Watts Involved

Latest Episodes:

Underdogs: How Small Players Become Business Titans, with Michael Hinton Oct 27, 2026

Show notes

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.

From the Archive: GG Alcock and the Economy Nobody Could See (Episode 32) (AI voice) Oct 23, 2026

Show notes

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.

The Hidden Currents: Why Your Best Argument Lost (Chapter 3) (AI voice) Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

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.

From the Archive: Andre Hoffman and the Word He Refused to Accept (Episode 29) (AI voice) Oct 16, 2026

Show notes

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.

Chapter 2: Your Influential Brain — Why Connection Has a Mechanism (AI voice) Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

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.

From the Archive: Matt Brown on Systems, Imposter Syndrome and Killing What You Love (Episode 163) (AI voice) Oct 09, 2026

Show notes

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.

Chapter 1: The Boy Who Was Never Told He Couldn’t Speak (AI voice) Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

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.

I Was Looking Down at Myself Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

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.

How to Build Rapport With Anyone (Without Being Fake) (AI voice) Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

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.

Rapport isn't charisma and it isn't a parlour trick — it's what happens when someone's threat-detection system stands down. David Watts takes the mechanism apart: why deliberate mimicry backfires, what NLP calls pacing, and the three honest behaviours that do the real work. Plus the single question that tells you whether you've crossed from connection into manipulation.

Read the full article on Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/articles/how-to-build-rapport/

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

Dopamine Detox Debunked: What the Science Actually Says (AI voice) Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

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.

The "dopamine detox" is biologically impossible — you can't flush out a neurotransmitter your own brain manufactures on demand. David Watts unpacks what's really happening when you unplug: receptor downregulation, Anna Lembke's pleasure-pain balance, and the baseline-versus-peaks trap behind every hype routine. Then a four-step protocol for redirecting dopamine towards creation instead of punishing yourself with deprivation.

Read the full article on Quantum Self Development: https://quantumselfdevelopment.com/articles/dopamine-detox-debunked/

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