The first chapter of Outsmart Your Brain: How to Make Success Fell Easy, by Dr. Marcia Reynolds, lays out the case for being emotionally aware at work. It then goes into how the brain processes input and what triggers emotions. Finally, the chapter includes exercises coaches can use with their clients to help them become emotionally aware as the first step toward emotional mastery. Copyright © 2004 by Marcia Reynolds. Click the red button below to download the chapter.
Chapter 1: WHO’S IN CHARGE?
The Power of “I Want To”
In my last corporate position, I was hired as the organizational training manager for a semiconductor corporation, responsible for the “people side of business.” I developed courses in leadership development, personal effectiveness and team success. After six months, my boss told me the company had decided that I should also manage all aspects of factory training.
I balked.
I had no clue about what went on in the factory. I had no previous experience in this industry and I had successfully evaded anything in my education that could be termed technical. I also knew that the trainers who had previously been managed by manufacturing, been bumped to process engineering and finally to human resources before ending up in my lap. This had to be a drain on their morale.
My boss answered my concerns by saying, “Don’t worry. It’s a no-brainer. It’s just three women who come to work, do their jobs, then go home.”
The hair on my back bristled. When was managing anyone a “no-brainer?” I reluctantly accepted the responsibility, hoping to at least provide the three trainers with a more permanent home.
Planning to employ the techniques I taught in my management classes, I scheduled an appointment with each one. The first trainer, Cathy, came into my office. As she sat, I asked, “So tell me, what is your vision?”
She looked confused.
I explained, “You know, what do you want for yourself in your job? Is there anything you’d like to learn? Is there something you’d like to do more of or less of on the job?”
She thought about my questions, then said, “There’s a new computer system on the floor. I’d love to create some new reporting forms. What we have is so outdated. It would help us a lot if we had a better way to track people and what they’re doing.”
“Great,” I said. “What’s it going to take? How can I help?”
“There’s a class I can take. I can sign up if you approve the overtime.”
We called for the class schedule and then found a way to balance her work with classroom time.
Dina, the second trainer came into my office. Again I asked, “So tell me, what is your vision?”
She looked confused.
I explained, “What do you want for yourself? How would you like to develop and grow? Is there something you’d like to do more of or less of on the job?”
She thought about the question, shifted her body a few times, and then sheepishly said, “I’d like to be a supervisor.”
“Great,” I said. “What’s it going to take? How can I help?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Can you ask some of the supervisors on the floor what they think?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Find out, then we can work out a plan together.” She came back a week later with a detailed plan of training and a commitment by one of the factory supervisors to mentor her development.
The third trainer, Sandy, came into my office. I skipped the vision question. “How would you like to develop yourself and how can I help?”
She thought about the question, then shut her eyes. Tears began to roll down her cheeks. Finally, she said, “I’ve worked here 16 years. This is the first time anyone asked me that.”
After these meetings, do you think these trainers acted as my boss had described them, as people who came to work, did their jobs, then left?
Hardly. My greatest problem was managing their overtime. Cathy was rewarded for her new reporting system, Dina became the company’s first factory training supervisor and Sandy committed herself to a personal development program that she claimed brought her back from the “living dead.” The high evaluations they received from those they trained reflected their renewed motivation to work.
The point of the story is not to tout my success. Success should be given to the management programs I had been teaching over the years; I was just practicing what I taught. The point is that the difference in these employees’ productivity had nothing to do with their knowledge and skills. The bottom line was impacted by their emotional commitment. Their performance was based on how they felt while doing the job, not on how well they knew how to do it.
It’s a simple formula. If I WANT TO do a good job, I do it.
If I don’t feel like doing a good job, I don’t, at least
I do not perform up to my maximum potential.
I might do what is required, but my discretionary effort—the extra effort that drives a company’s competitive edge—rests on HOW I FEEL in any given moment.
This may sound like common sense. But most people aren’t aware that they can’t simply override their emotions and devote themselves to a job they dislike, at least not in the long haul. They can’t bully themselves to work at their best for long.
While people may push themselves to work, their emotions are still being triggered, causing chemicals to be released which restrict access to memory and hinder creativity (a discussion of emotions and the physical impact on the brain and body is in the next section of this chapter). The only chance they have to do
stellar work is to find a reason, a payoff, for WANTING TO do it. This desire then causes a different chemical reaction that actually increases the efficiency of brain activity and thus, performance.
The payoff that creates the desire doesn’t have to come from an external source like your boss. You can learn how to shift your emotions and reprogram your responses in the moment to increase your happiness as well as your performance. This book will teach you how.
In short, no matter how strong your work ethic is, when factors in your environment detract from how good you feel when you’re working, the result is a decrease in the energy available to perform. Other factors, such as anger, anxiety and determination may motivate you for a while, but sooner or later you will have to feel pride in your work, valued by your supervisors, acknowledged by your peers and have some fun in the process in order to maintain the motivation to work at your peak.
