Boost Your Brain Power

by Denise Green | Optimal Results, Our Favorites, Science of Leadership, Uncategorized Comments | 0

Your brain has something to tell you and ask of you:

1) Your brain would like you to know that it is overworked, and
2) Your brain would like a coach.

Your Brain is Overworked
You are asking too much of your brain. More specifically, your prefrontal cortex, that evolutionarily youngest region of our brain– the part responsible for higher thinking like prioritizing, categorizing, and strategizing–could use some support. And it’s no wonder: If you think of your whole brain’s information processing power as equal to the milky-way galaxy, the pre-frontal cortex can handle only about a cubic foot of that information. So, the part of your brain that distinguishes you from the animal kingdom and gives you your smarts, is akin to a Texas Instruments calculator (from 1980) embedded in an IBM supercomputer.

And for most of us, the prefrontal cortex is powerful enough to operate efficiently for about ninety minutes a day.
So, if you are wondering why, at the end of a long work-day you feel weary, and like you accomplished too little, it’s not you…it’s your brain. And because our to-do lists are only getting longer and more demanding, and our distractions increasing, we try to supercharge our brain with caffeine, exercise, ginseng–all of which may help–temporarily.

Here’s a short list of Indicators that Your Brain is Overburdened

  • You misplace your keys, pen, etc, only to find it in plain sight (or in hand).
  • You send off an incomplete email, or copy someone by mistake, or regret sending while angry.
  • You bring your bad mood with you to work or home and smear it all over innocent bystanders.
  • You fail to manage your time so that you get the most important things checked off your list.
  • You get easily distracted.
  • You forget why you are at the grocery store.

If you experience no symptoms like the ones listed above, please email info@brilliance.com and let us know what you are taking.

Optimize Your Brain

Fortunately, you can do a lot to positively affect performance in your fragile prefrontal cortex.

  • Prioritize early: Do the your most complex thinking early in the day
  • Limit distractions: Turn off some of the myriad electronic sounds competing for your attention
  • Eat: Give your brain the glucose fuel it needs (and bring chocolate to your next meeting)
  • Write it down: Put your thoughts on paper to free up space in your crowded brain
  • Do something novel: Raise your dopamine levels by watching a funny video or reading a blog
  • Take a shower (or go for a walk, etc): 90% of 6,000 people surveyed said they did their best work OUTSIDE the workplace
  • Talk out loud to a human…which brings us to the request from your brain

Your Brain Would Like a Coach

The simple act of speaking to another person helps your brain clear through the clutter and achieve clarity and insight. Your “coach” doesn’t need to be a certified professional. Your brain wants someone who will listen, hear, and offer a different point of view. If you have someone in your life who does this gratis, keep him or her close. According to David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work, a person who sees things that you can’t, and offers up their observations and insights is “like having a bonus prefrontal cortex.”

And who couldn’t use a spare brain?

Questions for Transforming a Trusted Someone Into Your Coach

  • What am I not seeing?
  • What’s the silver lining? What good can come from this?
  • What assumptions am I making?
  • How do you see the issue?
  • What would you do if you were in my shoes?
  • What have I missed?

In summary (your brain likes summaries), your brain is overworked and underpowered for what you ask of it. While there are a number of ways to rev it up, the best may be to talk aloud with another trusted human being (unfortunately, dogs proved insufficient in Brilliance Inc. testing).

Quotes and Quips:

The Hazards of Mutitasking: Even the brain of a Harvard graduate can be turned into that of an eight-year-old simply by being made to do two things at once. (from Your Brain at Work)

Blackberry and the Brain: A 2005 University of London study showed that having any communication device on nearby reduces its owner’s IQ 15-20 points.

Stay tuned for future Ignite issues and blog posts about optimizing and leveraging your brain.

In the Next Issue:  Inspire Others to Change…Without Annoying Them where we continue our conversation about the brain and reveal the real path to change yourself and others.

The Statistics in this article were sourced in part from a presentation by David Rock at the South Bay OD Network Conference in November, 2009, hosted by Oracle Corporation.

Our thanks to Risë Venditti for loaning us her prefrontal cortex in refining this article.

More Resources:

Your Brain At Work by David Rock

Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Neuroleadership Institute and Blog

David Rock Blog

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Love (or, at least respect) Your Limitations

by Denise Green | Gratitude, Optimal Results, Strengths Comments | 0

Honor Your Limitations

Honor Your Limitations

As we begin another turn around the sun, it seems proper to focus on possibilities and opportunities—on our limitless nature. Having never been accused of being proper or conventional, I’d rather talk about limitations. Plus, now that we’re well into February, the shiny coating on your resolutions may be showing some dullness, letting in a ray of reality.

