The Mind Solution Podcast

In this episode, I'm shining a light on the number one source of your pain, your suffering and your unhappiness: the personal mind. That conditioned, habitual self running in the background about 95% of the time.

I'm showing you how to walk out of that self-made prison, and how to stay out of it.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why thinking feels like doing something when you're really just thinking about your thinking
• The thought-feeling loop, and why 2027 HR strategy overwhelm is a perfect example of it
• Why the way you feel after a leadership meeting isn't coming from the meeting
• How to tell the difference between a thought from the personal mind and a fresh insight
• Why "I'm not good enough" is a belief and not the truth
• Byron Katie's four questions for challenging any belief
• Why you can't beat the mind by being the mind
• Why you don't need another framework, tool or methodology to be free of it

Want to see what's been running the show in your own mind?

Come inside the HR Alchemy Circle, where we do this work together. Apply to join here: https://themindsolution.com/the-hr-alchemy-circle/

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Struggling with impostor syndrome, chronic anxiety, or burnout in your HR leadership role?

In this episode of The Mind Solution Podcast, host Sara Maude breaks down why high-performing professionals stay stuck in painful habitual patterns and how shifting your unconscious mind makes real, lasting transformation possible.

Key Takeaways

• The Perceived Safety of Familiarity: Discover why your ego clings to anxiety and self-doubt because predictable routines feel safer than facing the unknown.
• The 95% Unconscious Mind Trap: Learn why relying on conscious willpower alone fails after a week and how 95% of daily behaviors are driven by automated mental programs.
• The Fran Case Study: Hear how a leader broke free from severe impostor syndrome to secure two career promotions and a £20k+ salary increase.
• Reclaiming Energy & Health: Understand the physical cost of workplace stress and how deep inner work restores your energy for life outside work.

Ready to create change?

Ready to break out of habitual loops and step into your full leadership potential?

Schedule a free call and learn how The HR Alchemy Circle can help you break free from the patterns holding you back: https://themindsolution.com/the-hr-alchemy-circle/

There's an outfit in your wardrobe that you love. The colour, the cut, the way it fits. You put it on and you stand differently.

And there's another one that does nothing for you. It's tight. It's restrictive. It does you no justice. And yet you keep wearing it.

Thoughts work the same way.

In this episode I look at why HR leaders keep wearing beliefs that don't fit. "I'm not good enough." "I don't belong." "Someone's going to find me out." A belief is just a thought you keep thinking, and most of them were stitched together long before you ever set foot in HR.

What I cover in this episode:

• Why a belief is simply a thought that's become habitual, automatic and conditioned, and how it builds into a neural structure in the brain
• Where impostor syndrome comes from, and why so many women in leadership build an identity around it
• How trying to outrun "I'm not enough" turns into overwork, saying yes when you're already at capacity, and boundaries you can't hold
• The three questions that stop people in their tracks.
• Why your brain looks out at the meeting, the restructure, the workload to explain a feeling that was generated inside
• What it means to be in your life rather than in your thinking, and how differently life looks from each

Thoughts only have power over you when you identify with them.

Join me live on Thursday 24th September at 10am UK time. I'll take you through a specific exercise to help you identify the conditioned beliefs that have innocently been running the show, and how to access your natural calm, confident self. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/IQQl5z2vSQa30J8_YSj4dQ

Find out more about the work I do with HR and leadership teams at https://themindsolution.com

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramaude/

The higher you climb in HR, the lonelier it feels. If you've ever felt like the emotional airbag for everyone else, absorbing the fallout of redundancies, change initiatives, and mental health crises while quietly wondering who's holding you, this episode is for you.

💡 Book Your Free Consultation For The HR Alchemy Circle: https://calendly.com/the-mind-solution/the-hr-alchemy-circle

In this episode I cover:

• Why loneliness in HR isn't just about working from home, it's about having nowhere safe to put down what you're carrying and the emotional support you need
• How isolation can lead to a spiral of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and questioning whether you should remain in the profession
• Why having an HR team around you doesn't automatically mean you feel seen, heard, or understood
• How the beliefs driving burnout were formed long before you ever stepped into an HR role
• What real transformation looks like, and why a safe space alone isn't enough to create lasting change

The HR Alchemy Circle opens in July 2026: A space for HR leaders to get their emotional needs met and transform the underlying beliefs that are costing them their confidence, clarity, and career longevity.

🔗 Work with Sara and her team — themindsolution.com

🔗 One-to-one transformation sessions — saramaude.com

🔗 Connect with Sara on LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/saramaude

Beyond the Goggles: Revolutionising Workplace Wellbeing Through Awareness In this episode, Sara Maude explores a revolutionary approach to employee wellbeing that goes beyond traditional management tools. By understanding the "filter system" through which we navigate our daily lives, employees and leaders can unlock a natural state of resilience, creativity, and presence within their teams. What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• The "3D Goggles" of Thought: Understand how our habitual thoughts and beliefs create a filter that dictates how we experience reality moment-to-moment
• The Myth of Environmental Stress: Discover why stress is not actually created by your workload, deadlines, or difficult coworkers, but by your current level of internal thinking.
• Identity vs. Awareness: Learn why identifying with recycled, habitual thoughts (which make up 99.9% of our thinking) leads to suffering, and how shifting to the perspective of the "observer" changes everything.
• The Movie Screen Metaphor: Explore the powerful analogy of the cinema screen, the stable, ever-present awareness, versus the "characters" of stress and anxiety that simply come and go.
• Why More "Tools" Aren't Always the Answer: Sara discusses why teaching endless techniques can sometimes create more "mental noise" and why a fundamental understanding of thought is the true key to lasting wellbeing.
• The Leadership Ripple Effect: See how a regulated, present leader transforms the environment for their entire team, impacting everything from sales performance to psychological safety.