The “We” Factor
Now factor into the picture your environment and your co-workers. Count how many times a day you talk to others at work or depend on the outcomes of others to get your work done. Multiply this number by 200 for every year you work. You’ll see that you have thousands of interactions, many of them taxing your interpersonal skills. Your success on the job depends on your ability to work with others, which includes understanding and dealing with their needs, their values and their feelings.
However, we work an average of 67 hours a week, doing twice the work to produce three times the results expected of us just a few years ago. We barely have time to think about our relationships, much less work on improving them. Fortunately, practicing emotional intelligence will give you a new perspective on your interactions. Self-awareness automatically increases empathy. You will see your conversations and relationships in a new light, providing fresh ideas on how to approach problems and conflicts.
Common Sense, But Not
Common Practice
If mastering our own emotional states and learning how to factor the emotional needs of others into our conversations are so important, why are emotions not talked about, not even allowed, in the workplace?
We grow up in cultures that dismiss the need to understand emotions. Individual technical achievement is emphasized in schools and is used as the basis for promotions at work. Emotions do not show up in the language of report cards and performance reviews except for when they are hidden in comments such as “she has a poor attitude” and “he demonstrates low morale.”
As a result, not only are we poorly trained in getting along with others, but our focus on the technical and intellectual sides of work may actually hinder success by limiting our perception of options and creative ideas.
The real travesty is that we once had immediate access to our emotional states. When we were young, we knew what we felt and what we wanted. In fact, babies seem to have a great curiosity for learning what makes them happy and sad. Toddlers are particularly sensitive to the feelings of others.
However, as we grow up, we are taught to deny this intelligence. We are cautioned by our parents and teachers to be practical. We learn from our peers that when we show love and compassion, we could end up feeling rejected, humiliated and sad. We begin to distrust the messages we get from the emotional centers of our brain. Soon we are adept at ignoring these messages altogether.
Now, as adults, when we go to work:
1. We don’t heed what our “gut” tells us to do.
2. We are careful not to let our hearts rule our minds.
3. We strive to keep a “stiff upper lip” because displays of emotions make us look weak.
The result is that we create habits that block our ability to use emotional information when we make decisions and communicate with others. Ask most people how they feel and they say, “Fine.” Some say it with no emotion. Others reveal their true state in the inflection and volume of their voice. Yet few people actually stop to assess their condition. Of those who would, most would think twice before telling the truth unless they were feeling absolutely marvelous. Even those who would love to express how upset they are in the moment choose to remain tight-lipped, secretly hoping the asker will psychically sense their pain and show remorse.
In short, we weren’t taught in school how to access and use the wisdom of our emotions. Then when our emotions affect our work, we are sent to classes that focus on emotional control, such as the standard courses in conflict resolution, change management and handling stress. These classes are generally limited to one-day “fix-it” programs that teach communication skills which are quickly forgotten when under pressure back on the job. And, if you are a manager, you probably don’t even show up for class unless some-one higher than you insists that you attend.
I rarely find a company interested in the investment needed to train its employees to recognize and constructively talk about their emotions on the job. Even fewer are concerned about altering emotions so that people are happy at work.
Most people don’t even have the literacy to define how they feel when asked. We understand the meaning of the words academically, but have difficulty defining what we are experiencing in ourselves at any given moment.
Our cognitive brains have lost touch with our bodies except in extreme cases of excitement or pain.
We miss important data and, even worse, have learned
to numb ourselves to our senses.
Prior to attending my class, participants fill out the inventory
included in Appendix A, “Name that Emotion.” At four intervals throughout the day, they are told to stop and write 1. what they are doing and 2. how they are feeling, choosing from the list of 80 words. Most struggle with the exercise at first. They dislike the number of choices and can’t differentiate one type of happiness, fear or anger from another.
The good news is that after only a few days, the exercise gets easier. Participants begin to identify subtle distinctions and patterns in their reactions. They can say they feel confused, delighted, frustrated, embarrassed or exhausted without looking at the list. They begin to feel more in control of their emotional states simply by taking the time to check in with themselves.
This awareness is only the first step. Once you become fluent at labeling the emotion you are feeling in any given moment, you can then apply a number of different techniques to shift your emotional state if you choose to. Or you can accept your experience of anger or sadness as a vital expression in your current situation. The power lies in making the conscious choice of how you want to feel and think, which is fully within your power to do.
EXERCISE #1
Before we go any further in this book, I request you begin the inventory, Name that Emotion, by noticing what you are feeling and then writing down the words on the charts of Appendix A. Completing the pages will begin to re-activate your emotional intelligence. As you familiarize yourself with your emotional states, you will better understand their effect on your productivity, confidence and happiness. Then, when you learn more about choice later in the book, you will be freer to choose how you want to feel and to act in all circumstances.
HEAD GAMES
Earlier this year, I taught a few seminars at a chemical company in Texas. Between classes, I provided coaching for the
managers to implement what they learned. After the first session, Larry, one of the managers, forwarded me an e-mail he had received from a peer. It included a copy of an e-mail Larry had sent this colleague with comments from her typed in red capital letters. Most of her comments started with the word, “WRONG.”
