Episode 859 • October 5, 2026 • 26 min

Self-Awareness Is Where the Work Begins — Tamsin Astor

Show notes

Dr. Tamsin Astor is a neuroscientist who studies habits in teams, relationships, and systems. She works with executives and their teams using her Pause · Notice · Choose framework to move leaders from reactive to creative, because conscious leadership starts with your daily habits.

Tamsin holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from UCL, hosts the Hot Habits with Dr. Tamsin podcast, and has worked with leaders at Firestone, Prudential, and high-growth startups. She's a Brooklyn-based mother of three, a Zen practitioner, and a fierce believer that a joy-filled life and high performance are the same project.

Tamsin's path moved through academic neuroscience, education research, yoga, Ayurveda, and executive coaching, but the conversation isn't really about the resume — it's about what drove each move. She talks candidly about burnout, grief, and how each of those moments pushed her past simply understanding her patterns intellectually toward finding practices that actually changed how her body responded to stress. That distinction — between insight and embodied change, runs through much of the conversation, along with what she's learned about community as a place to practice difficult conversations and repair, and why she's chosen to build her business around relationships rather than hierarchy. It's a useful listen for anyone who has done the self-awareness work and still finds themselves reacting the same old way under pressure.

Tamsin and I discuss:

[00:02:00] Why she left academia, and the disconnect between being a content expert and being equipped to manage people, teams, and money
[00:03:45] Walking away without a plan, a brief stint as a stay-at-home parent, and becoming a yoga teacher
[00:04:29] The move into executive coaching and facilitation, and how appreciative inquiry counters the brain's built-in negativity bias
[00:07:21] The internal mindset work behind her career transitions, and growing up in a family that valued following what you feel called to do
[00:08:05] Her son's cancer diagnosis, the burnout that followed, and how Western medicine's symptom suppression led her toward Ayurveda
[00:10:13] Her cousin's death and how his reflections on anger and mental habits shaped her interest in mindset science
[00:11:32] What freedom means to her, and how it has guided her career decisions
[00:12:33] Growing up in a home where feelings were part of dinner-table conversation, and why she values relationships with no BS
[00:13:01] The gap between intellectually understanding a stress response and actually changing how the body reacts to it
[00:14:41] Moving away from years of pure talk therapy toward practical, in-the-moment tools
[00:15:23] Working with practices she can't fully explain, and getting her ego out of the way
[00:16:42] What community support offers, and treating it as a container for practicing difficult conversations and repair
[00:18:00] A specific story about a friction conversation and repair with a friend
[00:19:35] What her business looks like today as a fractional culture architect and executive coach
[00:21:05] What she's building next, now that her children have grown and left home
[00:22:18] Letting go of strict hierarchy in her business and life, and why she puts relationships first

Learn more about Tamsin at:

This link is for a special offer that should be mentioned in the show notes in the context of how it was described in the episode transcript: https://energyauditbydrtamsin.subscribepage.io

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Self-Awareness Is Where the Work Begins — Tamsin Astor

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