that behavior is more complicated than “try harder and develop better habits.”
That was refreshing.
What Changed? is about the inner work behind real change. Dwayne talks with people about the thoughts, emotions, quiet patterns, and identity shifts that shape the way they live and lead. The podcast is now in its second generation after his former partner left to pursue other things, and Dwayne told me that he used that change to think carefully about what he actually wanted the show to become.
He did not want another podcast where guests shared the polished, public-facing version of what they had accomplished. He wanted to understand why they made the choices they made, what was happening behind those choices, and how the experience changed the person doing the work.
That lines up with how I think too, because the visible behavior is rarely the whole story.
We Talked About What Is Underneath the Behavior
We spent part of the episode talking about how to identify an execution block. If someone does not know what to do, they may need a strategy. If the strategy requires them to work in a way that does not fit how they operate, they may need to adjust the strategy.
But sometimes the strategy is perfectly reasonable. The person understands it, has the ability to carry it out, and may even execute without much trouble in other parts of their life or business. Then they reach one particular action and everything falls apart.
They overthink it. They keep preparing. They become strangely fascinated by work that absolutely did not matter yesterday. They decide the offer needs to be rebuilt before anyone sees it, or that this is probably the perfect time to reorganize every file they have created since 2019.
They are not blocked everywhere. They freeze there.
That selectivity is important because it gives us information. It suggests that the problem may not be laziness, discipline, motivation, or the lack of one more color-coded system. Something about that particular action is activating a pattern that needs to be identified before we decide what will actually help.
Dwayne Was Willing to Try the Exercises
I did not just explain the concepts to Dwayne. He was willing to try some of the tools during the conversation, which made the episode much more useful than an hour of me describing what someone else might theoretically experience.
We went through a limiting-beliefs exercise, and I showed him how to use eye gaze to notice whether an emotional response changed depending on where he was looking. The point was not to find the correct place to look. It was to pay attention to what his brain and body were already doing.
We also worked with a memory that caused some distress. I asked him to notice how his mind represented it and then experiment with changing the details. If it appeared as a video, what happened when he made it a still image? If it was in color, did black and white feel different? What happened when he made it larger, smaller, closer, or farther away?
Each time, he noticed which version felt better.
He used a memory involving his daughter, and this is where it became especially interesting. The image did not end up crumpled behind him or stuck on a shelf somewhere far away. His mind placed it on what I believe was his mother’s mantelpiece, where the family photographs are displayed.
I could not have planned that ending for him, and I would not have tried. The exercise was not about forcing the memory out of his mind or convincing him that it did not matter. It was about allowing his brain to change how it held the image and noticing what brought the distress down.
His brain knew where she belonged.
The Letter I Did Not Expect to Feel So Strongly
Dwayne does something at the end of his episodes that I have not encountered on other podcasts. He asks each guest to write a letter to their former self and read it during the conversation.
I prepared mine in advance. And yes, I used AI to help me because it would be a little ridiculous for me to spend this much time teaching people how to use AI well and then pretend I sat alone with a quill and parchment.
I had read through the letter once before the recording, so the words were not new to me. But I do not think I fully understood them until I read them aloud to Dwayne.
For years, I believed there was something wrong with me because I could not consistently follow through on things I genuinely wanted. I thought I must be lazy, incapable, undisciplined, or somehow less committed than the people who seemed able to decide what they wanted and then simply do it.
I knew I wanted it. That made my inability to act make even less sense.
The message in the letter was that I had never been lazy or incapable. I had been blocked, and I did not yet know how to recognize or resolve what was happening.
I was trying to correct my character when the problem was never my character.
Reading that aloud landed differently.
Why I Recommend Listening to What Changed?
Dwayne had a clear direction for the episode, but the questions were not canned or overly planned. He listened to my answers, asked the next question that made sense, and kept us moving along the arc he wanted without making the conversation feel controlled.
In other words, we had a purpose. We did not spend the entire podcast talking about his cats, which has happened to me on another show and is apparently the bar now.
I would recommend What Changed? to people who are interested in how the brain works, but also to anyone interested in how building a business and moving through life changes the person doing it. Dwayne is not looking for the tidy version of someone’s evolution. He wants to understand what was driving them, what they had to recognize, and what no longer fit.
Those are the conversations that tend to stay with us.
Watch or Listen to the Episode
In this episode, Dwayne and I talk about execution blocks, limiting beliefs, memory, eye gaze, the difference between needing a strategy and being blocked, and the experiences that shaped the work I now do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTMXHZKTWPs&t=78s
You can also find What Changed? with Dwayne Smith on:
You can follow the podcast on Instagram and TikTok, or connect with Dwayne on LinkedIn.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an execution block?
An execution block is a specific internal pattern that interrupts action even when someone understands what to do and has the ability to do it. It may show up as perfectionism, overwhelm, analysis paralysis, functional freeze, productive procrastination, imposter syndrome, or self-sabotage.
How is an execution block different from needing a better strategy?
If you do not know what to do, you may need a strategy. If the strategy does not fit how you naturally work or operate, it may need to be aligned. An execution block becomes more likely when the strategy is workable, but your ability to act repeatedly collapses at the same specific point.
Where can I watch the What Changed? podcast?
Full video episodes are available on the official What Changed? YouTube channel. Audio episodes are available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and other major podcast platforms.