Larry was clearly upset. He wanted me to agree with him that his colleague was rude and out to get him. Fortunately, before he sent back a scathing e-mail proving she was the one who was wrong, he called me.
I asked him, “Are you absolutely sure her only purpose in writing the e-mail was to prove you are an idiot?”
He reluctantly answered that there could be a possibility of something else on her mind.
I said, “If you didn’t feel like she were trying to take away your credibility, what other reasons do you see for her behavior?”
He said he wasn’t sure.
“Be creative,” I suggested. “What do you think this letter is really telling you about her?”
Larry said, “Obviously, she is mad, either at me or at someone else. I guess we have to talk about what she is upset about, not about when the report is due.”
I was then able to coach Larry on how he could best approach this conversation with his colleague, starting with asking her if she was willing to find another way to handle disagreements with him as he wasn’t comfortable with the e-mail approach.
After a difficult start, Larry told me that after he had expressed how he was feeling, his colleague laid her cards on the table as well. Larry found out that she thought she was responsible for choosing the deadline dates, not him. She felt Larry was trying to undermine her authority. After convincing her that he wanted to work with her and not against her, they attempted to define their roles and responsibilities. They agreed in some areas and negotiated others. Working together, they found a better way of solving their problems.
From our coaching, I knew that the next time Larry received an e-mail with emotional overtones, he would be more inclined to look for the meaning beneath the words before reacting negatively to the anger he felt.
Larry was upset by the manner in which the comments were made. Yet by looking below the surface, he found that the behavior of his colleague was driven by her own emotional triggers. She was so concerned with protecting her position that she wasn’t thinking about how Larry would feel about her actions.
A clash of reactions wouldn’t help their working relationship. Instead, he opened himself to finding out what was really upsetting his colleague so he could stabilize the relationship, which cleared the way to seeing solutions.
What does this take?
First, it takes self-awareness so that you can clear your own mental clutter out of the way. You first have to stop the noise in your brain to be conscious in the present moment without acting on your feelings and assumptions. Only then can you clearly see the source of the reactions in others.
Before we go on, let me explain that what you are about to read runs counter to some therapies and self-help books where behavioral change is based on changing thought patterns: Change your thoughts, you change your behavior. This technique may work well for some people in some situations. For the rest of us, in most situations where strong emotions are involved, we fail at “rescripting” the dialogue that runs in our heads. As a result, we continue to make poor decisions. We helplessly act out of habit. Even if we are able to force ourselves to talk or act differently, the change doesn’t last. Then we mentally beat ourselves up and worsen conditions.
What’s missing?
We need to identify the emotional reactions in the body that created the feelings and thoughts. Then we have to determine what “triggered” the biochemical and hormonal reaction that created the emotional state. It takes an awareness of our emotional triggers to override their power. According to neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, author of Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow
and the Feeling Brain, at any moment, our rate of breathing, blood flow, tension in our muscles and constriction in our gut represents a pattern in our brain that we can identify as a feeling. When we understand the source of our physical reactions, we have the information to make decisions and resolve many of our personal problems.
We may even look at our feelings and thoughts as symptoms that lead us to the emotional source. Emotions may or may not disappear with awareness, but only when we identify them can we understand them, and then consciously choose how we want to behave. By paying attention to our feelings, we can improve how we manage this process we call “life.”
Additionally, when we understand that our emotions are biological reactions, that our brain is simply reacting in ways it perceives to be beneficial to our health and happiness (see the description of how the brain works in the next section), we free ourselves from the shame, blame, guilt and anger caused by not understanding why we think and behave as we do. Instead, we learn how to forgive ourselves for being human. Once vindicated, we can then find gentler ways to talk ourselves into redefining happiness and into trying out new thoughts and behaviors.
The Three Brains
Outsmarting our brains starts with looking at how the brain functions. If we study the neurobiology of the brain, we can track how input is affected as it travels through the brain. What we find is an intricate system that often operates at a pre-cognition level, meaning there is much going on outside of our awareness. In fact, the logical, knowing center of the brain is the last to be activated when data from external sources is processed.
This isn’t an accident of nature. The brain’s motto is “Survival First!” The design came into existence when “eat or be eaten” and propagation of the species were truly the priorities of the day. The brain’s primary function is to keep the body, and the species, alive.
Over time, the brain developed new functions and capabilities to help us deal with the complexity of our world. This did not change the primal mission of “protect and propagate,” even though these words take on a different meaning in today’s world. The patterns hardwired into our neural circuitry are still following the rules of threat and reward, helping us to act on automatic pilot since we can’t stop and think about every move we must make. As a result, humans have three major centers in our brains—with two operating at the pre-cognitive level—helping us to deal with life as we attempt to be brilliant, creative, philosophical, competitive, logical, efficient and silly.
