The Corporate Mind Heist: How AI and the Trust Tax Are Quietly Stealing Your Best Thinking

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

The Corporate Mind Heist: How AI and the Trust Tax Are Quietly Stealing Your Best Thinking

Listen for free

View show details

You prepped. You delivered. And then someone asked a follow-up question — and something flickered. A half second of blank space where your own thinking should have been.In this episode, Dr. Natalie Luke sits down with Pav Lertjitbanjong — decision scientist, executive coach, and survivor of 27,000 high-stakes corporate meetings and 15+ restructurings — to unpack two forces that are quietly eroding your judgment at work: AI used as an answer machine, and the Trust Tax. They work the same way. They move invisibly. And the antidote to both is identical: you have to name what's happening before you can redesign around it.This is not a conversation about working harder or thinking more positively. It's about reclaiming the version of you that actually thinks — before the room, the machine, or the system decides for you.What You'll Hear in This EpisodeThe difference between using AI as a thinking partner vs. an answer machine — and why it matters when your boss pushes back in the boardroomThe wedding speech story that perfectly captures what happens when we let AI think for usWhy Yale University research shows your IQ drops 10–15 points under high-stakes pressure — and what that means for high performersThe 4 pressure glitches that show up in corporate settings (freeze, ramble, snap, shrink) — and how to identify your signature onePav's 5-step THINK Protocol for reclaiming your judgment with or without AIThe 4-4-4-4 box breathing technique used by military and first responders — and how to use a version of it in your next meetingWhy being irreplaceable is a trap — and what to aim for insteadThe connection between borrowed thinking and the Trust Tax: two invisible systems taking the same thing from youPav's 5-Step THINK ProtocolT — Tune In Regulate before you decide. Takes less than 60 seconds — breathing, movement, grounding. Get your brain and body in the room before you open AI or walk into the meeting.H — Hypothesize First Form your own view before you write the prompt. Your hypothesis makes AI smarter and keeps you in the driver's seat. Without it, you're just accepting whatever the machine surfaces.I — Interrogate Everything Trust, but verify. Ask AI what assumptions it made that you never stated. You — not AI — are the one who will be in the boardroom owning that output.N — Narrow to the Call AI gives you options. Your job is to make the decision. The human judgment call is what no AI can replace — and what every leader in the room is actually watching for.K — Know How to Land It Conclusion first, reasoning second. Be clear on what you're recommending and why. That's ownership — and it's what makes you impossible to ignore.The 4 Pressure GlitchesUnder high-stakes pressure, high performers experience one of four glitches. Every person has a signature one.Freeze — mind goes blankRamble — can't stop talking, fill the silence with noiseSnap — emotional reaction takes overShrink — give your seat at the table to the loudest voice and call it being a team playerThe goal isn't to eliminate pressure. It's to train your nervous system so your floor rises — the same way a tennis player works on their lowest level of play, not their highest.Key Moments From the ConversationOn AI and borrowed thinking: When you use AI as an answer machine, you don't own the thinking. The moment your boss challenges you, you go back to ask AI — because you never formed the view yourself. Ownership means two things: you know it's right because you already had a hypothesis, and you know what new information would change your view.On the wedding speech: A best man at a 140-person wedding started his speech beautifully — then switched mid-sentence into what ChatGPT would say. Word for word. That's not an edge case. That's the direction we're heading without intentional thinking habits.On what's actually happening in your body under pressure: Yale research shows IQ drops 10–15 points under high-stakes conditions. It shows up as fast breathing, shaking hands, temperature changes — and then the glitch. Leadership is one of the only high-stakes fields with no pressure training. We're expected to take a cup of coffee and be ready for a fire drill every day.On surviving 15+ corporate restructurings: The people who kept their seats weren't always the smartest in the room. They were the most regulated. Under pressure, when everything was falling apart, they were the ones who stayed clear. Leadership notices that — even when nothing is ever said.On irreplaceable vs. impossible to ignore: Being irreplaceable is how your listeners got here — being the one who catches everything, can't be cut, always says yes. But that's a trap. It's how you get more work and less life. The goal is to be impossible to ignore — so that when you show up, people listen. That travels with you across companies. Irreplaceable keeps you stuck.What Connects It AllBoth the Trust Tax and borrowed thinking work ...

No reviews yet