Watts Involved

Brandon Fairweather, author of The Hell Inside Our Heads, has lived through years of medical shocks, some of them near fatal. His worst moments, he says, weren't in ICU. They came on holiday, out of nowhere: a cold feeling, sweaty palms, a racing heart, and no reason at all. That is anxiety as he lived it, a blanket that comes over you "where you didn't choose it, it just arrives."

Brandon is 43, the second of four brothers from a close family, and he has spent his career in health and fitness, helping other people get well while his own body kept letting him down. Out of years of anxiety came the book, written from the patient's side. He's not a doctor or a psychologist, and he says so plainly. It's the manual he wishes someone had handed him.

We talk about why anxiety isn't logical, and why his biggest discovery was to stop trying to beat it and learn to manage it. We get into how a run of medical shocks wears away your trust in your own body, the free things that help, from sunlight and sleep to a ten-minute walk around the block, and his plan to give copies of the book away. His advice to anyone in the thick of it is simple: go again tomorrow.

Brandon's shout-out goes to Exclusive Books, who have backed him with launches and publicity. The book is also on Takealot, at Bargain Books too as far as he knows, and as an e-book on Kindle and Apple Books. His own website for the book is coming soon, and he'll announce it on his socials.

If someone you love is carrying this, send them this conversation. And if it touches something raw for you, the SADAG Suicide Crisis Helpline is free on 0800 567 567.

Thank you to Janine, Brandon's publicist, for making this conversation happen.

This episode is narrated by David's AI voice — a digital copy of his voice he uses so the show keeps going on the days he can't record.

A brilliant engineer pitched a groundbreaking solution across sixty dense slides — and watched a room of investors stop listening. This episode unpacks John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory, the hard limits of working memory, and why being misunderstood is its own kind of silencing. From Chapter 4 of David's book, Cracking The Influence Code, you'll get the C.L.A.R.I.T.Y. framework and one usable move to try this week.

This episode draws on Chapter 4 of David's book, Cracking The Influence Code: “The Overloaded Mind – Mastering Cognitive Load and Choice Architecture for Clear Influence”.

The Reset, a free seven-day course from Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/

This episode was narrated by an AI clone of my own voice, trained on this show.

What if being underestimated is the advantage?

My guest is Michael Hinton: born and bred in Joburg, trained through auditing articles and evening study with UNISA, then a Fortune 500 company, management consulting and an accounting training business, and now an entrepreneur and business-school lecturer. He is the co-author, with Vusi Thembekwayo, of Underdogs: How small players can become business titans (Jonathan Ball Publishers).

We talk about how a chartered accountant and Vusi ended up writing a book together, why it took four rewrites, and what the underdogs in it have in common, from Chung Ju-yung, who built Hyundai, to Canva's Melanie Perkins. Michael's first love is financial literacy, and we get into why South Africa needs far more of it.

The first print run has sold out at the publisher, and more copies arrive in November. Underdogs is available from good bookstores, Takealot and Amazon.co.za, on Kindle, and on Audible, read by Michael and Vusi themselves.

Find Michael at michaelhinton.co.za, and on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you have your own underdog story, he'd love to hear it.

Thank you to Jané Rossouw at Jonathan Ball Publishers for making this conversation happen.

This episode is narrated by David's AI voice — a digital copy of his voice he uses so the show keeps going on the days he can't record.

David revisits Episode 32 of Watts Involved with GG Alcock, the author and marketer who grew up in a Zulu village and spent a career making South Africa's township economy visible to the people who'd been trained not to see it. It's an episode about invisibility — how whole markets, and whole people, get silenced by the categories we use — and the mechanism behind why your brain discounts what it can't count. The tool this week comes from Chapter Six of David's book, Cracking The Influence Code: speak their language, not your translation of it.

Hear the full original conversation with GG Alcock, Episode 32: https://wattsinvolved.com/episodes/gg-alcock-kasinomics-the-township-economy-in-south-africa/

The Reset, a free seven-day course from Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/

This episode was narrated by an AI clone of my own voice, trained on this show.

This episode is narrated by David's AI voice — a digital copy of his voice he uses so the show keeps going on the days he can't record.

A room full of sharp executives turns from cautious to reckless the moment a gain is reframed as a loss — and that single flip explains why so many good ideas die in good meetings. Drawing on Chapter 3 of David's book, Cracking The Influence Code, this episode walks through loss aversion, anchoring, social proof, confirmation bias and the endowment effect, and the reframe that dissolves the self-blame of "I'm just not persuasive". The usable tool is the WISE model — four moves to run before your next important conversation.