The REACTIVE Brain
The base, or the first brain, is called the reactive or reptilian brain. More commonly known as the brain stem, this portion of the brain resembles the brain found in reptiles.
The reactive brain is where the command centers for living are located. These control sleep and waking, respiration, body temperature and the basic movements needed to keep us alive. Consider how difficult it is to concentrate on a task when you are too hot, too cold or too hungry to do anything. You have to take care of your basic needs first to protect your body.
Next, the reptilian brain is on the lookout for things that can hurt us and for things that can make the body feel good. It operates in a state of hyperalert, a loyal sentinel constantly surveying the environment. Reactions are triggered when the brain perceives a threat or a reward to the body. When receiving sensory input, the reptilian brain asks three questions:
1. Can it hurt me? If the answer is no…
2. Can I eat it? If the answer is no…
3. Can I have sex with it?
Note: It is possible that the order of the questions may be reversed for some people as my students often point out to me. I haven’t found enough evidence to either argue or agree with them. However, I can’t help but smile at their wisdom.
Responses to the three questions are automatic even in the human brain before you have a chance to think. Your heart beats fast, you get goose bumps, your hair stands on end, you smile, snarl, laugh or slump without thinking. Consider how you jump when someone unexpectedly enters a room, how you take a big whiff when you see a pot of food cooking, how you straighten up when you see your boss, how you shudder at the sight of a police car and how you tingle inside when someone attractive stands close to you and smiles. Based on the neural programming you have developed over the years, you label the sensations that happen in your body as feelings and react accordingly. Of course your experiences which includes education and training continue to alter the programs, varying your perception of situations and the subsequent biochemical reactions. As a result, you create a personalized dread and reward system that mutates over time.
This is the reason why we trust non-verbal messages more than verbal. Facial expressions and posture tend to represent truer feelings than composed words. You may ignore an emotion, but it takes a lot of practice to hide the instant reactions generated from your reptilian brain.
When, and if, the reptilian brain is triggered, the resulting behavior, in the words of Paul Pearsall in his book, The Heart’s Code, is based on the four Fs—flight, fight, feast and fornicate. We may be more civilized than the reptiles (although you may know some people you swear have not evolved), but our bodies still react to stimuli through this center first. Much of our behavior is based either on the fear of being hurt or on the desire to make ourselves feel good.
The problem is, as our cultures have socially evolved, so have our perceptions of peril and pleasure. Our complex society naturally poses more threats than opportunities for happiness. We yearn for the simple life but can barely sit still for five minutes. The more active our world is on the outside, the more alert to danger the brain must be on the inside.
Our cultural evolution adds to this complexity. The reptilian brain in a human reacts in the same way when someone looks
like they may slap us as it does when we perceive that someone may hurt our feelings, test our authority or make us feel stupid. As we age, we teach our brain to recognize more threats, to our ego as well as to our body. The brain reacts to a challenge to the ego in the same way that an animal responds to danger; the brain prepares us to flight or fight, directing the body to release adrenaline, surge the blood flow to the big muscle groups and direct attention to seek means of protection.
Although we might have a more advanced, logical brain than the reptiles, our thoughts are distorted by this defense mechanism. Every time it is agitated, the body looks for ways to rid itself of the stress caused by the reaction. Conflicting messages then cross paths and multiply in our cortical brain. Without consciously stopping the process and shifting our emotional state, it is nearly impossible to see present circumstances objectively.
In fact, the brain is constantly fabricating a portion of what we think is reality. In protection mode, we predict what is going to happen. We rationalize in order to understand. Since we are limited in what our senses can perceive, we fill in the gaps. Thus, we are prone to illusion based on speculation. We then swear we saw something that didn’t happen or heard someone say something they didn’t because the cues triggered our predictions.
While our brains are busy fabricating details, they are also occupied with filtering out what is perceived as noise. We miss input that the brain determines isn’t important enough to warrant attention. It is no wonder two people can argue endlessly about what they each swear happened before their eyes. They perceived very different events even though the picture was the same.
In addition to adrenaline, when the brain senses a threat, the stress hormone cortisol is released. This shuts the neurons down, which keeps the brain from being able to store new information and learn. We may be able to focus and act fast when driven by fear or anger. Yet we struggle with change and learning new ways to behave. In our defense, our brains react without thinking, fearfully or aggressively saying and doing “stupid stuff” to keep things status quo.
Unfortunately, our complicated world regularly triggers our reptilian brain. We are stimulated more than any other animal. The body can’t assimilate the overload of chemicals secreted when operating in prolonged protection mode. The result is what we’ve come to know as “burnout.”
Also, adrenalin and cortisol wear out the body, causing high blood pressure, heart disease, ulcers, hormonal imbalances, a weakened immune system, a host of digestive problems and possibly cancer.
Ridding ourselves of conditioned fear, anger and resignation is difficult. We can’t “just do it.”
The first step in outsmarting our brains is being aware of what triggers our protective reactions.
