Bill was a tech CEO with all the typical signs of success. He had founded and sold one tech company, and was now building another. Based on his company’s financial reports and his own personal wealth, you’d assume he was thriving. But the numbers didn’t tell the whole story. Bill was actually struggling.
At work, he was prone to snapping at employees. When things weren’t going well, he blamed others and often sabotaged relationships. Outside of work, Bill was also his own worst enemy. A health nut during the week, he would undo all his progress on weekends by binge drinking to cope with stress.
The truth? Bill’s behavior revealed a man just trying to survive.
In fact, Bill the CEO was trapped in what clinical psychologist Dr. Michael Arn describes as “survival brain.” That mindset may help businesses perform, but it ultimately undermines the people driving the growth. It’s Dr. Arn’s job to help CEOs and founders find a better way.
Dr. “Doer”: Using psychology to help others succeed
Dr. Michael Arn is co-owner of the company Crucial Habits. Together with his wife, Dr. Ashley Arn, a fellow psychologist, they guide and mentor CEOs and business leaders.
“It takes one to know one” applies here. Dr. Arn, or Michael as he prefers to be called, says he’s always been a “doer,” much like his performance-minded clients.
As a child, he was introverted and fairly unathletic. But his secret sauce was a relentless drive. “I wasn’t fast. I couldn’t jump. But I would outwork anyone. I’d run through a brick wall if I had to. If we got on a treadmill, you’d quit before I would.”
Michael naturally connects with people who power through life with sheer effort. They’re “doers,” but they can only do so much. Eventually, they run into issues—burnout, personal problems, poor business results.
“At some point, that stops working. What got you here won’t get you there,” he says.
As a doer, Dr. Arn was experiencing similar things in his own life, and he knew something had to change. “I needed the answers for myself. And as I figured it out, I started helping others.”
The Lesson of Kevin McHale
Kevin McHale was a professional basketball player who played for the Boston Celtics back in the 1980s. McHale was a tall, gangly player who wasn’t particularly athletic. There were other centers and forwards of equivalent size and superior jumping ability.
However, when McHale caught the ball down close to the basket, he was nearly unstoppable. The secret to his success was no secret. It was on full display every game he played.
McHale had three or four “moves” he would make to fake out the defender and allow him to get an easier shot. One was a fadeaway jumper. Another, a fake with the ball, and then a pivot to the basket. These moves are what Dr. Arn and his wife call “crucial habits.”
“It really comes down to a few key habits,” Michael says. “What are the crucial behaviors that can lead to joy, results, and wellness?”
McHale’s crucial habits led to more points, which resulted in more wins, which led to greater happiness and more lucrative contracts. He is a Hall of Famer and was named one of the league’s greatest players of all time. All this works great on the basketball court, but how does it translate to a CEO or founder’s world?
Survival brain: When success gets in the way
We’ve already touched on the idea of “survival brain,” the reactive mindset that helped Bill build his business but nearly broke him in the process. But as Michael has seen, it doesn’t just show up in boardrooms. It can appear anywhere high stakes meets emotional vulnerability.
He recalls this from his early career at eHarmony. One of the most common frustrations he heard from users of the platform was: “Why do the people I like never pursue me, but the ones I don’t always do?”
When you like someone, explains Michael, your nervous system kicks in. You get attached, anxious, performative—you’re not really yourself. You’re in fight-or-flight survival mode. That’s survival brain.
On the flip side, when you’re with the people you aren’t quite as eager to date, you’re relaxed and authentic. “That authenticity is what attracts people,” he says.
“Survival brain is going to happen. But succeeding is about having the right tools to navigate it.”
Dr. Michael Arn
Business leaders often fall into survival brain because they think they have to master everything. As a result, they get overwhelmed, which is natural, and actually unavoidable. “Survival brain is going to happen,” he explains. “But succeeding is about having the tools to navigate it.”
Coping patterns: The key to calming survival brain
When Michael and his wife work with a client, such as Bill the CEO we mentioned at the beginning of this article, one of the first things they do is examine how people exhibit survival brain. These are what the Arns refer to as “coping patterns.”
“For me, I’m introverted,” Michael explains. “So under stress, I pull back, overthink, and try to fix everything by myself.”
His wife is the opposite. She talks more, acts more, over-communicates, and tries to solve everything all at once.
These patterns, Michael notes, are typically what help doers achieve a high level of success. “But if you want to level up, you need to evolve them.”
Identifying the coping patterns requires understanding yourself. Bill the CEO had come to Michael to generate better results and be a more effective executive. To get there, Michael helped him dig deeper and identify what he truly wanted—emotionally, professionally and personally.
“When we understood what he really wanted, he made drastic changes, tying them to the results, joy and wellness.”
A winning blueprint: Connecting coping patterns to a better life
Making the connection between coping patterns, and joy, results and wellness is what Michael refers to as “the winning blueprint.”
Michael says everyone’s blueprint is different and must be highly customized. The good news is that everyone can have a blueprint.
For example, Michael describes Travis, a CEO who ran two companies. Travis’s wife had pushed him to work with Dr. Arn because their personal relationship was suffering. “He was anxious and reactive, always chasing the next fire at work. His attention was never with his family,” says Michael.
“Once he realized what he was really playing for, he made changes.”
Dr. Michael Arn
Travis was engaged in survival brain. He was constantly in crisis mode, always scrambling to fix problems. He was also spending time on entry-level tasks. “Once he saw that clearly—once he realized what he was really playing for, he made changes,” Michael says.
Recognizing these coping patterns, Travis improved at delegating and scheduled more proactive client meetings to deal with problems upfront, before they escalated.
In the end, those changes improved all aspects of Travis’s life. “Not only did his relationships improve, so did his leadership and business performance.”
“Do” connect in three key areas
There are tactics for escaping survival brain, such as slowing down internal and external communication. Instead of responding immediately, wait a few seconds (or more). Pausing briefly helps calm survival brain.
It also requires normalizing common stressors. “Clients will leave. Fires will happen. If you emotionally treat those as routine, you stay strategic and avoid overreaction,” says Michael.
Ultimately, he stresses connection in a few key areas as vital to success:
- With OTHERS, through meaningful, ego-less communication focused on understanding.
- With YOURSELF, by knowing your patterns, your mission, and your coping skills.
- With YOUR SURROUNDINGS, by being mindful of how your environment supports or drains you.
For all you doers out there, you now have your marching orders. You also have a solid method to not only become a better executive, but a better human being.
