Category: Motivational

Reading and understanding iconic books like Start with Why, Find your why by Simon Sinek, Emotional Intelligence by Travis Bradberry, Talk like TED by Carmine Gallo would go a long way in helping understand the very complex human brain.

Leading, managing, networking in professional as well as personal lives

Neo cortex is the part of brain that helps us in rational thinking while limbic brain is responsible for emotions. Understanding the orientation of the human brain is a key to developing and honing emotional intelligence related skills, which is the backbone to survive and make it big in this knowledge worker age. This when done can help us act smartly in ways to get desired impact in family life as well as professional life and change our day to day life to help us achieve the desired effect.

When an instinct comes then it is an interplay between neo-cortex and emotions, emotional intelligence does the balancing act, when to use emotion and when to be rational. Responding to a stimulus where the outcome is an action, how we choose our action to produce the desired outcome can be chosen based on understanding of the working of the brain.

Being high in IQ would help us with tasks to do with neo-cortex but it is emotional intelligence that would let us put in the shoes of a receiver to tune our message and attitude in a way that would reach and impact the emotional behavior resulting out of limbic of a receiver. In a modern day for problem solving IQ matters , rational thinking and neo-cortex dominates but to gel with people in order to make them achieve desired effect emotional intelligence becomes important to guide us which part of the brain of a target to reach out to whether neo-cortex or limbic.

For accepting change, message has to reach limbic brain and influence the same. Rigidity to change is guided by limbic since even though neo cortex invokes rational thinking and asks for a corrective action, limbic comes in the way of acting constructive behavior in the way of being fearless and taking risks.

Amygdala in the limbic brain is responsible for generation of emotions and stimulating it is necessary for influencing the behavior to ensure team members of a leader give their blood, sweat and tear for the achievement of objectives. Proper balance between emotions and rational thinking is critical to act right work in teams, gel well and achieve desired results in this age.

Memorable and novel ideas/messages have the power to traverse to the limbic part of the brain and generate emotionally triggered responses way beyond the realms of rational thinking. Hence the toughest thing and a major focus in today’s world for persuasion is story-telling to trigger emotional responses by reaching the limbic brain.

Very recently I had the honor of reading “Leaders Eat Last” by Simon Sinek, the author of the hugely popular “Start with Why”. This book is an amazing read for the simple fact that by means of biology the author has explained how to beat stress in our fast paced lives by sticking to ethics. Stress as well as happiness stimulating hormones we all would be aware of but the mental mapping of these is something we rarely think of. Had we done the same our actions would have been more often than not directed towards enhancing the flow of happiness stimulating selfless chemicals to beat stress and duress in our stress filled lives.

Stress which is part and parcel of our modern fast paced lives results in a chemical named “Cortisol” flowing through our veins. As against this when we are happy for ourselves say for e.g. when we have had a very tiring but fulfilling day in office may be for e.g. by being able to deliver something critical by stretching late in office a selfish happiness stimulating chemical named “Endosprin” flows through our veins. When people try to beat stress by working out extra time in gyms, the same chemical flows through our veins and keeps us happy for the time being.

Any kind of work done by us that gives us an appreciation to satisfy our self-ego but which does not give us any sense of belonging results in “Dopamine” flowing through our veins. With the proliferation of social media penetration that “one buzz” in our phones to indicate one more like for our posts on FB or Twitter results in the flow of this selfish happiness stimulating chemical that acts as a quick fix to keep our subconscious mind happy.

When we feel happy and feel a sense of belonging especially when a co-worker thanks us or when we feel happy by doing something for the family/near or dear ones/society and that too ethically it does us the most good by allowing the flow of selfless and happiness stimulating chemicals named “Serotonin” and “Oxytocin” through or veins.

The challenge in life , to beat stress , is not to chase short term quick fix driven “Dopamine happiness” but look to do or achieve something ethically that would give us a sense of belonging and a good night’s sleep by allowing sufficient flow of “Oxytocin” through our veins.

Thus the mathematical equation involving biological chemicals to help us lead a balanced and truly happy life with a sense of belonging is:

(Serotonin + Oxytocin) >>>> Cortisol

With this simple equation in mind let us all pledge to act in ways to fight stress by doing things in our day to day lives that give us a sense of belonging that have far reaching impacts beyond mere self-satisfaction. The other advantage of this would be that since this formula to beat stress is scientifically proven we can form a mental map and preempt our behavior patterns to act in ways that help us achieve selfless truly fulfilling satisfaction rather than meeting our selfish short term goals.

Unleash the flow of selfless chemicals through your veins!!!!!