We must learn how to focus on the present moment to sense when our brains perceive danger. We must partner with our feelings, not try to hide them. Feelings are the portal in which we can determine what caused the emotional reaction in the body, whether the source is external (what we perceive and sense) or internal (what we think about).
On the other hand, if you choose not to feel—to deny the existence of an emotional state—you are simply ignoring, not ending, the emotional reaction. You have merely disconnected your brain from your body. Your body still suffers. To truly bring more peace, creativity and health into your life, you must heed your feelings so you can begin to distinguish what is a real threat and what is not. Then over time, you can reprogram this portion of your brain to react less often. Steps for doing this are provided later in the book.
The Social Brain
Once input is processed by the reptilian brain, it enters the mammalian or limbic system, also known as the social brain because it evolved to help us deal with a social world. Here you’ll find the apparatuses for emotion and long-term memory plus the fine-tuning of movement and focus. However, the development of this portion of the brain can still be traced to the purpose of survival.
Humans, like other mammals, need to nurture their young. Most reptilian babies are born fully functional with the ability to run from their parents who are likely to eat them. Our babies cannot run; they can’t survive at all without us. So survival of the species requires that parents care about their offspring. In short, evolution gave us the capacity to care, which includes caring enough to feed our babies even when we feel tired, protect them even when we are afraid and want them to learn to be on their own even when we feel the loss.
In addition, to deal with the hostile world, we need each other to survive. So evolution gave us hormonal and biochemical reactions that encourage us to gather and befriend. We seek a smile and a warm touch from the moment of our birth. Studies show longevity and health can be linked to the number and depth of our friendships.
With the needs to care for and protect came a cascade of emotional states including what we label as jealousy, delight, loneliness, grief, anger and love. We cry, we kiss, we groom each other, we bicker, we steal, we defend, we cuddle, we console, we beam with pride and we cower in embarrassment.
In fact, even if we lose our short-term memory and ability to reason and learn through damage or disease, we still laugh, cry and express emotions through facial expressions and posture. This is the biological reason why our ever-alert reptilian brains respond to emotional gestures before language is processed, inherently knowing that emotional expressions are generally more trustworthy than the concocted word.
What is most important to remember about the limbic system is that it is the next filter in line after the reptilian brain. If
what we perceive externally passes through the “foe, food or fondle” test, it then travels through the minefield of emotional triggers before it can be processed logically. These triggers increase as humans culturally progress since what we perceive we need to survive becomes more complex.
“Triggering an emotion” means a host of neural, biochemical and hormonal actions are initiated by the brain based on what our brain perceives we emotionally need to be happy in a particular situation. In this context, needs are defined as unmet hopes, expectations and attachments. We hoped for, expected or believed we deserved to receive one of the following items in a specific situation:
Needs/Emotional Triggers
acceptance respect
to be liked achievement
praise to be understood
to understand appreciation
to be needed to be in control
to be right to be valued
to be treated fairly comfort
freedom peacefulness
balance consistency
attention adventure
love to make a difference
to feel worthwhile to be heard
to explore to nurture
to be safe to win
Some of these needs will be important to you. Others will hold no emotional charge for you. Take a moment to identify your top five triggers, meaning that a cascade of neural and biochemical events affect your body when:
1. you perceive that you may not get this need met,
2. you think someone is denying you this need or
3. it appears that you have an opportunity to earn this need, even if you have to fight for it.
Be honest with yourself. Which five needs, when not met, will likely trigger a reaction in you? Identify the needs that you hold most dear.
It is critical to note that needs are not bad. The reason you have these needs is that at some point in your life, the need served you. For example, your experiences may have taught you that success in life depends on maintaining control, establishing a safe environment and having people around you who appreciate your intelligence. However, the more you become attached to these needs, the more your brain will be on the lookout for circumstances that threat-en your ability to have these needs met. Then your needs become emotional triggers.
At this point, you must judge the truth of the situation. Are you really losing this need or not? Is the person actively denying your need or are you taking the situation too personally? If it’s true that someone is ignoring your need or blocking you from achieving it, can you either ask for what you need or, if it doesn’t really matter, can you let the need go? The steps for getting your needs met or for releasing your needs will be further described in Chapter 4 on Choice.
Without consciously acknowledging the need that is triggering the emotional reaction, we become enslaved to the need. On the other hand, if we honestly declare our needs—that we had expected people to treat us in a particular way and had hoped events would unfold as we had planned—then we can begin to see life more objectively. From this perspective, we are freer to choose our reactions.
Most of our behavior, and our decisions, arise out of
a desire to avoid pain, sorrow or shame, or on the quest
for pleasure, joy or pride. In short, we physically and mentally respond to the possibility of loss or reward
before we can logically process what is going on.
In fact, even internally generated perceptions—what we are thinking about—loops through the limbic system. That is why our own thoughts—our own fears of not getting what we need—can detonate our rage, push us into panic or send us down a spiral of depression. Yet, if we understand how the brain works, we see we have the ability to use our limbic systems to generate feelings of gratitude, pride and joy at will. If we have the courage to be self-aware, we can outsmart our brains.
