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July 2 - August 29, 2019
we all own something far more valuable than a Stradivarius—a brain—and many of us, over time, abuse it and then expect it to perform at stunning velocity.
activation, a theme you’ll find throughout the book. It’s a neuro-spin on motivation,
(Many of the activation ideas in this book will suggest you write something down by hand; that’s because it’s been shown that we create better memory trails in our brain when we handwrite.1 Handwriting is like strength training for the brain.)
BRAIN begins with realizing that you do have a say in how your life progresses.
when we believe that we have no options.4 We give up and nearly shut down. We become victims.
Guilt. A voice telling me to get it done or be a loser-procrastinator.
It thinks, reasons, analyzes, innovates, and manages the emotions that rise from the mammal part of the brain; in other words, it makes us distinctively human.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the dance between the more rational C system and the emotional X system.
it’s a better predictor of individual workplace success and well-being in life than IQ and expertise.
Why do we have these down days, even when we’re facing the same circumstances that we excelled in yesterday?
The first thing to know about neurochemistry of the brain is that it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition.
Regardless of what we experience, we do have a choice as to which of the four quadrants we spend most of our time in.
understanding of which quadrant you’re in, whether you choose to be there, whether it is serving your purpose, and what to do about it if you want or need to change quadrants.
Adrenaline is our “fight, flight, or freeze” hormone.
The hormones cortisol and adrenaline come into play when our brain detects that we need to be highly focused and alert
There are three basic negative emotions—anger, fear, and sadness—and all the other negative emotions found on the right side of the graph are varying intensity levels of those three.
The environment is one of those levers, and we usually can’t control how much good or bad it gives us at any given moment. The lever we do have control over is our appraisal or perception of the event and the internal conversation we have about
When we live most of our lives in quadrants III and IV, we start getting used to our current state—a process known as habituation.
We can’t and don’t want to be devoid of negative emotions; they alert us when something is wrong in the environment and help us survive. Our goal isn’t to never be in quadrants III and IV—it’s to be more aware when we’re there and work to get out rather than wallowing in their neurochemical toxicity.
Quadrant II is the most sustainable of the quadrants, and it’s the source of happiness for most of us in our lives.
Try one or more of these when you find yourself lapsing into the negative quadrants: • Sleep • Mindfulness or awake rest • Exercise • Laughter • Experiencing significance through connectedness
behavior—our tendency to move toward or away from situations.
approach-avoidance “characterizes most, if not all, of a person’s life decisions.
many of us spend a good deal of life in avoidance—the state where we’re moving away from something.
single best thing we can do for our brain is exercise.
From time to time, stop and ask yourself how you’re living your life: Are you doing what you do to avoid losing something, or are you doing it because it feels good and gives you a sense of well-being?
One of the best ways to evaluate whether you’re in approach or avoid mode is to note how you feel and act when you’re around other people.
SCARF stand for status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness
consciously transition from avoiding to approaching—and from survive to thrive.
initiating emotions associated mostly with quadrant II when we have a higher status and quadrant III when we have a lower status.
Certainty gives us a sense of control,
We are so sensitive to social rejection and ostracism that they actually activate the same pain receptors in the brain as when you break a bone.
when things are basically equal between two people, the relationship feels positive. When there is an imbalance, no matter how trivial the opposite party believes it to be, negativity seeps in and fireworks start to ignite—in the form of withheld information, passive-aggressive behavior, and complete rejection of the relationship.
The prefrontal cortex, as we learned in chapter 1, helps us stop and reason before we act on our emotions;
typically happens when there’s a lack of trust, when we feel that the other individual’s judgment isn’t reliable.
It means learning to control the impulse we feel to speak up or jump in.
consider what the big picture of success looks like for you.
central tenet of confidence: the willingness to jump into something without a 100 percent guarantee.
Confidence is not about perfection.
avoid confidence killers, like comparisons;
A big chunk of self-confidence is courage, and another is our belief in our ability to do something, overall, and that belief helps predict how we will interact with the future.
Your belief in your own ability to accomplish your goals is called self-efficacy.
confidence is self-efficacy plus optimism.1 Optimism is, of course, your positive feelings and hope about the future;
self-confidence is a circular concept: You
Perfectionism is just one of the confidence killers that many of us fall victim to in our careers and life.
compassionate with ourselves in a way that fills our confidence bucket—not our arrogance bucket.
perfectionism is considered an anxiety disorder.
For those people with an external locus of control, new skills are difficult, because their tendency is to blame the environment for any less-than-perfect performance.
One such form of instant retrieval is called heuristics. That’s the word used to describe activities that help us learn through experience and trial and error.