Key Takeaways:

• Thoughts are Not Truth: Most of our thoughts are broken records based on past data; they do not provide objective information about our current situation.
• True Empowerment is the "Gap": Creating space between yourself and your "character" allows you to access innate wisdom and intelligence.
• Natural Resilience: When the mind settles and we stop overthinking our thinking, we become more productive and creative by default.

Case Studies Featured:

• How a banking professional overcame decades of OCD and anxiety by seeing thoughts as "clouds in the sky".
• How a high-level leader reclaimed her effectiveness by noticing the "recycled" nature of her overthinking.

Connect with The Mind Solution: Ready to truly revolutionise wellbeing in your organization? Join Sara Maud as she shares strategies to help your people thrive from the inside out. To bring this transformative training to your workplace, book a consultation today; https://calendly.com/the-mind-solution/the-mind-solution-international-30-mins-discovery-call

Have youy ever noticed that way the brain loves to catastophise and think the worst case scenario?

You see your boss calling and your mind goes 'oh my God, I'm going to loose my job'. Or you don't hear from your partner for a few hours and your mind rushes into 'they've had a heart attack/accident/are dead!'.

We really do love to scare ourselves!

This process of scaring ourselves feels automatic, unstoppable, and exhausting. But what if that pattern isn't a flaw? What if it's actually your mind trying to protect you?

In this episode, Sara Maude explores the hidden psychology behind catastrophising, what it is, where it really comes from, and why understanding it matters far more than trying to stop it.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why catastrophising isn't caused by your circumstances, and where it actually originates
• The surprising positive intention behind one of the most draining thought patterns we carry
• Why awareness, not effort, is the real doorway to lasting change
• A simple but powerful invitation to get curious about your own patterns this week

Links:

https://themindsolution.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramaude/

Are you an HR professional feeling the relentless weight of your role, the stress, the overwhelm, the burnout? In this episode, Sara Maude explores a powerful perspective shift: burnout isn't just about the job, it's about who you are being when you are doing.

Drawing on her 14 years as a therapist, coach, and resilience trainer and over a decade working in HR for companies like Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, and the NHS, Sara breaks down:

• Why burnout isn't caused by your workload, environment, or job title.
• How habitual thoughts, conditioned responses, and identity patterns shape your experience of work.
• The hidden role of the nervous system in stress, over-functioning, and emotional exhaustion.
• Practical insight for navigating your HR day from your natural, grounded state, rather than your conditioned habitual patterns.
• How to cultivate emotional resilience, presence, and sustainable energy without relying on "positive thinking" hacks.

Whether you're looking to prevent HR burnout, improve your leadership presence, or just feel calmer and more in control at work, this episode gives you the insight to see yourself, your thinking, and your behaviours in a completely new way.

Sara also introduces the HR Inner Circle, her exclusive community designed to support HR leaders in building sustainable emotional resilience and thriving in their roles without compromise. To find out more email [email protected]

Tune in to transform how you experience your work and reclaim your energy, clarity, and impact as an HR professional.

Are You an HR Firestarter or an HR Fire Fighter?

I came across a LinkedIn post yesterday where an HR professional had created an HR Bingo card. A snapshot of what a typical week in HR looks like.

Things like explaining the same policy for the fifth time, becoming somebody's unpaid therapist, more than one person asking if something is anonymous, not having time to eat lunch. And hundreds of HR professionals were nodding along in the comments.

But here's what I saw when I read it. Data. Data that could inform real change and transformation.

Because if we keep telling the same story, we're not actually doing anything to influence ways of working, ways of being, or culture.

In this episode I share my insights on why that post stopped me in my tracks and what it's really pointing to.

If you're ready to be an HR firestarter instead of an HR firefighter, listen now.

This one started life as a video but the conversation was too good not to share as a podcast epiosde!

You are not born confident - Those are the words that literally jumped out of an email that had been sent to me and other people in the HR community. My initial response was WTF 😂

In this episode I share with you;

✅ The illusion around confidence

✅ The only reason you don't feel confident

✅ Why confidence isn't something you need to grow or build

If you want to experience confidence at work (even when you don't feel good enough) this episode is for you.

💡 Love to know more about the HR Inner Circle - drop me an email - [email protected]

Are you an HR professional who feels like an imposter? Constantly needing to prove yourself, but never quite feeling good enough?

You're not alone. And it's not the job that's doing it. In this episode, I share the story of an HR Director who came to me stuck in cycle after cycle of burnout. She was convinced the problem was external — her to-do list, not enough time for strategic work, the relentless demands of the role.

But when we peeled back who she was actually being when she was doing the work, a very different picture emerged.

Perfectionism. Overinflated expectations. Imposter syndrome. A deep-seated belief that she wasn't good enough which showed up as micromanaging, poor delegation, no boundaries, and always saying yes.

Sound familiar? Here's the truth: over 95% of who you're 'being' at work is conditioned. It's unconscious thought patterns, beliefs and behaviours running quietly in the background, ones you've never been shown how to transform.

Psychometric tools like DISC, Insights or Myers-Briggs can show you what you're doing. But they don't show you why.

And they certainly don't show you how to change it.

That's the work we do in The HR Inner Circle - raising self-awareness and transforming the beliefs and patterns that are no longer serving you, so you can show up as a world class HR leader - grounded, clear, emotionally regulated and operating from your true inner power

👉 If this resonates and you're ready to do something about it, email [email protected] to join the waiting list for The HR Inner Circle.