So the brain’s primary function is still to act as the trusty sentinel, on the lookout for thieves and scoundrels. If there is no physical danger to our body or our food source (reactive brain), we react to what we sense are threats to being respected and loved (social brain).
When people act in ways that don’t match our desires, the biochemical trigger happens in a blink of an eye. Our brains jump into defensive mode, acting to protect us from people who may not feel we are worthy of being listened to, people who may not like us and people who may not think we are smart, talented, attractive or in some way worthwhile. The reaction is automatic and happens before we have a chance to think. If you don’t react in anger, you probably retreat, avoiding the risk. Research by Mark George, MD, at the National Institutes of Health demonstrates that these automatic repetitive thoughts inflame brain areas associated with depression and anxiety. These reactions can ruin your day, and even your life.
Therefore, the automatic systems in the brain designed to protect you from harm also serve to keep you from taking risks and from feeling good, physically and mentally.
Are we doomed to live beneath our potential? No. We must first accept that much of what we do in life is about striving to
give love and be loved, and protecting ourselves when what we hold dear is threatened.
John Nash, the mathematician whose story was told in the book and movie A Beautiful Mind said when accepting the Nobel Prize, “It’s only in the mysterious question of love that the logical reasons can be found.”
The Thinking Brain
As mammals evolved, the complexity of social interactions drove the need to discern if our reactions were responsible and constructive, to test our perception against what objectively exists and to shift our thoughts to the brighter side of life even in the face of adversity. So the third brain, the thinking or cortical brain, evolved to help us discern right from wrong, good from bad, and pleasure from harm. We needed the capacity to analyze what we perceived. We also needed to plan ahead both rationally and imaginatively.
One of the important features of the cortical brain is short-term memory, the “container” in which we mix present input with long-term memory, which allows us to reason, learn and create. Combined with our need to be social, the development of the cortical brain led to the growth of civilization, including the arts, religion and science. Of all the life forms, Riane Eisler said in her book about our cultural evolution, The Chalice and the Blade, “…only we can plant and harvest fields, compose poetry and music, seek truth and justice, and teach a child to read.”
Yet our development would not have happened had it not been driven by our emotions first, by the passion, envy, anger, terror, love, excitement, vengeance, compassion and even resignation that inspired our ideas and actions.
Thus, we can add many Fs to the fight, flight, feast, and fornicate formula. Now we have family and favoritism, fastidiousness and fickleness, falsity and feistiness, fulfilled and fortunate, fantasy and philosophy (and a sense of fun). Humans can joke, lie, create dreams and regret dreams, all in one conversation.
However, with the ability to learn and remember, we also
see the onset of neurosis, phobias and other acquired mental disorders. As with many things in life, a great blessing is also a grave curse. We seek truth, beauty, and justice while competing, waging war, torturing and destroying. We are compassionate and cruel, kind and ruthless, affectionate and disloyal at any given moment.
So input is processed forward through the reactive, social and thinking brains. The brain surveys the territory for physical dangers and attacks on the ego, being ever-alert to possible blows to our respect and self-image. With this priority in mind, we can’t help but to take things personally. At least, we cannot help ourselves if we allow our brains to run the show unchecked.
In addition, at the cognitive level we think about what we feel. So some of our thoughts are also processed forward, looping through the emotional brain and back into the thinking brain. Thus, we create an emotional loop, or spiral, where we work ourselves into anger, fear, depression and frustration without any external stimuli. Our thoughts and recalled memories can trigger emotional states just as effectively as someone else’s words or actions.
Therefore, the rational, thinking brain is also the irrational, rationalizing brain. The logical brain is also a master at conjecturing, exaggerating and fantasizing. Essentially, our brains are very effective at driving us crazy.
This is where emotional intelligence comes into the picture. You can outsmart the brain by observing it and interrogating it, assessing if the input you perceive poses a threat or reward, really. You can achieve success by comparing your mental chatter to the reality of the situation, discerning between what you have the power to change and what you do not, then finding ways to cope and adjust. You can discover what would motivate you to see new approaches and possibilities. You learn how to be the master of your mental processes instead of being the slave.
As a result, when you outsmart your brain, you see options when you thought you had no choice. You hear the true voice
of wisdom over the din of self-talk and the silence of suppression. You feel the power of overseeing your brain instead of letting it overrun you. Life lightens up. The road is clear. It is easier to figure out where you need to go and what you need to do.
THE ART OF SUPPRESSION
So why do we suppress our feelings when they are so critical to our success in life? The thinking brain gave us the ability to suppress and rationalize as a means of protection because it’s not always wise to fight, flee, eat or lust. Feelings, our cognitive labels for the emotional reactions in our body, are often stuffed away in a blink of an eye. In fact, we become so adept at suppression, we condition our brains to disconnect from our emotional responses, which affects not only our ability to express our feelings but also our capacity to be aware of, understand and appreciate the feelings of others.
