31st May, 2025 – “Sustainable mindset” a topic which resonates deeply with our ethos at Narayana Business school. We have carried NBS sustainably for over 24 years and as India’s fastest growing B school founded by academicians we continue take active initiatives to remain committed to our ethos and roots and nurture the young leaders of rising Bharat.
Continuing the momentum, we invited Brigita Bracko, Founder of The Leadership Rewiring Lab™, a certified Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist from Bali, Indonesia and a licensed Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) practitioner. Through neuroscience-based tools, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Hypnotherapy, and Organizational Psychology, she creates powerful mindset shifts that drive sustainable transformation.
The workshop was hosted by Mr. Vishal Tiwari – VP Growth & Strategy At NBS, and was joined by NBSians, educators, and entrepreneurs.
Unlike typical workshops that focus on what to think, this session taught participants how to think. The approach emphasized on understanding the root causes of mental patterns, developing strategies and creating sustainable change through awareness rather than willpower.
What Do We mean By Sustainability And What Is A Sustainable Mindset?
Sustainability is about making sure there’s enough left over for tomorrow and the next day, and for everyone else too.
A sustainable mindset takes a big idea and brings it home to you. It means learning to think ahead, to balance your needs today with what you’ll need in the future. If you’ve ever stayed up late working on a project, only to feel exhausted and unproductive the next day, you’ve seen what happens when you ignore sustainability in your own life.
A sustainability mindset asks you to notice when you’re stretching yourself too thin whether that’s staying glued to your phone, overcommitting at work, or squeezing too many social plans into a weekend and to give yourself permission to slow down before you burn out.
Brigita Bracko began with a warm smile. “But what if I told you that the most important thing to sustain is actually your own mind and well-being? That’s what a sustainable mindset is really about learning to think and live in ways that don’t burn you out or drain the people around you.”
Sustainability is about fundamentally creating systems of thinking and being that can endure, regenerate, and thrive across time without depleting the resources, whether mental, emotional, social, or environmental, that sustain them.
Key Workshop Highlights On Sustainable Mindset And Peak Performance
The workshop addressed critical areas that often hold people back from reaching their full potential:
Mind Training For Peak Performance:
The workshop revealed how to rewire the brain to perform well in high-pressure environments. Unlike traditional motivational approaches that focus on temporary inspiration, this session taught participants how to create lasting mental patterns that support consistent excellence.
Bracko explained that most performance goals are undermined not by lack of talent, but by unconscious mental habits that work against success. Participants learned specific techniques to identify and modify these patterns, creating a foundation for sustainable achievement.
The Science of Fear and Emotional Intelligence:
A breakthrough moment came when participants learned about the true nature of fear and emotions. “We experience more than 80 different emotions, yet fear dominates our decision-making,” Bracko noted. “Understanding that fear is simply our brain’s way of trying to protect us changes everything.”
The session explored how fear often becomes counterproductive in modern life, causing people to avoid opportunities, freeze in important moments, or make decisions based on outdated survival instincts. Participants discovered practical methods to acknowledge fear without being controlled by it.
Key insights included:
- Fear is not the enemy – it’s trying to protect you
- You can observe your thoughts without being trapped by them
- Emotions provide valuable information when properly understood
- The mind can be trained like any other skill
Unlocking Self-Awareness: The 5% Problem:
Perhaps the most eye-opening revelation was learning that most people operate with awareness of only 5% of their mental processes. This means 95% of thoughts, reactions, and behaviours happen automatically, often working against stated goals and values.
Bracko guided participants through exercises to expand their conscious awareness, teaching them to:
- Recognize unconscious thought patterns
- Identify triggers that lead to unwanted reactions
- Develop the ability to pause and choose responses
- Build stronger connections between intention and action
“Self-awareness is the first step to sustainable change,” explained Bracko. “When you can observe your mind in action, you gain the power to direct it consciously.”
Revolutionary Approaches To Mental Training
Brigita introduced several groundbreaking concepts that challenged traditional self-help approaches:
The “And” vs “But” Principle
Participants learned a simple but powerful language shift that can transform thinking patterns. Instead of using “but” (which dismisses previous thoughts), using “and” allows for more complete, balanced thinking. This small change helps break the cycle of all-or-nothing thinking that often leads to mental paralysis.
Working with Negative Emotions Instead of Against Them
Rather than trying to eliminate negative emotions, the workshop taught participants how to work with them constructively. “Negative emotions actually make us feel more alive and provide important information,” Bracko explained. “The goal isn’t to be positive all the time – it’s to be aware and responsive.”
The Prehistoric Brain In Modern Times
A fascinating segment explored how our brains, designed for prehistoric survival, often work against us in modern environments. Participants learned why the mind tends toward negativity (it kept our ancestors alive) and how to retrain these ancient patterns for contemporary success.
Understanding Sustainable Mindset With Expert Insights
“High performance goals are often held back by our actions, not our intentions,” noted Bracko during the session. “When we recognize our thought patterns and understand that we can really change our beliefs, transformation becomes possible.”
Throughout the workshop, Bracko shared profound insights that resonated deeply with participants:
On the Nature of Change:
We start to build our subconscious from where we are born. Most of what drives our behaviour comes from patterns established early in life. But here’s the exciting part, when we become aware of these patterns, we gain the power to consciously reshape them.
On Dealing with Difficult People:
In relationships, the sustainable mindset is asking ‘What is this person battling through right now?’ instead of taking their behaviour personally. Understanding that everyone is fighting their own internal battles changes how we respond to conflict.
On Self-Improvement:
The goal isn’t to become someone else, it’s to become more consciously yourself. When you understand how your mind works, you can direct it toward what truly matters to you.
On Fear and Growth:
Fear doesn’t act upon you – it becomes anxiety when you think about the future or regret when you dwell on the past. In the present moment, fear is just information about what needs attention.
There was one “aha” moment in the workshop where Brigita asked all of us to look around and remember all the “blue” coloured objects around us. For a minute we did and came back. Then she said, “Now tell me a “red” coloured object around you without looking, and there was a pause, a cinematic pause, nobody knew the answer signifying that our focus is always rooted to where we look.
Parting Thoughts On Sustainable Mindset
We live in times, where anything and everything is and can be glorified. To some extent and all of us being guilty, glorified the “overwork hustle” culture too. Always quoting a few exceptions that work we built a narrative that hustle brings purpose, that forget health and work, that sacrifice sleep and work, that forget relationships and work.
Have you ever noticed that you might have 100s of problems in your life, but the moment you fall ill, there’s only 1 problem in life? To get back up? Doesn’t it signal something? That there’s nothing without health?
While being ambitious is fruitful, and all successful things in the world once started with an obsession, it is important to keep a check on yourself, to sustain your body and mind. A small habit for lasting impacts.
It is imperative that we adopt a sustainability mindset moving forward in our lives, not just for us but for the people around us too.
“This workshop represents our commitment to holistic education,” said Vishal Tiwari.
“We believe that academic excellence must be paired with emotional intelligence and mental resilience. Our students and community members deserve tools that will serve them throughout their lives, not just in their immediate academic or professional challenges.”
NBS Ahmedabad continues to offer cutting-edge workshops and programs designed to prepare students and professionals for success in today’s demanding world.
Keep an eye on our events page to be a part of such transformative experiences: https://nbs.edu.in/events/