Limitations get an undeserved bad reputation. Without limits—constraints—we’d lack focus, purpose, direction. We would say yes to everything, run ourselves out of energy and into the ground.

Those who know me well, know that I am not afraid to say no—no to people, events, tasks—anything that feels like an energy drainer. I try to live by a philosophy of striving for maximum results with the minimal output of effort. I have not always done this gracefully. Once, when I began a new job, I ignored back pain, not wanting to ask for time off, and ended up in the hospital. To live more honestly and fully, I’ve had to discover my strengths and weaknesses and respect all of it. I’ve had to learn to pay fierce attention to my body’s signals—intuitive and physical— then listen and abide.

When we ignore our limitations, we overburden ourselves and diminish our capacity to do what matters most and to share our most profound gifts with others.

Some signs you may be ignoring your limitations:

  • Your dance card is full and you’re spinning around the room with acquaintances instead of people you adore
  • You feel physical distress or illness often
  • You feel guilty about how you spend your time
  • You are moody and disagreeable often
  • You don’t use your strengths every day

If you experience some of the signs perhaps it’s time to step back and take inventory of your limitations: which ones are you ignoring, hoping they will disappear or convert to strengths through some undiscovered alchemy?

limitations and mitigators

I am still working on finding a balance—saying no and yes in a way that best serves me, my family, my intentions, and the world. Two things I know: 1) I will have ample opportunities to practice, and 2) I will have ample limitations to remind me what matters and what’s worth doing.

Each of us has different strengths and constraints. Heck, even superheroes have limiting forces. Imagine if Superman ignored his allergy to kryptonite and told himself instead to “suck it up and move on.” If you don’t figure out what matters most—what deserves most of your attention, and what most constrains you, you may someday find out the hard way.

If you don’t have constant physical reminders of your mortality and limitations, you may have to try even harder to create boundaries so you can focus your attention in ways that serves you and the world.

Exercise and Questions for the Willing

  1. Brainstorm your limitations. Have fun with it. Name them big and small.
  2. Identify the biggest limitations.
  3. What is your relationship to your limitations? Do you resent them, love them, respect them, appreciate them?
  4. Think about how you spend your physical and emotional energy. What are you saying yes to that is in conflict with your limitations?
  5. If you keep it up, what’s likely to happen?
  6. What can you say no to, that would free up energy?
  7. What do you feel when you contemplate saying no?

A “no” uttered from the deepest conviction is better and greater than a “yes” merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Happy Valentines Day!

From the Heart,

Denise

Thanks to Risë Venditti for her insight while Heather is on maternity leave with her two healthy bundles of love and limits, Ella and Charlie.

Here are some of my (very mortal) limiting forces and attempts to mitigate them

Physical Limitations:

- I have an incomplete hip socket that will warrant a rebuild

- I have scoliosis and other related quirky skeletal shapes

- In 1992, I broke my back and body in a car accident.

- I suffer from bouts of insomnia and exhaustion

- I have food sensitivities (that in 1998 resulted in an auto-immune disease response)

- I naturally have poor vision and dry eyes

Mitigating Response

- I wear flat shoes

- I make regular visits to healers: acupuncture, Feldenkrais, Cranial Sacral, Chiropractic.

- IDET back surgery in 1998

- NAET and Bioset to reverse the allergies

- Lasik in 1998

- Herbs…and Advil.

Relational Responsibilities

- I’m a wife, daughter, sister, mother, dog mom, and business partner.

- I am really sensitive to images of violence, hatred, and suffering.

- I have a daughter with celiac and dogs in remission from cancer and pancreatitis, none of whom can drive

- I say no to events, classes, seminars, clubs, associations, etc. that don’t serve a clear, immediate need that I can translate into value for my well-being, my family, or clients.

- I spend quality time with my family including daily walks with my dogs

- I watch no toxic television or movies, including the news.

Talent and Style Limitations

- I’m impatient and impulsive

- I prefer creative and big picture work over details

- I partner with the amazing Heather Andersen, who has different strengths, background, and interests.(and limitations)

- I always have a talented friend proofread and edit before I send important work out.

Other:

- Mortgage (Bay Area), Bills, Taxes

- Only 24 hours in a day

- I do work that I love

- I have one beloved child, with plans for no others.

- I have child care.

- I often refer clients whose problem could be solved better and faster by someone in my network.

- I delegate research

o E.g. Jennifer for food and wine, Moo for cars, Travel Agent Eliot Saferty for vacations, Amazon.com for recommendations, and Twitter to follow smart people and keep abreast of latest studies, writings, and ideas in my field.

- I have a good, patient accountant

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