The more adept we are at suppressing our feelings, the narrower are the neural pathways from the cognitive to the emotional centers of the brain. In other words, the more we teach our brains to suppress our feelings in our younger years, the less we are able to socially interact with ease as we grow older and to emotionally connect with our loved ones. At the source of many failed marriages is one or both partners’ inability to feel. Golda Meir said, “Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole hearts don’t know how to laugh either.” We biologically become joyless, heartless and insensitive. We literally “numb-out.”
Therefore, the more we teach self-control and the suppression of emotions, the more we impede the positive emotions, including happiness and passion, restricting instead of increasing our mental abilities.
However, we don’t become robots either. We still have emotional reactions in our bodies. We just do not choose to acknowl
acknowledge what is going on, giving no voice to our feelings. And if a strong emotion is activated against our will, we hold it in until we can’t take it any longer, raging in traffic, insulting our spouses and making our colleagues wrong whenever we get the chance. If we’re really good at swallowing our reactions, then we only take them out on ourselves, leaving us angry, sick and dead at an early age.
The good news is that we can reteach our brains to feel. Since brain circuits are shaped by life experiences, it is never too late to change and grow. We can train the brain to “fire up” and widen the neurotransmitters in the emotional centers through exploring our emotional patterns and triggers, releasing “stuck” emotions in our brains and bodies, practicing new interpersonal skills and pursuing specific physical, mental and spiritual pursuits described in the Chapter 4 under the section titled, “Choice.”
Does this mean we all have to run around expressing our feelings? A team leader in my class told me he was afraid of turning his meetings into sensitivity groups. I told him that the point is not to share what we are feeling for the sake of expression, but to improve problem-solving, to enhance creativity and to resolve interpersonal conflicts so we can work better together.
The skill to strive for is not managing your emotions,
but rather choosing among possible reactions
to the emotions that naturally exist.
Talking about our emotional states and feelings may be un-comfortable, but the discussions lead to greater results. For example, people find they don’t need to argue points endlessly and instead choose to talk about finding new ways to present ideas that honor instead of squelch innovation. Power struggles de-crease. Meetings make more sense.
One of the exercises I do when I teach is to pair people up and have one person recount the events of the morning or previous weekend. Every ten seconds, they are given a different
feeling to express as they tell the story to their partner, even if they have to change the story to fit the feeling.
The trick is for the speakers to access the emotional states that trigger feelings without thinking about them, and act them out, actually release them, without worrying about what they look like. If people pause to think, I ask them to speed up so they don’t have time to think. With a little warming up, they actually experience a flood of emotion. By the end of the exercise, the room is full of laughter.
The point of the exercise is for people to begin to clear the channel to their emotions while bypassing the censoring brain. With repeated practice, we create a habit of awareness. As we go about our day, we naturally become more aware of emotions as they occur, giving us a chance to explore why they occurred and what we need to ask for in order to release any negative hold they have on our perceptions.
In one of my sessions, a production manager, Allen, spoke in a monotone while attempting to do the exercise. No matter how much I coaxed him, he refused to alter his expression. When he finished, he told me that he had learned how to stay calm in all situations with no particular training. He said he was not attending my class for himself, but to find a few ways to help those who worked for him to better deal with their emotions.
I commended him for his mastery, but asked if there was at least one person or situation that pushed his buttons. He said that nothing, not even an irate employee, bothered him. “I just handle it,” he said. He explained that getting upset wasn’t worth his time. He could better solve problems when he stayed neutral.
Again I commended him and agreed that a neutral tone improved conflict resolution. I asked him if he at least had a mentor or a good book that acted as his guide. I had never met anyone who had truly reached this level of consciousness without years of guidance and practice. I had to believe that although he probably let a lot of remarks roll off his back, some events and words had to hit him between the eyes.
He shook his head in denial.
“Let me ask you two more questions,” I said. “If you still feel the same way about your temperament, then I’ll admit to being wrong.”
Allen agreed.
“You told us about taking your son to a soccer game. I gathered that he is a decent player. Can you tell me about the last time that he played so well, you burst out screaming and clapping for him?”
Allen sat quietly for a moment before he said, “It’s been a few years.”
“And when was the last time you rolled around on the floor with him, laughing so hard it hurt?” I asked.
This time his silence seemed like it went on forever. I resisted the urge to fill in the gap.
Finally, he said, “Okay, I got it.”
Allen agreed to let me coach him privately after the class. We repeated the exercise many times over the next few weeks. Between sessions, he kept a log of his experiences and a journal that helped him uncover how he felt about situations.
By the end of the month, Allen could tell his soccer story as if he were a Shakespearean actor. He reported not only a richness of experience in his home life, but a new depth of possibilities in both his work assignments and relationships.
Success and happiness requires you be fully alive and present, aware of your emotions, their source and their significance. Then you can choose the best course of action in the moment, to make a direct request or to find a way to release the emotions and go on.