This episode draws on Chapter 3 of David's book, Cracking The Influence Code: “The Hidden Currents – Why We're Predictably Irrational”.

The Reset, a free seven-day course from Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/

This episode was narrated by an AI clone of my own voice, trained on this show.

This episode is narrated by David's AI voice — a digital copy of his voice he uses so the show keeps going on the days he can't record.

Looking back at Episode 29 of Watts Involved, when Andre Hoffman — founder of My Techie and the Make a Difference Foundation — explained why he refuses the word 'retrenched'. David unpacks the mechanism behind relabelling: why the word you use on yourself quietly sets the range of what you'll attempt next, drawing on framing research and affect labelling. The tool this week comes from Chapter 9 of Cracking The Influence Code: audit the verb you've been using about your own situation, and replace it with an accurate one.

Hear the full original conversation with Andre Hoffman, Episode 29: https://wattsinvolved.com/episodes/andre-hoffman-my-techie-a-brilliant-concept-like-uber-for-technicians/

The Reset, a free seven-day course from Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/

This episode was narrated by an AI clone of my own voice, trained on this show.

This episode is narrated by David's AI voice — a digital copy of his voice he uses so the show keeps going on the days he can't record.

A senior executive once told David he couldn't reach his audience, and the anxiety was crippling — so instead of drilling presentation technique, they worked on the neurology underneath it. This episode walks through three brain essentials from Chapter 2 of Cracking The Influence Code — mirror neurons, oxytocin and the amygdala — and lands on the CARE framework as the week's usable tool. Mechanism first, platitudes never.

This episode draws on Chapter 2 of David's book, Cracking The Influence Code: “Your Influential Brain – Neuroscience Essentials”.

The Reset, a free seven-day course from Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/

This episode was narrated by an AI clone of my own voice, trained on this show.

This episode is narrated by David's AI voice — a digital copy of his voice he uses so the show keeps going on the days he can't record.

Looking back at Episode 163 of Watts Involved with Matt Brown — founder and CEO of Digital Kung Fu and Black Swan Technology Holdings — and his 36-month roadmap to a hundred-million-dollar valuation. David unpacks the mechanism behind imposter syndrome, why systems beat ambition, and what it takes to kill something you love when it can't scale. The episode closes with a practical NLP tool for turning down the volume on your inner critic, drawn from Chapter 9 of Cracking The Influence Code.

Hear the full original conversation with Matt Brown, Episode 163: https://wattsinvolved.com/episodes/matt-brown-scaling-a-business-to-100-million-in-36-months/

The Reset, a free seven-day course from Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/

This episode was narrated by an AI clone of my own voice, trained on this show.

This episode is narrated by David's AI voice — a digital copy of his voice he uses so the show keeps going on the days he can't record.

A surgeon told David's mother he might never speak again — and nobody ever passed the message on to the four-year-old lying in the hospital bed. Drawn from Chapter 1 of Cracking The Influence Code, this episode traces how a voice was rebuilt word by word, how late-night radio turned into a thirty-year obsession with how language moves people, and why influence is unavoidable whether you're conscious of it or not. The usable tool this week is the Afterwards Test — the one ethical measure David applies to every technique in the book.

This episode draws on Chapter 1 of David's book, Cracking The Influence Code: “My Story – The Power and Mystery of Communication”.

The Reset, a free seven-day course from Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/

This episode was narrated by an AI clone of my own voice, trained on this show.

On the second of September I went in for a hiatus hernia repair and a Nissen fundoplication — a torn diaphragm patched up, a large part of my stomach retrieved from my chest, and a new one-way valve built from the stomach itself. Two days in hospital, home on the Friday, feeling rather pleased with myself. By the Monday I was blown up like a balloon and in pain I still can't properly describe.

What followed was a nasogastric tube down my windpipe, a second attempt that came out of my mouth, a cornered patient issuing fair warning to the staff, and my first introduction to ketamine. I'll tell you what I experienced after that — watching my own body being wheeled down a passageway from somewhere above it — with the honest disclaimer that I have no idea whether it was a near-death experience or the drug. Then it happened all over again on the Thursday, at a different hospital, with a doctor who refused me anaesthetic and a decision to tough it out.

So here I am, eight kilograms lighter, 59 years old and eating Purity, recording this from a chair in my bedroom despite the handsome background. Next gastroscopy on the fifteenth. After that, a hip replacement and the next round of treatment for the autoimmune diseases — now two of them, CIDP and dermatomyositis. Thank you for every WhatsApp and message. I'll keep you posted.