Becoming intimate with your emotions is the first step to feeling the freedom of choice in your life.
OPTIMAL PRODUCTIVE STATE
According to latest research in neuroscience, the utmost goal we should strive to achieve is happiness. Antonio Damasio says that “joy and its variants lead to greater functional perfection.” Happiness increases ease, efficiency, rapidity and power in the
operations of the neural network. Appreciation and love bring the major systems of the body into the harmony; the rhythm of the brain synchronizes with the heart. Cheerful subjects report heightened intuitive clarity along with a greater sense of well-being. Hope gives us bravery and the will to go on.
When the body experiences a pleasurable reaction, the blood freely circulates through the brain, feeding creativity and clearing the way to focus on the task at hand. If the brain doesn’t have to put any energy into protecting, it allows the body to freely interact with the present moment. We literally sense more details, see more options and create more possibilities. We learn best when we are laughing, loving, believing and appreciating. We are most alive when we are happy.
We are at our best when the
human spirit feels nourished.
In contrast, the emotional states that tend to yield negative results—those which we label as fear, anger, frustration, stress, disappointment, resentment, even resignation—constrict blood vessels, speed up the heart and release stress hormones, either diverting blood to the large muscle groups to prepare us for action or slowing the metabolism, helping the body to heal. Even if we want to do our best, the brain is busy trying to rebalance our systems borrowing from the available energy to create. If we allow these conditions to persist over time, the overstressed physiological state severely decreases our capacity to think. We see fewer options, if any at all. In addition, long-term stress taxes both our health and our optimism. To cope, we ignore our ailing bodies and go through life feeling few emotions, if any at all.
In general, anger, overwhelm and frustration handicap our brains. Fear floods the creative center. You must truly love a good challenge to engage the power of happiness under adverse conditions.
There are times when under stress, we accomplish great
things. However, the brain can only maintain an adrenaline-fed intensity for short periods of time unless helped by chemicals such as caffeine. Eventually, the body needs a rest. It will force the recess if we don’t choose to take time on our own. We burn out, become apathetic, depressed and often very sick.
Additionally, the more noise present in our brains, the less capacity we have to think, learn and create. The brain is not limitless. In particular, short-term memory is finite. The container can only hold and process a certain amount of input at any particular time.
In addition to overloading our circuits with the onslaught of information being thrown at us in today’s world, the mental noise created from worries, upsets, disappointments and anxiety crowds out learning and cognition. We then can’t remember and we can’t think straight. Studies show that when test takers become anxious, they literally do not see words and sometimes miss entire questions. Neurons misfire, misalign and fail to activate. When under duress, we do not see details and do not hear everything that is said. In short, our brains run out of space and out of gas.
On the other hand, happiness clears the mind of internal noise, freeing up space to think. More connections fire into the logical and rational centers. We gain attention and consciousness. We can better evaluate options and consequences. We have a better sense of who we are, where we are and what we are doing in the moment. We act in the Optimal Productive State.
So why isn’t happiness ever a factor in strategic plans?
Most often, leaders declare that work is not a place for having fun. In my experience, suggesting a corporate goal of having every-one feel good would generate a loud “humbug.” They don’t understand the importance emotions play in our abilities to innovate and make better decisions.
Additionally, if we deny the existence of emotions, we give up the chance to consciously shift into a productive emotional state. Wouldn’t you rather have the option of releasing yourself from the tyranny of your emotions instead of leaving how they
affect you to chance?
Being emotionally intelligent means demonstrating “choice.” In fact, the root of the word “intelligent” is legere, which means “choosing” and inter meaning “between.” The person evaluates circumstances in such a way that he or she sees there are options in how a situation can be viewed, and thus sees options in the possible reactions.
The choice that most relates to creativity and peak performance is to feel good, which could mean anything from reflective to silly, from calm to passionate, from reverent to reveling and from compassionate to gratified, depending on personal values and circumstances. There is a range of emotional possibilities that come under the category of happiness, so there are many strategies to consider when inspiring ours and other’s Optimal Productive States. It’s time to take into consideration desire and happiness at work. It’s time we recognize the power of “I want to” as the major ingredient of success.
Practical Tips
1. Track your emotional states using the form in Appendix A.
2. After a few days of consistently being aware of your emotional states, start asking yourself what is triggering each state. Remember, you may be feeling more than one emotion at any given time. It doesn’t matter whether you feel good or bad, you should work on being cognizant of what perceptions and mental activities are at the core of your feelings.
3. Identify your three most common triggers of emotions that drain you (such as unmet needs to be understood, appreciated and respected). For the next three weeks, notice when these needs are driving your emotions, thoughts and behavior. Then ask yourself what you can do to get your needs met or to let go of the attachment to your need if getting them met is not possible in the moment.
“Anyone can become angry—that is easy.
But to be angry with the right person,
to the right degree, at the right time,
for the right purpose in the right way—
that is not easy.”
—Aristotle, the Nicomachean Ethics